Original Ethos Research Articles

Classical Pentecostals’ literalist reading of the Bible: Challenges and solutions

The study’s setting is South African classical Pentecostals’ use of hermeneutics that became aligned with conservative Evangelicals’ fundamentalist practices since the 1940s. It addresses the lack within Pentecostal scholarship to relate some Pentecostal excesses and related abuses, such as the prosperity message, to the movements’ common literalist-biblicist hermeneutics Bible reading practices. It argues that an alternative hermeneutic to their hermeneutics true to the movement’s original ethos can protect them from such excesses. The study utilises a comparative literature analysis without any empirical research methods. The article developed a scholarly founded Pentecostal hermeneutical model by emphasising three propria: that the Holy Spirit is central in reading the Bible, the influence of an eschatological perspective to establish interpretation practices, and the faith community as normative for interpretation reflects the unique Pentecostal ethos. To be sound as Pentecostal hermeneutics, its charismatic experiences become exemplary for interpretation practices regulated by the faith community.Contribution: The research contributes to the current Pentecostal discussion about the diversity of hermeneutical practices within the movement and the challenges and dangers some of these practices hold for the reputation and prestige of the movement.

Are birds free from the chains of the skyway? Action learning in a cultural context

ABSTRACT The paper identifies what is meant by culture and examines approaches to mapping it, while suggesting alternatives. It notes the global spread of action learning, expressed through the prism of Western values, although practice is not necessarily reflective of the original ethos. It offers some rules of thumb on the use of action learning in different cultural settings and suggests a need for mutual adjustment and for research on action learning in a variety of cultural contexts.

Learning in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: development and rapid uptake of an online learning platform for vascular surgery.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, alternative methods of delivering medical education were rapidly required. An online learning platform was developed with the aim of providing high-quality, accessible learning to vascular specialty trainees. We describe the design, delivery and analysis of the first 15 months of the platform. Although originally a regional initiative, we discuss how popularity and feedback led to a rapid expansion of the training programme internationally. A fully online educational platform for vascular surgery specialist trainees was developed. The primary aims and ethos of the programme were that it should be easily accessible from any location, convenient, flexible, cooperative and collaborative, social and free financially to access. All learning resources were researched carefully and based on the UK vascular surgery curriculum and 20 seminal papers targeted in the Vascular Specialist Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCSVasc) examination. The project demonstrated that it is feasible to design, build and deliver a postgraduate clinical teaching platform with minimal time requirement, resources and cost while creating and maintaining high-quality content. Rapid national and international uptake has proven there is demand - in addition to overwhelmingly positive feedback from educators and learners, this demonstrates that previously perceived barriers to online education can be overcome. At present, 53 educational sessions have been delivered and are available in the online library, and in the past year (8 December 2020 to 8 December 2021) the website has been accessed 3,877 times. Although the programme has grown and evolved, a strong focus is being kept on its original ethos and aims - easily accessible, collaborative, free learning resources for all vascular professionals, based on the UK vascular surgery curriculum. Making learning convenient is key. The COVID-19 pandemic may be a watershed moment for a new era of learning. It is an opportunity for people from different backgrounds to share experiences and to develop cohesion within a hospital and network, nationally and worldwide.

From ‘hydrology of hope’ to ‘hydrology of despair’: a feminist review of Mushandike small-scale irrigation scheme in the semi-arid region of Southern Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT The physical and social environmental repercussions of large dam construction have pre-occupied development discourse for some time globally. Literature on dam projects focuses on the displacement of humans and wildlife from their natural habitats and the dam’s contribution to urban and industrial transformation. There is a dearth of literature on small dams and small-scale irrigation projects in communal areas. This article examines the status of Mushandike irrigation scheme, which was designed to transform the lives of rural people located in the semi-arid ecological region of southern Zimbabwe. We used ethnographic principles of data generation guided by a feminist theoretical framework to get to women farmers’ lived experiences. Mushandike small-scale irrigation scheme has been a ‘hydrology of hope’ for women farmers for many years. However, multifarious factors, both natural and human-induced, are turning it into a ‘hydrology of despair’. Although farming is still done from a business perspective, water stress due to an inefficient water and land allocation management system, linked to patriarchal ideological practices, has driven the irrigation scheme onto a difficult trajectory. The article recommends a paradigm shift in the irrigation scheme’s management to ensure that the original ethos – that irrigation farming is equivalent to formal employment – is re-adopted.

