Representations Of Authority Research Articles

Personal theories of police officers about authority

Police authority supposedly guides the actions of police officers. This article reconstructs personal theories on the authority of police by means of qualitative interviews with German police officers and police candidates. These personal theories are divided into four self-schemata composed of: dealing effectively and preferably with possible problems occurring with police work; different normative orders that define the relationship between the police and civil society; a reference to desirable personality traits for police officers; and symbolic representations of police authority. Such self-schemata influence police interactions with citizens and disclose a diversity of police ideas about authority. The different self-schemata of authority seem to originate from different backgrounds such as practical experience of policing, formal education in police colleges, compliance with commonly accepted societal norms like fairness, non-violence, respect and personal convictions. It is discussed how these self-schemata can be constructively reflected in formal police education in Germany. This article contributes to a nuanced understanding of police authority and how this might be integrated into training. Further research should investigate how these schemata can be integrated into a dynamic model and carry out a comparative, intercultural analysis of these personal theories.

Call for contributions to a special issue on multimodal representations of authority in discourse

Call for contributions to a special issue on multimodal representations of authority in discourse

Combining camera trap surveys and IUCN range maps to improve knowledge of species distributions.

Reliable maps of species distributions are fundamental for biodiversity research and conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) range maps are widely recognized as authoritative representations of species' geographic limits, yet they might not always align with actual occurrence data. In recent area of habitat (AOH) maps, areas that are not habitat have been removed from IUCN ranges to reduce commission errors, but their concordance with actual species occurrence also remains untested. We tested concordance between occurrences recorded in camera trap surveys and predicted occurrences from the IUCN and AOH maps for 510 medium- to large-bodied mammalian species in 80 camera trap sampling areas. Across all areas, cameras detected only 39% of species expected to occur based on IUCN ranges and AOH maps; 85% of the IUCN only mismatches occurred within 200km of range edges. Only 4% of species occurrences were detected by cameras outside IUCN ranges. The probability of mismatches between cameras and the IUCN range was significantly higher for smaller-bodied mammals and habitat specialists in the Neotropics and Indomalaya and in areas with shorter canopy forests. Our findings suggest that range and AOH maps rarely underrepresent areas where species occur, but they may more often overrepresent ranges by including areas where a species may be absent, particularly at range edges. We suggest that combining range maps with data from ground-based biodiversity sensors, such as camera traps, provides a richer knowledge base for conservation mapping and planning.

Representations of authority and work organization in public sector. A difficult balancing between political pressure and authority deployment

Representations of authority and work organization in public sector. A difficult balancing between political pressure and authority deployment

Genealogy, authority and Muslim political representation in British India

AbstractThis article reflects on the significance of genealogy for Sayyids and other Muslim elites in British North India by exploring some literary productions and political endeavours of the Aligarh movement. At the end of the nineteenth century, poems recalling the extra-Indian origins of Muslim elites became increasingly popular, as Altaf Husain Hali's Musaddas best exemplified. Translating an anxiety of seeing their power and influence reduced in the colonial world, such nostalgic discourse, intertwining representations of lineage and authority, promptly entered the political realm. The genealogy rhetoric deployed in Urdu poetry played a significant role in sustaining the claims of the leaders of the Aligarh movement as they strove to bolster a cohesive sharīf community identity and secure political leadership during the anti-Congress propaganda of 1888 as well as to obtain advantages from British officials according to their so-called political importance. In this context, this article emphasises that in Aligarh's nostalgic poetry, the greatest political weight was put on belonging to the ashrāf category rather than to the Sayyids, who only occasionally feature in the sources.

Indigenising Australian music: authenticity and representation in touring 1950s art songs

ABSTRACT Aboriginal-influenced compositions have been central to Australian art music practice since the 1960s, and key to conceptions of an Australian style. While in other creative arts practices (for example, dance and visual arts) appropriative practices have largely become unacceptable, or at least highly contested, compositions influenced by Aboriginal music have retained a central role in art music composition. In this article, I trace this practice back to touring post-war performances of the ‘Aboriginal songs’ of Alfred and Mirrie Hill, Arthur S. Loam and Victor Carell from Carell and Beth Dean’s ‘Dance and Song around the World’ shows in the early 1950s. I suggest that the performance of these songs familiarised audiences with a notional ‘Aboriginal’ sonority that has continued to influence composers and their audiences. Dean and Carell’s claim to authoritative representations of Aboriginal music and dance has had ongoing reverberations throughout Australian performance history, disconnecting Indigeneity from individual Aboriginal people (historical and living) and their traditions. Although ultimately these representations have failed to replace the performance of culture by Aboriginal people, reductive portrayals of Aboriginal musical characteristics remain persuasive.

