Reflexive Distance Research Articles

A Listening Device: Colombia’s Truth Commission and the Politics of the Audible

Abstract In this brief text I want to offer a personal reflection on my work as a former Commissioner in Colombia’s Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-repetition. What is of interest to me is the idea that truth-seeking commission models are complex “listening devices” that render certain forms of violence intelligible while other more systemic types, remain elusive. In contexts of deeply rooted historical and endemic racial and economic inequalities, this is not a minor issue as these material inequalities are at the heart of conflict itself. In fact, what I call the “transitional promise of transformation” often falls short of changing the structures of quotidian experience of people and communities scarred by such historical injuries. Rather, those “transformations” are deferred to a future “liberal peace building” or development-oriented agenda. I examine this way of listening through a particular theoretical lens and aspire not only to contribute with an empathic and a reflexive distance from our work as a Commission but also to posit wider questions.

From Mythical to Mathematical Orientation: The "Cosmologicon" of the Hamburg Planetarium as a Branch of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg

Aby Warburg’s “Collection of images on the history of astronomy and astrology”, opened 1930 in the Hamburg planetarium as a permanent exhibition, was the only completed project of his famous “image series” (the Atlas Mnemosyne included). Considered as a didactic tool for the citizens of Hamburg to understand the cultural history of astrology and astronomy, it assembled a wide range of reproductions of stars, constellations and superstitious as well as scientific images depicted in the arts from “primitive” peoples to the era of Dürer, Luther and Kepler. Warburg’s ambition was to create a reflexive distance (Denkraum) between men and the threatening phenomena experienced while looking into the sky: “The history of astronomy shows the manifold forms of human views of the world. Setting out from fear of demons and magic, humanity always has to travel afresh the path to the abstract logic of scientific observation”.

The past is a future priority

AbstractA sensitisation to the disciplinary past offers a way forward for sociolinguistic inquiry. Historicisation may add reflexive distance to our current concerns and debates. It may serve to detect, put into perspective and ease epistemological and ideational tensions. It is equally useful for determining the extent to which past ideas and practices linger among us, and for clarifying the effects of such forms of retention. Historicisation may be brought to bear on the ways in which we engage with our objects of study, and on the ways in which we understand our acts of engagement. A critical interest in the disciplinary past could provide a shared historical ground for all strands of sociolinguistic inquiry. It could help us to counteract disciplinary fragmentation, while at the same time stimulate disciplinary renewal and constructive exchange. For these reasons – I argue – a sensitisation to the history of sociolinguistics is of immediate relevance to the readership of the IJSL.

“Men behaving badly”? Representations of masculinity in post-global financial crisis cinema

ABSTRACT Films about finance often deploy masculinity as a key locus of critique, most recently in post-global financial crisis (GFC) cinema. While feminist international political economy (IPE) can direct attention to certain heteronormative limitations in the gendered critique of finance – in other words, it can portray stereotypes of “reckless” risky men who need to be reined in by “responsible,” “prudent” women – this article discerns important nuances in the representation of masculinity in post-GFC cinema. Beyond moralizing binaries of stable, responsible husbands versus greedy, predatory bankers, we argue that post-GFC cinema has expanded the gendered critique of crisis by focusing on “multiple masculinities,” the “outsiders” and the “weirdos,” as well as the working-class “gangs” of finance in films like Inside Job, Margin Call, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Big Short. Instead of turning to women as the naturalized redeemers of “testosterone capitalism,” these films use humor and irony to create a reflexive distance, while celebrating the potential of emotional and geeky masculinities. Gone is the “redemptive woman” of embedded liberal finance, to reveal a vision of adaptable financial man that both naturalizes complexity and constricts the scope of financial critique to a moral valorization of resilience.

