Ethical Project Research Articles

Doing the Work: Taxonomies of Animal Study and the Labor of Love

Doing the Work:Taxonomies of Animal Study and the Labor of Love Ted Geier (bio) Jeff Karnicky, Scarlett Experiment: Birds and Humans in America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016, 246 pp. $45.00, cloth Matthew Calarco, Thinking Through Animals: Identity Difference Indistinction. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015, 88 pp. $12.99, paperback As animal studies work continues to engage with the theoretical turn of the early twenty-first century, volumes like Jeff Karnicky's Scarlett Experiment introduce fresh literary histories and historicist readings of biology and naturalist approaches that reveal the deep roots of a careful thinking about the animal. The field has no shortage of readers and introductions by now—too many to list or to choose from—yet was in need of a brief, accessible account like Matthew Calarco's recent Thinking Through Animals. Together, these two books demonstrate a field constantly spreading its wings and reconsidering its fundamental intentions and assumptions. Both of these works also achieve a legibility that critical theory is not always accused of. While the difficulty of theory might be defended as the very point of critique—if it were any easier, perhaps it would simply be ideology, a power point, capitalism itself—Karnicky and Calraco reiterate a key ethical project at the hearts of both critical theory and animal studies. The fields are key interlocutors with a mutual interest not in "practical application" but in practice and care. Both strive to defend this old-fashioned sincerity, and both are convincing. In a simple, disarming dedication, Jeff Karnicky summarizes a self-deprecating style of sincere work on behalf of the nonhuman: "For the birds." 2018 marks the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes this an especially appropriate year to commemorate animal protection efforts in North America. Karnicky's book thinks about the repercussions of that law to birding culture, hunting, and general animal interest in North America on, literally, every page. The title itself is taken from an Emily Dickinson poem. Karnicky notes that Christopher Cokinos had taken another Dickinson line—"hope is a thing with feathers"—for his own book. But Karnicky chooses scarlet experiment "as a marker of all the birds killed in America since the nineteenth century as a direct result of human actions" (p. xvi). He reads Dickinson's lines about understanding birds through their subjection to human-nonhuman interaction as a premonition of the administrative biopolitical status of life and death in contemporary American contexts. By this, he means the databases tracking and managing populations, the state apparatuses responsible for both the thriving and [End Page 237] the mere survival of the bird species he considers, and the myriad outcomes of "the human experiments on birds" (p. xix). He chooses "experiment" for its multivalent potential, and he focuses especially on the term's obscure meaning as "a practical acquaintance with a person or thing; experience" (p. xxi). And so it is that Karnicky begins to seamlessly meld recent theoretical animal studies with his "practical" ornithological familiarity with bird worlds and birds in-the-world that cognitive, conservationist, ecological, and other frames we might deem basically "biological" articulate. The theoretical turn in animal studies, as Karnicky notes, is generally traceable to the arrival of Jacques Derrida's translated seminars on the animal in the early 2000s. Karnicky cites Cary Wolfe's explanation of Derrida's influence. Wolfe himself is a central figure in approaches to the animal through philosophical frames perhaps most familiar as posthumanism. One of the important tasks of these approaches to animals—and the inextricably human, cultural inflection of animals or any attempt to ethically regard them—is the decentering of the human subject. This is the critique of anthropocentrism that, as Karnicky notes, Donna Haraway has employed in her reading of Derrida's animal theory. Haraway criticizes Derrida because "right from the start, he stops short of engaging an animal's otherness" (p. 51). The task of thinking the human-nonhuman experiment is thus to recall that it cannot access "what it is like to be" any other (he never specifically cites the work of Thomas Nagel), but also that this basic gesture of empathy sparks the...

Action and Luck in the Kierkegaardian Ethical Project

To see the ethical as a space that is immune to luck, it seems that we must see it as a space that is utterly inner, locked away inside the cabinet of consciousness. If, on the other hand, we wish to see the space of the ethical as extending into the world, it seems that we must see it as being vulnerable to luck. Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms steer us through this dilemma by extending the space of the ethical into the world while also inoculating it against luck. For Kierkegaard, an action is a single thing with two aspects, one under which it is seen in terms of movements of the will, and another under which it is seen in terms of movements in the world. Given the structure of the Kierkegaardian ethical project, these movements are immune to luck since they can always achieve their ethical aims: they can always count as doing what one’s ideal self would do.

