Informal Circles Research Articles

Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawi (d. 1762): The Hajj Journey and Intellectual Scholarship Between India and Arabia

Rather than simply claiming the “unorthodox” or “pluralistic” mindset of an early modern Muslim thinker, this intellectual micro-history aims to show the complexity of Shāh Walī Allāh’s (d. 1762) thought-world. This article follows him to Mecca and Medina for the Hajj pilgrimage. While pilgrimage is traditionally included in the fundaments of Islamic practice, it is also important to realize that the majority of Muslims have not historically participated in this pilgrimage. Due to the physical limitations of travelling as the Muslim community rapidly expanded in the 7th century onwards, we have nearly a thousand years until the 18th century where only a select few Muslims, usually wealthy enough to make the arduous journey, participated in the yearly practice. This created a complex culture of pilgrims in the Holy Cities with the cities functioning as informal circles of scholarship. Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī engages in this knowledge production process while carrying out the mandatory rituals associated with the Hajj pilgrimage. Thus, this article shows that the complex interplay of Walī Allāh with Meccan and Medinan scholars is a highly dynamic process with unexpected outcomes as specific sacred geography interacts with the conceptual (and genealogical) categories that scholarly pilgrims bring with them to this intellectual encounter. In doing so, we catch a glimpse of the 18th century through a very particular set of Indian Sufi eyes.

Different Age Term Women in Sport: Anthropological Differences by Sex

Abstract: In informal circles there can still be found division of sport according to criterion of sex, therefore we have so called "male" and "female" sports. Reasons for this division can be found in different places but it seems that gender (in) equality, which was particularly pronounced in the past, is the foundation of this understanding of sports. Tradition observes sport as "male" activity in which certain anthropological dimensions, such as body constitution or muscle strength determine success, dominantly, where participation of women in such activities becomes pointless, unnecessary and irrelevant, because they have "weaker body constitution". This approach and understanding of sport lead to the opinion that historically speaking, women in all aspect of social development didn't have equal rights in doing physical activities and sport, in general, although their needs for movement were and still are on the same level as men's. The goal was to use a descriptive method to analyze and define certain gender differences in the area of anthropological dimensions (morphology, cardiovascular system, functional abilities, body composition, somatic changes during life, ...) on the basis of which certain recommendations were given for physical activity and the training process of women. Playing sports and physical exercise are important for women's health, physical fitness and physical appearance and improve their quality of life. It can be concluded that physical activity has an extremely good and positive effect on the psychophysical state of the female organism and numerous health benefits compared to women who lead a sedentary lifestyle.

Utopia and Civilisation in the Arab Nahda, By Peter Hill

This book is an important contribution to studies of the cultural and intellectual revival, the nahḍa (Renaissance or, more accurately, Risorgimento), which the Arab world witnessed in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. It takes issue with two well-established narratives of this movement, one seeing it as a founding moment of Arab modernity, and the other as the period where indigenous Arab and Islamic traditions yielded to the Western project of colonization. It also rejects the teleological approach which considers the period it examines, 1830–70, simply as a prelude to the more substantial events starting in the mid-1870s; instead, it studies this period in its own right. And it places the contemporary projects of class- and state-building in a global perspective. The opening chapter sets the scene. It first presents the intensification and expansion of capitalism in the early nineteenth century as a complex phenomenon in which global and local economic realities interacted and sub-systems emerged round capitalist nodes. One of these nodes was Beirut with its new bourgeoisie, many of whom were bureaucrats, professionals and intellectuals. Some of them gave the impulse for the formation of cultural and scientific associations, the best known of which was the Syrian Scientific Society, inspired in its organization by American Protestant models. Hill outlines its membership and debates. In Egypt, by contrast, the main centre of nahḍa activity was the Languages School, set up by Muḥammad ʿAlī as part of his state-building project and headed by Rifāʿa Rāfiʿ al-Ṭahṭāwī. The functioning of the School, the translators who worked in it and the circulation of the books printed are sketched. Another centre of the early nahḍa, less well-known than Beirut and Cairo, was Aleppo. There informal circles of discussion round the Greek Catholic Dallāl and Marrāsh notable families continued a tradition of Christian cultural activity which had started some two centuries earlier and which had ties to Muslim cultured circles. The chapter concludes by suggesting that a still wider perspective of the nahḍa might be envisaged, geographically, socially and linguistically.