Interpersonal distance adjustments after interactions with a generous and selfish trustee during a repeated trust game

How physically close to an individual we choose to stand—our interpersonal distance preference—is thought to closely reflect the trust placed in the individual. However, the exact relationship between interpersonal distance and trust is not well understood and the causal effects of trust on interpersonal distance have not yet been demonstrated and quantified experimentally. Here, we induced trust (vs distrust) in an interaction partner through generous (vs selfish) monetary transactions in a repeated trust game. Subjects' investments in, experienced trust in, and expected back-transfers from the two interaction partners indicated that they learned to distrust more the selfish (vs generous) interaction partner. Further, across two experiments, using a pre-post design in which interpersonal distance preferences were measured before and after the trust game, preferred reflective and reflexive interpersonal distance from the selfish interaction partner increased, whereas interactions with the generous partner did not change these preferences. Importantly, the post-game distance was associated with subjects' experienced trust in the selfish interaction partner, and not their monetary decisions made during the game. These findings are a starting point for our understanding of how interactions with untrusted others can be successful. We speculate that an increased interpersonal distance might be accompanied by an increased psychological distance (e.g. through impersonal communication), which might help prevent a break-down of an interaction with a distrusted partner.

Remédiation et réénonciation: opérations et régimes de sens (Remediação e reenunciação: operações e regimes de sentido)

O presente artigo se propõe a desenvolver o conceito de remediação a partir do ponto de vista da semiótica greimasiana e pós-greimasiana. A semiótica da enunciação aborda a questão da (re)mediação sob a perspectiva de um tríplice ângulo: aquele da mediação “originária”, que corresponde à experiência que uma instância faz do mundo; o da mobilização de configurações significantes reunidas na práxis enunciativa; enfim, aquele dos elementos (re)mediadores implicados em uma dinâmica responsável pelo devir das semióticas-objetos. A reflexão desenvolve-se em três tempos. Em primeiro lugar, visamos a identificar as operações da remediação: a recontextualização (agir sobre o ambiente), a remediatização (mudar para outro meio), a reformatação (modificar o formato), a remedialização (transformar o meio) e a retexturização (intervir no nível das relações micro- e macrotextuais). Na sequência, exploramos os regimes da remediação: a hibridização, a bricolagem, a mestiçagem e a espetacularização, tomando nossos exemplos essencialmente do domínio do digital (a ópera filmada, o Google Arts&Culture Project, a Visual Aesthetics de Manovich, Living Mona Lisa). Por fim, a atenção concentra-se nas modalidades da recepção das semióticas-objetos remediadas: as noções de “imediaticidade” e “hiperimediaticidade”, no sentido em que as entendem Bolter e Grusin, são questionadas em relação com aquelas de imersão, de participação (cf. “cultura participativa” – Jenkins) e de tomada de distância reflexiva.

Soups and Sparks Revisited

In the famous debate whether neurons communicate via chemical mediators or electrical signals, Henry Dale and Otto Loewi mounted powerful evidence on the mediation of nervous activity by chemical transmitters, while John Eccles led the campaign for the electrophysiologists. Eventually, Eccles converted to chemical transmission, when he identified excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials initiated by the release of chemical neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft. This well-known episode from the history of neurophysiology counts as a rare instance of philosophy of science advancing scientific research, because the philosopher Karl Popper had encouraged Eccles to theorize an experiment proving the falsity of his own interpretation – according to Popper’s philosophy of science progressing by falsification. The paper shows how Eccles’ intellectual mobilization was grounded in a series of geographical moves, technological adaptations and re-arrangements of his group. This massive travel of people, ideas, instruments, and techniques mediated between the contradictory views, long before Popper kindled Eccles to reflect about the conflicting paradigms and the new theorizing did hardly change his experimental practice. Popper’s immediate effect was a critical and reflexive distance that enabled Eccles to present his evidence more persuasively, as can be shown from archival sources. The exchanges between Eccles and Popper thus shaped the philosophy of falsification to a powerful strategy for writing science.