The Contemporary Hero in Sylvie Kandé’s Epic of Futurity, La Quête infinie de l’autre rive

The Contemporary Hero in Sylvie Kandé’s Epic of Futurity, La Quête infinie de l’autre rive Alexander Dickow (bio) While scholars like Lynn Keller and Evie Shockley have devoted significant work to women’s epics in English, no similar scholarship exists on Francophone women writers, for lack of a comparable corpus. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and H.D. provide the beginnings of an Anglophone lineage that culminates in contemporary works such as Alice Notley’s Descent of Alette. By contrast, Sylvie Kandé’s Neverending Quest for the Other Shore: Epic in Three Cantos (La Quête infinie de l’autre rive: épopée en trois chants), published by Gallimard in 2011, is practically alone as an epic in contemporary French and Francophone literature by both women and men. Kandé is a Franco-Senegalese scholar and poet who has lived in New York for more than twenty years. In the Neverending Quest, she recounts at least two stories: that of the early 14th-century Emperor of Mali, Bata Manden Bori, known as Abubakar II or Abu Bekri II, and that of the thousands of African migrants who attempt to reach Europe. According to Kandé’s foreword, Abubakar II launches a massive expedition to explore the ocean to the West of Africa, never to return (13–14).1 The first two cantos recount the misadventures of Abubakar’s expedition, which include an attempted mutiny. Kandé imagines several versions of their final fate, including arrival in the Americas. The migrants’ expedition to European shores occupies the third and final canto. The migrants travel on a dangerous boat referred to as a patera. Originally a kind of shallow, flat-bottomed [End Page 399] vessel, the term has come to designate any boat carrying clandestine immigrants. The fate of these migrants, after the many travails of the passage to Europe, remains uncertain at the end of the epic, when a coast-guard vessel overtakes the patera and leads away the migrants, perhaps to a detention camp to await deportation. What kind of epic is Kandé’s Neverending Quest? In his well-known discussion of the genre, David Quint proposes a model of two competing epic traditions, the epics of the winners and those of the losers. But Quint’s victor or vanquished, winner or loser dichotomy tends to suggest a too-rigid conceptual dualism. I propose instead that epics vary widely (and not dualistically), particularly with regard to their temporalities. In other words, epics display representations of present, past, and future specific to each epic (but partially determined by their larger traditions, whether Greek, French, African, etc.). Sylvie Kandé offers the example of an epic of futurity. Rather than dealing in foundations and commemoration as epics often do, Kandé’s deals in becomings and unfoldings, potentialities and possibilities. Kandé participates in what Rachel Blau DuPlessis has called, with reference to many long poems by women, revisionary mythopoiesis (105–122). Yet in the act of rewriting the histories of Mali and clandestine migrants, Kandé suggests that history in general is always in process, always being renegotiated, that history is itself part of the future as much as the past. Futurity is also evidenced in her heroes, who are always still in the making, a promise rather than a gift. Kandé orients her epic toward the future in order to launch a communal ethical project: she ultimately demands that her reader carry on the task of reimagining an authentic contemporary hero. The Neverending Quest in context: an epic among epics As a matter of course, theoretical treatments of epics and the epic tradition turn on issues of temporality, historical consciousness, and their relation to narrative or lyric form. More than any other genre, the epic’s literary form manifests as an allegorical projection of a conception of history. In this view, a cyclical narrative (for instance, Saint-Amant’s unusual Moïse sauvé [Moses Saved]2) reflects a cyclical vision of history as eternal return. A radically digressive shape (like Byron’s Don Juan) contests historical teleology to suggest that history leads nowhere in particular. Finally, [End Page 400] an empire-building, end-oriented tale of relative ideological coherence (the Aeneid) implies a similarly end-oriented...

Multimodal critical discourse analysis as ethical praxis

ABSTRACTCritical Discourse Studies (CDS) positions itself as a critical, transformative practice that seeks to expose the ways in which discourse is able to constitute social, political, economic, gendered, racial, and sexual inequalities as normal and unremarkable. In this respect, CDS is an expressly political and therefore ethical project. Nevertheless, this article posits that, quite remarkably, the ethical frameworks that guide CDS have remained largely under-theorized and taken for granted. Accordingly, this paper seeks to contribute to this much-needed area of theoretical inquiry by offering a brief discussion of how CDS has tended to define its own criticality and identifies three problems that emerge from how CDS practitioners have tended to formulate the praxis of critique: namely, the tendency to conceive of CDS as a demystificatory practice, the implicit logocentrism of modeling ethics upon the Habermasian Ideal Speech Situation (ISS), and finally, the deontological nature of discourse ethics. Each of the three problems is discussed in relation to a brief multimodal critical discourse analysis of three online employer profile videos. As such, the study is offered to demonstrate not only the analytical strength of multimodal analysis but also the political-ethical relations beyond Discourse Ethics that are immanent in such analyses.