Important for All: Positioning English Language Learners in Mathematics Professional Development

This paper examines turn-by-turn interactions [Wagner, D., & Herbel-Eisenmann, B. (2014). Mathematics teachers’ representations of authority. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 17(3), 201–225. doi:10.1007/s10857-013-9252-5] in mathematics professional development, looking specifically at facilitators’ positioning of supporting English language learners (ELLs), using ethnographic microanalysis [ Erickson, F. (1992). Ethnographic microanalysis of interaction. In M. D. LeCompte, W. L. Millroy, & J. Preissle (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 201–226). San Diego: Academic Press, Inc.]. This study took place in a weeklong professional development for seven teacher leaders preparing to facilitate mathematics professional development at their schools. Two facilitators led the professional development. The findings demonstrate how facilitators positioned supporting ELLs as important for all and important for some and how their participating teacher leaders responded to this positioning, either accepting or rejecting it. This research highlights the link between positioning authority, which attends to the relationships between comfort, knowledge, and authority, as well as how individuals might develop such authority. This paper begins a conversation about the role of positioning in professional development, specifically linked to facilitators’ positioning and the importance of authority in creating professional learning experiences focused on supporting ELLs.

УЯВЛЕННЯ ЩОДО НАБУТТЯ ТА ПОЗБАВЛЕННЯ ВЕРХОВНОЇ ВЛАДИ В БІЛОРУСЬКО-ЛИТОВСЬКИХ ЛІТОПИСАХ

The article is devoted to the problem of representations of supreme authority in the Belarusian-Lithuanian chronicles through a prism of the notices about the gaining and deprivation of the power of the ruler. The author analyzed the first redaction of the Belarusian-Lithuanian chronicles that containing the "Chronicle of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania”, the second redaction that containing the "Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” and the third redaction ("Bychowiec Chronicle”). The study highlighted several ways of the supreme authority’s legitimation: by right of establishment, by right of inheritance, by right of conquest, by the acceptance of the local population, by the electoral way, by the coup if the organizers of it belonging to the ruling dynasty. It should be noted that the way of justifying the right to power through to underscores of blood ties and prince's enthronement of the son of the previous ruler or less often brother is the main way of gaining the power in the chronicles. The article gives a detailed analysis of features of the chronicle notices about the coronation of the representatives of the Gediminids dynasty. In addition, the notices about the deprivation of the authority usually as a result of the death of the ruler are investigated in the article. Notices of the death of the ruler in contradistinction to notices about the enthronement are mainly the fact statements. In the most complete form, the notes of the death of the ruler include the information about a long successful reign, facts of the ruler death and information about the birth and enthronement of the successor.

Constructing cartographic authority: the conceptualization and mapping of urban spaces in Edinburgh, c. 1880 – c. 1920

ABSTRACTThis article examines how, in the production and use of cartographic items, urban space and local knowledge were brought together to construct authoritative representations of place. Its approach is twofold. The first half of the article is an examination of the mapmakers John Bartholomew & Co.’s changing premises across Edinburgh, which shows that the firm carefully curated their business properties in order to convey credibility and gain trust. The article then introduces the London-based firm Charles E. Goad Ltd, producers of fire insurance plans, and considers their acquisition of urban information and their use of local knowledge from a distance to achieve similar aims. Both cases illustrate the importance of close attention to geography and the spatial dimensions of knowledge construction.

Intimate Partner (Sexual) Violence: Danish Research and Policy

ABSTRACTIn this article the authors seek to describe state responses to figures showing that the rates of physical and/or sexual violence against women in Denmark are among the highest in Europe. The authors do so by investigating the representations of intimate partner sexual violence, framing contemporary political developments of the Danish field of welfare work addressing violence in intimate relationships as well as the dominating knowledge production substantiating these. Theoretically, Slavoj Zizek and his concept objective violence inform the paper, in order to analyze authoritative representations of “intimate partner sexual violence” in two areas: Danish research on sexual violence and Danish policy-papers. On the basis of a descriptive analysis we conclude that intimate partner sexual violence is essentially an unexplored problem in a Danish research context and we show that an incident-oriented conceptualization of rape and sexual assault dominates most of the research on sexual violence. Furthermore, in the political context we identify strong tendencies toward de-gendering violence as an outcome of strategies working to mainstream the field of welfare work addressing violence. This means that in a Danish context working with violence is now taking place within an ideological environment where the idea that equality between the sexes has been achieved dominates.