Eric Voegelin, Reflexive Distance, and Harnessing the Benefits of Metaxy: The Leader's Imperative to Participate in History and Becoming

AbstractThe capacity to lead consciously is connected to the leader's knowledge of the self and one's environment. Eric Voegelin stipulated that gaining reflexive distance through comparative historical knowledge allowed for a deeper understanding of an individual's place in society. Citing his works, the current article explains the utility to leaders in understanding historiography, confronting narratives of the past, and criticizing previous normative structures. Leaders come to understand their place in the process of “becoming” by confronting the past. Harnessing the capacity to reflect, leaders can use history as a mirror to demand more of themselves and followers. Moreover, as leaders come to comprehend symbols of mankind's attempt to make sense of the universe and to establish some degree of order, disruptions to the “order” can paradoxically manifest growth. Conscious leaders thus become adaptive rather than reactive.

Editors' Notes

Summer has ended and fall is around the corner. Many of our readers find themselves in the middle of the academic semester. The current issue of the Journal of Leadership Studies contains articles that may take us back to our philosophical foundations. Sprinkled throughout the articles we will find references to St. Anslem, ontology, self, Nisbet, Existential–Experiential, Metaxy, Rogers, Voegelin, Nietzsche, Maslow, Heidegger, and more. Our authors implore us to consider how philosophical traditions can challenge us as leaders or may shape us as leaders. In our lead article, Existential–Experiential View of Self-Sourced (In)Authentic Healthcare Identity, the concept of self is used to frame leadership in healthcare professionals. Although the framework provided by Koskiniemi, Perttula, and Syväjärvi is focused on healthcare professionals (i.e., doctors and nurses), the authors argue that their framework is applicable to leadership in any field (e.g., law, social work) where leaders possess a strong professional identity. Stork, Grant, and Darmo in the second feature article (Leadership Graduate Degree Programs: A Comparative Review and Analysis of Value Propositions) provide an extensive examination and analysis of the discourse styles found on graduate leadership programs’ websites to communicate to potential students the “value” of the program. History in the Study of Leadership is the focus of the symposium. Guest symposium editor Nathan Harter has assembled a variety of articles and authors that explore the context of history on leadership, the intersection of history and leadership, and the role history can play in leadership. Harter argues in his introduction that history is of “greatest importance to the study of leadership.” His article explicates the role and intersection between history and leadership. The second article by Tim Blessing provides an Anselmian argument for the use of history in leadership studies. Blessing uses the logic of St. Anselm's ontological proof for the existence of God to argue that leadership studies has no choice but to deal with a history that “imprisons us” as an “inescapable matrix.” Harter's second article introduces Robert Nisbet's thoughts about history and social change. Harter cautions leadership scholars that history has its own nuances, so that when using history to understand leadership one must be careful to take into account those nuances. The role of history, the understanding of history, and the need to reflect on history is essential for leaders according to Thomas in his article Eric Voegelin, Reflexive Distance, and Harnessing the Benefits of Metaxy: The Leader's Imperative to Participate in History and Becoming. Thomas argues that understanding these aspects of history will provide a leader “a deeper understanding of a person's place in society.” The last two articles of the symposium examine the use of history in training military leaders and the examination of leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Williams offers his robust insights into the “staff ride,” a technique used to train military leaders to take into account the historical aspects of war and its impact on leadership. Chace's article on leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis frames President Kennedy's leadership through the frameworks of historical consciousness (Voegelin) and adaptive leadership (Heifetz). As you can see, this issue of the Journal of Leadership Studies offers significant depth and breadth in its topics. We think this issue of the journal offers readers unique articles that do indeed bring us back to our philosophical foundations.

Forming cognitions by investing in a form: Frequent Flyer Programs in US air travel post-deregulation (1981–1991)

This paper addresses the link between action and cognition in markets. Increasing reliance on markets to co-ordinate economic activity across diverse contexts underscores the need to better understand how such coordination is achieved and how it can be changed. Our starting point is sense-making in formal organizations and markets. We argue that, whereas focusing on intersubjective agreements supported by frequent communication provides useful insights on coordination in formal organizations, coordination in markets cannot rely on these mechanisms alone. We borrow Thévenot's (1984) notions of form and investments in form to show how cognition and action are interrelated, and coordination achieved, in market settings. A form is characterized by its capacity to generate temporal and spatial equivalencies, allowing us to move from the particular (e.g., one exchange episode) to the generic (e.g., recurrent exchanges with particular types of customers). The development of a form helps construct common contexts of action which become the basis for coordinated actions.Our empirical case describes how the introduction of Frequent Flyer Programs created a new market form following the US Airline Deregulation Act (1978). Under the previous regulatory regime, the US Civil Aeronautics Board controlled routes and prices and airlines were limited to competing on frequency and quality of service. We show how successive rounds of investments by a variety of market actors helped articulate and consolidate the new market form over a 10-year period. Whereas action preceded cognition in the early stages, the gradual consolidation of the new form provided opportunities for market participants to gain reflexive distance and conjure up further ways to engage with the form.