Foucault, Confucius and the in-service learning of experienced teachers in an era of managerialism

By drawing on Foucault’s theory of subjectification, this study presents a case study of two experienced teachers’ in-service learning in the managerialist climate of Macau. The results indicate that the prevailing policies and administrative strategies on in-service learning served as the apparatus of managerialism working on teachers and constituting their subject as entrepreneurs. At the same time, however, experienced teachers were able to rely on the time-honoured Confucian philosophy to negotiate their learning experience with the dominating managerialism. Their in-service learning took place in and through their relationship with others and this learning, in turn, facilitated the creation and sustainability of the social harmony of the relationship. In-service learning therefore is essentially a lifelong ethical project that aims to cultivate their potential to become a Confucian sage, rather than an entrepreneur.

Effect of Water Supplementation on Cognitive Performances and Mood among Male College Students in Cangzhou, China: Study Protocol of a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Introduction: Water accounts for about 75% of brain mass. Cognitive performances and mood may be impaired by hypohydration and improved by water supplementation. Two surveys conducted in China demonstrated that a large proportion of adults and children drank less fluid than the amounts recommended by the Chinese Nutrition Society. The association between hypohydration and cognitive performance has not been reported in China. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of water supplementation on cognitive performances and mood among male college students in Cangzhou, China. Methods and Analysis: A randomized controlled trial is designed to test the hypothesis. A total of 68 male college students aged 18–25 years will be recruited and randomly assigned into water-supplementation group (WS group, n = 34) and no water-supplementation group (NW group, n = 34) after an overnight fasting, i.e., without eating foods and drinking fluid for 12 h. The first morning urine will be collected to determine urine osmolality on the water supplementation day. Cognitive performances and mood will be performed before water supplementation by researchers with questionnaire. Subjects in the WS group will drink 400 mL purified water within 5 min, while those in NW group will not drink any fluid. One hour later, urine will be collected and urine osmolality, cognitive performances and mood will be measured again. Mixed model of repeated measures ANOVA will be used to investigate the effect of water supplementation on cognitive performances. The study would provide information about the benefit of water supplementation on cognitive performances. Ethics and Dissemination: The study protocol is reviewed and approved by the Ethical Review Committee of the Chinese Nutrition Society. Ethical approval project identification code is CNS-2015-001. Results will be published according to the CONSORT statement and will be reported in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration: Chinese clinical trial registry. Identifier: ChiCTR-IOR-15007020. Registry name “The effect of hydration on cognitive performance”.

The ABEPSS Thematic Research Groups on the relationship between graduate and undergraduate

Abstract The ABEPSS Thematic Research Groups have the strategic potential of resistance to the productivism and to the precariousness of the formation, either in undergraduate and/ or postgraduate studies, through research. The article presents, in the first moment, a recovery of the design of GTP in its original documents, its organic link with ABEPSS, with the Curricular Guidelines and with the political ethical project. Next, it shows the ways in which the GTPs have carried out their implementation, the challenges that accompany them to articulate undergraduate and graduate studies, and to build the approximation between the GTPs, the regional ones and the Academic Training Units.

Crítica a la autoridad burocrática en Tras la virtud: MacIntyre contra Weber y con Weber

<p>Recibido: 27/04/2016 • Aceptado: 02/02/2017</p><p> </p><p><span>Tras la virtud </span>contiene una poderosa crítica a la autoridad burocrática o gerencial de base weberiana. En ella Alasdair MacIntyre ataca el carácter ficticio de los dos atributos que poseería esta forma de dominación: la eficacia organizativa y la predictibilidad de sus resultados. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que la «autoridad burocrática» es la principal ideología de dominación del tiempo presente detectada por MacIntyre. Sin embargo, lejos de implicar esta postura un distanciamiento de las tesis weberianas, nuestra intención es demostrar que buena parte de los análisis que realiza el sociólogo alemán le servirán a MacIntyre para perfilar –por oposición– su idea de virtud moral, centrada en la excelencia de las prácticas y en el carácter narrativo de la vida.</p><p> </p>

Mullerian dysgenesis: a critical review of the literature.