Moving in informal circles in the global North: An inquiry into the navettes in Brussels

The concept of informality has been largely dismissed in discussions about urban mobility in the global North. To address this, we explore the case of the navettes, informal vans that operate in the unlikely and unfriendly formal transport landscape of Brussels. Relying on qualitative fieldwork, we examine their economic model, low profitability, labour conditions, and the conflicts and legal struggles over their regulatory endorsement. By approaching the navettes as informal urban mobility practice in the global North, we attempt to bridge geographical and conceptual divides between research into urban informality and critical perspectives on urban transport and mobilities. We thereby deconstruct the dominant framing of informality as a “Third World” problem by showing that a range of supposed “negative externalities” of flexible transport are not necessarily addressed by the State’s regulatory and administrative capacity. Drawing on informality literature from global South and East, we argue that in Northern cities such as Brussels, where precarious transport workers like the navettes drivers are ignored and criminalised, while corporate “digitalised”, “shared” and “circular” mobility solutions are endorsed, (in)formality is a site of conflicts over what is considered (un)fair, (un)just and (il)legitimate. As as result, we demonstrate how diverse experiences and theorisations of informal mobility in the global South and East can inform inquiries into transport practices in the global North.

Foreign language effect in decision-making: How foreign is it?

It has been shown that decisions and moral judgments differ when made using native languages compared to foreign languages. Cross-linguistic differences appeared in foreign languages that monolinguals typically acquired in school and used neither routinely nor extensively. We replicated these differences with two populations of proficient, native bilinguals (Italian-Venetian; Italian-Bergamasque). Venetian and Bergamasque are spoken in households and informal circles, unlike Italian, which is also used in more formal contexts. The findings reported in foreign languages for the Asian Disease Problem and the Footbridge Dilemma were reproduced in Venetian and Bergamasque. Our results show that language effects on decision-making and moral judgments are not restricted to foreign languages. The explanation proposed for foreign languages of cross-linguistic differences in emotion responses does not apply to our proficient, native bilinguals, who showed emotion responses of equal intensity in their languages. We propose that the contexts in which bilinguals use a language – either native, regional or foreign – could affect decisions.

Kluby Inteligencji Katolickiej jako instytucje wsparcia wykształcenia i wychowania w Diecezji Tarnowskiej

Among the various forms of association of the Catholic laity in the Church, one can distinguish associations and organisations – whether they are based on canonical or civil law on associations – and informal circles: religious movements, groups, circles and small groups. The difficult situation of the Church in Poland after World War II was not conducive to the creation of organisations whose activities would be approved by both the church authorities and the state authorities. If, however, quasi-ecclesiastical or religious organisations were to emerge that were recognised by the civil authorities, these were unfortunately organisations that had very little in common with the good of the Church and the faithful. Against this backdrop, the Catholic Intelligence Clubs were a kind of phenomenon. They enjoyed the approval of the Church authorities and, to some extent, the unintentional recognition of the state authorities, and sought to strengthen religious education by forming people and communities in the Christian spirit, shaping social attitudes, creating and deepening Christian culture, intellectual development and various forms of charitable activity. Three Catholic Intelligentsia Clubs were established in the Tarnów Diocese: in Nowy Sącz, Tarnów and Mielec.