Reflexivity in the 'productisation' of services

This paper evaluates reflexivity in a practice of service formalisation and codification labelled 'productisation'. We investigate reflexivity to explain why and how service productisation has different effects in different social contexts and perform critical discourse analysis on two cases to evaluate discourses and genres of service productisation. As results we describe work-related and structural reflexivity and the reflexive distance in each discourse. We suggest that productisation induces work-related reflexivity in service development, but may reduce it in service operations. When productisation conflicts with the organising principles and values of the organisation it increases structural reflexivity of employees broadly, otherwise structural reflexivity remains limited. Productisation increases organisational cohesion, but we identified two different mechanisms, control and integration. For individuals, productisation may increase control through transparency of work or increase autonomy through distribution of competences and knowledge.

International Legal Scholarship as a Cooling Medium in International Law and Politics

The article aims to contribute from a history of science angle to the recent debate on the relation between legal scholarship, utopian ideals, and practice, which was spurred by the EJIL Symposium on Antonio Cassese's Realizing Utopia and subsequent publications in this journal. It defends a conception of legal scholarship that keeps a reflexive distance vis-a-vis practice and current political trends in international relations. It focuses on traditional background assumptions of international legal scholarship, which constantly threaten this reflexive distance. Arguably these background assumptions are a 19th century legacy and today - in a context of fragmentation and globalization - stand in the way of developing the full potential of international legal scholarship as a medium of societal reflection. The classic role of the scholar as a law reformer in the current context turns out to be more problematic than it may have been in the past. Inspired by Kelsenian concerns and Nietzschean metaphorics, the article instead suggests that international legal scholarship functions as a cooling medium for the overheated discursive operations of the political, economic and legal subsystems of World Society.

Inside and out of painting

In this essay, the painter Paulo Pasta seeks to tell a story from within his own work; that is, from the forms he used as motivation of his painting, the author points to the main questions that made his experience. A relation mediated by the making, in which he seeks precisely to build a reflexive distance between the project and the real experience of painting.

The Lure of Disgust: Musil and Kolnai

What makes disgust so alluring? Why does it elicit fascination in spite of its long-standing outcast status in the aesthetic sphere? Both Aurel Kolnai (1900–1973) and Robert Musil (1880–1942) explore the ambivalence of disgust and its strong connection to sexuality and mortality. As a visceral defense reaction against a disturbing or threatening proximity, disgust implies at once the collapse of distance and the desire to reinstate boundaries. Its elicitors are often associated with decay, amorphousness, coalescence, and self-dissolution. Kolnai's phenomenological study and Musil's observations on disgust mirror contemporary anxieties about male identity, female sexuality, and sociocultural changes in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the First World War. Unlike Kolnai, however, Musil questions the epistemic and ethical value of this emotion. His aim is to counter the immediacy of disgust with reflexive and aesthetic distance on behalf of what he coins the “necessary civility of the mind.”

Female Cosmopolitanism? Media Talk and Identity of Transnational Asian Women

Based on empirical research on transnational Asian women in London, this study interrogates the notion of cosmopolitanism and challenges the general assumptions of cosmopolitan identity formation as intersected with the media. Are they becoming cosmopolitan subjects? Can they afford a cosmopolitan identity? It argues that the possibility of becoming cosmopolitan subjects is contingent upon discursive encounters with Others and relational experience; no cosmopolitan yearning, or, a situated but characteristically thin cosmopolitanism, arises from the experience of the actual conditions of transnational lives, unequal relations of power, and discourses of exclusion and inclusion. Rather, a more cosmopolitan sense of style, eager exploration of global Others, and heightened motivations emerged through the increasing experience of the media imaginary among women while inhabiting in their homeland, embracing the world at a reflexive distance.

