Everyday World Research Articles

Seeking a connection: Women’s lived experience of the woman–midwife relationship in mainstream maternity services in Japan

ProblemIn Japan, women continue to suffer from mental health and other postpartum issues despite good clinical outcomes of maternity care. BackgroundAs key care providers, midwives potentially affect women’s overall birth experience. Most women in Japan give birth in hospitals or obstetric clinics where different midwives and nurses provide one woman with fragmented care. Women’s lived experiences of the woman–midwife in these birth facilities are not well known in Japan. AimTo understand women’s birth experience and relationship with midwives in the mainstream maternity care system in Japan to improve maternity care and women’s birth experience. MethodsFace-to-face individual interviews with 14 mothers were conducted. The data were analysed using van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological approach, which reveals the meaning of human experience in the everyday world. FindingsFour themes were derived from the hermeneutic phenomenological analysis; 1) Closed hearts and bodies in insecure relationships, 2) Alienation, 3) Hopelessness and helplessness, and 4) Women’s vulnerability and desire for positive relationships. DiscussionIn institutionalised and fragmented maternity care settings, it is difficult for women and midwives to develop a relationship. In such a care environment, women’s birth experience with midwives is negative or even traumatic; yet, women still need and seek the midwife relationship. Respectful care—necessary for women’s positive birth experience—requires positive relationship between women and midwives. ConclusionWomen’s negative birth experience may affect their mental health and parenting. Maternity and midwifery care in Japan needs to develop relationship-based care to improve women’s birth experience.

Leggett-Garg test of macrorealism using indefinite causal order of measurements

Macrorealism is a belief that constitutes the core of our perception of reality in the everyday world. The Leggett-Garg (LG) test is a conceptually elegant approach for probing the compatibility between the notion of macrorealism and quantum theory. However, a conclusive LG test hinges on how one fixes the operational invasiveness loophole, i.e., how the statistical form of non-invasive measurability assumption is guaranteed in an LG test. Despite many attempts to close this loophole, no consensus has been achieved yet. In this work, we propose a simple and elegant scheme based on indefinite causal order in quantum switch experiment, which enables us to close this loophole, and eventually, the LG test becomes a conclusive test of macrorealism.

Efficacy of Peace Enforcement in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant

War is a social creation which entails the creation as well as subversion of authority figures. Wars range from basic, to those fought with highly advanced inventions. Regardless of the method, peace is the natural outcome of all wars. Various studies have been undertaken to understand the methods and tactics involved in peace establishment operations. Despite such efforts, wars continue to emerge in different regions of the world. This study aims to identify the most common methods of peace establishment and discern the productiveness of each of the methods identified. Theory of Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) and Theory of Tragic Optimism are used to illustrate how war is both traumatic and therapeutic in nature. The author has indicated two kinds of peace establishment which are widely practised in everyday world. One is a widely favoured method consisting of negotiation and the other involves the use of deceit and force to establish peace. It has been observed that thrusting peace upon society proves beneficial in the short run but becomes detrimental later. On the whole as negotiated peace is established amicably, it tends to last longer in the society.

Getting Mindful about Dreyfus’s Mindless-Skillful Coping

ABSTRACT This article critically discusses Hubert Dreyfus’s idea of mindless-skillful coping, arguing that this notion provides an incomplete picture of human dwelling. While contemporary scholarship addressed the problematic aspects of Dreyfus’s pragmatic approach to Martin Heidegger’s notion of being-in-the-world, a concentrated effort to show the discord between Dreyfus’s skillful coping and Heidegger’s account of dwelling is wanting. Refuting the idea that the most complete version of human dwelling only signifies immersion in bodily practical skills, the article brings into view the significance of the confrontational nature of dwelling, which requires a hermeneutic capacity of defamiliarization from our everyday worlds and habits. Explaining how humans’ relation to the world is different than those of robots or computers does not suffice to explicate authentic human dwelling. The author elucidates why Dreyfus’s prioritization of the practical over the theoretical and the corporeal over the mental leads to a dualistic mode of thinking. Finally, returning to the discussion of existential spatiality in Being and Time, the author identifies Dreyfus’s lack of an explicit understanding of place, one that would be necessary for a coherent account of poetic human dwelling.

