Everyday Praxis Research Articles

The dynamic dance of nonviolence in education: Embracing tensions and embodiment in critical times

The lack of attention to nonviolence in education is highly problematic, and this article elaborates nonviolence as a new direction in a time of crisis. First, nonviolence is conceptualized as holding tensions to contest violence and cultivate nonviolent relations in the everyday praxis of education in both inner work and outer work in engaging social differences. Second, an aesthetics-based approach at intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal levels is introduced to address violence and nonviolence in curriculum. Third, we conceptualize how embodied living and mindfulness are crucial components in understanding and practicing nonviolence. This article brings philosophical understanding, artistic attunement, and a meditative stance together to demonstrate what possibilities can be opened by embracing nonviolence in curriculum studies. Throughout the article, we argue that nonviolence not only opposes violence but is also a positive, integrative force that we should become attuned to in order to transform curriculum and education. In addition, we discuss three theoretical and practical implications of our work, as well as four domains for further research.

Osiemnastowieczna sztuka podróży a formowanie się nowoczesnej koncepcji podmiotu

The 17th and 18th centuries were exceptionally important in Western philosophy for the problematization and formation of the modern concept of subjectivity. Conceptions of the subject formulated in that period drew both from the rational, Cartesian tradition, and from the irrational elements that preceded 19th-century Romanticism; they were also anchored in everyday praxis. The explorations of reality, and limitations of one’s ego exposed in the uncommon situation of travel or wandering, fi ll the writing (philosophical and otherwise) of the 18th century. Its proliferation laid the theoretical foundations for the eponymous “art of travelling,” and for conceptions of the subject which were opposed to radical rationalist ones. The attempts to defi ne human being as an “unfi nished project,” becoming itself in the experience of travelling, creating, and being created, rather than a finite and static res cogitans, support the vision of the subject known in contemporary philosophy.

Living an Abolitionist Life

Abstract: “Living an Abolitionist Life” is at once a testimony to the everyday praxis of abolition feminism and a theoretical framework for understanding the abolitionist impulse characteristic of an anti-carceral Asian American feminist praxis. Using Sara Ahmed’s feminist scholarship as a guide, the author observes various shifts from the individual to the collective, distilling the urgency of abolition feminism into a praxis of everyday choices. The first case study sits with the cultural politics of emotion, reviewing reactions to anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic including discourse surrounding calls for hate crimes legislation and mass appeal through the hashtag #StopAsianHate. Next, the author considers collective care through Ahmed’s notion of “becoming a feminist ear,” foregrounding 18 Million Rising, an Asian American digital-first organization that authored Call on Me, Not the Cops , an intergenerational resistance to policing. The article ends with a discussion on orientation and orientalism, revisiting the case of Yang Song, a Chinese migrant massage worker who fell four stories to her death in Flushing, Queens during a police raid in 2017. Holding on to the liberatory potential of Asian American abolition feminism, the author writes less with the intention to evidence the indisputable worth of Asian American abolition feminism and more to offer a way of noticing everyday gestures of being in political struggle by centering those who live abolitionist lives.

Activism, Participation and Art during the Pandemic: the Project Back to the Future of Public Space

2020 has challenged our ways of living and making sense of the world, driving us to rethinking our daily life in both the private and public spheres. Public space has especially been questioned; our understanding of it and the way we use it have been completely revolutionised, opening up new interpretations and evaluations.At the end of 2020 Rhizoma Design and Research Lab launched a Call for Postcards, inviting architects, designers, artists, and activists to reflect upon the paradigm shift happening in our cities, observing and documenting the changing everyday praxis of inhabiting public space as well as envisioning its future, capturing those reflections and ideas in a Postcard.In a time when access to public space was restricted and art in public was paused, the call explored the role of a virtual space for the active creation, sharing, and fruition of public artworks. The call led to a virtual and physical exhibition titled Back to the Future of Public Space: Postcards from 2020 which has become an observatory of, perspectives, memories, and visions that are currently shaping public space, transforming the individual contributions in a collective narrative.