Images of the Hunghuz in the Literature of Manchuria in the 1920s–1940s (The Case of Xiao Jun’s Works)

The relevance of the study is due to the interest of Russian and Chinese science in artistic capture of the processes taking place on the territory of the Far Eastern frontier – Manchuria and the Far East in the first half of the 20th century. In a situation of political chaos, economic confusion and civil wars in these lands, the phenomenon of hunkhuznichestvo arises, which has become a real disaster for civilians. This problem is covered in great detail in the literature of the Far Eastern emigration and historical, literary works. The novelty of the research is determined by the appeal to Chinese sources (scientific and literary), which until now have not been systematically studied from the point of view of the ethnocultural, ethnosocial and literary paradigm. The problem lies in the comparative analysis of historical, socio-political materials (dictionaries, chronicles, scientific articles) and the results of the artistic reception of the phenomenon of hunkhuznichestvo in the works of northeastern writers of the 1920s–1940s. The aim of the work is to study the images of the Hunghuz from the point of view of the socio-political, ethno-cultural request of the emerging Chinese national consciousness of the 1920s–1940s and their artistic interpretation by Xiao Jun. The main methods are historical-genetic (reconstruction of the formation of ideas about Hunghuz in the Chinese mind), cultural-historical (study of images of Hunghuz in the context of the formation of the literature of the “Left Wing” and the influence of Soviet models), comparative-historical (comparison of images of Hunghuz in literature of the 1920–1940 and their subsequent reception in the Chinese public consciousness), biographical (the influence of the family’s upbringing and the author’s inner circle on his perception of hunkhuzism), translation methods (translation of Chinese scientific works, dictionary entries, historical documents, Xiao Jun’s novels) and the method of immanent analysis (in relation to the above-mentioned texts by the author studied). When writing his novels (Village in August, Third Generation) Xiao Jun drew not only on the ideologemes of the communist movement in China, literary examples of Soviet heroic-romantic prose about the civil war, but also on his personal experience of knowledge of hunkhuzism. The author comes to the conclusion that Xiao Jun recorded important historical and cultural ethnocultural, ethnopsychological, ethnoreligious details of Hunghuz life, customs, original ethos.

From Patañjali to the “Gospel of Sweat”: Yoga’s Remarkable Transformation from a Sacred Movement into a Thriving Global Market

Movements seeking to infuse markets with moral values often end up utilizing the market mechanism and support from mainstream actors to scale up, even if it comes at the cost of diluting their founding ethos. But this process can be particularly challenging for movements that are explicitly opposed to using a market mechanism as a means of scaling up. Our analysis of yoga between 1975 and 2016 reveals how a countercultural movement fundamentally opposed to a capitalist market economy but seeking to grow can paradoxically become syncretic with or infiltrated by concepts and beliefs that are core to the market system but incompatible with the movement’s original ethos. We show how, before such a movement can be commodified, it must be de-essentialized, a process that requires stripping away key aspects of its history, context, and religious commitments and transforming collective goals into individual ones. This process involves not only external entrepreneurs looking to mine the movement but also movement leaders seeking wider enrollment of resource-rich actors to scale the movement up. We show how codes borrowed from parallel movements and templates borrowed from markets can be instrumental in driving such a movement’s transformation. Through this extreme case of the yoga movement, we advance understandings of how movements can become syncretic with values and practices they fundamentally oppose.

