Fragmented World Research Articles

Climate Policy in a Fragmented World—Transformative Governance Interactions at Multiple Levels

The call for fundamental changes to meet the challenges of climate change is rising across scientific disciplines, communities, and countries [...]

Imagining the possibilities – food as leisure in a fragmented world. Part 1

This special issue, split into two parts, intervenes in the growing literature exploring food in/as/and leisure. The two parts do so by exploring food and leisure through the lens of liquid moderni...

We Must Take Advantage of This Pandemic to Make a Radical Social Change: The Coronavirus as a Global Health, Inequality, and Eco-Social Problem

COVID-19 not only constitutes a serious public health problem and a global major threat to the poorest and most vulnerable social groups and neighborhoods of the world, creating a potential pandemic of inequality, but also poses an enormous challenge from the perspective of public health, ethics, economy, environment, and politics. However, many of the deep and complex systemic interrelationships created and developed by this pandemic are largely hidden, unknown, or neglected, both by the hegemonic media and by a highly specialized and fragmented academic world. However, when all the available knowledge is critically integrated, the origins and effects underlying this pandemic are likely to be found in the development of neoliberal capitalism and its inherent logic of ceaseless accumulation, economic growth, large inequalities, and ecological devastation. This commentary reflects on these issues, drawing out some of the most important lessons to be learned and challenges to be faced in the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, advocating for a radical social change to deal with these challenges.

The geography of the Arab public sphere on Twitter

To understand the interplay between geography and online social networks, this paper maps the Arab public sphere on online networks. We analyzed publicly available Twitter data of a large sample of Arab Twitter members (N = 1,500,000). We focused on the influence of two geographic factors – distance between individuals and air travel frequency – as well as the influence of the language of the followers of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya Twitter accounts on the formation of transnational social ties among Arabs. Distance between individuals and language differences significantly predicted Arabs' social ties. Frequency of airline flights between nations and being a regional television follower strongly predicted social ties as well. From the geographical perspective, then, the findings challenge the online Arab public sphere notion as well as wider theories of space-time compression in the global era. Similarly, the analysis highlights the distinct English and Arabic realms. In contrast, the findings illustrate the important role that regional media plays in promoting an Arab public sphere. Combined, the findings elaborately portray the narrow boundaries of the Arab public sphere on Twitter and illustrates that the fragmented Arab world's offline structure is reflected on Twitter.

Antiguidade e modernidade na Teoria do romance de Georg Lukács

Este artigo orienta-se pelo esforço de esmiuçar as características da contraposição entre mundo antigo e mundo moderno formulada por Lukács em sua obra A teoria do romance. Para esse objetivo, parte-se de uma recuperação de certo debate estético alemão no século XVIII, momento no qual a busca pelos fundamentos da arte moderna leva à formulação do contraste entre uma cultura orgânica e plena de sentido, localizada em uma Grécia mítica, e um mundo cindido e fragmentado, que corresponderia à época moderna. As reflexões de Friedrich Schlegel ganham atenção especial aqui, na medida em que tratam essa contraposição de maneira mais histórica do que as de seus contemporâneos. Em seguida, são apontadas as especificidades da abordagem de Lukács acerca da questão, baseadas em uma apreensão mais atenta aos fundamentos histórico-sociais que envolvem a perda de um sentido unitário para a vida na modernidade. Essa percepção permite a Lukács apontar os limites da solução aventada pelos românticos para a superação do caráter cindido da modernidade.

Think Love, Think Peace, Think Harmony: Rethinking on Industrial Tranquility

In this fragmented industrial world, where there are large capital movements, the varied pattern of global trade, fierce challenges and considerable innovations, the holistic approach in workplaces has become a dream! The subtle aspect of the understanding, initiative, cooperation that flows to industrial harmony is essential in organizations to reduce the risk of relapsing into conflicts and strengthens the foundation of its sustainability. The paper probes into the factors that would create and allow industrial harmony and peace to hold and flourish. This would help employees reinforce each other, obtain mental serenity, create a base for realization of their creative potential and stand firm amidst a myriad of challenges and strained situations. Descriptive research with a cross-sectional survey has been conducted on the employees of the selected manufacturing units of West Bengal. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis has been performed with structural equation modeling on the proposed research model. The prime findings of the study reveal that organizational trust and infusing a tolerant attitude toward conflict in a firm has been instrumental in instilling a sense of harmony and peace in one’s mind and spirit. Such an ambience would generate a sense of participation, cooperation and would mutually reinforce social exchange.

