Reductionist Narrative Research Articles

Degrowth from the East – between quietness and contention. Collaborative learnings from the Zagreb Degrowth Conference

While degrowth as a plural and decolonial movement actively invites the Global South to be part of its transformative project, the current North-South dichotomy threatens to miss the variety of semi-peripheral contexts. Against this backdrop, we aim to contribute to dialogues on degrowth from the often-overlooked ‘East’ – specifically post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Instead of being viewed as a site for transformative examples and inspiration for degrowth-oriented socio-ecological transformation, CEE is often portrayed as ‘lagging behind’. Problematising such reductionist narratives, this essay explores CEE as a lively and rich site of postcapitalist alternatives. Based on two special sessions organised at the 2023 International Degrowth Conference in Zagreb, we ref lect upon insights gathered on various degrowth-aligned traditions and practices in CEE with a goal to 1) advance an equitable dialogue between the global degrowth scholarship and the East, and 2) strengthen a context-sensitive degrowth agenda in CEE.

Towards a Bhaskarian Metatheory for Marketing Systems

Marketing systems, while being pivotal to contemporary progress, have been linked to multifaceted global challenges, notably increasing inequalities and accelerated climate change repercussions. These challenges are not natural phenomena, but rather, human-induced crises, emerging predominantly from flawed systems of perception and action. Unfortunately, these flawed perspectives are also embedded within research and theoretical practices, leading to overly simplistic and disjointed results. This paper champions the introduction and application of corrective metatheories, specifically targeting these tendencies of reductionism, to bring coherence to the various domains of existence – be they subjective, intersubjective, interobjective, or objective. Using Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of critical realism, this paper elucidates how this particular metatheoretical approach can address the complexities inherent to marketing systems. Through Critical Realism, the paper aims to challenge reductionist narratives, critique societal shortcomings, and promotes both individual and collective potentials to support overall flourishing.

Beyond traditional narratives about teacher professional development: A critical perspective on teachers' working life

We argue that overlooking teacher professional development's (TPD) temporal and spatial situatedness neglects similarities and differences throughout teachers' career stages and organizational contexts. Using latent profile analyses for early-career (n = 383), mid-career (n = 355), and late-career (n = 296) teacher groups, we found four TPD profiles in each career phase. Results showed more heterogeneity of profiles within than between career phases; most early-career teachers shared common TPD patterns with other career phases. Throughout the phases, teachers need TPD addressing their work at both the classroom and organizational levels. Our research invites researchers to rethink reductionist narratives regarding TPD.

Emergence in Context: A Treatise in Twenty-First Century Natural Philosophy

Emergence in Context: A Treatise in Twenty-First Century Natural Philosophy

Climate change, migration, and internally displaced populations in the Indian Ocean Region – evidence from South Asia and East Africa

ABSTRACT The field of migration studies is increasingly widening its scope and research by addressing the complex and converging interactions between migration, internal displacement, livelihoods, and poverty. Within this space, internal migration and displacement are assuming recognition as more contextual and layered processes for vulnerable populations in the global south. A growing body of evidence indicates that regions in East and Southeast Africa and South Asia continue to witness a surge in internal and intra-regional movements of people who are termed as climate or environmental refugees. Resultantly, they are likely to move, are on the move, as also those who are unable to move and are left behind, and those who stay. The paper examines the close and often blurring linkages between environmental migrants, (climate) refugees, aspirational and economic migrants. Engaging with the question of why people move, we observe that the ‘climate-migration’ nexus is intricate and far from a facile, reductionist narrative, as is the ‘migration as adaptation and agency’ nexus –issues that are intertwined when perceiving climate migration in Africa and Asia.