Epistemic marginalisation and the seductive power of art

Many voices and stories have been systematically silenced in interpersonal conversations, political deliberations and historical narratives. Recalcitrant and interrelated patterns of epistemic, political, cultural and economic marginalisation exclude individuals as knowers, citizens, agents. Two questions lie at the centre of this article, which focuses on the epistemically – but also politically, culturally and economically – dominant: How can we sabotage the dominant’s investment in their own ignorance of unjust silencing? How can they be seduced to become acute perceivers of others’ experiences of oppression and reckon with their own participation in it? Situated at the intersection between political theory, aesthetics and epistemology, this article contributes a so-far-unexplored suggestion: that certain literary works create epistemic friction between shared, entrenched prejudices on the one hand, and representations of epistemic exclusion or authority, on the other. Their power to illuminate ideational, moral and experiential limitations makes them valuable tools in problematising, rendering visible and dislocating epistemic injustice, as well as other marginalisations it intersects with. To advance this argument, the article relies on insights from aesthetics, unpacking fiction’s multidimensional epistemic potential. Audre Lorde exemplifies literary works’ ability to seductively sabotage bias and provide audiences with prosthetic visions of unfamiliar experiences of marginalisation.

Authoritative and Protective Insignia, Regalia and Symbols in Nubian Afro-Byzantine Rulers’ Iconography

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the “authority and protection” insignia, regalia and symbols which are used in the Nubian Afro-Byzantine iconography of kings, eparchoi and other royals. They are discussed and analysed—through the study of the most important frescos in Nubian medieval churches—in terms of their position, function and meaning within the Byzantine and Afro-Byzantine context. The article reaches a number of conclusions referring to the religious, artistic, symbolic, political and institutional use and value of these representations of authority, protection and their connotations.

Legitimacy Troubles and the Performance of Power in the 2016 US Presidential Election

The 2016 US presidential election was characterized by themes of newness, fragmentation, and rupture. This chapter argues that these features were precipitated by manifestations of legitimacy troubles in a host of America’s political and civil spheres, and in and among its democratic institutions. A review of the political legitimacy literature indicates that, despite much commentary to the contrary, a character like the one Donald Trump presented on the campaign trail is not anathema to American symbolic representations of legitimate authority. A cultural pragmatic analysis of the Trump, Clinton, and Sanders campaigns reveals what performances of national identity and claims to leadership look like under conditions characterized by troubled legitimacies.

Representations of homelessness, home environments, and authority in the context of runaway behaviors reported by foster care youth residing in an emergency shelter

ABSTRACTBetween 31 and 46% of youth with histories of foster care placement were homeless at least once. Studies of the incidence of runaway behavior have identified a host of risk factors associated with running away from foster care placement, but less is known about the internalized processes of these individuals at risk for running away or the contextual experience surrounding it. This study is designed to investigate the representations made by individuals who have engaged in running away to uncover and explore thematic patterns. Accordingly, a secondary analysis was performed on data from four group interviews (n = 15) collected from youth under the care of one child protective services (CPS) agency-operated emergency shelter setting, using thematic content analysis by two independent reviewers. Codes were networked and themes that emerged were discussed through a framework of power dynamics. Themes around the participants’ perceptions of homelessness, lack of control, and their resistance to authority were all identified as contributory to the theme of running away. The act of running away is, therefore, framed as a threshold event representing a multifaceted phenomenon combining perceptions of self-identity, conflict, and power in the home.

Pan-Indigenous Encounter in the 1950s: ‘Ethnic Dancer’ Beth Dean

From 1950, ‘ethnic dancer’ Beth Dean made her living on a lecture-demonstration touring circuit of the dance traditions of Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and North America. To assert her expertise, she claimed to have studied Māori and Australian Aboriginal cultures for a number of years. This article investigates how Dean’s didactic performances drew on American traditions of ethnic dance to present apparently authoritative representations of Indigenous cultures, supported by Adult Education Boards in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia and national arts organisations. I argue that Dean exploited the symbolic potential of ‘corroboree’ as a performance of intercultural communication to establish her authority to speak about and perform Australian Aboriginal dance.