Que a Força esteja contigo – os desafios da publicidade na nova galáxia comunicacional

Pelo menos desde o início do século XXI que a Publicidade, tal como a conhecemos, vive numa crise de identidade. No caso português, como noutras geografias, o panorama económico, social e tecnológico alterou-se significativamente. A crise económica e financeira, a quebra do consumo, a valorização da opinião dos círculos informais em detrimento das campanhas publicitárias, mas também a valorização do digital e do tecnológico, trouxeram novos desafios. Todavia, as agências de publicidade não reagiram prontamente, optando por manter os seus modelos de negócio e de funcionamento. Plataformas como a Televisão, a Rádio ou a Imprensa - palcos onde as agências se sentiam confortáveis - deram lugar ao digital e ao online. Sites, aplicações, redes sociais, gestão de conteúdos, gaming, storytelling, enfim, uma plêiade de novos vocábulos entraram no quotidiano dos interlocutores da área, substituindo a desgastada “Publicidade”, associada a grandes investimentos.Vaticinou-se a morte da Publicidade (Rust & Oliver, 1994). As start ups tecnológicas pareciam ter a resposta certa. O meio passou a ser hipervalorizado.Eis o grande equívoco: a publicidade tem sido confundida com as plataformas onde é veiculada. Contudo, a publicidade é, acima de tudo, uma técnica de comunicação. Orienta-se por métodos, técnicas e princípios adaptando-se ao offline e ao online. Assim, deve ser julgada pela sua competência comunicacional, discutida pela validade dos conteúdos. É aí que reside a sua essência. Como a avaliar? De todas as características que a Publicidade possui, duas são absolutamente determinantes: a capacidade de fazer uso da persuasão e da criatividade por forma a exercer influência sobre o consumidor ou cidadão. Reconhecer este valor é condição para compreender a essência da Publicidade.

The Rise and Fall of Nine Lights Ideology

This article aims to shed light on the origins of the Turkish ultra-nationalist Nine Lights ideology and explain why this ideology failed to take root. Soon after the Turkish ultra-nationalists controlled the Republican Peasants' Nation Party (RPNP), the party leader Alparslan Türkeş embarked on a dual strategy which saw the party maintaining a racist and militaristic political discourse in informal circles while it officially embraced a moderate and liberal leaning ideology - the Nine Lights. Racist Nihal Atsız had been known as the party ideologue, but the ideas of liberal-leaning Mümtaz Turhan dominated the Nine Lights. The Nine Lights not only rejected nationalism based on blood, but also embraced the Charter of the United Nations and thereby issued a de facto recognition of the equality of all nations! In this article, I argue that the Nine Lights ideology failed because the Turkish ultra-nationalists treated it like a stillborn child and continued to embrace earlier forms of racist and militaristic political discourse. Even after the RPNP became the Nationalist Action Party and adopted the concept of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis, it still indoctrinated its youth with the teachings of radical thinkers like Atsız, while the Nine Lights ideology existed only on paper.

The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero, Vol. 1 by John W. Steinberg, et al; and The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero. Vol. 2 by David Wolff, et al (review)

