Permanent Tensions Research Articles

The emergence of an independent Polish state and the problem of national minorities

The main approaches to the regulation of the status of national minorities in the Polish state restored after the First World War were investigated. They were reflected in the relevant provisions of the first Constitution of independent Poland (March 1921), which was a kind of compromise between the views of the Polish right-wing led by Roman Dmowski, who advocated the absolute dominance of ethnic Poles' interests, and the leaders of Polish socialist parties (T. Goluwko, L. Wasilewski), who wanted to support the national and cultural inspirations of minorities in exchange for their loyalty to the Polish state.
 The legal acts used to regulate the situation of national minorities were analysed. Their compliance with the international legal mechanisms for the protection of national minority rights, which began to operate in Europe within the framework of the Versailles-Washington system of international relations, in particular, the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles Minor, was determined. In case of compliance with the proclaimed legal norms, the Polish state had every chance to avoid an open confrontation with representatives of the non-title nation. However, the situation in Poland with regard to national minorities became a classic example of the discrepancy between law-making theory and law enforcement practice.
 It has been proved that due to the lack of mechanisms for monitoring compliance with international norms which were supposed to guarantee the rights of national minorities and imperfections in domestic legislation, the Polish authorities at various levels have repeatedly violated the democratic principles of the March 1921 Constitution and other legal acts designed to ensure equal rights for representatives of national minorities, which, in turn, created constant tension within the Second Polish Republic, destabilising the internal situation in the country.
 This situation was caused by a number of factors: the difficult economic situation, which provoked permanent tensions in society and the Poles' disrespect for members of national minorities. Artificially created borders after the First World War also provoked interethnic conflicts. Finally, it should be considered that the vast majority of Poles were supporters of the concept of the nation-state promoted by the National Democrats, which envisaged the assimilation of national minorities.

‘I don’t want your progress! It tries to kill … me!’ Decolonial encounters and the anarchist critique of civilization

ABSTRACT Where are green anarchist and anti-civilization thoughts in academia? This article offers an encounter between green anarchism and decolonial theory to demonstrate its relevance as an action-oriented practice carried out across the world by groups or individuals rejecting domination and subjugation by state, capital, and other forms of power. This article begins with an anecdote to reveal weak points within academic decolonial theory, specifically readings of non-Western civilizations, political ambiguities, and corresponding engagements with the state–corporate nexus. Next, it revisits anti-civilizational anarchism, highlighting theoretical development, conflictive debates, and insights. The article concludes by encouraging anarchist decolonial perspectives that articulate permanent tensions against divisions of labour, hierarchies, statist-colonial organizational forms, and industrial/digital technologies. These mechanisms necessitate careful attention to avoid reproducing coloniality and extractivism under different names.

Caring for others: a return to a basic notion for the current medicine

Medicine today is a field of permanent tensions: between structures and individuals, between public policies and individualised patient care, and between patients and their therapists. This article reflects on the notion of care as a way of resolving the problems encountered by health professions by considering one of their fundamental concepts. For this purpose, research was carried out in the medical literature in order to understand the definitions in which care is discussed in current medicine. Based on the findings, three paradigms or constructs related to the notion of care are detailed: a) Patient Centered Care, b) the ethics of care, and c) the idea of Whole Person Care. Even with the notable differences between these constructs, it is possible to rescue the framework of care: the objective being for the good of the patient. Thus, a proposal for the reflection on caring for others is developed, based on what is the concept of ″objective good for the person″ in accordance with the thinking of the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand.