Keeping Faith with Literature

Keeping Faith with Literature

Beyond Virtue-Signaling: Advancing Equity Through Design Justice and Public Health Critical Race Praxis.

As public health mourns the inequitable loss of lives to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and confronts other major social crises, practitioners must explicitly address systems of oppression in their everyday praxis. We describe how the principles of public health critical race praxis (PHCRP) and design justice (DJ) can advance equity in public health. We begin with an overview of PHCRP and DJ, and develop an integrated approach to facilitate community-led change. We apply this approach to the example of COVID-19 vaccine distribution and conclude with a call to action, arguing for PHCRP and DJ to become integral part of public health practice.

Empirical energy and size distribution model for predicting single particle breakage in compression crushing

Crusher models presented in research is calibrated using experimental data. This approach is everyday praxis and is made in many different ways. One method is to use two different compression tests. The single-particle breakage test (SPB) and the inter-particle breakage test (IPB). Models for predicting the breakage energy and size distribution for the SPB test and also to show the correlation between the SPB and IPB test is presented. The results show that Weibull analysis and Rosin-Rammer distributions are a successful way to model both energy and size distribution for SPB and IPB based compression crushing. The number of experiments conducted in both SPB and IPB tests can be drastically reduced by testing the lowest and highest compression ratio values used in the original SPB and IPB tests. The results also show a strong correlation between the SPB and IPB tests when evaluating the relationship between the consumed breakage energy and the coefficient of variance. The energy model is compared with Bond Work Index (BWI), and it was shown that the model parameter C shows a good correlation with BWI. A full-scale validation of a cone crusher is made, presenting a calculation scheme for addressing the use of the IPB and SPB models for predicting the size distribution.

OF HOLY COWS AND UNHOLY POLITICS: Dalits, Annihilation and More‐than‐Human Urban Abolition Ecologies

AbstractIn this article, I argue that the ecologies of urban India are constitutively casteist, by which I mean that caste is sedimented into the land, water, and waste of India's cities, with their outcaste bodies of Dalits often providing the critical infrastructural labor necessary for the social reproduction. The casteist ecologies of urban India were cast into sharp relief in 2016 when vigilante Hindu Right cow protectors ruthlessly flogged four Dalit youths as they were doing the stigmatized outcaste labor of disposing of dead cows. The focus of this article is the Dalit struggle that emerged in the wake of this flogging incident to annihilate the casteist logics that undergird India's urban metabolic flows. This struggle nurtures confrontational Dalit subjects who mobilize annihilation as a force of justice to enact urban abolition ecologies that refuse the treatment of Dalits as less‐than‐human while also cultivating ethical relations with the other, including the more‐than‐human other. In this article I build on the abolitionist imaginaries of Dalit struggles to argue that everyday processes of subjectification must be at the analytical center of urban political ecology, and of urban theory more broadly, because subjects, through their everyday incremental and imaginative acts, play a vital role in shaping urban futures. By paying attention to the everyday praxis of refusal and responsibility that constitutes Dalit subjects as planetary subjects who embody a relational ethics of planetarity, I conclude the article by suggesting that the urban theory that we need for our time—a time of the planetary turn in urban studies—is one that approaches the urban through the topos of planetarity.

Use of IMU in Differential Analysis of the Reverse Punch Temporal Structure in Relation to the Achieved Maximal Hand Velocity.