Beyond Machismo. Intersectional Latino Masculinities

Beyond Machismo. Intersectional Latino Masculinities

Archives in Motion: Transitional Sites of Identity in Narratives of Displacement

Institutional systems steeped in colonialist and essentializing language (and practice) produce narratives of displacement that are reductionist, rendering the displaced as one-dimensional. Through narratives focused on victimhood, these narratives are used against people who are displaced, situating them with fixed identities of vulnerability. Autobiographical narratives of displacement, however, can challenge those reductionist narratives by representing the complexity of displacement experience. By doing so, autobiographical displacement narratives highlight the ways that displacement is only one aspect of identity, thereby subverting the victim trope and asking us to consider the layered ways one experiences displacement. In this article, I describe the ways that rhetorical practices within autobiographical narratives such as interiority, temporality, and embodiment transgress institutional narratives. By theorizing archives in motion as counter narrative to constructions of vulnerability and precarity, we can examine alternative ways of reporting history and documenting identities, across transnational contexts, with the potential to challenge understandings of historical events through archival content and practice.

The unspoken red-line in Colombia: Gender reordering of women ex-combatants and the transformative peace agenda

Academic perspectives on women in conflict have been consistently moving away from the reductionist narrative of victimhood or deviation from gender norms. Yet, this narrative is still predominant in humanitarian discourses, while it is assumed that women’s participation in peacebuilding derives from their natural proclivities. These narratives, we argue, reinforce the gendered patriarchal post-conflict order as ex-combatant women are pushed into traditional roles through reintegration processes without addressing gendered structural and systemic violence. This article is based on the Colombian case, where a peace agreement in 2016 marked the official end to decades of conflict between FARC-EP rebels and the government. While deep changes were promised, the reality for women ex-combatants has been – despite unprecedented levels of women’s participation – a reordering into traditional roles and a reinforcement of conjugal order rather than a transformative progression towards peacetime emancipation. We argue that, while the government claimed that the economic and political systems were non-negotiable red-lines, there was also another unspoken red-line: that of gender roles. This article argues that addressing the gendered structural roots of conflicts in order to build sustainable peace requires a decisive participation of women, including former rebel combatants whose potential contribution to transformative peacebuilding are often ignored.

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

Narrativism, Reductionism and Four-Dimensionalism

In a successful series of papers, Schroer and Schroer presented a reductionist narrative account of personal identity (R. Schroer, 2013; J. W. Schroer & Schroer, 2014). They claimed that their reductionist account had advantages over traditional narrative theories. In this paper I intend to show that they were wrong. Although it is possible to defend a reductionist narrative account, the Schroers’ theory has a problem of circularity. And solving that problem will cause their theory to have much more problems than non-reductionist narrative theories. Consequently, they should either present a new and improved reductionist narrative account, or accept that non-reductionist narrative theories are better suited to account for the problem of personal identity.

Diffraction as an otherwise practice of exploring new teachers’ entanglements in time and space

ABSTRACT In this paper, I propose shifts in perspective and practice in initial teacher education from the reflective to the diffractive practitioner as a productive way of supporting new teachers to prepare for the complex and non-linear nature of teaching. The reflective practitioner is a figure deeply embedded in humanist and anthropocentric discourses, aligned to standardised outcomes. Accordingly, reflection risks being a fixed, technical exercise that is predominantly cognitive and linear, ignoring the complex, uncertain and affective ways of knowing that emerge within teaching encounters. Here, I use theories from posthumanism to suggest diffraction as an otherwise means to explore teaching as non-linear and materially and affectively entangled through time and space, in ways that are attentive to difference and the complex world-making of education as an ethically engaged practice. In refusing simplistic, reductionist narratives about teaching, about ‘what works’ and about what it means to ‘be’ a teacher, diffractive practices are responsive to contemporary educational landscapes. I offer an example of thinking and practising diffractively, drawing on data from a creative collaging workshop for new teachers to illustrate how reconfiguration of spatial temporalities and an attention to entanglements in teaching encounters can offer generative ways to think about professional practice.

