Notion Of Autonomy Research Articles

The Colombian Truth Commission’s work on reproductive violence: gendered victimhood and reproductive autonomy

While conflict-related sexual violence has gained attention on international transitional justice agendas, conflict-related reproductive violence continues to be overlooked. The Colombian Truth Commission was the first truth-seeking transitional justice body worldwide to directly investigate these forms of conflict-related violence. Based on an ethnographic analysis of the Commission’s work on reproductive violence, in this article I engage with the reproductive justice framework to argue that the Commission’s work broadened understandings of both gendered victimhood and reproductive autonomy. Regarding gendered victimhood, I show that the Commission’s work focused on gaining recognition for conflict-related reproductive violence as distinct from conflict-related sexual violence, identifying conflict-related practices of reproductive violence and offering recommendations for addressing such practices. Secondly, I show that not only was the Commission the first truth-seeking body to directly investigate reproductive violence, but it did so through an understanding of reproductive violence that does not revolve around the notion of autonomy as individual choice. I argue that by doing this, the Commission compelled us to comprehensively consider war as part of the conditions under which reproductive autonomy may be exercised. Following this line, the latter part of the article focuses on the Colombian government’s use of glyphosate as a form of conflict-related reproductive violence that claimed ownership over the reproductive futures of entire communities by creating environmental devastation.

Autonomous Agency in Anti‐Dualistic Social Ontologies: A Compatibilist Notion

AbstractAnti‐dualistic social ontologies, those highlighting the intrinsic interdependency of agency and structure as two sides of the same coin, are sometimes criticized for failing to provide a satisfactory account of autonomous – capable and free – agency, or even denying the reality of such agency. This paper contests these claims, arguing that anti‐dualistic ontologies only conflict with autonomous agency when the latter is understood in a highly voluntaristic sense, whose ideational roots go to what philosophers of free will call “incompatibilist” intuitions of freedom. Those intuitions suggest that actions (intentions, decisions) ultimately determined by extrinsic causes lack the kind of freedom presupposed by moral responsibility, so when agentive autonomy is presumed to involve such freedom, it does indeed cohere poorly with the anti‐dualistic picture of intrinsically structured agency. Herein, however, an alternative, “compatibilist” notion of autonomy is advanced, such that does not conflict with extrinsic determination and is therefore congruent with anti‐dualistic social ontologies.

Gender and Notions of Autonomy in Igboland: An Assessment of Literatures on the Phenomenon of Female Husbands

The notions of autonomy in Igboland, or anywhere else, can be subjective, as it can conceptualised from an economic, cultural, gender or other standpoint. Gender autonomy, as conceptualised in this paper, focuses on how women in traditional Igbo culture married other women and assumed all the inherent functions and customary responsibilities thereon. Ifi Amadiume has elaborately documented this complex, institutionalised system of gender-bending in her groundbreaking book, Male Daughters, Female Husbands. Other writers of Igbo extraction, like Cheluchi Onyemelekwe and Akachi Adimora-Ezigbo’s books, Son of the House and Children of the Eagle, respectively, have addressed the phenomenon too. This essay is a metacritical analysis of Ifi Amadiume’s anthropological work, which explores the processes and nature of such relationships in Igboland, while also critically analysing the novels by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe and Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo which fictionalise the practice. The paper concludes by arguing that female-female marriage in Igbo land strongly indicates the strength, agency, and individuality of Igbo women and the density of the Igbo culture, thus necessitating its continuous study.

Enjoying the Betwixt and Between: Liminoid identity construction on Twitter

Prior research predominantly portrays states of ‘betwixt and between’ in identity construction as unsettling, given the ambiguity and uncertainty they raise. However, our study suggests that in-betweenness can be experienced with comfort. To characterize such process of identity construction, we appeal to Turner’s concept of liminoid, involving optionality, in contrast to the concept of liminal, involving obligation. Using an extensive dataset of interviews and observations on Twitter, we show how journalists comfortably construct online identities ‘betwixt and between’ as they exert autonomy in this process and learn to skilfully balance the freedom they enjoy with the constraints they still face. By reintroducing the underexplored concept of liminoid and extending it through the notion of autonomy, we clarify prior research conflating different identity construction processes with the concept of liminality. Furthermore, we provide a nuanced picture that takes into account structural constraints by showing that to ensure the comfort of their experience individuals must develop a liminoid competence.