Dual Realms in Divination, Psychology, and Physics

Ancient and traditional cultures have claimed another realm exists beyond everyday experience that can be accessed by shamanic and divination methods. Modern science views such claims with suspicion. Evidence is presented that this may be changing. Carl Jung proposed a conscious realm and an unconscious realm—the unconscious realm included the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. Later, with his theory of synchronicity, he proposed a material realm and a psychic realm arising from a unitary realm. This essay follows Jung’s colleague, Marie-Louise von Franz, and her efforts to identify ideas in science similar to Jung’s. Von Franz found two French scientists with two realms similar to what Jung proposed: Olivier Costa de Beauregard and Albert Lautman. At the time von Franz published Divination and Synchronicity, quantum physicist David Bohm likewise proposed two realms: an implicit order and an explicit order. Recently, English physicist and Anglican priest Sir John Polkinghorne published his version of two realms. Contemporary physics claims there is an everyday world modeled by causal mechanistic science and a different quantum realm. This leads a contemporary physicist to sound like a shaman or diviner. The examples just considered are theoretical. In contrast, two examples from experimental physics—the hydrogen spectrum and Shaw’s dripping faucet—embody a realm of time and a timeless pattern. The evidence considered supports Polkinghorne’s suggestion that changes are underway, transforming science in ways similar to Jung’s and von Franz’s dual realms.

몸의 주체성 확립 과정에 대한 자문화기술지

The purpose of this study is to show the experience and reflection on how my body has established its subjectivity in the personal, familial, and social boundaries of each stage of life development. The research question is ‘what I have reflected through the experience of the body in the process of life development?’. As a research method, the auto-ethnography was used. In order to collect research data, diary, personal counseling journal, program records, and writings for literary creative contests were collected based on self-recall materials. Then organized and signified according to the research theme. As a result of the data analysis, the subjects of the body according to the stages of life development were named as ‘childhood - the rough body of a great tomboy’, ‘adolescence - the shameful body trapped in the gaze of others’, ‘the young adulthood - the body of the struggle for recognition in the bridle of society’, and ‘middle age - the body that accepts me, others and society’. Through the research process, the researcher has noticed the transformation of beings who want to pursue life from ‘instrumentalized body’ to ‘expanded body’, and intends to carry out self-care to apply it to the everyday world. Based on the results, this study suggests ways to support children and adolescents to form an autonomous and positive image of their bodies.

Editors' Note

Editors' Note Daria Farman-Farmaian and Mikael Pir-Budagyan Dear Reader, Whereas identities may previously have been independent of one another because of geographic isolationism, our increasingly globalized world challenges these norms of homogeneity. Today, people all over the world are forced to contend with changing personal, national, state, ethnic, economic, and political affiliations. For better or for worse, identity is inherently disordered but exists at every level of our world. It merges, erases, changes, and coexists in distinct forms and environments. It does not disappear in international relations; instead, often, it is brought to the fore, making the global order infinitely more complex and challenging to predict. And though some identities are blatant, most remain unobservable, disrupting the clarity of our everyday world. As a source of both conflict and unity, identity is no less important in international relations than issues such as international law, economic development, armed conflict, global health, or sustainability policy. In fact, we believe identity is at the core of all these topics. The field of international affairs faces an unprecedented and diverse set of challenges and opportunities. Across the climate crisis, a globalizing world, democratic advancement and backsliding, or the war in Ukraine, identity remains a central part of the debate. Whether forged on the battlefield or transformed by technological innovation, identities transgress the linear perception of global developments and deserve the utmost attention from academics and practitioners. The question is not if we address identity in international relations but when and how. The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs Edition 24, Volume I is a bold attempt to bring identity center stage and explore its implications globally. In pursuing this goal, we lead with a few questions: How do global forces bring us together or tear us apart? What are the dangers and opportunities of increased identity polarization or homogeneity? How do identities intersect, conflict, and coexist on a global scale? We are grateful for the insight of this volume's contributing scholars and practitioners who have sought to probe such questions. Because of their expertise, we have had the opportunity to explore issues such as digital identity and inclusion, ethnonationalist conflicts in Ethiopia, and Armenian identity in the face of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Editing the works of these authors has made clear to us that a conversation about identity on a global scale is long overdue. This volume of the 24th edition would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of each graduate and undergraduate student member of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. The Journal's high publication and professional standards are safeguarded by the hard work and dedication of our organization's Editorial Assistants, Section Editors, Development Team, and the rest of our Board. It has been an enriching experience for both of us, and we look forward to you, Reader, discovering the insights this volume presents. Daria Farman-Farmaian, SFS '23 Mikael Pir-Budagyan, MAERES'24 GJIA Print Editor's in Chief [End Page 1] Copyright © 2023 Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University