FROM A ‘BLIND WALKER’ TO AN ‘URBAN CURATOR’: INITIATING ‘EMOTIONALLY MOVING SITUATIONS’ IN PUBLIC SPACES / NUO KASDIENIO MIESTELĖNŲ „AKLUMO” IKI MIESTO AKTYVIZMO: INICIJUOJANT „EMOCIONALIAI PAVEIKIAS SITUACIJAS” VIEŠOSIOSE ERDVĖSE

Reconstructing the mutation of a ‘blind walker’ into the figure of reflexive urban activist, who proposes creative solutions to the problems of de-activated public spaces, urban art interventions are comprehended as a tool for re-inventing and revitalising urban settings while initiating intensive interaction and cooperation between citizens. The idea to arrange ‘emotionally moving situations’ so as to activate reflexive attitude of the citizens toward everyday urban settings was proposed by situationists. By disturbing usual everyday rhythms and trajectories, urban art interventions, flash mobs and urban games establish a reflexive distance from the usual, routine ‘choreography’ of the place and propose alternative scenarios of behaviour in public space. Therefore urban art interventions can be considered as a tool for creative reconceptualization of spatial structures and social order, embedded in urban space. Santrauka Remiantis M. de Certeau pasiūlyta miestelėno „aklumo” metafora, kuri nurodo į nerefleksyvų santykį su kasdiene aplinka, straipsnyje rekonstruojama šios miestelėno figūros transformacija į miesto aktyvistą („miesto kuratorių”), kuris reaguoja į miesto problemas ir ieško kūrybinių šių problemų sprendimų. Aktyvaus santykio su miesto aplinka modelis buvo plėtojamas dar situacionistų (I. Chtcheglovas, G. Debord‘as, A. Kotányi ir kt.), kurie ieškojo kasdienio miesto patyrimo suspendavimo technikų (pavyzdžiui, dreifavimas) ir siūlė reorganizuoti miesto erdves, kad jos imtų produkuoti „emocionaliai paveikias situacijas”. šios paieškos paskatino situacionistus plėtoti „unitarinio urbanizmo” koncepciją. Šiuolaikiniams miestams susiduriant su deaktyvuotų viešųjų erdvių problema, „emocionaliai paveikių situacijų” kūrimo idėja atgimsta nauju pavidalu. Meninės intervencijos į viešąsias erdves, flash-mobai ir miesto žaidimai ardo įprastus elgesio scenarijus, steigia refleksyvųatstumą su rutininiu miesto patyrimu, o taip pat skatina naujųmiesto ritualų atsiradimą bei formuoja emocinį miesto reljefą. Intervencijos į viešąsias erdves gali būti analizuojamos ir kaip refleksijos forma, ir kaip aktualių miesto problemų(viešųjų erdviųdeaktyvavimo) sprendimo būdas.