Creativity through Autonomy: The Real Challenge of the Computer Art Today

This paper questions the notion of creativity found in certain artworks produced with A.I. technologies. The artistic examples concerned are: The Giver of names by David Rokeby, Oscar by Catherine Ikam and Louis Fléri, and Emotion Vending Machine by Maurice Benayoun. These artworks were selected because they stand out for their autonomous behavior in front of the human public. In this context, creativity is revealed as a consequence of the functional autonomy, which is very typical of these pieces of art. The intention is to establish a relationship between the notion of autonomy and that of creativity, reviewing their meanings and applications in philosophy and in the field of life science.

Pro и contra социологии спасения

The article is devoted to clarifying the different theoretical contexts and problematic tensions that arise between social theory and theology. The authors aim to avoid engaging in a broad theoretical debate about the relevance or irrelevance of the concepts of secularism and the post-secular, and the fate of religion and religious institutions in the (unfinished) project of modernity. Equally problematic is the position of John Milbank, who explores the sociological and political implications of Christian theology. Instead, the authors seek to show the eschatological, and in this sense theological, dispositions of the social theory itself. The authors see this unreducible theological residue in the figure of alienation or self-externalization, which must either be overcome or maintained for a full control of the self. This figure of externality is captured in the notion of autonomy. The latter represents the continuous eschatological horizon of social theory and its way of answering the question “what may I hope for?” The closest philosophers and social theorists who share this view of the relationship between theology and social theory are Jacob Taubes and Jean- Pierre Dupuis. Although the authors of this issue may not share this view of social theory as an eschatological discipline, still, if we speak of a common leading motive uniting the authors and the editors of this volume, it is the theoretical exhaustion of the notion of secularization and the search for new possibilities of thematizing the relation between social theory and theology - by means of ontology, ethics, sociology, and economic theory. The project of such a sociology of salvation goes beyond the boundaries of political theology, because the problem of power, which is characteristic of it, has its own gravitational pull.

Autonomous Learning as a Pedagogical Tool: Exploring the Perceptions of Teaching and Learning Practices at Writing Hub

Even though there are incredible number of schemes to create EFL curricula, textbooks, and a range of professional development courses, Saudi Arabian EFL students’ level of English language proficiency still has to be raised (Khadawardi, 2022). It has been determined that learner autonomy (AL) is an effective method for promoting learning. This study explores how EFL instructors and students view the value and efficiency of independent learning strategies for improving writing. What do EFL teachers and students think about the writing hub’s learning strategies for enhancing autonomous learning as a teaching tool to assist EFL writing? And to what extent is the significance of autonomous learning noticeable in EFL writing classrooms? These questions were addressed by this study, which evaluated the optimal data of 77 female students and their eight instructors at Applied College for Girls at King Khalid University to get actionable implications and desirable outcomes. The results indicated that learners’ autonomy could be achieved practically. The writing exercises practiced at writing classes; ‘Writing hub’ proved successful in enhancing autonomy among the learners. The t-test scores reject the null hypotheses, and the data was strongly normal and optimal to support the study. However, the findings also showed that the concept and notion of autonomy and students’ role in it must be introduced before executing it to the students. In addition, most teachers indicated that learners’ autonomy is helpful and achievable in EFL settings. They identified four main factors vocabulary, mind- map, the process approach, and peer feedback; and technology-based strategies worked best for composing writing and inculcating autonomy among the learners. In the future, more approaches can be applied to enhance and boost autonomy among learners.

Learning developers as their own cultural critics?