To present an update of the genetic, clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic aspects of Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome. Studies were considered eligible if they have evaluated patients with MRKH syndrome. Eligible articles were identified by a search of MEDLINE bibliographical database from 1950 to August 2016. A purely descriptive approach was adopted concerning all outcomes examined by the individual studies. MRKH syndrome is defined as congenital aplasia of the upper vagina and impairment of uterine development in normal 46XX females. Accounting for 1:4500 women, MRKH is the second most common cause of primary amenorrhea following gonadal dysgenesis. Potential association of MRKH syndrome to specific genes has been the focus of recent research. Null-association results of HOXA genes and Wnt5a, Wnt7a, and Wnt9a have been reported, while point mutations of the WNT4 gene point mutations have been associated with an MRKH-like syndrome characterized by Mullerian duct regression and hyperandrogenism. Ultrasound and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are the main techniques to establish an accurate diagnosis of the syndrome. Several non-surgical and surgical procedures have been reported for the creation of a functional neovagina; in general, non-surgical treatment should be the first initially pursued. Along with psychological support, recent developments in assisted reproductive technologies of IVF techniques and the availability of gestational surrogacy, as well as the recent breakthrough of successful uterus transplantation, enable women with MRKH syndrome to attain their own genetic child. MRKH syndrome is a medical modality with important social, legal, and ethical projections that require a multi-disciplinary approach.

The ethics of Orthodoxy as the aesthetics of the local church

This paper addresses the ritual aesthetics of mundane aspects within the global Eastern Orthodox Christian liturgical practice. By comparing a variety of ‘local practices’ within the liturgical traditions of various Orthodox Christian communities, the paper explores how commonly held ethical commitments are expressed in radically different – and at times exactly opposite – practices of quotidian religion. In this evaluation of ‘little traditions’ within the ‘great tradition’ of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the paper focuses on local practices and their relation within the larger canonically inscribed theology of ‘correct practice’ (orthopraxy). The dogmatic and canonical aspects of orthopraxis, being similar across the Orthodox contexts, link the various communities as each being part of the same ethical project, while their specific aesthetic inventiveness marks each as being uniquely local. Drawing on anthropological and sociological theory of art, aesthetics, and ethical invention, the paper argues that aesthetics is localised ethics in practice.

Native Advertising: Trickery or Technique? An Ethics Project and Debate

Sponsored content, in-feed ads, and advertorials are innovative ways to promote brands. However, there are limited resources on how to use these advertising techniques. The Native Advertising project and debate helps students (a) gain knowledge and experience with current advertising practices and (b) engage in deliberation regarding a promotional ethical issue. Students reported that the three-assignment project increased expectations and beliefs about native advertising while decreasing their familiarity with the techniques used by companies. A detailed implementation plan is provided for instructors to use in any class discussing online advertising. Alternative methods for executing the project and learning implications are discussed.

Subjectivity and objectivity in post-conciliar views on morality

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the differences in the perception of subjectivity and objectivity in the two perspectives of Catholic ethics dominant after the Second Vatican Council. Both ethical currents, i.e. autonomous ethics (Autonome Moral) and the ethics of faith (Glaubensethik) developed during the intensive theological study period around the time of the Council. The representatives of both currents interpreted some of the Council’s concepts quite differently, which also led to different results. The concept of subjectivity is closely associated with the understanding of the role and importance of conscience, while the concept of objectivity with the theory of normativity. Many eminent theologians and philosophers took part in the discussion around these fundamental issues for moral theology, among others: A. Auer, J. Ratzinger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, B. Stoecke, J. Fuchs, B. Haring, D. Mieth and others. There was also the voice of the pope at the time, St. John Paul II, who in the enc. Veritatis splendor outlined a framework for the further development of moral theology, critically referring to some contemporary ethical projects.