History of medical everyday as a projectional direction of historical and medical studies.

The article substantiates the prospects of a new direction of historical and medical research, the history of medical everyday, defines its subject, research tasks, scientific tools, and connection with other disciplines. The authors have come to the conclusion that History of Medical Everyday is to be understood as a specific scientific branch of Social History of Medicine, within which, firstly, the sanitary living conditions, morbidity, methods of treatment, medical care of population in a certain historical period at the everyday life level are studied, as well as their attitude to these factors, which was expressed in behavioral manifestations; secondly, everyday world of medical personnel; thirdly, communicative practices of a medic and a patient.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN CHILDREN’S STORY – STJEPAN LICE AND SONJA TOMIĆ

The aim of this paper 1 is to explore some of the ways in which Christian values are present in contemporary Croatian children’s stories. Contemporary Croatian children’s literature is extremely diverse. However, Christianity has been immanent in Croatian children’s literature from the very beginning and has engaged with contemporary children’s stories through various creative processes. One of the contemporary approaches to Christian themes in Croatian children’s literature will be presented, analyzing the works of the Croatian writers Sonja Tomić and Stjepan Lice. Their stories are inspired by biblical themes, motifs, and forms such as parables, the stories of rich symbolic relationships and strong messages in which Jesus Christ speaks in a vivid and understandable way about ordinary things, elevating them to the level of timeless meaning, thus pointing to correlations between the everyday world, spiritual reality, and the Kingdom of God. Sonja Tomić and Stjepan Lice approach these biblical themes through contemporary narrative concepts of children’s literature and bring the original, complex way of Christ’s teaching closer to the children’s world and the potential experience of religiosity as it applies to children.

The Methodological Quality and Intervention Fidelity of Randomised Controlled Trials Evaluating Social Skills Group Programs in Autistic Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

A systematic review and meta-analysis were utilised to explore the methodological quality, program fidelity, and efficacy of social skills group programs (SSGPs) aiming to support autistic adolescents in navigating their everyday social worlds. The study evaluated the methodological quality and theoretical fidelity of studies, with a random effect meta-analysis conducted to summarise the overall efficacy of SSGP and its effect on social communication and interaction, behavioural/emotional challenges, adaptive functioning, and autism characteristics. Although findings from the 18 identified studies indicated an adjusted medium overall effect with these programs successfully supporting autistic adolescents’ socialisation needs (g = 0. 60, p < 0.001), most studies demonstrated medium to low program fidelity despite their good methodological quality. Given the significant heterogeneity of SSGPs and variations in the design and measurement frameworks of efficacy studies, understanding the generalisability of the findings of this research is unclear.