To achieve good performance, athletes need to synchronize a series of movements in an optimal manner. One of the indicators used to monitor this is the order of occurrence of relevant events in the movement timeline. However, monitoring of this characteristic of rapid movement is practically limited to the laboratory settings, in which motion tracking systems can be used to acquire relevant data. Our motivation is to implement a simple-to-use and robust IMU-based solution suitable for everyday praxis. In this way, repetitive execution of technique can be constantly monitored. This provides augmented feedback to coaches and athletes and is relevant in the context of prevention of stabilization of errors, as well as monitoring for the effects of fatigue. In this research, acceleration and rotational speed signal acquired from a pair of IMUs (Inertial Measurement Unit) is used for detection of the time of occurrence of events. The research included 165 individual strikes performed by 14 elite and national-level karate competitors. All strikes were classified as slow, average, or fast based on the achieved maximal velocity of the hand. A Kruskal–Wallis test revealed significant general differences in the order of occurrence of hand acceleration start, maximal hand velocity, maximal body velocity, maximal hand acceleration, maximal body acceleration, and vertical movement onset between the groups. Partial differences were determined using a Mann–Whitney test. This paper determines the differences in the temporal structure of the reverse punch in relation to the achieved maximal velocity of the hand as a performance indicator. Detecting the time of occurrence of events using IMUs is a new method for measuring motion synchronization that provides a new insight into the coordination of articulated human movements. Such application of IMU can provide additional information about the studied structure of rapid discrete movements in various sporting activities that are otherwise imperceptible to human senses.

Säkulare Vernunft?

Abstract In my contribution I ask whether the version of secular reason Jürgen Habermas characterises as “post-metaphysical” can really provide us children of modernity with a comprehensive self- and world-understanding. I begin by asking what it means to claim that secular reason is “post-metaphysical” (1). There are various possible ways of understanding this characterisation, some stronger than others; but there needs to be clarity on this issue to address my second question: What would secular reason really have to achieve in order to make good on its claim that it can still provide us with a comprehensive understanding of our relation both to ourselves and to the world? I will split this question along two dimensions: from a theoretical standpoint we should explore how reality has to be understood in order to allow us to attain a consistent understanding of self and world; from a practical standpoint, we need to ask which attitudes we would actually have to adopt towards reality in order to find in it the kind of orientation that Habermas believes his version of secular reason holds in store (2). In a third step, I follow up on these practical considerations by asking whether, at the level of everyday praxis, an orienting conception of self and world in this day and age does not in fact demand more than Habermas seems to have in mind (3). Finally, and returning, albeit indirectly, to the meaning of “post-metaphysical”, I cast some doubt on the Habermasian thesis that secular reason can survive only in the form of a tradition that reaches back either to Kant or to Hume; I want to question whether this division is exhaustive and briefly bring a third alternative into play (4).

Wayward academia—Wild, Connected, and Solitary Diffractions in Everyday Praxis

In this article, I study the everyday conduct of pedagogies in the wild in contemporary academia by means of an analysis of modes of attention in random “thicker ‘moments’of spacetimemattering” (Barad, 2014, p. 169). These modes are discussed with the help of the notion of diffraction. I identify three modes of attention—the solitary, the connected, and the wild—that manifest themselves mainly as tensions between several modes. The study leads me to suggest that critical feminist scholarship explicitly aiming to disrupt and trouble normative academia often reproduces competitive, nervous practices, linear onto-epistemologies, and the commodification of both scholars and scholarship. These scholarly practices occur among students and supervisors alike, often in the name of necessity and even survival. Yet, despite the anxiety-inducing aspects of contemporary academia, diffractive moments have a powerful presence, too. In such moments, a wild and responsible otherwise is imagined and diffracted.

"Zelena biblioteka" Narodne biblioteke Požega

In this paper we are dealing with new innovative services and activities that we implemented in regular programs at Pozega Public Library. We recommend programs we have been implementing for last fifteen years that involved ecology themes and the environmental protection and those we reshaped as "green library". We show the new role of library in the process of education of children and carrying out programmes for adults to contribute to the preservation of environment as well as sustainability and promotion of UN Agenda 2030 and healthy styles of living. We offer our new experiences from our everyday praxis that we would like to share and our intention is to collaborate with other libraries in establishing future network of green libraries in Serbia.

