Primary Reference Point Research Articles

How does religion influence an emerging nationalism? Evidence from the Kurdish context in Turkey

AbstractBased on qualitative interviews with 66 Sunni Muslim Kurdish elites, this study reveals that Kurdish Islamic circles in Turkey are not monolithic, homogeneous or fixed. Some willingly or unwillingly maintain their Islamic identity as a primary reference point for self‐consciousness, motivation for collective action and political aspirations, often at the expense of ethnopolitical mobilization. Others combine Kurdish national claims with an Islamic orientation, pursuing a path of coexistence between the secular and the religious in the expedition towards nationhood. In the competitive interplay between religion and nationalism, Islam acts as a restraining force on the rise of national sentiment among Muslim Kurds. In the symbiotic interplay, Islam no longer serves as an obstacle to delay Kurdish mobilization but rather accommodates secular norms and values in favour of welcoming national zeals.

Reframing acute kidney injury as a pathophysiological continuum of disrupted renal excretory function.

Surrogate measures of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) continue to serve as pivotal determinants of the incidence, severity, and management of acute kidney injury (AKI), as well as the primary reference point underpinning knowledge of its pathophysiology. However, several clinically important deficits in aspects of renal excretory function during AKI other than GFR decline, including acid-base regulation, electrolyte and water balance, and urinary concentrating capacity, can evade detection when diagnostic criteria are built around purely GFR-based assessments. The use of putative markers of tubular injury to detect "sub-clinical" AKI has been proposed to expand the definition and diagnostic criteria for AKI, but their diagnostic performance is curtailed by ambiguity with respect to their biological meaning and context specificity. Efforts to devise new holistic assessments of overall renal functional compromise in AKI would foster the capacity to better personalize patient care by replacing biomarker threshold-based diagnostic criteria with a shift to assessment of compromise along a pathophysiological continuum. The term AKI refers to a syndrome of sudden renal deterioration, the severity of which is classified by precise diagnostic criteria that have unquestionable utility in patient management as well as blatant limitations. Particularly, the absence of an explicit pathophysiological definition of AKI curtails further scientific development and clinical handling, entrapping the field within its present narrow GFR-based view. A refreshed approach based on a more holistic consideration of renal functional impairment in AKI as the basis for a new diagnostic concept that reaches beyond the boundaries imposed by the current GFR threshold-based classification of AKI, capturing broader aspects of pathogenesis, could enhance AKI prevention strategies and improve AKI patient outcome and prognosis.

The Monopoly of Economic Justice: Judges versus arbitrators

The article explores the relationships between state economic courts represented by judges and arbitration courts as a manifestation of the conflict between public and private justice. The consequences of changes in state policy after the arbitration reform of 2015–2017 are discussed. Firstly, through the lens of Bourdieu’s perspective, the key factors influencing the emergence of a negative attitude in the judicial environment towards private justice are analyzed. Secondly, the establishment of the specialization of a particular subgroup of judges from the appellate instance of arbitration courts, who year after year deal with cases related to arbitration courts, is examined. During the empirical part of the research and interviews with judges from the appellate instances, it was found that their primary reference point, in addition to the law and personal convictions, is the orientation towards the higher court — the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, where one judge largely determines the courts’ policy towards arbitration courts. Judges exhibit normative isomorphism, as similar experiences and practices prompt them to adopt similar strategies to protect their field from private justice. The article is the result of qualitative research based on interviews. Based on the assumption of the homogenization of the judicial sphere and judges’ defensive tactics to protect their field from external, private courts using institutional analysis and Bourdieu’s theories of fields and capital, the conclusion is drawn that judges of state courts tend to accumulate symbolic capital. This allows them to act as the only possible interpreters of legal norms — monopolists of justice. Through the lens of isomorphism theory, the conclusion is drawn that state courts implement the practice of coercive isomorphism, which has no other goals except forcing private courts to mimic state courts.