Meaninglessness and monotony in pandemic boredom

Boredom is an affective experience that can involve pervasive feelings of meaninglessness, emptiness, restlessness, frustration, weariness and indifference, as well as the slowing down of time. An increasing focus of research in many disciplines, interest in boredom has been intensified by the recent Covid-19 pandemic, where social distancing measures have induced both a widespread loss of meaning and a significant disturbance of temporal experience. This article explores the philosophical significance of this aversive experience of ‘pandemic boredom.’ Using Heidegger’s work as a unique vantage point, this article draws on survey data collected by researchers in an ongoing project titled ‘Experiences of Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic’ to give an original phenomenological interpretation of the meaninglessness and monotony of pandemic boredom. On a Heideggerian interpretation, pandemic boredom involves either a situative confrontation with relative meaninglessness that upholds our absorption in the everyday world, or an existential confrontation with absolute meaninglessness that forces us to take up the question of our existence. Arguing that boredom during the pandemic makes this distinction difficult to sustain, I consider some of the ways in which pandemic boredom might be seen to expose and then exceed the distinctive methodological limitations of Heidegger’s philosophical interpretation of boredom.

Continuing Transformation: Śrī Nāth, His Gurus and His Devotees in a Timeless World

Śrī Nāth is one of the most important images of Krishna being worshipped at the temple of Nathdwara in Rajasthan. His devotees consider him to be a living god, he appears in their dreams, and according to their sayings they are in direct contact with him. Śrī Nāth, originally a local deity, is equated with the major Hindu god Krishna. However, while Krishna may be one of the most important gods in India, he is also ambiguous through his acts and words, if not bluntly unreliable. This double nature of Krishna is reflected in the cult of Śrī Nāth. There is an interesting interaction between Śrī Nāth (implying Krishna himself), the main gurus of his cult, i.e., Vallabha (Vallabhācārya) and the latter’s son and main successor Viṭṭhalnāth and his devoted disciples. At times, Śrī Nāth feels the need to stick to the official Brahmanical cult of the temple rituals, on other occasions, there is no problem in transgressing any given official rule. The same is true for the primary teachers, who are often put on par with Krishna himself or one of the celestials closely connected to him. Additionally, the disciples can apparently do anything in their frenzies. All of this reinforces the idea that this entire cult belongs to another world (alaukik). It is part of the everyday world (laukik) of Hindu India, but meanwhile, each and every rule can be ignored if the supernatural breaks through. Even the distinction between Hinduism and Islam at times simply does not seem to be of importance anymore. Muslims can become addicted to the passionate love for Krishna through the form of Śrī Nāth, so it is sometimes stated. Each and every partaker in the cult may share the visions of the initiated devotee, at times even without proper initiation. This all adds to the experience of the supermundane and supernatural in this particular cult.

«Речевая реальность»: особенности онтологии

The article is devoted to such a topic of cultural ontology as the specificity of «speech reality». The author sees the main contradiction of speech reality in its belonging to symbolic forms of culture while simultaneously gravitating to be a double and a representative of the empirical, everyday world. Speaking (live speech) is connected with the work of imagination, communication, selectivity of means of description, dynamics of discrete and continuous forms, etc., therefore, it is always probabilistic and, as it were, hangs between thought and practical objective reality, but claims to merge with it. From the author's point of view, such cultural mechanisms as acceptance, recognition and support (V.B.Melas) can give the speech the fullness of «genuine reality», and not empty chatter, they give the said ontological fullness, thanks to which the narrated is considered not as «one conversation», but as significant.

Typological Features of Historical Myth

The article constructs an image of the modern historical myth based on the ideas about the constant presence of mythical structures in human consciousness and experience. It is noted that the historical myth is well fixed at the level of perception of the past by non-specialized forms of consciousness of the average person, i.e. at the level of his/her historical memory. The very image of the historical myth appears as a set of such structures of mythical experience as mythical substance, sacrum, mythical arche, mythical time, and mythical space. Mythical substance (essence) is the very phenomenon of the national, which is identically "poured" throughout the entire temporal existence of the nation. Mythical arche is the origins, beginnings, and history of the origin of phenomena, objects, and customs. Any myth, in fact, speaks of the origins or what was in the beginning. The model of mythical time is when, on one plane, it is profane time and it is perceived as flowing from the past to the future through the present, that is, it has a direction. On another plane, this time is sacred. This is the First Time when the archaea were created, and therefore it precedes the beginning of the counting of profane, empirical time. Sacred time can penetrate profane time as arche, for example, through the staging of the events of the sacred First Age. The sacred is the experience of the sacred through which significant historical objects are perceived; then, while retaining their own nature, they appear fundamentally different from other historical objects of the everyday profane world. Mythical space is not imagined in the abstract; it is combined with its content, i.e. historical events and facts. In addition, space in mythical perception is not a continuous unity; on the contrary, it is discontinuous. It consists of sacred objects and places.