Making anticipatory systems more robust

PurposeWhen coping with complex, but also possibly disruptive and open‐ended social dynamics, the anticipatory system idea, which was developed by Rosen in the realm of physical and biological system observation, remains a reference framework, but one that may need to be reinforced by other theoretical considerations. This paper aims at using a debate that took place in a specific foresight discussion arena on early detection and weak signal analysis, as a constructive epistemic detour to eventually contribute to such a reinforcement of Rosen's anticipatory system proposal.Design/methodology/approachThe author aims at revisiting Rosen's framework with stimulating inputs drawing upon the early detection debates, by first assessing the original concepts brought up by Ansoff in the 1970s and 1980s and its further enhancements by contemporary scholars. A rather constructivist approach is then developed to weak signal analysis, aiming at emphasising the need, in analytical situations involving social system features, for reflexive stages and capacities. Bearing this requirement in mind, the productive value of the “framing” and “meta‐framing” notions is explored, in order to apply them to Rosen's anticipatory systems and possibly contribute to enriching his original concept.FindingsHow effective the framing and meta‐framing couple can be for a series of anticipatory issues is described in a detailed manner and, then more specifically, Rosen's anticipatory system concept is revisited in the light of those inputs, aiming at putting into perspective new options for research and anticipation activities in general.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is essentially conceptual and based on a rich but disputable detour by early detection and weak analysis issues so as to emphasise key reflexive references and method. However, most of this material is taken from domains rather untypical of Rosennean debates and in addition would need to be completed by a series of supportive cases, but that is beyond the scope and scale of this paper.Practical implicationsThe paper sets clear distinctions and boundaries for when and when not to apply reflexive steps in a foresight exercise, including in the context of rolling out a Rosen type of approach. Research decision making both in the corporate and policy‐making contexts can benefit from such clues and supportive framework conditions.Social implicationsSocial systems are typically complex and involve multiple perspectives and viewpoints; they concern a series of major challenges to be coped with locally or more globally, at environmental, political, cultural or technological level, and in that category of anticipatory endeavor, the framing/meta‐framing epistemic couple may be of great usefulness.Originality/valueAlthough rather conceptual, the detour proposed by the paper aims at creating a reflexive distance and enriched capability to evaluate one's potential biases and blind spots in anticipatory modelling activities.

Remembering Foucault: Queer Theory and Disciplinary Power

Popular post-structural approaches to gender and sexuality take it as axiomatic that disciplinary power constitutes subjectivities, if imperfectly, in an insidious process of domination and social control. While rejecting a project of liberation grounded in the simplistic premise of freedom from power, these formulations nevertheless propose an implicit emancipatory project anchored in the notion that identity discourse is a problem to overcome. In this article I use the sexual and gendered self in the sociological literature as a vehicle to explore more carefully the problem of disciplinary power. My discussion takes two directions. First, I argue that taxonomic discourse may, in some instances, expand upon subjectivities, opening up and empowering, rather than narrowing and setting in stone, the possibilities of self. And second, I argue that late modernity provides the conditions under which some individuals gain reflexive distance from their subject positions to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history. In this context and for these individuals, the multiplicity of available discourses and their often contradictory content come to resemble more a menu of sensitizing options than a regime of social control. Ultimately, I argue that these two observations are not anathema to Foucault’s own research but, are in fact, suggested in his thesis wherein discourse was theorized to establish the limits of self and, under certain conditions, new pathways for self-development. I argue that this more complex conception of disciplinary power is not only more effective in capturing the effects of power but also has the potential to open up important lines of inquiry regarding the sociohistorical conditions that mediate power and its effects.

Does Europe Need Common Values?

This article argues that there is a discrepancy between Jürgen Habermas's initial plea for critical and rational identities and his more recent glorification of the European model. Initially, Constitutional Patriotism could be apprehended as a critical standard for existing political practices. However, Habermas's recent political texts tend to lose all kind of reflexive distance in their apprehension of the European identity — which is presented as distinct and even superior to its counter-model, the US. Such a `Europatriotic' temptation should be resisted. The `thick' European identity advocated by Habermas has no truly federative dimension and could undermine the unique normative potential of a political entity composed of distinct identities. Consequently, the article suggests an elucidation of liberal postnationalism with a view to explaining its refusal to tie Europe's legitimacy to an identification logic.

From apartheid to incorporation

This article explores the insights that research on the emergence of ideologies of modernity and recent discussions of commensurability can offer for the understanding of the construction and maintenance of sociolinguistic hierarchies in Barbados. It takes as its focus (1) the ways in which the drawing of the boundaries of language communities has been linked to broader ideological and political economic processes that surround and depend on linguistic stratification and (2) specific, interaction-level ways in which sociolinguistic stratification is enacted today. It argues that the inclusion of Barbados in the colonial project of producing the modern speaker was underpinned by ideologies of modern governance and was predicated on the political need to transform the enslaved population into modern subjects. This inclusion defined new terms of exclusion and engendered in the speakers a reflexive distance from their English voice.