Postmodern Perspective Research Articles

Constructing, understanding and interpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe: A postmodern perspective

Energy poverty is well acknowledged in the global public and scholarly discussions. Nonetheless, it is habitually analysed in isolation from the discourse through which it is framed, produced, represented and known. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, inductive qualitative research reveals that there is one main discourse associated with energy poverty: net deficit (supply–demand mismatch). This discourse is expressed by narratives that have competed for dominance in the Zimbabwean energy sector (2012-present), in particular, the effect of changes in the climate, vandalism of electricity infrastructure, the impact of sanctions, and the low rate of renewable energy adoption, are analysed. Findings reveal that these narratives construct and interpret energy poverty as an outcome of external factors, while alternative views are scarcely considered due to asymmetrical power relations. The paper concludes that energy poverty cannot be understood outside of the political-economic discourse that constructs and interprets it. Hence, a discursive approach to energy poverty is apt for informing a well-balanced energy policy and practice.

Factors Shaping Labour Market Participation

Like other postmodern structures, post-industrial labour markets display more frequent and rapid changes and higher unpredictability. In these conditions, the world of work is less capable in providing individuals stable signals for the construction of their behaviours. This paper aims to examine both macro and micro factors that shape labour market participation and expectations related to employment outcomes. We explore statistical data from the World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017-2020) collected from almost seventy thousands individuals around the world. Focusing on subjective evaluations of expected employment outcomes, our results are relevant for better understanding labour market participation from a postmodern perspective.

Bulgarian School – Showcase of Identity

The text was built on the concept of “showcase of identity” developed by the French ethnologist Jocelyne Bonnet-Carbonell. In the context of this metaphor, the types of identity of Bulgarian school have been described in a postmodern perspective. The aim is to make a parallel between them and to indicate the possible, actual and necessary choice of the Bulgarian school in constructing its own identity. As a document and “commodity”, the “showcase of identity” of the school institution is the opportunity to gain insight not only of the visible field of education that is to be sold, but also of the invisible one, which must be kept and preserved as a spiritual substance.

Imitation and intangibility: postmodern perspectives on restoration and authenticity at the Hill House Box, Scotland

ABSTRACT Restoration is often problematised within built heritage practice as an inauthentic activity of imitation. This is symptomatic of a Western focus on physical heritage sites, which is underpinned by an amalgam of scientific materialism and visual aesthetics. Situated within a postmodern conceptualisation of heritage as increasingly dynamic, social and intangible, this study suggests the relationship between restoration and authenticity is increasingly out of step with contemporary perspectives and would benefit from a critical gaze. Drawing on Baudrillard’s theory of ‘hyperreality’, this study makes space for two key concepts within the built heritage paradigm: authenticity as emergent and fluid; and the legitimisation of imitation as a valid activity. Together, these are explored in relation to the restoration of the Hill House, Scotland, and its encapsulation within the ‘Hill House Box’. From a postmodern, Baudrillardian outlook, the site becomes a dynamic performance between the restored building (a tangible ‘simulation’ of an idealised essence) and the users of the Hill House Box (an intangible, ritualised experience). Consequently, this demonstrates how the amalgamation of imitation and intangibility can overcome binary views of original/copy; authentic/inauthentic, resulting in the creation of emergent authenticity and aura that the Box both creates and is engulfed within.

The Queerness in Shikhandi: Concerning Devdutt Pattanaik’s Shikhandi and Other Queer Tales They Don’t Tell You

Queer theory is a realm of critical theory that developed within/in the early 1990s, out of the fields of queer studies and women's studies. Shikhandi is an important character in the Mahabharata. Hindu tales have many references to queerness; one among them is the story of Shikhandi, a woman who became a man. The gender of Shikhandi is a controversial subject, in epics especially in Mahabharata, men are considered as great warriors, full of masculinity and resilience. But while approaching the text from a postmodernist perspective, we can analyze the gender of Shikhandi as the ‘other gender’, Mahabharata, which means great India have much popularity in India, as Homer’s poems over the Greeks. This paper seeks to examine, how the character of Shikhandi in Mahabharata,who is neglected in the society, the queerness in Shikhandi which is flexible and fluid made him/her a remarkable character in the great epic.