The Yiddisher Kultur Farband in Argentina: Progressive and Communist Jews (1917–1956)

Progressive and Communist Jewish identity in Argentina flourished between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Cold War. In 1937, during the Popular Front period, Jewish Communist intellectuals organized an International Congress of Yiddish Culture in Paris. Twenty-three countries were represented, and the Congress formed the Yiddisher Kultur Farband (YKUF). In 1941, this Congress was replicated in Argentina, where the YKUF sponsored an important network of schools, clubs, theaters, socio-cultural centers, and libraries created by Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. The Ykufist or Progressive Jewish identity reflects a particular construction that is as ethnic as it is political. As “Jewish,” it aimed to transmit the secular heritage of the Yiddishkeit devastated in Europe during World War II, but as “progressive,” “radical” or “Communist,” it postulated its yearning for integration into a universal socialism led by the Soviet model. Progressive Jewish identity was shaped in the antifascist culture and by permanent tensions between Jewish ethnicity and the guidelines of the Communist Party. Above all, it was framed by a fervent aspiration of the immigrants and their children to integrate into their Argentine society.

An Institutional Analysis of the Rise of Benefit Corporations Outside of the US: The Case of Italy

This paper contributes to the current debate about Benefit Corporations, presenting the development of this organisational model in Italy, the first country to introduce this hybrid form after the US. Grounded on an institutional logic perspective, it provides a picture of the institutional dynamics that have characterised the rise of this new entrepreneurial form outside the US. The analysis provides an in-depth foundational study of the Italian case and highlights the relevant influence of different institutional pressures in explaining the rise of and constraints in the diffusion of Benefit Corporations. Empirically, it combines secondary data, available from different public sources, and primary data collected through interviews with a series of knowledgeable informants. Based upon the analysis, two aspects appear peculiar for the development of Benefit Corporations in Italy: the interplay between the Benefit Corporation legal form and the certified B Corp model, and the rise of tensions between social entrepreneurship and the third sector ecosystem. This paper concludes that the peculiar institutional pressures leading to the birth of Benefit Corporations in Italy may be source of permanent tensions and of concern for the diffusion of the model.

Inter-personal violence in Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Benin) 2015-2018

The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiological, forensic and judicial aspects of physical abuse in Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Benin). This retrospective study covered the period from 2015 to 2018. It covered all the cases of voluntary assaults tried in Abomey-Calavi court. The study included a total of 450 physical assault cases. The victims were mostly young men (58.7%) with a mean age of 31 years. The offenders had a similar profile. They were mostly young men with a mean age of 32 years. The assailants were mostly alone (86, 2%) and unarmed (56, 1%). Domestic violence frequency was 8.845%. The most frequent lesions were wound (63.1%) and bruise (51.4%). The mean duration of the total impairment was 5.8 days. Physical violence is the consequence of permanent tensions in urban area. It reflects a social imbalance. Violence management policies need to focus on prevention. Keywords: Physical violence, Forensic medicine, Total incapacity to work, Benin republic.

Reflexive tension: an auto-ethnographic journey through the discipline of International Relations in Western academic training

ABSTRACT Through two crossed auto-ethnographic works, this paper explores the ‘reflexive tension’ coming with the African identities in diasporic contexts and in Western academic training. As the authors have been socialized in their junior scholar careers in the literature of international relations, they revisit the aforementioned literature in light of the decolonizing literature about IR curriculum and the postcolonial literature. This article argues that it is possible to resist multiple conflicting worldviews, sometimes accept components of them, leaving some questions partly unanswered and living in the permanent tensions and interrogations of our positionality to remain open to alternative paths. To illustrate their emancipatory journeys, the authors present how their nuanced voices were completely silenced, or even inaudible, in the narratives framed by the West and their respective African communities when international events, like Charlie Hebdo shooting or the Rhodes Must Fall protest movement in 2015 affected them. This paper is an invitation to explore deeper the richness of African identities with a renewed auto-ethnographic engagement through ‘reflexive tension’ to regain agency and emancipation from the denial coming with binary narratives.

Marginalization and Organizational Tensions: The Case of Indigenous Entrepreneurs of Wendake

Based on a qualitative study of indigenous entrepreneurship in Wendake, an indigenous community in Quebec, this paper offers three main contributions to the literature on indigenous entrepreneurship and organizational tensions. First, it conceptualizes four dimensions of the marginality of indigenous entrepreneurs. Then, it presents and analyzes three permanent tensions that are inherent to indigenous entrepreneurship related to identity (individualism or collectivism), approach (conformity or differentiation), and scope (openness or isolation). Finally, this paper suggests that indigenous businesses are marked by a phenomenon of double marginality, both at the intra- community (internal) and the society level (external).