Ekosustav bioetike

Understanding bioethical inquiry as ecosystem aligns that thinking about health conceptually close to public health ethics. Despite having roots in decades-long, culturally-diverse, and disciplinarily-broad concerns about the relationships of human beings to environment as manifest in the work of Fritz Jahr and Van Rensselaer Potter, medical “mainstream” bioethics has maintained a relatively narrow focus on individual health. The practical instantiations of bioethics are inconsistent both with the term’s own historical international contexts and the ecosystemic nature of health, a concept of systems that includes both cultural and biological interactions. Following a growing number of international calls for such change in bioethics, this paper argues that a reinvigoration of bioethics demands transdisciplinary intersections of ecology, value, and health – as a bridge connecting across to the identified projects of public health ethics.

Research on the New Testament and Early Christian Literature May Assist the Churches in Setting Ethical Priorities

Research on the New Testament and Early Christian Literature May Assist the Churches in Setting Ethical Priorities Bernadette J. Brooten The hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName remind non-African Americans of issues that black communities in the United States have long faced: disproportionate police killings of black persons of all genders, mass incarceration of black and brown persons, economic and educational disadvantages, discrimination in housing, racial and sexual stereotypes that harm both rape complainants and defendants, and so on. I view these issues through a deep lens into history, extending back from Jim and Jane Crow through to religiously sanctioned legal slavery, behind that to the Vatican-approved onset of the Portuguese and Spanish slave trades with West Africa, canon-law sanctioned slavery going back from the Middle Ages to late antiquity, and to the Christian Bible, both testaments of which tolerate slavery. To be sure, Christians were at the forefront of opposing slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and many other factors have played a role in arriving at the current situation. Nevertheless, the Bible and the ancient sources of canon law served as justifications for the slavery whose legacies linger. My mentor Krister Stendahl’s concept of the “public health” aspect of New Testament studies has inspired me to undertake research that may limit harm caused to marginalized persons through specific uses of the New Testament and further the values of human dignity and equality as these interact with the Bible. To that end, most of my research has consisted of historically grounded, close analysis of New Testament, contemporaneous, and other ancient texts, each of which has some relevance for contemporary public and religious debates. I see my work as part of a broader mosaic of scholarly contributions that, together, can provide solid historical depth and religious literacy in contemporary policy discussions. I am reflecting here on how I, as a biblical scholar, respond to structural racism and other contemporary forms of inequality. [End Page 229] As I contemplated current racial and gender inequities and considered how I, as a scholar of the New Testament and of Jewish and early church history in the Roman period, could contribute to solving these pressing ethical problems, I determined that collaboration was the best way to observe connections and contrasts, thereby creating a deep historical picture. Within the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project that I direct, a group of outstanding scholars specializing in several religious traditions and periods of history and in ethics, theology, and law, and activists in the areas of US incarceration practices and contemporary slavery made that possible. In addition, artists in dance, music, and poetry, as well as musicologists, helped audiences to shift their vision, to see the world around them in new ways. Collaborators sought to address the nexus of slavery, religion, and sexuality, especially as it has impacted women and girls. The collaboration resulted in Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies (2010), as well as an archive of the public conference on the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project’s website.1 The team of scholars, artists, and activists investigated this issue beginning with the Bible and the ancient Near East and extending through to early Christianity; the Talmud; early Islamic jurisprudence; sixteenth-century Valencia; US slavery, including the use of the Bible in antebellum slavery debates; contemporary incarceration practices in the US; welfare reform; reparations for slavery; contemporary cultural depictions of slavery; a reading of the Bible and the Qur’an on slavery by a formerly enslaved woman; and poetry inspired by these themes. The researchers ascertained that sexual access by masters to enslaved women and girls and, although far less frequently acknowledged, to men, boys, and persons of other genders, has de facto characterized the slavery systems analyzed. While the Qur’an and early Islamic jurisprudence explicitly allowed a master sexual access to his enslaved women and girls, which the jurists then regulated by obligating masters vis-à-vis the slave-woman or slave-girl and the child of such a union, the Jewish and Christian Bibles, the Talmud, and the ancient sources of canon law did not prohibit such sexual access even as they showed awareness that such contact occurred in their own communities...