Tug-of-War: the Pull of Formal Institutional Practices and Structures and the Desire for Personal Change

This scholarship utilized self-study methodology to examine the first author’s experience as a non-formal educator and non-formal teacher educator within the context of making and tinkering with elementary-aged students and university students. Through analysis of multiple forms of data, tensions arose and took shape through my interactions with both sets of students as we navigated and negotiated our roles and actions within two activity systems—a formal learning environment (i.e. university course) and a non-formal learning environment (i.e. the makerspace). These tensions included (a) the framing and implementation of the making task, (b) my authority and power as the making “expert” and teacher educator, and (c) undergraduate students’ lack of competence and knowledge in making and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The push and pull or tug-of-war of my personal existence within and between the 2 activity systems are highlighted within these tensions as my ways of being were bounded and constrained by formal schooling practices and structures. The tensions should challenge teacher educators to consider the role of non-formal educators in shaping how we work with students of all ages. This involves developing and maintaining shared practices, knowledges, and discourses (i.e. third space), and an understanding of how postmodern perspectives may uncover our notions of “education.”

The Practice of Experimental Psychology: An Inevitably Postmodern Endeavor.

The aim of psychology is to understand the human mind and behavior. In contemporary psychology, the method of choice to accomplish this incredibly complex endeavor is the experiment. This dominance has shaped the whole discipline from the self-concept as an empirical science and its very epistemological and theoretical foundations, via research practice and the scientific discourse to teaching. Experimental psychology is grounded in the scientific method and positivism, and these principles, which are characteristic for modern thinking, are still upheld. Despite this apparently stalwart adherence to modern principles, experimental psychology exhibits a number of aspects which can best be described as facets of postmodern thinking although they are hardly acknowledged as such. Many psychologists take pride in being “real natural scientists” because they conduct experiments, but it is particularly difficult for psychologists to evade certain elements of postmodern thinking in view of the specific nature of their subject matter. Postmodernism as a philosophy emerged in the 20th century as a response to the perceived inadequacy of the modern approach and as a means to understand the complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions of the times. Therefore, postmodernism offers both valuable insights into the very nature of experimental psychology and fruitful ideas on improving experimental practice to better reflect the complexities and ambiguities of human mind and behavior. Analyzing experimental psychology along postmodern lines begins by discussing the implications of transferring the scientific method from fields with rather narrowly defined phenomena—the natural sciences—to a much broader and more heterogeneous class of complex phenomena, namely the human mind and behavior. This ostensibly modern experimental approach is, however, per se riddled with postmodern elements: (re-)creating phenomena in an experimental setting, including the hermeneutic processes of generating hypotheses and interpreting results, is no carbon copy of “reality” but rather an active construction which reflects irrevocably the pre-existing ideas of the investigator. These aspects, analyzed by using postmodern concepts like hyperreality and simulacra, did not seep in gradually but have been present since the very inception of experimental psychology, and they are necessarily inherent in its philosophy of science. We illustrate this theoretical analysis with the help of two examples, namely experiments on free will and visual working memory. The postmodern perspective reveals some pitfalls in the practice of experimental psychology. Furthermore, we suggest that accepting the inherently fuzzy nature of theoretical constructs in psychology and thinking more along postmodern lines would actually clarify many theoretical problems in experimental psychology.

A Sustainable Service-Learning Program Embedded in PETE: Examining the Short-Term Influence on Preservice Teacher Outcomes

Background: Studies have acknowledged the limitations of short-term service-learning programs. This highlights the importance of examining the influence of evidence-informed sustainable service-learning programs on preservice teachers’ learning outcomes. Purpose: To explore the short-term influence of a sustainable service-learning program on first-year physical education teacher education (PETE) preservice teachers. Methods: Written reflections from 15 students (73% women and 27% men) in the first year of a PETE course were analyzed using Butin’s conceptual model. Results: The service-learning experiences allowed first-year PETE preservice teachers to extend and refine their general pedagogical content, curriculum, and policy knowledge. However, PETE preservice teachers’ learning was limited in terms of cultural, political, and postmodern perspectives. Discussion: This study provides recommendations for improving preservice teachers’ learning in a sustainable service-learning program embedded in a PETE course.