The values that guide the work of ALDinHE and those associated with us as an organisation include ‘making HE inclusive through emancipatory practice, partnership working and collaboration’ and ‘critical self-reflection, on-going learning and a commitment to professional development’ (ALDinHE, 2022). However, considering this from a relational, or systems thinking perspective; how achievable are these values? Can we truly be inclusive to all? Exploring this notion in my doctoral research, using Bourdieu’s relational framework (Bourdieu, 1992; Bourdieu, 1993; Bourdieu, 1997; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990) I was confronted with some uncomfortable truths. Education is reproductive in the sense that it selects those with the necessary capital to succeed and nurtures them to develop further. The diversity of student’s prior experience, background and capital to succeed is clear, and Learning Developers know how difficult Higher Education can be to navigate, but how often do we reflexively consider how our work reproduces the cultural system. Conference attendees working in small groups, discussed a brief precis of my Doctoral research, a copy of ALDinHE values and summary of Bourdieu’s notion of autonomy (Bourdieu, 1992). The following questions were posed to prompt discussion. How autonomous are we as practitioners and are we able to change the system that reproduces the inequality of society? Is being positioned by students as part of their curriculum through embedded practice advantageous all of the time? Do we focus on the knowledge and skills students bring, or are we forced to help them adapt to the game?

Machine learning AI systems and the virtue of inventiveness

While the subject of artificial intelligence as an inventor has centered on statutory compliance, a more fundamental question is whether AI can technologically fulfill the role of an inventor. In other words, does the current state of the art merit the virtue attribution of being an inventor. To address this question, an analysis of the technology domain is given. The emphasis of technological analysis is centered on what constitutes the effort to produce an invention. The analysis then follows with the underlying assumptions of AI with specific focus given to machine learning. This basic groundwork provides enough information on which to analyze the challenges faced by machine learning systems on the field of inventing. The challenges form a set of requirements and evaluation criteria for design and disclosure of AI machine learning systems. Even under the assumption of overcoming the challenges presented is the notion of autonomy in inventorship claiming. The analysis leads to the possibility of determining execution autonomy as levels of machine learning processing. The challenge presented here, along with the autonomy criteria, poses a new evaluation criteria that can help answer the question on whether to grant inventorship status.

Relational Autonomy in Spinoza. Freedom and Joint Action

ABSTRACT Over the last years, some of Spinoza studies have shifted to a consideration of the relational character of his ethics by focusing on the notion of autonomy. This concept is foreign to Spinoza's vocabulary. Therefore, I will attempt to explain what Spinozan relational autonomy is and its connection with the most important ethical concept in his philosophy: freedom. Following considerations about Spinozan freedom, I claim that it entails a relational character and that, for this reason, it is equal to relational autonomy. We are free when our joint action is based on adequate ideas of what we have in common with others.

COVID-19 pandemic and work precarity at digital food platforms: A delivery worker's perspective.

This study tries to establish a conceptual and empirical understanding of the precarity of work in the platform economy using food aggregators as illustrations and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Internet access and smartphone facilitated the creation of platform aggregators, which emerged as a new workspace for young workers in India. However, food aggregators term these workers as 'delivery partners'; this changes the employer-employee relations and allows companies to avoid liabilities and reduce costs. This has led to systematic exploitation and dismal working conditions for food delivery workers. Further, Workers at platforms suffer from low wages (and benefit), absence (or lack) of welfare measures, and discriminatory practices. The COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown have further aggravated the precarity of on-demand work and workers. Pandemic has shown that with loss of livelihood and income, the notion of autonomy and flexibility at work is meant for the privileged few. This precarious situation of food delivery workers calls for affirmative action in terms of regulations, social security, and protection.

A heuristic model for health-related autonomy based on health promotion ideas: the 'Health-Autonomy Interaction Model'.