Politicising platform-mediated tourism rentals in the digital sphere: Airbnb in Madrid and Barcelona

Both short-term tourism rentals and the digital platforms that manage and mediate them have expanded enormously in recent years, against a backdrop of increasing platform urbanism and platform capitalism. This expansion triggers transformations that are contributing to acute negative externalities never envisaged within the original ethos and sustainability promises of the sharing economy. The severe knock-on effects of the unanticipated reconfiguration of economic and everyday life have met with a strong civic response, leading to a growing politicisation of platform-mediated rentals increasingly performed in the digital sphere. Numerous social movements have arisen in opposition to platforms such as Airbnb, while lobbyists and user collectives have also mobilised to defend their respective rights to ‘home-share’ and generate extra income, as the business becomes increasingly professionalised in large cities. Through the lens of the increasingly politicised and polemical impacts of the platform economy, this article analyses Twitter narratives and counter-narratives surrounding Airbnb-mediated rentals and their impact on Madrid and Barcelona. Findings show how narratives are choreographed by a range of actors and that narrative ecosystems emerge in the form of interconnected virtual relationship networks, often embedded in translocal assemblages.

The Whole Place Self: reflecting on the original working practices of Rape Crisis

Critiques of the trauma model for understanding the harms of sexual violence raise some important questions about the radical roots of Rape Crisis Centres in the UK and their relationship to the services offered, and funded, today. Drawing from a research conversation with three women from the national umbrella group Rape Crisis England and Wales, this article finds that in contrast to the depoliticised and individualised discourse of trauma, the original ethos of Rape Crisis in England sought to recognise the harms of rape across four interlocking dimensions: personal, cultural, social and structural. This approach demonstrates an understanding of the self as relational, situated and intersectional, aligning with recent philosophical work on sexual violence and suggesting the importance of key working practices that are in tension with the counselling model that currently dominates provision.

Introduction

Introduction

“To Make the Crooked Straight”: The Crippled Children Society in Southern New Zealand, 1935–2007

This article examines the history of the New Zealand Crippled Children Society, focusing on the Dunedin branch and highlighting how this voluntary organization has evolved in relation to a widespread change in attitudes and policies towards disability in order to meet the changing needs of its consumers. While taking account of the historical and social context, this study examines the origins of the society in Dunedin in the 1930s and its initial aims as a charitable organization for children affected by polio. It then maps the progress and changes made by the society over time, concentrating on the major upheavals of the late 1980s and 1990s, up until the early twenty-first century which saw the implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy (2001) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) These show how the society adapted to changes in government policy, public attitudes and professional opinion while preserving its original ethos.

South German Anabaptist Ecclesiology and Its Present-day Pentecostal Counterpart

Th is article accepts that twentieth-century classical Pentecostalism originally shared a similar ethos to that exemplified among the South German Anabaptists, and investigates some resonances in ecclesiology between the two. Scrutiny of a selection of early sixteenth-century documents relating to Anabaptism identifies the following: a radically consistent application of sola scriptura, a rejection of the state-church synthesis, a revisioning of sacramental belief and practice that subverts the clergy-laity divide, commitment to the teachings of Jesus as the primary and central guide to discipleship, a sacrifi cial pilgrim mentality of “just passing through this world,” individual choice and responsibility to follow Jesus, confi dent personal witness to the goodness and salvation of the Lord, and some level of demonstration of the charismatic gifts. Early Pentecostalism resonated with all these themes, although it developed a more detailed and sophisticated biblical and theological understanding of the charismatic aspects. However, present-day popular Pentecostalism, especially but not exclusively in the West, appears to demonstrate in its implied ecclesiology a number of dissonances from all of these elements, which may indicate a significant divergence from the original ethos of the movement and present major future challenges to its authentic and consistent continuation and self-propagation.

Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business by Susan Spellman

Reviewed by: Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business by Susan Spellman Jonathan Rees (bio) Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business. By Susan Spellman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. 226. Hardcover $82. Cornering the Market is about "corner" grocery stores, the small independent markets that began in the late-nineteenth-century United States and grew through the first few decades of the twentieth. It is also about the reasons why larger chain stores managed to surpass and largely strangle those smaller stores during the 1910s, 1920s, and especially the Depression decade of the 1930s. It is a very useful addition to the numerous books covering the grocery industry, especially since it starts far earlier than recent works on the same industry by other scholars. Spellman's thesis is that the structure and activities of independent grocery store owners exemplify the process of industrialization just as much as the large manufacturers that followed them. Even though steelmaking and automobile manufacturing have sucked up much of the historical attention, she argues that the modernization efforts and coordination activities of these much smaller businessmen are as much a part of the story of American industrialization as anything that Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller accomplished. Indeed, because food was much more important to the daily lives of everyday Americans than steel or oil were during this period, the history of grocery stores can tell us more about their experiences than those of larger companies can. As this description should suggest, this book is primarily a work of business history. However, technology of all kinds played an important part in facilitating the increased efficiency and growth of independent grocers. Spellman points to technologies (in the broad sense of that word) like specialty display cases, new ledgers, and even telephones as important tools for independent grocers in their quest for growth and modernization. Background technological changes such as improvements in transportation and electricity play a part in her story as well. The same is true for technological changes in the production of the food products that grocers sold. The development of Fleischmann's Yeast, for example, aided independent grocers in their quest for efficiency, because dealing with branded products helped them systematize the acquisition of inventory. [End Page 972] The best chapter in the book is the one which covers another one of these technological innovations in much greater detail. Cash registers, argues Spellman, were an essential element of grocery modernization because they greatly increased how well proprietors understood the daily operation of their businesses. The information registers provided increased efficiency and deskilled clerks and encouraged a business culture that rewarded innovation. In the course of describing these effects, Spellman links the features on the models that National Cash Register manufactured to the needs of independent grocers, since that company solicited them directly for feedback. Grocers wanted clocks on registers, for example, so that they would know when the most sales occurred and could have the necessary amount of labor in their stores at that time to meet demand. The book closes with the effect of the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 on the growth of chain stores, which she argues promoted a culture of efficiency that did not match this industry's original ethos. It then jumps to the impact of Walmart on today's grocery industry, suggesting that these giant stores are really local grocers that have market power not so much due to price fixing, but because of technological advantages, such as a ruthless and shrewd employment of information technology. The greatest contribution this book makes involves the details of the grocery business between the 1870s and 1890s, which never would have survived if it weren't for the many technologies that Spellman mentions. While this book would probably be of primary interest to business historians, its broad scope and the careful research that Spellman has conducted on the relationship between technology and the growth of independent groceries make it a worthwhile acquisition for historians of technology who have any interest in how food was either manufactured or distributed. Jonathan Rees Jonathan Rees is professor of history at Colorado State University...

Gamers or victims of the system? Welfare reform, cynical manipulation and vulnerability

New mechanisms of conditionality enacted through current reforms of the UK welfare system are framed within contested narratives about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare users. In the problem figuration of welfare reform the orientations and conduct of welfare recipients have been conceptualised and depicted across a spectrum ranging from cynical manipulators gaming the system and subverting the original ethos of the welfare state to vulnerable individuals experiencing compounded disadvantage. This paper aims to strengthen the conceptualisation of cynical manipulation and vulnerability and to empirically investigate how narratives of these ideas are deployed by key stakeholders in the welfare system and the extent to which manipulation or vulnerability are present in the orientations and conduct of individuals in receipt of welfare support.

Psychoneuroimmunology and occupational therapy for inflammatory disorders

The occupational therapy profession was founded in 1917 on the notion that occupations contribute to psychological well being and physical adaptation. The credibility of occupational therapy has been threatened because the scientific basis of this notion is not always evident. The focus of occupational therapy in many physical settings has therefore shifted away from its original ethos towards one of physical problem solving and discharge facilitation. Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a developing branch of science that provides a theoretical framework to support the profession’s return to its original ethos of using occupations to promote health. This paper is an analysis of psychoneuroimmunological evidence to support occupational therapy for inflammatory disorders. A broad literature search revealed mind-body inflammatory pathways including anatomical links, nerve growth factor, adrenocorticotrophin, cortisol, somatostatin and substance-P.