Deconstruction of sustainable development discourses: avoiding skepticism pitfalls with a postmodern perspective

Deconstruction of sustainable development discourses: avoiding skepticism pitfalls with a postmodern perspective

Postmodern Perspective towards Human Health and Illness

Health and illness, as widely used terms in postmodern society leave a wide scope as to their definition and conceptual interpretation. The medico-technical perspective refers to health and illness as objective changes in the structure and functioning of the human body and mind, as a result of which the bodily and mental integrity of the human organism is affected detrimentally. On the contrary, the social sciences, and especially medical sociology, define health and illness essentially in terms of the social system within which they occur. The main task of medical sociology is to pay attention to those social systemic and sociocultural aspects of health and illness which are sometimes grossly neglected or insufficiently understood by the medical sciences, thereby to contribute to a comprehensive approach to these phenomena.This study is based on review of the related literature to postmodern perspective towards health and illness. The aim of this study is to explore the postmodernist perspective towards health and illness. Thus, I will be exploring the various concepts of health and illness and also explain the postmodern perspectives of health and illness in different ways.

An overview of Family Therapies in Solution-Focused Therapy Approach

In traditional therapy methods, it is believed that the problem can be eliminated by exploring what is the giving rise to the problem. But there is no a such goal in solution-focused therapy (SFT). The SFT has a postmodern perspective and denies that there is a general passing objective reality for everyone. Accordingly, as in many therapy approaches with a phenomenological perspective, it focuses on how the existing problem is perceived by people. Many of the clients want quick and tactable output from the therapies. SFT emphasizes the adequate aspects of, strength within, and the possibilities available to clients rather than inadequacies, weaknessess and limited aspects with an aim to solve problems in shorter time periods. The therapist collaborates with the client, acknowledging that it is the best way to focus on the clients' existing strengths and resources. Although the emphasis is placed on the positive outcomes of this method on children, adolescents and adults, the main starting point is families. Having a problem in any of the members in the family can affect the whole family. Therefore, finding solutions to the problems of any of the family members will also positively affect the whole family. The most authentic aspect of the SFT is that the solution is found by the clients, not the therapist. This review focuses on how to apply solution-focused therapies with families / couples and research outcomes. Keywords Solution focused therapy, family theraphy, postmodern therapy approach

홉스의 근대주의 인간관에 기반한 종교관 연구

The aim of this paper is to study the view of religion based on Hobbes’ modernist human view. Hobbes established a modern view of humanity in the midst of new trends in the Reformation and the development of natural science. At the time of scholasticism, Hobbes tried to see the world through the eyes of modern science, and the paradigm of scholastic thought changed in this background. This paper first examined the process of establishing a modern human view, starting with the formalization of his mechanistic view of nature. This paper considered that the theme of his thought can be approached through the concept of ‘the movement’. Therefore, he explained how Hobbs’ kinematic mechanism is related to humanism through the concept of ‘Conatus’. Next, in the light of the materialistic view of humanity, this paper tried to examine Hobbes’ view of religion. This paper reviewed how Hobbs reinterprets the first philosophy while criticizing Aristotleism and Scholastic metaphysics, and critically examines materialistic views and nominalistic views. Furthermore, the paper wanted to criticize Hobbes’ modernism from a postmodern perspective. There will be a need for further discussion in the 21C of the postmodern era when approaching from the perspective of modern science.

1990~2000년대 한국의 산수화 : 진경(眞景) 신화의 해체와 재구성

This analysis of the Korean landscape painting in the 1990s and 2000s focuses on three issues in particular. First, its relation to true-view landscape painting (Korean: Jinkyoungsansu-hwa), which has been mentioned ever since modern times. Second, the dismantling of dichotomies between tradition and modern, Koreanity and contemporaneity, East Asian landscape painting (Chinese: shanshui-hua, Korean: sansu-hwa) and Western landscape painting, which was driven by pluralization in postmodern perspective. Third, the geographical change between the landscape paintings of the 1990s and 2000s.<BR> When the Europeans first encountered the traditional landscape painting of East Asia, their frame of reference was set to Western standards. On the basis of Eurocentrism, they regarded the East Asian concept of landscape in the same light as the Western landscape and diluted its original philosophical and ethical context. This might have been the natural consequence of cultural differences. However, East Asian landscape painting has a much longer history and shows both similarities and differences with the Western landscape painting. On the other hand, East Asians are prone to understand the Western landscape painting in the context of their own landscape painting, but this approach obviously has its own limits as well.<BR> The most critical problem was created during the Japanese occupation period in Korea. Around that time, the traditional Korean landscape painting went through the modernization process and the cultural and aesthetic concepts from the Western world, Japan, and Korea got mixed together within it. The influence of that incident prevailed in the 20th century and is still valid today. However, continuity does not always guarantee permanency. In conclusion, this paper suggests “deconstructing and reconstituting” as a keyword to explain landscape painting around the 2000s.