Autonomy and health are central concepts in health promotion literature. Operational frameworks explaining their relationship are important to support health-related autonomy actions. This study presents a heuristic model describing the 'health-autonomy relationship' based on health promotion ideas, particularly Antonovsky's and Nordenfeldt's works. Central to the 'Health-Autonomy Interaction Model' is the existence of inter-related dimensions of autonomy: thought, intention and action, all influenced by negative and positive factors of physical and social environments (extrinsic factors) and personal resources to cope with life needs (intrinsic factors). Intrinsic factors comprise elements often included in definitions of negative (ill-health) and positive health (well-being and fitness), therefore establishing a bridge between conceptions of health and autonomy. Unique to this biopsychosocial framework is the differentiation between the potential for being autonomous and the degree of autonomy effectively achieved-the potential autonomy reflects the individual set of abilities to accomplish any task, while the expressed autonomy results from the extent to which this satisfies the demands of the environment and vital goals. Conceptualizing autonomy in this manner highlights that it is a multi-factorial capability referred to external conditions, reflecting a cluster of abilities to be and do things indicative of a self-empowered life. Concluding, our model moves the concept of health-related autonomy from a focus on 'disease' and 'incapacity' to a broader view in which the meaning of 'capacity' depends on the achievement of 'self-fulfillment' in given circumstances. The notion of autonomy is regarded as a precondition for health and an essential priority in health promotion.

“I Know Which Devil I Write for”: Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers

This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership and journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journalists who stayed in the media house after Babiš's acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region's mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.

Respecting Human Autonomy in Critical Care Clinical Decision Support

Clinical Decision Support (CDS) aims at helping physicians optimize their decisions. However, as each patient is unique in their characteristics and preferences, it is difficult to define the optimal outcome. Human physicians should retain autonomy over their decisions, to ensure that tradeoffs are made in a way that fits the unique patient. We tend to consider autonomy in the sense of not influencing decision-making. However, as CDS aims to improve decision-making, its very aim is to influence decision-making. We advocate for an alternative notion of autonomy as enabling the physician to make decisions in accordance with their professional goals and values and the goals and values of the patient. This perspective retains the role of autonomy as a gatekeeper for safeguarding other human values, while letting go of the idea that CDS should not influence the physician in any way. Rather than trying to refrain from incorporating human values into CDS, we should instead aim for a value-aware CDS that actively supports the physician in considering tradeoffs in human values. We suggest a conversational AI approach to enable the CDS to become value-aware and the use of story structures to help the user integrate facts and data-driven learnings provided by the CDS with their own value judgements in a natural way.

“Living the dream” – a psychoanalytical exploration of franchisee autonomy

ABSTRACT The notion of autonomy is widely drawn upon as a contributor to motivation, satisfaction, and performance in franchise systems, yet autonomy lacks sufficient theorization and is often treated as a black box. We thus remain ill-equipped to explore further the role of autonomy within the franchise organization and to answer questions about how autonomy is experienced, fulfilled and sustained by franchisee business owners. This paper employs a psychoanalytic lens, drawing on the work of Lacan, to offer a deeper psychologized explanation of autonomy. From this theorization, our findings provide an insight into how the quest for autonomy plays an important role in enabling the franchising format and keeping alive the dream of being your own boss, but at the same time the ongoing struggle to craft oneself as autonomous creates tensions and anxieties. The study provides an important addition to economic explanations of franchising.

An enactivist reconceptualization of the medical model

ABSTRACT According to the medical model that prevails in the Western world, mental disorder is a form of illness, parallel to bodily illness, which can be diagnosed by a doctor on the basis of symptoms and administered treatments designed to “cure” it. However, it seems clear that how we understand “disorder” is influenced by cultural norms and values. Theorists associated with the so-called anti-psychiatry movement have gone so far as to claim that ‘mental illness’ simply is the accepted term for behaviors and experiences that are problematic or do not fit the cultural norm. In my view, however, this social-constructionist view downplays and obscures the very real difficulties encountered by subjects with mental disorder. I argue that rather than rejecting the medical model altogether, we should revise the model by utilizing insights from the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind. An appeal to the enactivist notions of autonomy, sense-making, and adaptivity, I propose, can help us to (a) account for mental disorder’s normative aspect, so that we can navigate a middle way between the medical model and an anti-psychiatry stance; and (b) understand the way in which the neurobiological, social, and existential dimensions of mental disorder are integrated.