Ockham’s Razor, or the Murder of Concreteness. A Vindication of the Unitarian Tradition

The notion of de re truth (Conte, 2016) is put to work in this paper (§ 1). It introduces us to a confrontation between a metaphysics of desertic landscapes, as presented in a stunning poem by Achille Varzi and Claudio Calosi, The Tribulations of Philosophye (§ 2), and an ontology of the lifeworld, as a long-term project based on the key concept of bonds (De Monticelli, 2018). The rich and structured objects of the everyday world are infinite sources of information and cognitive adventure (§§ 3, 3.1., 3.2). Or so I will claim against Varzi’s skepticism about ordinary language, common sense, and ontological realism (§ 4). Far from encouraging our minds to stick to concrete individual things, Ockham’s Razor has been the murder weapon in the dismission of concreteness and the sensible world from the intellectual horizon of Modernity (§§ 5, 6). The “Unitarian Tradition” is a half-playful denomination of a quite real, albeit ignored, alternative theory of individuality (and hence concreteness), brilliantly represented by Boethius, Duns Scotus, and Leibniz. Classic phenomenology quite independently revived it and brought it up to modern analytic standards of rigor and formality (§ 7).

Between the Harbour and the Mountain: Reflections on the Ordinary and the Profound

In this beautifully written and elegantly presented book the author, Patricia Williams, offers us her contemplations on the everyday world she encounters, with particular attention to the natural world and its ordinary and wondrous manifestations. Whilst many of us in today’s technological age allow our attention to be distracted from the intimate detail of the natural world that enables life on this planet, Williams invites us to notice the extraordinary and sometimes frightening detail of this world within which we are all embedded, indeed intimately interconnected, as she brings her piercingly attentive gaze to the everyday. In doing so Williams reflects upon the meaning she has drawn from her rich and courageous life, allowing us not only to encounter the natural world through her eyes, but also to enter into the mind of a woman, now formally retired, who has spent her life reflecting upon and engaging with the deep questions of meaning with which we all might grapple, should we have the courage to do so.

VAIR—An epistemic model of socioscientific reasoning emerging from citizens engaged in a locally situated SSI

AbstractEngagement with socioscientific issues (SSI) has emerged as an important focus for science education. SSI have been successfully used to teach science concepts, but they also serve a role in helping learners develop a capacity to engage with science in everyday life. Here we present an epistemic framework for characterizing socioscientific reasoning (SSR), called the vAIR framework standing for virtuous Aims, Ideals, and Reasoning Practices. vAIR is a modification of the AIR framework for epistemic cognition. The “virtuous” framing of vAIR is to align with the language of Sosa's virtue epistemology, reflecting a capacity to engage in reasoning that promotes a collective praxis/enterprise. vAIR was developed from a study of citizens engaged in an authentic SSI to offer a deeper authenticity than might be achieved in the study of a classroom. The goal was to better understand the ontologically distinct components of SSR, as well as gain a better understanding of what “constructive” SSR might look like in the context of collective praxis/enterprise in the everyday world. The findings are presented through a series of vignettes that capture the rich detail of the context as well as the nuances between the dimensions of the vAIR model. vAIR, we argue, can serve as a tool for scaffolding the development and assessment of SSR in classrooms.