reviews 559 variance with most of the rest of his evidence but decidedly strange, in the light of the Endek-led anti-Jewish boycott from 1912, supposedly for the sins ofWarsaw Jewish voters in not supporting the Endek candidate in theDuma elections of that year. These quibbles aside, Weeks's book is excellent in charting the growing gap between the comfortable rhetoricwhich imagined theJews 'on the inside' and a reality inwhich Jewish difference became intolerable not only to the 'national egoists' of the endecja but almost the entire patriotic camp. Porter's study showed how the political urge to engage with the reality of the here and now undermined a vision of progress, one of whose firstand abiding casualties was the notion of mutual co-existence. Weeks demonstrates that a bedrock of actually liberal cultural assumptions helped close off thatpossibility even earlier.While elite Poles, frustrated in theirnationalism without a state, were latecomers to the modern antisemitic camp, their own emerging brand of anti-Jewish animus had fully fledged roots in an Enlightenment tradition. It makes those Poles like Kazimierz Kelles-Kraus and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay who '"imagined" a Polish-Jewish condominium thatwould have respected the cultural and national differences of both sides' (p. 178) all the more visionary and extraordinary. Parkes Centre forJewish: non-Jewish Relations MarkLevene UniversityofSouthampton Steinberg, John W.; Menning, Bruce W.; Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David; Wolff, David; Yokote, Shinji (eds). The Russo-JapaneseWar in Global Perspective: World War %ero.History of Warfare, 29. Brill, Leiden and Boston, 2005. xxiii 4671 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. 158.00: $213.00. Wolff, David; Marks, Steven G.; Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David; Steinberg, John W.; Shinji, Yokote (eds). The Russo-JapaneseWar inGlobal Perspective: World War %ero. Vol. 2. History ofWarfare, 40. Brill, Leiden and Boston, 2007. xv + 583. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Index. 165.00: $223.00. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 was a regional conflict with global ramifications. Most scholars of the long nineteenth century have come to accept this argument, firstadvanced by Ian Nish over two decades ago in his study of the origins of thiswar. Even so,many readers will balk at the assertion made in the subtitle of these two otherwise very valuable volumes; this reviewer certainly does. It is true, as one of the editors, John W. Stein berg, argues in his succinct operational overview, the military contest between these two aspiring Asian hegemonial powers involved a whole range of large scale military, political and economic factors that anticipated aspects of the twentieth-centuryworld wars. But itdid not make thewar in the Far East 'World War Zero'. To redesignate it as such is to purchase an attention grabbing subtitle at the price of substantive inexactitude. The essays brought together here do not make the case for some form of prospective redesignation 560 SEER, 86, 3, JULY 2008 of the Russo-Japanese War. To appreciate the full global impact of this conflict, itneeds to be seen in a global context; and the two volumes under review here are too narrowly Russo-Japanese in focus and orientation. This reservation aside, the two volumes make an important contribution to the study of theRusso-Japanese conflict in itsmilitary, diplomatic, politi cal, social, economic and cultural settings. The studies on the war efforts of theRussian Empire more especially benefit from extensive research in new ly available Russian archival materials. Limited space does not allow equal attention to all fifty-five chapters. Readers of this journal, however, will be particularly interested in some of the following. The essays by David Schim melpenninck van der Oye and Ian Nish on themore immediate origins of the clash between the two Asian rivals offer penetrating analyses of Japa nese attempts to preempt war by arriving at a viable regional modus vivendi with Russia and the latter's unresponsive attitude. David Goldfrank's fine comparative essay on Russian diplomacy before the Crimean and the Russo Japanese wars suggests that, unlike the eighteenth-century Bourbons, Romanov diplomacy had forgottenmuch but, like them, had learnt nothing frompast mistakes. IgorV. Lukoianov's fineessay on 'theBezobrazovtsf throws some revealing light on the somewhat shadowy, informal circles ofWitte's opponents. Not only does Lukoianov offer...

Informal Circles of Ministers: A Way Out of the EU's Institutional Dilemmas?

This contribution argues that the particular relevance of informal circles of ministers lies in their ability to routinise and communise the process of the interpretation of constitutional norms at the intergovernmental level. The informal setting triggers a particular mode of interaction—deliberative intergovernmentalism. In the case of economic policy coordination among the euro–zone countries, which is analysed in this article, this interaction produces common standards for the assessment of the economic situation in the member states and guidelines on appropriate policy responses in particular budgetary and economic situations. In a situation, in which there is growing need for closer policy coordination but European Union member states are reluctant to transfer further decision–making competences to the supranational level, the mediation between diverging interpretations of the rather ‘thin’ formal constitutional norms governing the coordination process is crucial in order to ensure the overall stability of the coordination framework. Informal circles of ministers can therefore be a way out of the current institutional dilemmas arising from the attitude of national governments to move towards new areas of common engagement while being increasingly reluctant to transfer further formal decision–making competences to the supranational level.