Can philosophy contribute to a change of ethos? (The road from the law of the ethos toward European law

The author examines the character of the changes taking place in contemporary Serbian society. He emphasizes at the same time that contemporary Serbian philosophy is facing these crucial questions as well, which without it cannot be even addressed, let alone solved. The key difference between modern West European and contemporary Serbian societies, seen from the perspective of philosophy, is demonstrated most clearly in the manner of constituting institutions and transforming the modern Serbian society. In the process of building modern institutions philosophy, not just in our country but throughout the Slavic East, has not had the role it played in Europe. Here lies the explanation why natural consciousness and an original ethos, though considerably modified, still remain unadapted and today represent a major obstacle to the establishment of the rule of European law. Without a change in the sense of justice and respect for the law it is impossible to accomplish the transformation of the society in which the law recognized by a democratic state could not be super ordinate to any reason. The crucial role of philosophy in this process is seen by the author not only in establishing modern European institutions and acceptance of the principle of European legislation, but above all in its influence on the transformation of the original ethos and establishment of new criteria on which the reflection, decision making and action of any individual would be based. .

TEACHING NOTES

The text of the article is available in the PDF.

Link law: The emerging law of internet hyperlinks

Although Internet enthusiasts often claim a right of on‐line associations, that is, a right freely to link to other content on the Internet, evolving case law demonstrates that there is no absolute right to associate or link on the Internet. Rather, business law at times imposes limits and penalties on linking. As business grows on the Internet, litigants are likely to use creative theories based on unfair competition and intellectual property law to seek limits on linking. This article examines the first waves of Internet link law cases, how the legal positions have been framed and the principles with which those cases have been resolved. The article reviews the basics of the legal theories used (and likely to be used in the future) to challenge links. The article then reviews key linking cases involving, among other issues, direct links, “framing” and “inlining,” hidden metalinks and contributory infringement through links and mirror sites. The article concludes that, contrary to the original ethos of Internet use, in the era of business use of the Internet, linkages will often be scrutinized and controlled, and sometimes discouraged, litigated or penalized.

Prison Privatisation and the Remand Population: Principle Versus Pragmatism?

This article draws on our recently published evaluation of HMP Wolds, the first contracted‐out prison in the United Kingdom. The authors argue that prison privatisation in England and Wales was a direct consequence of the increase in the remand population in the 1980s and the deteriorating conditions of their custody; that the response of Group 4 in designing a regime for Wolds was directly influenced by their awareness of the remand status of the prisoners they were to manage; that some of the problems that emerged in the first year of Wolds stemmed directly from the particular circumstances of remand prisoners; and that Wolds'response to these problems resulted in regime modifications relying on more traditional approaches, compromising Wolds'original ethos and resulting in convergence with the public‐sector prisons. In addition, the authors argue that these changes reflected a response to the social status shared by all prisoners rather than the legal status which is unique to remand prisoners and this, arguably, has contributed towards a deterioration in the standards that Wolds initially offered to remand prisoners.

England's Civic Universities and the Triumph of the Oxbridge Ideal

Within England's system of higher education, the role of Oxford and Cambridge as defining institutions is scarcely questioned. Whether viewed from a contemporary or a historical perspective, the dreaming spires of the nation's two oldest universities dominate the landscape. More than any comparable pair of institutions in the United States, they set the standards by which all other English universities are measured. According to many accounts of the development of higher education in England, one result of Oxbridge superiority has been a propensity toward “academic drift,” a process whereby newer and/or second-rank institutions copy the curriculum and academic style of elite institutions. England's civic universities appear to have been particularly guilty of this tendency. Established during the Victorian and Edwardian eras by the nation's larger provincial towns in order to meet local needs for higher education, they initially represented a distinct alternative to the ancient universities, not only in terms of their location and the socioeconomic composition of their student bodies but also in terms of mission. Nonetheless, according to many commentators, the civics eventually abandoned their aim of creating a new model for higher education in England which stressed scientific research, practical professional training, regional service, and more open access. Citing the rising proportion of arts graduates, especially during the two decades following World War I, along with increasing pressure to provide halls of residence, modern observers such as A. H. Halsey and Roy Lowe have concluded that the newer universities renounced their original ethos, attempting instead to replicate as much as possible of the Oxbridge ideal amid the smog and squalor of their urban, industrial settings.