EEthnicity: Social media, Italian Americans, and Cultural Identity

This study seeks to determine the relationship between social media and various generations of the Italian American community. It also aims to understand if various types of social media posts affect Italian Americans differently depending on their age. Presenting social media as a new host culture for Italian Americans where their ethnic identity serves as their primary point of reference as they navigate the digital world, this study also attempts to determine exactly how effective social media can be seen as a tool for discovering and learning more about one’s ethnic heritage. This study was performed via a quantitative survey of 110 respondents, with certain results analyzed via both chi-square tests of independence and Pearson correlation coefficients. Study outcomes assert that an individual’s self-concept is built on cultural, social, and personal identities, with all three working together to form a person’s overall identity. Survey respondents showed a strong cultural tie to their Italian American heritage that affected their personal identity to the point where they felt it was necessary to seek out Italian American-related content on social media. By participating in Italian American social media sites as either a fan or consumer of content, the respondents showed a social identity in which their cultural and personal identities play a defining role. The respondents’ cultural identity was used as the social context within which they operate, showing that it does influence how they interact with social media content.

Student Organisations: State of the Art and Perspectives for Future Research

Theoretical background: The management of student organisations is still unexplored and full of issues requiring an in-depth analysis. Along with the development and unification of management processes at universities, matters related to students’ pro-academic activities assume new significance and often require revision and proper ordering. Purpose of the article: This article presents the results of the bibliometric analysis of developing issues related to student organisations. Research methods: The primary reference points are journals and publications released in the Web of Science database in 1900–2022. The obtained data were used to perform bibliometric analysis, including the number of publications, authorship and co-authorship, citations, publishing journals, thematic categories, institutions, countries and keywords. The research drew from 506 publications related to the analysed subject, whose citation frequency amounted to 4,548. Main findings: The bibliometric analysis performed showed that the priority of the issues addressed about student organisations is not only the development and improvement of their classifications but also broadly defined ethnic groups and their membership in relevant bodies. There was also no shortage of issues related to LGBT-oriented groups as centres for self acceptance. However, other essential elements, such as the management of student organisations, are missing from the topics covered. This research gap in the administrative field reveals the extent to which the topic of student organisations is a topic and area that is underexplored and unexplored.

“Nonsensical” Caring in Ali Smith’s Fiction and Its Kierkegaardian Defence

The present paper considers the possible sense of “nonsensical” caring—caring (1) which for various reasons apparently cannot help the cared-for, and (2) in which the carer, though convinced that it will not be effective, whole-heartedly engages. The project is inspired by the fiction of Ali Smith, which offers varied, vivid and memorable examples of such caring: worried that her dead sister misses life experience, Clare in Hotel World makes sure her sensations are doubly intense and rich though she knows her sister, being dead, will not benefit from them; in Summer Hannah and Daniel write to each other tender letters which they immediately burn for safety’s sake so that the addressee has not even the slightest chance of ever reading them; in “Virtual” a bed-ridden girl diligently takes care of her virtual pet, well aware that it is not alive, let alone sentient. Smith’s examples of “nonsensical” caring are strangely compelling, yet in real life such caring—predictably ineffective (as regards helping the other) and costly—is rare. Why? Under what metaphysical assumptions, if any, could “nonsensical” caring make sense? The paper considers these questions, taking Søren Kierkegaard’s extensive discussion of agape love in Works of Love (1847) as its primary point of reference.

Birthing Waters: An Anglican View of Baptismal Regeneration

AbstractIn what sense do Anglicans believe in baptismal regeneration? This article contends that according to historic Anglicanism, baptism effectually regenerates those who faithfully receive it. While this is a disputed claim even among Anglicans, it is consistent with the formularies of the Church of England, and it largely represents a predominant position held by Anglicans across the centuries. Article XXVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion will serve as the primary point of reference for assessing the above question. The following study is organized in three sections that respectively address: (1) the sacramental efficacy of baptism; (2) the regenerative nature of baptism; and (3) the need for faith to accompany baptism. Each section examines diverse historical expressions relevant to these doctrines in light of their scriptural basis. A brief reflection on infant baptism concludes the paper.

Safavid Twelver Lettrism Between Sunnism and Shiʿism, Mysticism and Science: Rajab al-Bursī vs. Maḥmūd Dihdār