Pity for Stones?: The New Confucian Ecological Turn and the Global Ethic Project

Pity for Stones?: The New Confucian Ecological Turn and the Global Ethic Project

VICISSITUDES AND FRAGILITIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL: THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF MENALTON BRAFF

Menalton Braff is a Brazilian writer. Since his debut in 1984, he published more than 20 books, he won the Jabuti Award in 2000 and almost every year he is a finalist or semi-finalist in major Brazilian literary awards. This article aims to study the author’s creative process, which ranges from an engaged literature to the increase of subjectivity through the stream of consciousness. It is possible to capture how his narrative is built up on the dialogue between form and content as well as how he engages aesthetic and ethic project. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

O DESEJO NA ÉTICA III DE ESPINOSA: CHAVE DE LEITURA PARA UM ESTUDO NO CAMPO DA SAÚDE MENTAL

O intuito deste artigo é analisar o conceito de desejo no projeto ético de Espinosa. Para isso, primeiramente, será retomado o percurso das primeiras proposições da Parte III da Ética, até a nona proposição, em que o desejo é definido como a própria essência do homem. Em seguida, a partir de resultados parciais de uma pesquisa realizada no campo da saúde mental sobre os motivos de internações psiquiátricas de crianças e adolescentes, buscar-se-á uma leitura de duas dimensões distintas desse estudo a partir da chave de leitura da Ética de Espinosa.

Is There a Need for Transcendental Arguments in Discourse Ethics?

AbstractIn this essay, James Scott Johnston examines Jürgen Habermas's transcendental justification of his discourse theory of morality. According to Johnston, the application of Habermas's theory to educational issues often assumes that this justification is a cogent one. However, if the theory is to provide reasoned and appropriate guidance for educators, the justification of discourse ethics requires closer examination. Johnston argues that Habermas's so‐called “weak” transcendental approach is in fact unsustainable because it fails to reconcile two conflicting schools of philosophical thought: Kant's transcendental idealism and George Herbert Mead's social pragmatism. Johnston concludes that a more plausible justification of the discourse ethical project can be achieved by rejecting Habermas's Kantianism and appealing solely to Mead's social pragmatic conception of rationality.

The Norwegian national project for ethics support in community health and care services.

BackgroundInternationally, clinical ethics support has yet to be implemented systematically in community health and care services. A large-scale Norwegian project (2007–2015) attempted to increase ethical competence in community services through facilitating the implementation of ethics support activities in 241 Norwegian municipalities. The article describes the ethics project and the ethics activities that ensued.MethodsThe article first gives an account of the Norwegian ethics project. Then the results of two online questionnaires are reported, characterizing the scope, activities and organization of the ethics activities in the Norwegian municipalities and the ethical topics addressed.ResultsOne hundred and thirty-seven municipal contact persons answered the first survey (55 % response rate), whereas 217 ethics facilitators from 48 municipalities responded to the second (33 % response rate). The Norwegian ethics project is vast in scope, yet has focused on some institutions and professions (e.g., nursing homes, home-based care; nurses, nurses’ aides, unskilled workers) whilst seldom reaching others (e.g., child and adolescent health care; physicians). Patients and next of kin were very seldom involved. Through the ethics project employees discussed many important ethical challenges, in particular related to patient autonomy, competence to consent, and cooperation with next of kin. The “ethics reflection group” was the most common venue for ethics deliberation.ConclusionsThe Norwegian project is the first of its kind and scope, and other countries may learn from the Norwegian experiences. Professionals have discussed central ethical dilemmas, the handling of which arguably makes a difference for patients/users and service quality. The study indicates that large (national) scale implementation of CES structures for the municipal health and care services is complex, yet feasible.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12910-016-0158-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Plugging into the Umbra: Creative experimentation (in)(on) the boundaries of knowledge production in ECEC research

Research into Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy and practice in the UK is subject to the demand that such research be measurable and achieve impact to provide the basis for evidence-based professional practice. New and creative experimental ways of knowing/thinking/doing ECEC research have been proposed in resistance to this quantified and instrumentalised agenda. Here I focus on posthumanist theorising, which proposes research that does not privilege the human subject but rather opens conditions of possibility for an entanglement with non-human and more-than-human bodies within and between assemblages. This engagement with complexity is a new ethical and political project aiming at re-conceptualising ontology beyond the limits of the human. Posthumanist research does not only challenge quantitative research, but also engages creative ways to challenge the limits of qualitative inquiry. Drawing on my research experience, I explore this de-centring of the human-as-researcher through the notion of the ‘methodological umbra’. This shadow space is one in which traditional thoughts on research open out these new forms of inquiry into thinking-in-movement. My analysis uses my own diary entries as sites in which this ‘umbra’ becomes evident under the pressure of creating new forms of a ‘living’ methodology. This is analysed through the contrast between smooth and striated space proposed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987) to explore what form of life might emerge in the smooth space of the umbra.