Curriculum Policies of Gender and Sexuality in Brazil: Between Biomedical, Socio-Juridical and Neoconservative Discourses

This paper proposes an analysis of the curriculum policies of gender and sexuality produced in Brazil, aiming at revealing the hegemonic practices and the articulation of different logics, such as theoretical, moral and political, that made these practices possible. Curriculum policies are here conceived as dispute fields which establish and contest meanings about curricular texts, while unstable and polysemic codifications. The present work seeks to show how the emergence and dissemination of socio-juridical discursive logics in the field of sexuality, as opposed to biomedical logics, have influenced Brazilian curricular policies since the 2000s. However, it also indicates that these logics have been strongly opposed, in recent years, for the articulation and intensification of the action of neoconservative movements in the country. This article also proposes the appropriation, within the sphere of this debate, of concepts such as the discursive field, hegemony and identification – as developed by Laclau and Mouffe's Discourse Theory – as resources to enable a more nuanced analysis of the processes of emergence, consolidation and crisis of regimes of dominant sexuality in the curricular field, as well as the permanent tensions, conflicts, negotiations and articulations between different discourses and logics in this scenario. Key-words: Gender; Sexuality; Discourse; Curriculum Policy.

Locating One's Life: Memory, Mood, and Self-Reflection

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze some contours of the existential practice of attempting to “locate one's life” through self-reflection. I will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on two exemplifications of self-reflection that are not “philosophical” in any technical or academic sense: Cory Taylor's Dying: A Memoir and Yi-Fu Tuan's Who Am I? An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind, and Spirit. Taylor, a novelist, is writing hurriedly facing imminent death, while Tuan, a distinguished cultural geographer, writes facing not death but the prospect of continuing to live without any real will to do so. Their reflections are carried out in two different rhetorical registers, with quite different motivational contexts and expectations. They throw clear light, with rich philosophical import, on the complex relations between memory and mood, such as regret and nostalgia, the languages of self-description, and the permanent tensions between hope and action in coming to terms with what or who one is, or has become, or with what, if anything, lies ahead.

The Mediterranean, between unity and fault line

ABSTRACTThe word “Mediterranean” tends to elicit opposite views, acting as an indicator of assumptions about politics and normative considerations. This article explores two perspectives, and suggests a third. First, it looks at conceptions of the Mediterranean as a unitary actor. The Mediterranean as the “cradle of civilizations”, first described by Braudel, has been recently revived by Horden and Purcell, as well as by the Italian geo-hilosophers. A second perspective emphasizes instead the Mediterranean as an area of conflict, characterized by fundamental fault lines. The position of Huntington, captured by his expression “clash of civilizations”, is mirrored by the post-colonial view of an area fractured by permanent tensions. The article concludes by suggesting a third option and noting that the word “Mediterranean” is fading from political vocabularies, an indication of the shrinking role in politics for concepts indicating “in-between-ness”.

Formarse en la crítica para educar. Análisis del discurso sobre la reglamentación de la formación de profesores de matemáticas

This article makes an analysis of speech about the Colombian’s regimentation of Mathematics teacher training. The topic of the analysis is the notion of critique which must be considered in pre-service math teachers training. The reported research was shaped by qualitative methods. The research took theoretical and methodological elements from poststructuralism as well as the Foucault’s notions of speech and subjectivity. The analysis allowed lighting up permanent tensions between the notions associated with the mentioned elements and notions. Additionally, the analysis revealed the purposes of the notions and elements utterances likewise the subjective paths of critical training in pre-service math teachers. The tension arises in three ways. First, the notions are so weak regarding the embodied potency. Second, the establishments of intentions are huge respect with the educative quality improvement and human development. Third, regarding subjectivity, there exists a depoliticization of training practices.

Equity Promotion Policies in Health for vulnerable groups: the role of the Ministry of Health.