ABSTRACT This comparative case study takes up the examples of two Twelver lettrists, who together became two of the most important occultist authorities of the high Safavid period: al-Ḥāfiẓ Rajab al-Bursī (d. after 1410) and Maḥmūd Dihdār Shīrāzī (fl. 1576). Their projects are intimately connected, and can only be historiographically explained in tandem. Yet the first has been celebrated in the literature as a passionate, semi-extremist Twelver mystic, and the second—a sober, experimentalist Twelver occult scientist—totally elided. Nor has any study to date identified both authors’ primary point of scholarly reference: the New Brethren of Purity network of imperial Timurid and Ottoman Pythagoreanizing occultists radiating from late Mamluk Cairo, capital of the lettrist renaissance to which they were consciously heir. To correct such elisions and imbalances, we must forswear the persistent scientistic-cum-religionist dogma that vanishes lettrism and other mainstream occult sciences into the wastebasket, apolitical category that is ‘mysticism,’ thus exiling much of Safavid intellection from early modern history of philosophy, of science and of empire. For al-Bursī, taking a page from his contemporaries the New Brethren, is the first Shiʿi author to draw directly on Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) and Aḥmad al-Būnī (d. btw. 1225–33) both, the two foremost Sunni lettrists of the later Islamicate scholarly tradition, representing lettrist theory and lettrist praxis respectively; and Dihdār—the most prolific Persian author on practical Būnian lettrism of the sixteenth century, and hence immediate inspiration for the al-Bursī cult of the next—provides us an invaluable window onto how Safavid philosophy was actually imperially, occult-scientifically practiced, as well as the evolution of the Western grimoire tradition as a whole.

Uncertainty in Early German Romanticism

This introduction explores how uncertainty was used as a poetic and philosophical tool around 1800. It first sets up the historical context for the appropriation of uncertainty by underscoring the philosophical interest in challenging the foundations of knowledge. It then focuses on German Romanticism, using the writings of Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel as its primary reference point for an analysis of the poetic and philosophical implications of uncertainty. The authors argue that the work of these two writers presents a philosophical engagement with uncertainty as a problem in its own right and a desire to connect uncertainty to important romantic concepts such as chaos and hypothesis. The introduction concludes with an emphasis on Schlegel’s contributions to the problem of uncertainty.

Disasters in the Anthropocene: a storm in a teacup?

Dramatic alterations to the natural environment due to human activity have produced a permanent rupture in the Earth system; the relative stable epoch of the Holocene has given way to a volatile Anthropocene. Acceptance of these claims means that we now live in this altered physical reality, inviting us to rethink how we conceptualise disasters. Yet, disaster scholars have been hesitant to apply the Anthropocene label and to acknowledge the profound changes that it can bring to the study of disasters. This paper queries whether this label is a necessary adage or unnecessary baggage for disaster studies by examining the possibilities and the challenges associated with engaging with the Anthropocene. An analysis of the concepts, causes, and consequences of disasters reveals how the Anthropocene provides, as the very least, a theoretical heuristic for challenging linear temporal assumptions, the epistemological status of uncertainty, and the location of agency in disaster studies.

Kinship and belonging: Pacific children’s perspectives on the diaspora

Our study with 71 children aged 6-14 living in New Zealand and Samoa, provides a new child-centred perspective on transnational diasporic families. We use the Pacific concept vā to frame the study, in which children’s transnational-kinship connections reflect relational rather than physical approaches to space. Familial habitus surpasses spatial habitus as children’s primary reference point. For diasporic children, family keeps alive their sense of Pacific Island belonging. Transnational kinship ties give Pacific children additional resilience in adapting to unknown futures.

RETHINKING THE PEDIGREES OF AFRICAN CULTURAL WATERSHED: A POST-COLONIAL INQUEST NTO CHINUA ACHEBE’S ARROW OF GOD

The African cultural identities have undergone earth-shattering shifts from the precolonial epoch to the colonial and post-colonial periods. It is the colonial empire that advented in the African continent in the 15th century and attempted to erode and stigmatise African cultural practices as part of its mission to take control of Africa. Despite Africa being under a democratic administration today, African cultural identities are still marginalised, chiefly, by colonial remnants that have not yet been successfully uprooted. Thus, this paper aims to re-anatomise the African cultural identity-crises in the present day from the onset of colonialism on the continent. It utilises a qualitative approach and crystallises this African cultural watershed from a literary perspective. Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God is purposively sampled for the paper as a primary reference point by dint of its conformity to the main theme of the study. The paper, comprehensively, blames the enduring colonial fragments in the present day for the African cultural identity-crises as they hinder decolonisation and peril African cultures. The colonial legacies in Africa today, like in the colonial times, are found to be championing Western identities at the expense of African cultural identities, hence, the latter is still menaced.