Data-centric and logic-based models for automated legal problem solving

Logic-based approaches to legal problem solving model the rule-governed nature of legal argumentation, justification, and other legal discourse but suffer from two key obstacles: the absence of efficient, scalable techniques for creating authoritative representations of legal texts as logical expressions; and the difficulty of evaluating legal terms and concepts in terms of the language of ordinary discourse. Data-centric techniques can be used to finesse the challenges of formalizing legal rules and matching legal predicates with the language of ordinary parlance by exploiting knowledge latent in legal corpora. However, these techniques typically are opaque and unable to support the rule-governed discourse needed for persuasive argumentation and justification. This paper distinguishes representative legal tasks to which each approach appears to be particularly well suited and proposes a hybrid model that exploits the complementarity of each.

Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles. Edited by Kate Buchanan, Lucinda H. S. Dean with Michael Penman. Routledge. 2016. xviii + 284pp. £95.00.

HistoryVolume 102, Issue 349 p. 131-133 Reviews and Short Notices Medieval and Early Modern Representations of Authority in Scotland and the British Isles. Edited by Kate Buchanan, Lucinda H. S. Dean with Michael Penman. Routledge. 2016. xviii + 284pp. £95.00. AMY BLAKEWAY, AMY BLAKEWAY University of KentSearch for more papers by this author AMY BLAKEWAY, AMY BLAKEWAY University of KentSearch for more papers by this author First published: 20 January 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12335Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume102, Issue349January 2017Pages 131-133 RelatedInformation

Gender and representations of authority among pre-service teachers in vocational high schools

Dans cette etude aupres d’enseignantes debutantes affectees en lycee professionnel, les representations sociales de l’autorite sont investiguees dans leurs relations avec le genre et avec les difficultes liees a la gestion de la classe. Fondes sur l’analyse d’entretiens semi-directifs, les resultats montrent que la reception de l’autorite enseignante, dans des classes comportant peu de mixite en matiere de sexe, est percue comme etant initialement liee aux rapports sociaux de sexe et aux caracteristiques corporelles de l’enseignant.e. Les resultats montrent egalement certaines manieres dont ces representations sont prises en compte dans la gestion de la classe et dans l’instauration de l’autorite.

Cinematic visions of Australian colonial authority in Captain Thunderbolt (1953), Robbery Under Arms (1957) and Eureka Stockade (1949)

ABSTRACTThis paper interrogates representations of colonial authority, in particular the police force, in three films with a colonial Australian setting that were produced following the Second World War by British or Australian producers: the local production Captain Thunderbolt (1953) directed by Cecil Holmes; Jack Lee’s British adaptation of Australian literary classic Robbery Under Arms (1957) and Harry Watt’s Eureka Stockade (1949), which was the British production company Ealing Studios’ second production in Australia. I argue that the three films reflect differing approaches to understanding Australian national identity through their representations of authority, ideologically influenced by left-wing politics, the global marketplace and British imperialism. Where Captain Thunderbolt treats the colonial police and government with the sardonic irony and distance of a resistant community, both Eureka Stockade and Robbery Under Arms reinforce and justify Australia’s colonial administration. By detailing the economic, political and social contexts that contributed to these films, I demonstrate how various interest groups appropriated notions of Australian character and history to suit their ideological goals in line with Richard White’s (1992) arguments in ‘Inventing Australia’. Turning to history and folklore, these interests – including the Australian government, British media conglomerate the Rank Organisation and various left-wing organisations – infused the past they evoked in these films with new meanings that suited their vision of the future.

Choosing a Pastor for the Day—Representations of the Pastor in a Contemporary Context

This article examines representations of pastoral authority among mainstream church members in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. We argue that the study of a possible crisis in ministry must include the church members’ perspective. Drawing on theories of societal and cultural changes and focusing on the concepts of increased individual choice, subjective turn and authenticity, as well as Weber’s typology of authority, we analyse the findings of a qualitative study among wedding couples in Denmark and a supplementary quantitative study among adult participants in a special church service for children. The findings indicate that church members evaluate the pastor either as a pre-established church representative or based on a more direct evaluation of personal qualities, but in both cases the evaluation places emphasis on the importance of the relationship between church member and pastor. We conclude that the representation of pastoral authority can be described as ‘relational authority’.