David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet, by Thomas Dilworth, David Jones: A Christian Modernist?, ed. by Jamie Callison, Paul S. Fiddes, Anna Johnson, and Erik Tonning

David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet, by Thomas Dilworth, David Jones: A Christian Modernist?, ed. by Jamie Callison, Paul S. Fiddes, Anna Johnson, and Erik Tonning

Living Precarious Lives? Time and Temporality in Visual Arts Careers

Although precarity has always been a characteristic feature of artistic labour, many critics now claim it is becoming more widespread and engrained. However, while the idea of precarity offers a good descriptor of the conditions of artistic labour, it also has its limits. Firstly, it tends to gloss over social differences in the distribution of precariousness. And secondly, precarity tends to imply a universal condition of ‘temporal poverty’ where all social experience appears dominated by the frenetic demands of a speeded-up, unstable and fragmented social world. In this article, we show how these two omissions are interlinked and prevent a more nuanced understanding of time in artistic labour. Drawing from findings from empirical research with working visual artists in the Midlands of the UK, we propose three schematic ways of thinking about the organisation of time and temporality in routine artistic practice. We name these three temporal contexts ‘the artistic career’; ‘the time of making art’ and ‘the temporality of the work’. By researching how artists might be differently positioned in relation to time, we suggest, we not only obtain a more precise understanding of how professional artists’ lives are organised, managed and lived, but also a more distinct understanding of precarity itself.

Living in a fragmented world: Birds in the Atlantic Forest

AbstractThe Atlantic Forest is the second largest tropical moist forest domain in South America after the Amazon, home to over 800 bird species (223 endemics or 27% of the avifauna). With only 28% of the original vegetation left, mostly fragmented and altered, the Atlantic Forest is a hotspot for bird conservation. We first introduce the extent, vegetation types, and exploitation history of the domain, and the composition and biogeographic affinities of its birds. We then provide an overview of the knowledge gathered so far on the ways Atlantic Forest birds thrive in the often-fragmented landscape, highlighting the landscape features that influence their occurrence and movement behavior. We end with the conservation issues affecting the Atlantic Forest birds and the actions hitherto taken to address them, including the establishment of conservation units, forest restoration, and rewilding.

‘The battle against sameness’: Zadie Smith’s rewriting of E.M. Forster’s liberalism

ABSTRACT The singular picture of English culture presented by E.M. Forster in Howards End (1910) doesn’t hold in the hybridised, economically and racially fragmented world Smith portrays in On Beauty (2005), her self-proclaimed rewriting of the earlier novel. If Forster attempts to imagine an inclusive society, frustrated by the limitations of fixed cultural norms, Smith employs the techniques of metamodernism, defined by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin Van den Akker as a mode ‘characterized by the oscillation between a typically modern commitment and a markedly postmodern detachment’, to raise fundamental questions about the desirability of such a project. Culture is shown to be more accessible in Smith’s fictional world— but less straightforward or valuable as a result.

Perspectivas da história econômica global da Baixa Idade Média

Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar as linhas gerais de um modelo teórico capaz de conduzir uma abordagem econômica da Baixa Idade Média a partir de uma perspectiva global. Para tanto, começaremos reconhecendo as dificuldades inerentes a esse desafio. Na primeira seção, passaremos em revista diferentes estratégias adotadas pela historiografia diante do desafio de conduzir uma investigação utilizando, como unidade de observação geográfica, a macroescala. Na segunda seção, apresentaremos brevemente algumas propostas de História Global, chegando a uma situação historiográfica radicada na oposição de dois modelos constrangedores para o pesquisador em História Medieval: uma teoria que vê o início de relações globais apenas a partir do século XVI, e uma teoria que identifica relações globais a partir da Revolução Neolítica, concedendo pequena importância, quando não um juízo desfavorável, ao período medieval. Na terceira seção, a partir da análise dos fluxos comerciais existentes entre o mar Negro, a Itália e o noroeste da Europa durante o século XIV, teremos oportunidade de elencar algumas características do comércio transcontinental do período. Terminaremos com uma breve reflexão sobre a possibilidade de construir um modelo teórico capaz de investigar o emaranhado de conexões econômicas de longo alcance geográfico que existiam em um mundo essencialmente fragmentado, evitando teoremas gerais abstratos em favor da observação das singularidades locais.