Simplicity out of complexity? On physical eschatology and abiogenesis

Standard reductionist narrative about the necessity of complex systems arising from simple subsystems can be undermined from multiple directions. Here, I shall suggest an unexpected way of such undermining which occurs upon joining our best understanding of the future evolution of the universe (as outlined by physical eschatology) with the continuity thesis which plays the key role in studies of the origin of life (abiogenesis). Many aspects of evolution - including physical, chemical, and astrobiological evolution - would look quite different from what we empirically find around us at the present epoch if the history of the universe within our cosmological horizon were to be observed from a timeless ?Archimedean? point. Avoiding the pitfalls of this chronocentric bias leads to several unexpected conclusions, one of them being that the directed panspermia, coupled with advanced biotechnology, represents the most probable origin of almost all phylogenetic lineages in the universe. Therefore, complex lifeforms are required for emergence of (almost) all simple lifeforms. This has several counterintuitive and unexpected philosophical consequences.

Diversity in Sex Work in India: Challenging Stereotypes Regarding Sex Workers

Sex work is often characterized by images of coercion, poverty, destitution and lack of agency, but research indicates that sex work in India is more diverse than these popular representations. Moving beyond inaccurate tropes of sex workers as solely being oppressed victims, this paper aims to shed light on the diversity of sex work in India by sharing themes found across four studies conducted in three different urban areas of India: Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Our research highlights that within the diverse umbrella of sex work in India, there are unique subgroups of sex workers whose particular issues often become lost in a monolithic and reductionist narrative of sex work. From our research, we found that, contrary to popular myths, (1) sex workers are not passive recipients of the trade; (2) sex workers often live in families and have multiple identities as mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers; (3) sex workers increasingly operate from non-brothel-based settings; (4) sex workers are not only women, but also identify as cisgender male and third gender/transgender; and finally, (5) HIV is often not the most pressing, self-reported health concern for sex workers.

Criminalized Vietnamese women, ‘problem gambling’ and experiential rifts: Towards a criminology of diversity

When issues emerge in women’s imprisonment, criminology often responds with narratives of ‘difference’. In this article we respond to the call of Barbara Hudson, and generate a ‘criminology of diversity’ instead. We present the case of Vietnamese women in Victoria, Australia, whose incarceration is increasing at an alarming rate. According to government discourse, this increase occurs because Vietnamese women in Victoria have a distinct ‘problem gambling’ pathway to crime that is supported by Vietnamese lending arrangements. Seeking to disaggregate and denature this essentialist and reductionist narrative, we draw on the accounts of specialist Vietnamese community workers to explore the various meanings and significance of gambling in the lives of Vietnamese women in Victoria. We further engage with the work of Paul Gilroy on diasporic identities and Ghassan Hage on vacillations to illustrate what is gained by recognizing the overlaps, parallels and points of divergence that form within and between ‘different’ groups.

Secular/Religious Myths of Violence: The Case of Nizārī Ismailis of the Alamūt Period

Abstract Contemporary narratives of violence, particularly in the aftermaths of the most recent expressions of violence by the so-called ‘Islamist’ groups have rekindled the false dichotomy of religious versus secular violence. Such a deforming prism which has also become dominant in political science traces the origins of violence to faith communities in medieval times and, among others, to Nizārī Ismailis, with whom the myth of the assassins have been associated. Despite the ground-breaking works of prominent scholars of Ismaili studies, the myth of the assassins still remains powerful in some disciplines including political theory. This paper deconstructs this narrative and attempts to highlight the agencies of individuals and communities, as human agents, as opposed to essentialist narratives in which faith, or a particular faith, in its abstraction, becomes responsible for the outbreak of violence. Moving beyond reductionist narratives of violence is critical for breaking the vicious cycle of violence which besets human societies around the globe.

Accounting for mediatization in the era of individualized consequential accountability

ABSTRACT In this paper, we report on our investigation of news coverage of accountability reform in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal during the implementation and assessment of New York’s Race to the Top-inspired teacher evaluation system. In systemically analyzing how these prominent media outlets narrated this contentious moment in educational history, this study seeks to identify major narrative features pertinent to the ideological and representational dimensions of teachers in the era of consequential accountability. Specifically, we examine character prevalence, the characterization of prevalent characters, and the valuations ascribed to prevalent characters. This analysis, thus, aims to account for the mediatization of accountability reform. Our findings suggest that both periodicals constructed a one-dimensional conflict between education reformers and resisters of the newly implemented accountability policies while narrating those most affected by the policies as passive bystanders to the ideological conflict being waged by those with more power and influence. This reductionist narrative gives voice to reformers’ audit-based notion of accountability while omitting the relational responsibility of educators – the form of accountability long associated with teachers’ work. In accounting for ideological and representational features of journalists’ narrative construction, we illuminate how prominent media outlets mediatize accountability policy.