Postmodern laughter as an anti-foundational agent

Laughter has been viewed as an ironical tool in the postmodern world of subversion, playfulness, and parody. The contemporary age of postmodernism has a great comic spirit in its trends which challenges the established foundations. The present study is an attempt to demonstrate the function of laughter as an anti-foundational agent from a postmodernist perspective in the two novels, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and The Joke by Milan Kundera. The essence of anti-foundational laughter has been explored through the lens of three theories of laughter; The Incongruity Theory by Arthur Schopenhauer, The Anti-Mechanical Theory by Henri Bergson, The Super-Laughter Theory by Friedrich Nietzsche. The selected novels have been analysed to highlight the function of laughter as a powerful source of challenge, distortion, and change which help challenge the religious, political and social foundations. It has shown a new perspective of laughter and has opened new facades of postmodernism in traditional theories of laughter as well as in the selected novels.

Socio-cultural Positioning of Age Identities in Picturebooks

This study explores literal and metaphorical narrations of age by looking closely at two picturebooks published at the turn of the twenty-first century. The evolutionary Western understanding of the child, childhood and children’s literature is briefly periodized as a tension between pragmatic and philosophical concerns. Representations of age are taken to be embedded in socio-cultural positions that implicate historical periods, geographic locations, and economic structures. Ethnicity and gender are similarly discussed as immanent features. Age is presented as much a biological phenomenon as a performative social act of a given culture. The ideas, feelings and events depicted in each picturebook are approached from a structuralist and a postmodernist perspective with the aim of providing a complementary analysis of child representations in alignment with the adult presence, and not necessarily through the lens of aetonomativity. My analysis points to possible applications of the design of age narrations to current and future literacies.

Impact of Organizational Climate

In search of a pleasant and productive environment, the restlessness of studying about organizational climate was generated - "What is it? And for what?" - in the current times, and highlight their contributions. The objectives were: (i) To study its representativeness; (ii) To know the factors that indicate where to start the observations regarding the organizational climate; (iii) To recognize that the organizational climate is an indicator of analyses of its own interactivity. The study is justified due to the attention that employees have been receiving from leaders in their work space in accordance with organizational guidelines, in a globalized context that due to its aspects identified post-modern perspectives according to Zygmunt Bauman (2011) who stated: "we are living in liquid times. Nothing has been done to last". These guidelines are the result of observations of a more demanding scenario based on the quality of services and development of labor, which contributes to accelerated production and, above all, dynamics. The research is characterized as bibliographic with an exploratory aspect, for the interaction of the problem with a qualitative proposal. The researches raised portray that the organizational climate is revealed from the impacts of attitudes of a set of behaviors that can come from the predominant culture in the organization, through the actions and reactions of the members (collaborators, members, individuals) of the staff and the way of leading. Therefore, managers and members should keep themselves updated regarding the design of attitudes and behaviors to sustain a satisfactory organizational climate. Within this premise, they should be aware of the behaviors that determine the impacts that influence behaviors, especially. It is also noted that the decision on the style of leadership developed exercises changes in the organizational climate that may arise in a positive or negative way depending on the expectations and interpretation of employees, through the manner of management of the leader.Â

The Hemispheric Approach of Julia Alvarez’s Novels

This article analyses three novels by Julia Alvarez–How the García Girls Lost their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and In the Name of Salomé (2000)– through the lenses of Hemispheric American Studies. Inspired by the teachings of Antonio Benítez-Rojo’s theoretical work The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective (1992), I contend that the categorisation of these novels as Latino literature is not enough to describe all of their richness. These novels portray throughout their pages social, political, and artistic relations that tie all of the Americas together, and their analysis benefits from the essays written by Caribbean post-essentialist critics who developed, during the 1990s, a discourse based on the cultural supersyncretism of the islands that helps us to understand the postmodern globalised worlds as it stands. The novels by Alvarez reflect these theories, as they portray the realities of a New World constricted by the workings of race and racism, capitalism, and postcolonialism.