О ПОВЕСТВОВАТЕЛЬНОМ МЫШЛЕНИИ ТОМАСА БЕРНХАРДА: «ВЕЧНОЕ ВОЗВРАЩЕНИЕ» И ПОЛИФОНИЧЕСКОЕ ПИСЬМО

The article explores the typological principles and genesis of narrative thinking of Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989). It reveals the paradoxical nature of his writing, which combines, on the one hand, archetypal structures, implied ‘genre memory’, and on the other hand, a unique, innovative style. Bernhard’s constructive principle is repetition, which allows the embodiment of the idea of «eternal return» (Eliade) throughout the poetical structure, whether it is a sacred event of a myth or an «obsessive repetition» (Freud) of the traumatic memories of the protagonist or the narrator. The fragmented world is under constant reorganizing with the help of Bernhard’s polyphonic writing, which finds itself mostly in the imitation of the non-figurative, purely expressive, self-referential «art of fugue» (Bach), oriented to the cyclic, rather than linear-historical concept of time. In contrast to the literary interpretation of the «polyphonic novel» (Bakhtin) with its coexistence of multiple points of view, our attention is shifted to the musicological interpretation of the fugue’s polyphony as the embodied idea of the continuity of time, the closeness and infinity of the divine universe.

The Global Compact on Refugees: A Historic Achievement

The Global Compact on Refugees: A Historic Achievement

Orlando: A Biography, de Virginia Woolf: vida y muerte de la novela moderna


 El panorama desolador que sucede a la Primera Guerra Mundial interpela diversas prácticas humanas y la literatura no es la excepción. En qué consiste la escritura literaria, cómo se trabaja sobre los materiales que provienen de un mundo fragmentado y cuál es el estatuto del poeta son algunos de los interrogantes que recoge el Modernismo anglosajón para socavar los modos de representación del Realismo moderno, entre cuyas formas predilectas se encuentra la novela que en Inglaterra se afianza en el siglo XVIII. Orlando: A Biography, de Virginia Woolf, hace eco de estas preguntas confiriéndole un sello particular a su prosa: la cuestión del sexo y el género. Su propuesta consiste en minar la linealidad prosaica de la novela e imprimir en ella un lenguaje semiótico, inscripto en el ámbito de lo sugerido y tradicionalmente asociado a la mujer, subvirtiendo así el espacio marginal al que se la relega al convertirlo en un locus fértil para la escritura.

Milton and the Creation of England’s Long Reformation

ABSTRACTThis essay considers how Milton's perspectives on the Long Reformation, including its messy process, can reshape debates, dominated by historians of early modern religion, over how to conceptualize England's Long Reformation or Reformations. The religious upheavals of the English Revolution, as the fragmented world of faith in England was becoming more fragmented than ever, gave Milton and his Puritan contemporaries the opportunity not only to assess the painful progress of the Long Reformation, but to think about how they might reconstruct the Reformation itself. This essay examines Milton's bold ideas and striking metaphors for reconceiving the Reformation, including in Areopagitica where he is thinking in creative ways about pluralism and division in religious culture, and about how to engage with the tensions generated by that division. Milton perceives that the Reformation is not only a long process and struggle, but that reconstructing the Long Reformation remains precarious. In his controversial writings Milton makes a distinctive contribution to the creation of the Long Reformation.

Rethinking democracy and human rights education on the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The paper outlines the usefulness and challenges of teaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to the young generation of the twenty-first century. Reflecting on the author’s experience of engaging university students the paper shares with readers some personal lessons on the subject. A brief history of the UDHR in the past seven decades will be outlined with a crucial question of why the promise of human rights has not been fulfilled as expected despite the proliferation of international legal standards since the foundation of the UDHR. In so doing I would like to shift the focus of human rights discourse away from the conventional legal-institutional one toward the conditions and contexts in which human rights could be conceptualized and realized. As a way of suggesting an alternative path to the realization of human rights through the lens of education I will discuss the structural literacy, global and ecological citizenship, and peace-rights nexus and solidarity. The conclusion will wrap up the whole argument with some pointers on the role of the UDHR-based human rights education in the seriously fragmented world of today.