The applicability of prospect theory in examining drivers’ trip decisions, in response to Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) rates adjustments - a study using travel data in Singapore

The Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system in Singapore has been in operations since 1998 and has seen consistent levels of success in managing traffic in this city-state with high vehicle usage and limited land space. With the ERP rates reviewed quarterly and adjusted for the relevant 30-min periods based on speeds criteria, the volume of data collected through the years has enabled a closer look at how motorists behave with rate increases or decreases, and how these travel behaviors compare with the established consumer behavior phenomenon of loss aversions and the theory of diminished sensitivity. This paper studied 33 rate changes across 6 expressway ERP pricing gantries between the years of 2012 and 2018, and derived precise observations of travel behavior changes. The data showed that frequent car drivers tend to make more deliberate choices on whether to leave or stay on their routes. Frequent car drivers are defined as those who drive past that gantry at least 60% of the weekdays in that month (proportionally around 3 weekdays per week). We also affirmed that loss aversion theory is exhibited in road pricing through the higher demand elasticities observed from $1 rate increases as compared to the $1 rate reductions. Interestingly however, the theory of diminishing sensitivity did not seem to drive traveler’s decisions here. Instead, Singapore drivers appeared to have assessed their trip decisions based on two reference points during rate increases; a primary reference point of $2 and a reasonable reference point of $5.

The Spirit of Al-Gazali against Capitalism in Pandemic Covid-19 Era

Capitalist behavior was unavoidable when the co-19 outbreak struck. Panic buying at a number of shopping centers, as well as hoarding of healthcare supplies such as masks and sanitizers, are all manifestations of capitalism’s selfish behavior. This essay stressed the critical importance of ethics in all parts of behavior, including economic activity, in order to dissuade such behavior. This study took a qualitative method, with Al-Gazali’s Sufistic thinking serving as the primary reference point. This study took a sociological perspective. The primary data collection took place over the course of one week at Lakessi traditional market, Sejahtera store, Alfamidi Weke branch, Indomaret Weke branch, Kimia Farma Andi Makkasau Pharmacy, Kimia Farma Pharmacy, Bau Massepe Pharmacy, and Indah Farma Pharmacy. Interviews corroborated the findings. Additionally, this study utilized secondary data from Al-Gazali’s work Ihya Ulumiddin and contemporary research. More precisely, when the sickness struck, Al-Gazali’s beliefs acted as a check on capitalist behavior. The qadr al-hajah and ihsan were revealed to be the most critical aspects in encouraging sharing and caring while simultaneously minimizing panic buying and hoarding. This article is expected to contribute to the scientific riches of the Co-19 Era and to fill the moral hole produced by capitalism.

Legitimating a religion through culture: revisiting Peter Clarke’s discussion on the globalisation of Japanese new religions

ABSTRACT Peter Clarke’s work on the globalisation of Japanese new religions in the West remains a primary point of reference in this field. Despite its ground-breaking contribution, there needs to be a re-evaluation of his conclusion, which considers Japanese cultural elements of these religious groups as a hindrance to local adaptation in the West. This article revisits his claim by strategically focusing on a religious group known as Tenrikyō, which has been described by Clarke as a primary example of unsuccessful Japanese new religions in the West due to its strong association with Japanese traditional culture. This study highlights the group’s approach to use Japanese culture as a resource for increasing its public visibility and legitimacy in France, an initiative which coincided with a period of growing interest in the Japanese language and popular culture as well as the cult controversy in the country. By analysing the promotion of Japanese culture as a non-religious strategy of legitimation, if not competition, this study argues that the implications of particular cultural elements associated with a religious group need to be assessed in the light of the social dynamics of legitimation and delegitimation in a given context.

Correlation between the principle of justice and legal axioms

The objects of this research are the principle of justice as a universal fundamental, cornerstone and key cohesive general legal superprinciple and the legal axioms as transmitters of most objectified legal justice reflected in simple and clear formulations. The subject of this research is correlation between the aforementioned concepts, which allows looking at the problem of indeterminacy of the content of the principle of justice from a new perspective, namely through indicating the violation of legal axioms as one of criterions of ultimate injustice. Methodological framework is comprised of the general scientific methods of deduction, induction, analysis and synthesis, as well as sociological method of content analysis used examination of the materials of law enforcement practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The work yielded the following results: 1) substantiation is made on the key role of the principle of justice in law as a whole; 2) an original definition is given to the legal axioms ; 3) demarcation is drawn between legal axioms and legal principles in accordance with the criteria of external manifestation, evidence of conformity or nonconformity, nature of action, and depending on the presence or absence of systemic links, which is important from theoretical and practical perspectives, 4) a direct correlation is established between noncompliance with legal axioms and the loss of baseline claim to justice by legal regulation. The theoretical novelty of this work consists in the fact that legal axioms that establish the generally accepted imperative rules are viewed as a primary reference point for resolving the issue on possible violation of the principle of justice