This article aims to analyze Equity Promotion Policies in Health implemented by the Ministry of Health for vulnerable groups, through the Department of Strategy and Participative Management based on race, ethnicity, gender and lifestyle markers. The three structural elements of these policies are identified as: participatory management, transversality and awareness / professional qualifications. In carrying out research for this article, different documental sources were used including: policies, videos, conferences and minutes from council meetings as well as information from health committees. The results showed positive aspects and shortcomings in the implementation process of these policies. Also, they revealed that there are permanent tensions between equality policies and equity policies which pose challenges to guaranteeing the right to health of these populations. Finally, it can be reaffirmed that only in democratic societies can these rights be recognized and guaranteed.

Permanent tensions in organization.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between permanent tensions and organizational change. This study used paradox theory and a case study. The case organization is a public university hospital in Finland involving several stakeholders. The analysis suggests that the relationship between permanent tensions and organizational change is a paradox that is part of organizational reality. As an organization learns to live with its permanent tensions, the renewal paradox settles into equilibrium. When tensions are provoked, the paradox is disturbed until it finds a new balance. This flexible nature of the paradox is the force that keeps the different stakeholders simultaneously empowered to maintain their unique missions and cohesive in order to benefit from the larger synergy. This research suggests that identification and evaluation of each permanent tension within an organization is important when executing organizational change. The fact that certain tensions are permanent and cannot be solved may have an influence on how planned change initiatives are executed. The results show that permanent tensions may be harnessed for the benefit of an organizational change. This research demonstrates originality by offering an alternative view of tensions, a view which emphasizes not only their permanent and plural nature but their importance for enabling the organization to change at its own, non-disruptive pace. The research also proposes a new concept, the "renewal paradox", to enhance understanding of the relationship between permanent tensions and organizational change.

The United Nations and the Peace Movement

The interaction and cooperation between United Nations and the peace movements world over have grown steadily. Much of it is done at the UN arms such as UNESCO, ECOSOC, UNIDA and UNIDIR. United Nations is an organization of sovereign states, while peace movements are part of civil society. Certain problems and challenges in the relationship between the UN and peace movement are necessarily of a permanent nature, producing pressure and tensions. Peace movements can well support the UN and regard it as the most important peace organization, but at the same time their legitimate task is to exert constant pressure. Revised version of a paper presented in the 25th IPRA General Conference “Uniting for Peace”, Security and Disarmament Commission, Istanbul, 11–15 August, 2014

Porządek konstytucyjny a etnokratyzm elit politycznych w Karaczajo-Czerkiesji

One of the main causes of the anarchy in the political life of Karachay-Cherkessia is the lack of a genuine compromise between the ethnic communities concerning the questions of the political system of the republic. An attempt to develop such a compromise took place in June 1996 and ended by reaching a specific ‘constitutional pact.’ However, this compromise did not start a consolidation process among the elites on the basis of the constitution. On the contrary, it turned out to be short-lived and even expanded the field of conflicts. The republic was on the brink of civil war as early as in 1999. In the following decade, a state of permanent tensions continued. It resulted with alternating crises of power and an attempt to take over the parliament and government buildings by national minorities with the use of force. The author of this article tries to explain the causes of the political instability in Karachay-Cherkessia. He mainly focuses on the study of the constitutional fundaments of the legal and political order and its confrontation with the reality of political life in the republic. Out of this confrontation there emerges a ‘loop transformation’ syndrome, which poses a threat to the security and territorial integrity of Karachay-Cherkessia.