Effect of Fertility Policy Changes on the Population Structure and Economy of China: From the Perspective of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

AbstractBeginning in 2016, all couples in China were allowed to have two children without any restrictions. This paper provides population and economic projections under five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and three fertility policies. By replacing the one‐child policy with the two‐child policy, the population is predicted to continue growing until 2025–2035, with a peak of approximately 1.39–1.42 billion, and then to decline under four SSPs, with the exception of the fragmented world SSP3. As a result, the two‐child policy will lead to mitigation of the pressure from labor shortages and aging problems to a certain extent. In addition, an increase in working‐age people with higher education level relative to projections based on the one‐child policy will lead to an increase in gross domestic product by approximately 38.1–43.9% in the late 21st century. However, labor shortages and aging problems are inevitable, and the proportion of elderly in China will be greater than 14% and 21% by approximately 2025 and 2035, respectively. Full liberalization of fertility is expected to reduce the share of elderly people by 0.7–1.0% and to lead to an increase in gross domestic product by 5.3–6.7% relative to the two‐child policy in the late 21st century. The full liberalization of fertility policies is recommended, supplemented by increases in pension and child‐rearing funds, improvement in the quality of health services for females and children, and extension of compulsory education to meet the needs of an aged society.

The future depends on what we do today – Projecting Europe's surface water quality into three different future scenarios

There are infinite possible future scenarios reflecting the impacts of anthropogenic multiple stress on our planet. These impacts include changes in climate and land cover, to which aquatic ecosystems are especially vulnerable. To assess plausible developments of the future state of European surface waters, we considered two climate scenarios and three storylines describing land use, management and anthropogenic development (‘Consensus’, ‘Techno’ and ‘Fragmented’, which in terms of environmental protection represent best-, intermediate- and worst-case, respectively). Three lake and four river basins were selected, representing a spectrum of European conditions through a range of different human impacts and climatic, geographical and biological characteristics. Using process-based and empirical models, freshwater total nitrogen, total phosphorus and chlorophyll-a concentrations were projected for 2030 and 2060. Under current conditions, the water bodies mostly fail good ecological status. In future predictions for the Techno and Fragmented World, concentrations further increased, while concentrations generally declined for the Consensus World. Furthermore, impacts were more severe for rivers than for lakes. Main pressures identified were nutrient inputs from agriculture, land use change, inadequately managed water abstractions and climate change effects. While the basins in the Continental and Atlantic regions were primarily affected by land use changes, in the Mediterranean/Anatolian the main driver was climate change. The Boreal basins showed combined impacts of land use and climate change and clearly reflected the climate-induced future trend of agricultural activities shifting northward. The storylines showed positive effects on ecological status by classical mitigation measures in the Consensus World (e.g. riparian shading), technical improvements in the Techno World (e.g. increasing wastewater treatment efficiency) and agricultural extensification in the Fragmented World. Results emphasize the need for implementing targeted measures to reduce anthropogenic impacts and the importance of having differing levels of ambition for improving the future status of water bodies depending on the societal future to be expected.

A discursive cartography of nationally determined contributions to the Paris climate agreement

Abstract The 2015 Paris Agreement was adopted in a geopolitical context that is very different from the post-Cold War era when the Climate Convention was negotiated. This new global climate deal responds to a more fragmented and multipolar world signified by the rise of major economies in the South. This paper examines the geopolitical landscape in which the Paris Agreement is enacted and implemented. We conduct a discursive analysis of the Nationally Determined Contributions submitted by parties to the Paris Agreement. We ask what policy discourses emerge in these national climate plans, which states cluster around them and how they compare to UNFCCC annex, geographical location, income group, and negotiation coalitions. Our findings suggest that liberal environmentalism retains a strong hold over the political imagination in the post-Paris landscape. However, we see points of diffraction and tensions that might give rise to conflict. While liberal environmentalism is only challenged in Nationally Determined Contributions from the global South, we conclude that conventional geopolitical patterns only partly explain the formation of discourse coalitions. In the Paris Agreement’s implementation stage discursive struggles are likely to become increasingly prominent. Discourse analysis facilitates understanding of disagreements on the Paris rulebook and the global stocktake.

Europe in Fragments

In this autoethnographic response to Brexit, the author tries to make sense of feelings of profound loss following the UK referendum decision to leave the European Union. In exploring questions of what it is that has been lost, who ‘we’ are, and how we might recover, she traces key strands in her family, cultural, and professional life that highlight both points of division and points of connection with others (and with those doing ‘othering’), in our increasingly polarised and fragmented world. Stories she listened to in her professional capacity, told by politicians on the one hand and by those who had long felt excluded and ‘left behind’ on the other, take on a fresh significance in light of the decision to ‘leave’. In these uncertain and insecure times, one thing seems sure: Progress lies in connecting to others, reaching out, crossing borders, holding hands, healing wounds, re-creating community.