Metode Penetapan Waktu Salat Menurut Dewan Syariah Wahdah Islamiyah

This study aimed to identify and recognize the correct method in determining shari prayer times according to Sharia Board of Wahdah Islamiyah. The issues in this study were; First, Islamic jurisprudence and the position of the sun being the main point of reference according to the Sharia in determining the initial time for prayer; Second, the law of employing astronomy in determining the initial time for prayer; Third, the correct method in determining shari prayer times according to Sharia Board of Wahdah Islamiyah. The type used was descriptive qualitative (non-statistical) research, which focused on the study of scripts and texts, employing a normative approach (shari) with field studies in the form of interviews with related figures. The results of the study show that; first, to recognize the Islamic jurisprudence and the position of the sun as the main point of reference in determining the initial time for prayer must be understood based on the propositions in the Koran and sunnah through the interpretation of the scholars who were well-known for their credibility. Second, in determining the prayer time schedule, the main method used is the method of rukyat with the help of astronomy as a means and device, but not as a primary point of reference. In addition, the process of preparing the prayer schedule is necessarily conducted through discussions by experts of Islamic jurisprudence and astronomy, both those affiliated with Wahdah Islamiyah and experts from outside Wahdah Islamiyah who are willing to provide recommendations and suggestions.

Beyond “unwinding”: Constitutional review strategies in consociations

AbstractThis article contributes to the emerging literature on the role of constitutional courts in consociational democracies. While most works have approached the topic from the perspective of regime dynamics, this analysis focuses on how courts relate to the constitutions they are mandated to enforce. Beyond addressing the empirical question of what choices courts make in their balancing between universal values and stability, this article also investigates how courts do this balancing. Through the analysis of seven cases from two consociations, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland, I argue that courts embrace specific interpretive approaches (proportionality analysis, purposive interpretation, and the political question doctrine) to reconcile the ideas of constitutional supremacy and respect for political agreements. The analysis also demonstrates how—by their nature political—framework agreements establishing consociational settlements become primary reference points for interpreting constitutional documents.

Reconciling as a Primary Pastoral Act of Spiritual Care.

Hiltner's shepherding perspective offered a primary reference point for pastoral theologians. This paper examines how the reconciling function of that perspective guides the care proceeding from it for Black persons experiencing medical crises. I analyze connections in the work of Archie Smith with Black persons involved in the healthcare system to show how Black persons draw upon spiritual resources and other resources implicit to the Black community itself in order to reconcile lived experiences with sickness.

Islamic radicalism that never was: Islamic discourse as an extension of the elite’s quest for legitimation. Azerbaijan in focus

Not unlike the global dynamics and the developments in the rest of Central Eurasia, Islamic discourse in Azerbaijan over the past two decades has not reflected the micro-level shifts in the country’s social-cultural landscape. Rather, it has been formed and evolved as a collateral product of the elite’s tactical pursuit of legitimation across domestic and international planes of power. Grounded in its quest for tactical and strategic survival, the elite’s pursuit of Western (and broader international) recognition, in particular, has stood at the core of the elite’s policies toward Islam and molded the confines of state-promoted Islamic discourse. The regime’s overall strategy has been to continuously reinforce the representation of Islam as an imminent danger to the stability and secular nature of Azerbaijani statehood, while positioning itself—in the eyes of both the “liberal,” “democratic” West and the secularized population at home—as the sole force capable of staving off the Islamic threat. At that, the narrative of Islamic radicalism in Azerbaijan has centered around three principal dynamics: the regime’s anti-hijab policies, the regime’s policies toward the settlement of Nardaran in Baku’s suburbs, and the activities of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan (IPA). This article provides a closer look at all three to expose the elite’s intention of using these as their primary trigger mechanisms and reference points in the quest for Western—and secular domestic—legitimation and, as such, the pursuit of the negative representation of Islam as a threat to secularity and modern statehood.