Praising the fallen heroes: Storytelling in US war presidential rhetoric, from Johnson to Obama

This paper analyses the use of storytelling by United States presidents in their war speeches, from the Vietnam War to the War on Terror. The study proposes a dual concept of storytelling in political communication: first, the global story that lies behind the presidential rhetoric aimed at justifying war; and second, the use of a specific technique consisting of inserting particular, personal stories into the speeches in order to communicate specific messages to the audience. The methodology used consists of an in-depth, interpretive, qualitative content analysis of a sample of presidential speeches. The findings confirm, firstly, that US presidents’ war storytelling aims to reinforce the political myth of America’s duty to preserve freedom, an argument that helps make the burden of the war understandable and bearable for the people, thereby reaffirming American collective identity. It is a reductionist narrative, as all wars are presented as having the same causes and goals. Secondly, the presidential use of personal stories is confirmed to have increased exponentially from the Vietnam War era. In most cases, these stories consist of a personification of some basic values attributed to the whole nation, by means of which these values are reinforced: heroism, patriotism, sense of duty, and, above all – again – the defence of freedom. The results also show that, in this aspect of their war rhetoric, the differences between George W. Bush and Barack Obama are at least blurred, despite their ideological and political differences.

Forgiveness as Potentiality in Criminal Justice

To explore the problematic of forgiveness in criminal justice we argue for and utilise the deep homologies that exist between the continental philosophical tradition and approaches to complexity theory (the potential to realise new dynamical states). Through taking a hermeneutical narrative approach we argue that studied together they provide us with new insights into questions of punishment, retribution and rehabilitation and enable us to better understand the connections that exist between victims of crime, perpetrators and the community through examination of the content of dominant narratives that emerge in the historical relationship between theology and law; gain insight into an increased path lock (entropic justice) with respect to retribution in liberal democracies such as the USA and UK based upon decomposition of the Judaeo-Christian message; and examine what contemporary stories of forgiveness reveal with respect to accessing new dynamical states and new ways of doing justice that challenge dominant and reductionist narrative.

Más que Esclavos: A BlackCrit examination of the treatment of Afro-Latin@s in U.S. high school world history textbooks

ABSTRACTDrawing from Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit) as a theoretical framework, this study examined how Afro-Latin@s are represented in U.S. world history textbooks alongside global narratives of race and anti-Black systemic racism that are fundamental to understanding Afro-Latin@s’ historical and contemporary lived experiences. Research findings revealed that world history textbooks confine Afro-Latin@s’ lived experiences and histories within two reductionist narratives: enslavement and mestizaje (race mixing). I argue that these representations perpetuate violence against Black bodies by reducing Afro-Latin@s to passive historical agents. Furthermore, Afro-Latin@ identities are circumscribed to fit within the neoliberal socio-political narrative of Latin America as a racial paradise.

Getting the story right: a Reductionist narrative account of personal identity

A popular “Reductionist” account of personal identity unifies person stages into persons in virtue of their psychological continuity with one another. One objection to psychological continuity accounts is that there is more to our personal identity than just mere psychological continuity: there is also an active process of self-interpretation and self-creation. This criticism can be used to motivate a rival account of personal identity that appeals to the notion of a narrative. To the extent that they comment upon the issue, proponents of narrative accounts typically reject Reductionist metaphysics that (ontologically) reduce persons to aggregates of person stages. In contrast to this trend, we seek to develop a narrative account of personal identity from within Reductionist metaphysics: we think person stages are unified into persons in virtue of their narrative continuity with one another. We argue that this Reductionist version of the narrative account avoids some serious problems facing non-Reductionist versions of the narrative account.