Narrative Identity: Formation Mechanism

The article discusses interpretations of identity from a postmodern perspective. A three-level model of personality is used to represent the methodological framework for analyzing identity. From a postmodern perspective, personal identity is defined as a socio-cultural representation. Narrative identity is formed through dialogic interaction, which results in the integration and internalization of life experience

THE ANALYSIS OF JOKER FILM AS AN ANTI-HERO NARRATIVE IN THE CONCEPT OF POSTMODERNITY

Todd Philips’in yönetmenliğini yaptığı Joker filminde ünlü süperkahraman Batman’in ezeli düşmanı ve karşıtı olarak yaratılan Joker’in her zamanki gibi bir cani olarak değil, geçmiş hayatındaki gerçek kimliği Arthur Fleck üzerinden, yaşadığı yabancılaşmış toplumun ve tekinsiz kent atmosferinin etkisi altında bir anti-kahraman olarak tasarlandığı görülür. Dünya çapında 1 milyar dolar hasılatı geçen filmin popülaritesinin temelinde, kitlelerin Joker’i bir anti-kahraman olarak benimseyip performansını kendileriyle özdeşleştirebilmeleri bulunur. Filmdeki başkişinin hikâyesi, klasik kahraman anlatılarından farklıdır. Tarihin her döneminde kahraman anlatıları mevcut olmuş, ancak anlatılarda çoğu zaman tıpkı Batman ve Joker arasında olduğu gibi kahramanın kötülüğe ya da cani bir karaktere karşı olan mücadelesi genellikle iyi-kötü ekseninde olmak üzere zıt ikilikler düzleminde ele alınmıştır. Bürokratik modernitenin çöküşüyle beraber, postmodern dönemde kitlelerin kahraman arayışları değişime uğrar. Böylece klasik anlamdaki kahraman, hikayelerdeki başkişi rolünü 21. Yüzyılda postmodern çağda kitlelerle daha çok bağ kurabilen anti-kahramana bırakmaya başlamıştır. Hakikatin kaybolduğu, iyi ve kötü arasındaki ayrımın aşındığı ve kitle iletişim araçlarının simülasyon olan iletilerinin gerçeğin yerini aldığı postmodern dönemde anti-kahramanların popülerleştiği görülür. Bu çalışmada, Joker filmindeki başkişi Arthur Fleck’in filmdeki Joker personasına dönüşümü modernite – postmodernite eksenindeki toplumsal gelişmelerin hikâye anlatılarındaki ve kahramanın dönüşümündeki rolünü ortaya koyarak incelenecek ve filmdeki imgelerle söylemlerin postmodern perspektiften bir eleştirisi gerçekleştirilecektir.

Winterbach’s Spyt and Scholtz’s production: An expression of a postmodern impasse

Some scholars have declared metamodernism to be postmodernism’s successor, and Afrikaans novelist Ingrid Winterbach’s work has been argued to be an example of this distinct move away from the postmodern paradigm. However, in this article I present the alternative interpretation that Winterbach’s play, Spyt (Regret), rather represents postmodernism’s inability to give way to its successor. An investigation from a postmodern perspective leads me to conclude that, in both the text and performance of this play (directed by Brink Scholtz), an escape from the postmodern paradigm entails the end of all representation. Winterbach reduces all of the characters’ endeavours to surfaces which become parodies. All their experiences are commodified and any attempt at uncovering a deeper meaning to life is undermined by ridicule. Winterbach furthermore draws attention to some of her characters’ limited vocabulary and reliance on English loanwords. This culminates in a powerful scene where the loanword ‘awesome’ is repeated to the extent that it becomes simultaneously meaningless and indispensable; a tension that she does not resolve. In addition, the crossing of the boundary between life and death, which has been described as postmodernism’s final frontier, is portrayed by relying on an obsolete narrative. The play therefore suggests a postmodern impasse, rather than a move towards a new paradigm. an a move towards a new paradigm.