Attitudes to Cryptocurrencies: A Comparative Study Between Sweden and Japan

In this paper, we explore how cryptocurrencies have been received in Sweden and Japan, and what specific attitudes and discourses may reveal about the ethical implications surrounding this new technology. By way of topic modelling prevalent discourses on social media among users of cryptocurrencies, and teasing out the more culturally situated significance in such interactions through discourse analysis, our aim is to unpack the way certain tropes and traces around the notion of autonomy may provide a fruitful lens through which we may discern how this technology has been received in each respective country. The ultimate aim of the paper is to shed light on the attitudes that inform the way this technology is perceived and the cultural and ideological nuances that this brings to the fore, as well as how this culturally nuanced view may help us better discern the potential advantages and ethical challenges associated with this new technology.

May Member States’ courts act as catalysts of normalization of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy?

This article considers whether national courts may act as catalyst of normalization of Common Foreign and Security Policy, in cases on the merits of which prima facie the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) does not have jurisdiction. First, regardless of the exact scope of the CJEU’s jurisdiction, this contribution surveys arguments in favour (the principle of conferral and of effective judicial protection, expression of the value of the rule of law) and against (the notion of autonomy and consistency of EU law) the jurisdiction of national courts. It concludes in favour of the former option. Second, it considers whether national courts may act as agents of ‘normalization’ of CFSP, where this word means the application of general rules of EU law to this policy even in the absence of express literal provision in the Treaty. It argues that national courts may act as catalyst for the normalization of this policy in so far as they can, through the preliminary ruling procedure, give an opportunity to the CJEU to rule on (at least some) CFSP acts.

The provincial Flâneuse: Reimagining provincial space and narratives of womanhood in Bollywood

ABSTRACT This essay uses the interpretive lens of the flâneuse to read Rumi, the protagonist of Anurag Kashyap’s 2018 film Manmarziyaan, as an emergent figure who exemplifies provincial confidence and aspirations through specific notions of autonomy in the public space. At the core of this and similar portrayals, I argue, is a changing relationship between gender formations and provincial space, accessed not only in movement or ambulation but in a narrative of space and modernity not written by hegemonic or dominant forces. I read Rumi as a provincial flâneuse because she rewrites the provincial space that marginalizes her, and she does this not with income and ambition, or with brute power and violence, but with pleasure, movement, and affect. Her remaking of space is influenced by capital and the rhetoric of prostitution (the two contexts in which the flâneuse was historically imagined) but it is determined by neither. Rumi’s flânerie is, then, her struggle to weave a modern self from the disparate strands of provinciality, urbanity, and the uneven imbrications of the two. Her incomplete cooptation by both the provincial and the urban ensures ongoing dialogue between the two spaces, evident in the film’s use of hip hop, and tropes like the failure to elope to the city, and the terrace.

Understanding UK farmers’ Brexit voting decision: A behavioural approach

Abstract In spite of the potential negative effects that Brexit could bring to the United Kingdom (UK), the majority of the electorate voted to leave the European Union (EU). As a result of this paradoxical choice, a number of studies have been developed to understand the factors that triggered this voting decision. Most of them take into account factors related to immigration from East Europe, national identity, and sovereignty recovering, among others. However, these factors do not seem to reflect the reasons behind farmers' Brexit voting choice. Using a behavioural approach based on the theory of planned behaviour, the aim of the study was to contribute to the body of literature by undertaking an indicative study of UK farmers' Brexit voting decisions. The study found that for the sample group, voting choice was strongly influenced by farmers’ perceptions about EU legislation, their attitudes towards the EU, their perceived capacity to control factors that impact on the farm performance, their sense of self and their notions of autonomy within the confines of prescriptive agricultural policy and the influence of their social relationships.