A Reconsideration of the Communion of the Apostles in Byzantine Art

This essay concerns itself with the meaning and function of the Communion of the Apostles in Byzantine monumental painting. Scholars have often interpreted the scene as a liturgical reimagining of the Last Supper, aimed at creating a mimetic relationship between ritual and image, or between the liturgical act and its heavenly prototype. In contrast, based on the history of the scene in illuminated manuscripts, the accompanying inscriptions, and commentaries on the liturgy, I argue that the Communion of the Apostles is an illustration of the historical institution of the Eucharist and has little to do with the everyday liturgical praxis. This continues to be the case even when, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, Christ appears in such paintings wearing patriarchal vestments as the Great Archpriest. I maintain that this new element is rather a manifestation and an advertisement of the enhanced political and religious status of the ecumenical patriarch in the Late Byzantine period.

Christian-Muslim Women in Religious Peacebuilding – Breaking Cycles of Violence

In a broader context, the main focus of this paper is the question of women’s religious peacebuilding, which is understood in its widest sense, in terms of women’s active participation in building liberating theologies and societies. It is about the promotion of the full humanity of women. While elaborating this theme, the paper takes up Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite’s assertion that the “violence against women is the largest and longest global war.” Just peacemaking is very much an interfaith and interreligious work and should be placed as a crucial starting point of the urge for transformation of “violent” theologies and living everyday praxis. While women have been marginalised from peacebuilding generally, the emerging field of religious peacebuilding has been particularly challenging for women. The liberating theme of this paper is illumination of the ambivalence of invisibility and marginality of women in religious peacebuilding, good practices and future issues.

Head and Neck Practice in the COVID-19 Pandemics Today: A Rapid Systematic Review.

Introduction Head and neck specialists and otorhinolaryngologists are greatly exposed to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission in their everyday praxis. Many articles are being published regarding medical staff protection and patient management during the pandemic. Objective To provide an easy access to and a trustful review of the main aspects that have changed in the head and neck surgery and otorhinolaryngology practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data Synthesis The search terms used were: ( head and neck or otorhinolaryngology or ORL or thyroid ) AND ( severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [ SARS-COV-2] or COVID-19 or CORONAVIRUS ). The results were limited to the year of 2020. Articles were read in English, Portuguese, French, German, and Spanish or translated from Chinese. All included articles were read by at least two authors. Thirty-five articles were included. Most articles suggest postponing elective surgeries, with exception to cancer surgeries, which should be evaluated separately. Twenty-five articles recommended some kind of screening prior to surgery, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and epidemiological data. Extra precautions, such as use of personal protective equipment (PPE), are suggested for both tracheostomies and endoscopies. Fifteen articles give recommendation on how to use telemedicine. Conclusion The use of PPE (N95 or powered air-purifying respirator [PAPR]) during procedures should be mandatory. Patients should be evaluated about their COVID-19 status before hospital admission. Cancer should be treated. Tracheostomy tube cuff should be inflated inside the tracheal incision. All COVID-19 precautions should be kept until there is a validated antiviral treatment or an available vaccine.

Maintaining everyday life praxis in the time of COVID-19 pandemic measures (ELP-COVID-19 survey).

BackgroundThe extreme social circumstances caused by declared COVID-19 pandemic deeply intervene people’s everyday life and should not be neglected but seen through the view of social reality pinpointing the “ordinary” people. In this paper, authors explored basic segments of everyday and their subjective perception to what extent sleeping habits, physical inactivity, physical activity, nutritional habits and smoking have changed.MethodsThe online survey was conducted in nine European countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Italy, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain) in 4108 participants, aged 15-82 years. The survey took place 30 to 40 days after WHO declared COVID-19 pandemic state, from April 15th to May 3rd, 2020.ResultsThe results have shown 30 minutes longer sleeping time, 50% longer physical inactivity time, 65% longer screen time, 43% shorter walking time, 24% shorter sport time and 37% longer physical work time. Additionally, body mass gains (0.3 kg) could be explained in 20.6% with meals sizes, unhealthy food consumption, screen time and sport time. Further, respondents reported more regular meals (44%) and healthier meals with less alcohol consumption and less smoking, which have been positive outcomes of home confinement.ConclusionThe findings draw attention to negative changes in everyday praxis (inactivity, body mass gain) after such a short period. Because of possible risk to population’s health (especially of countries such as Italy and Spain with serious threat and more stringent measures), findings enable development of recommendations for maintaining healthy lifestyle habits with minimal negative health consequences in similar pandemic circumstances.