Paciente con migraña y síndrome cervical después de una histerectomía

Background In 2005, Mrs ES, a 54 year-old patient, consulted our acupuncture outpatient service for the first time, having suffered from intense headaches and permanent tensions in the shoulder and neck region for 7 years. The clinical symptoms were exacerbated by all kinds of stress. Although the patient had worked the same stressful job for years, the headaches only first manifested after she’d had a hysterectomy. Aim Pain reduction and improvement of stress tolerance at the work place. Methods acupuncture, analysis of life style, means of stress prophylaxis. Results Between the 4th and 10th treatment session, only one migraine episode occurred which was related to the consumption of red wine. For the following three years, the patient remained free of symptoms. Then tensions and headache attacks returned. Discussion According to TCM, long-term exposure to emotional stress situations can lead to the stagnation of liver qi. 7 years ago, this manifested as a blood stagnation of the lower heater (myomatous uterus). From the point of view of western medicine, the problem was solved by hysterectomy -however, stagnation now came to appear elsewhere in the body, this time, in the head. In this case, western medicine could offer only symptom-oriented therapeutic interventions whereas TCM enabled us to work on the underlying problem and reach, if only temporarily, an improvement of the clinical situation.

Patientin mit Migräne und Cervicalsyndrom nach Hysterektomie

Background In 2005, Mrs ES, a 54 year-old patient, consulted our acupuncture outpatient service for the first time, having suffered from intense headaches and permanent tensions in the shoulder and neck region for 7 years. The clinical symptoms were exacerbated by all kinds of stress. Although the patient had worked the same stressful job for years, the headaches only first manifested after she'd had a hysterectomy. Aim Pain reduction and improvement of stress tolerance at the work place Methods acupuncture, analysis of life style, means of stress prophylaxis Results Between the 4th and 10th treatment session, only one migraine episode occurred which was related to the consumption of red wine. For the following three years, the patient remained free of symptoms. Then tensions and headache attacks returned. Discussion According to TCM, long-term exposure to emotional stress situations can lead to the stagnation of liver qi. 7 years ago, this manifested as a blood stagnation of the lower heater (myomatous uterus). From the point of view of western medicine, the problem was solved by hysterectomy – however, stagnation now came to appear elsewhere in the body, this time, in the head. In this case, western medicine could offer only symptom-oriented therapeutic interventions whereas TCM enabled us to work on the underlying problem and reach, if only temporarily, an improvement of the clinical situation.

A Europa vista por Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz: aquém e além da nação

A posição ideológica e política de Ramuz em relação à nação e à Europa se funda em uma poética que deseja exprimir representações de coisas percebidas, exprimir um "país" cuja topografia representa um condicionamento superior à história. Valendo-se desse postulado, Ramuz estabelece diferenças de linhagens, notadamente em função do critério: horizontalidade versus verticalidade. Para o escritor, a guerra é a marca constitutiva do ser humano, e a Europa, um campo de tensões permanentes, do qual a França representa o pólo civilizador, por encarnar a defesa do ser e do humanismo integral. Fiel à sua atitude inicial, Ramuz privilegia os indivíduos que estariam unidos pelo consenso que a arte criaria, mais do que pela pertença a uma nacionalidade.

Reforms in the French power system: from weak contestability to effective competition?

One way to introduce competition in the power industries is to preserve the integration of the incumbent companies and to organise the access of potential competitors to the network on a fair basis. But the combination of hierarchy and bilateral contracts between entrants (IPP candidates, foreign producers, intermediaries), suppliers and consumers appears to be unstable because of permanent tensions between the incumbent's dominant position and fair competition. Moreover, in an institutional environment enlarged by the supranational powers of the European Union, heterogeneity of rules and structures between quasi-integrated power industries and decentralised competitive ones are sources of permanent questioning. The paper analyses the stability of the recent reform of the French power industry, the extreme integration of which being deeply rooted in the French institutional peculiarities, has been weakly affected by the Directive 96/92 transcription. Two institutional scenarios are defined, which give a different weight to two competition paradigms in conflicts: one pertains to the industrial policy (which inclines to preserve hierarchy in the national area to gain national champion's competitive advantages in the European as in the global field), and the other to the neo-classical paradigm of effective competition. In the first scenario, the integration of the industrial organisation is preserved but with transparent grid access rules supposed to create an actual market contestability, and the playing field is the continental Europe on which national champions compete. In the second one, the French industrial organisation has to conform to the competitive model, with vertical and horizontal disintegration and creation of a power exchange market for promoting competition. But this scenario is heavily strained by the institutional determinism of the nuclear legacy. The future reality should be set between these two scenarios.