Servant-Leaders as Co-Laborers: A Field Philosophy Model

In 2013, Professor R. Edward Freeman joked about his father’s sarcastic witticism in response to his choice of career. The joke is not that philosophy is a feckless art, but rather that its modern practice has been relegated to the realm of theory, with incredibly salient subject matter but a practice that is seemingly ineffectual in the everyday world. Justice is one such area of interest for philosophers; however, abstract theoretical or philosophical justice, especially in relation to environmental resources and in consideration of environmental relationships, is increasingly meaningless for contemporary society. Environmental injustice is lived and experienced, it is realized by marginal populations every day (Shiva, 2006). Philosophers working on environmental justice must both understand and enter into this reality to do effective work. In other words, work done on environmental justice must be first and foremost practice-oriented. The overarching title that has been ascribed to this new branch is “field philosophy,” but the conversation is only nascent concerning how and what philosophy in the field looks like for traditional philosophers (Frodeman, 2010). To that end I have constructed a model that aims to fold together justice as praxis, with the deep and historical roots of philosophy as community-life. This model is built upon the tenets of servant-leadership practice, as promulgated by Robert Greenleaf (2002), and addresses both the practical and theoretical elements of environmental justice in an effort to enhance philosopher’s utility as servant-leaders. Here I argue for two reasons why servant-leadership serves as the basis for this field philosophy model. The first is because of the overlap in the pursuits of environmental justice philosophers and those of servant-leaders while the second is because the actions of those doing the work of environmental justice philosophy most often display servant-leadership qualities. Servant-leaders who work with the aim of improving the lives of the least privileged and most disadvantaged in society, working to make others more free, autonomous, wise, and healthy (Greenleaf, 2002). For field philosophers in environmental justice I call this the practice of co-laboring with the marginalized and oppressed. In this paper, I present two such co-laborers who have engaged in the work of field philosophy for environmental justice as servant-leaders: Marisol de la Cadena and Adam Briggle. Their efforts support and explain the model offered here, which others could emulate and adopt in pursuit of environmental justice reforms as servant-leaders.

Woman-Speak: Ventriloquizing Femininity in the Poetry of Radharani Devi

Challenging critic Pramatha Chaudhuri’s claim that Bengali women authors lacked a genuinely feminine voice, the writer Radharani Devi embarked on a literary experiment – adopting a nom de plume, “Aparajita Devi,” she started writing poetry in a markedly “feminine” style about women’s experience of everyday domestic life. Aparajita’s language, buoyancy, and humor introduced a new esthetic into Bengali poetry. And her poems were wildly popular. This paper makes a two-fold examination: First, it demonstrates Aparajita Devi’s originality by addressing how her narrators’ vocalization of everyday worlds, delivered in ordinary language voicing common people and circumstances, blew a gust of fresh air over the serene, decorous landscape of Bengali women’s literature. And second, it asks what makes her poems so compellingly feminine. While Aparajita was applauded for restoring the feminine to women’s writing, did it come instinctively to women writers or was it a persona that any writer could adopt? Radharani Devi’s artistic concerns frame the question of the authentic feminine voice against the wider issue of the sources of the poetic impulse in the modern writer.

The wellbeing paradox in Hungarian local sustainable agriculture: a health psychology approach

BackgroundThe literature suggests that farmers’ work involves a number of operational difficulties. Although alternative food networks address the majority of their problems, they can potentially generate new hardships. The aim of this study is to examine the situational and engagement-related work difficulties associated with the everyday world of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers.MethodsThis study used the health psychology approach, namely interpretive phenomenology, to understand the social determinants of farmers’ working lives in CSA and to explore mental health challenges within the practices of local sustainable farming. To collect data, semi-structured, in-person interviews were conducted with CSA farmers in Hungary.ResultsOur study shows that new modes of consumer-producer connectivity create novel situations and issues which farmers are forced to address. Three personal experiential themes emerge from the data to describe CSA farmers’ work difficulties: (1) Conflicted autonomy; (2) The pressure of boxes; (3) Social overload. The difficulties for CSA farmers seem to be rooted in the economic characteristics of alternative agriculture where farmers organize food production for the satisfaction of consumer needs. In addition, structural conditions require several different CSA farmer roles, which could even be conflicting.ConclusionThis study provides participants’ perspectives on the health and wellbeing costs of sustainable farming. Newer producer-consumer connections require both time and experience and involve extra effort or skills, but farmers often lack these abilities. The results show how perceptions of work processes relate to the general framework of CSA, which necessitates a distinct strategy for farm management.