Formação Profissional do Enfermeiro com Compromisso Social na Atenção ao idoso: a influência do ambiente socioeducacional

O objetivo do estudo foi compreender a formação do enfermeiro para o exercício profissional com compromisso social na consulta ao idoso tendo em vista o ambiente socioeducacional. Foi empregado o referencial teórico de Pierre Bourdieu. A metodologia foi análise documental qualitativo do projeto pedagógico da Escola de Enfermagem Aurora de Afonso Costa que está publicado no site da instituição, à luz da análise de conteúdo. Utilizou-se a análise de conteúdo e a partir dela encontraram-se três categorias: o conhecimento/saber e as da práxis cotidiana de enfermagem são vistas sob a óptica da integração entre a teoria-prática; “compromisso social” se refere a ter atitude profissional com o indivíduo, a família, e a comunidade na valorização da vida e revela que o compromisso social está relacionado com a formação e a participação social, dentro do conceito de prática entre sujeitos e mediadora dos cuidados no ambiente socioeducacional. A compreensão sobre a formação profissional do enfermeiro com compromisso social no ambiente socioeducacional organiza a consulta ao idoso com o conhecimento para a comunidade acadêmica.

An Examination of the Significance of the Trinitarian Theology of St. Augustine

Despite the noble efforts of modern Christian theologians in attempting to revive popular level interest in the classical Christian doctrine of the Trinity, there has been within the everyday praxis of the individual Christian a discernible neglect and ignorance of this cardinal doctrine. However, with the 20th century advent of Freudian and Jungian psychology, a new opportunity has arisen for a Trinitarian revival in the popular consciousness of the faithful. Due to an increasing level of interest in the notion of understanding the conscious and unconscious cognitive processes that govern the human psyche, there arose an indubitable opportunity for a re-examination of the Trinitarian theology of those writers who based their Trinitarian discourse upon the self-consciousness of man as created in the image of God. Therefore, the essential function of this paper is to explore the Trinitarian theology of St. Augustine, who being the originator of psychological analogies in Trinitarian discourse warrants exceptional contemporary interest given the aforementioned increased receptivity to psychological self-awareness.

Reconstituting the neoliberal subjectivity of migrants: Christian theo-ethics and migrant workers in Shenzhen, China

ABSTRACT This paper examines the connections between the neoliberal governance of migrants and Christian theo-ethics. Although regulating migrant labourers has been explored as one of the primary mechanisms of neoliberal governance, the ‘actually existing’ workings of this neoliberal migrant regime and in particular its everyday encounters with locally based ethical agents are relatively unexplored. On the one hand, I draw attention to how neoliberal subjectivities are materialised in the disciplinary migrant labour regime in Shenzhen, China. The reconciliation of neoliberalism and autocratic power has resulted in the hyper-exploitation of migrant workers. On the other hand, I explore how lived enactment of Christian theo-ethics in the everyday praxis of care and justice for marginalised migrant workers can open an ethical space that reconstitutes the subjectivities normalised by autocratic and neoliberal agendas. I argue that theo-ethics not only negotiates but also co-constitutes neoliberal governance by either ameliorating neoliberal subjectivity or drawing on neoliberal logics per se; regardless, it creates possibilities of more hopeful spaces and hybrid subjectivities.

Witch(craft) Subversion in Live Events (Performance Art) in Croatia: From Art to Everyday Praxis

Witch(craft) Subversion in Live Events (Performance Art) in Croatia: From Art to Everyday Praxis