Scientific Narratives Research Articles

Introduction: Climate Change and Pacific Christianities

ABSTRACT This introduction takes a critical look at the heterogeneous corpus of social science research on climate change and Christian religion. The central concern is to present analytical alternatives to the universalist-essentialising approaches which, on the basis of a supposedly inherent contradiction between science and religion, exclude or devalue Christian contestation and modification of climate change discourse. With reference to the empirical-analytical richness of the contributions on Fiji, Vanuatu and Kiribati, this paper highlights the multiplicity, contrariness and processuality of the religious-political practice of Pacific Islanders in response to climate change as both a scientific narrative and a physical reality. The range of topics of the introduction includes the religious dimensions of blame, transnational networks of Christian actors and institutions as well as Christian framings of the nexus of climate change, mobility and resettlement. In addition, it outlines possible fields of future research such as the media politics of Christian institutions’ representations of climate change and a historical re-examination of missionary work in Oceania from the perspective of the entanglements of carbon and Christianity.

Towards meaningful co-creation: a study of creative heritage tourism in Alentejo, Portugal

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the impact of co-creation in the context of heritage tourism. By examining co-creative strategies that promote participative interpretation of archaeological heritage, the emphasis is on understanding how tour guides balance tourists’ individual interpretations and the scientific narrative. The study conducts a qualitative analysis of the tour guiding activity of cultural tourism companies in Alentejo, Southern Portugal. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with local tour guides and from online reviews of archaeological tours in Alentejo. Findings evidence that despite widely employing co-creative strategies for heritage interpretation that tap into tourists’ operant resources and encourage creative discussion, tour guides often dismiss individual interpretations in favour of the established authorized heritage discourse. It is argued that, in doing so, the potential of co-creation for delivering a meaningful experience is hindered. The study contributes towards a critical conceptualization of the use of co-creation strategies in heritage tourism, with particular focus on the implications at deeper meaning-making levels. In practice, the findings can lead cultural tourism providers to reassess their approach to personalization in order to increase their appeal to potential clients holding alternative sets of beliefs and motivations.

MODERNISME DALAM TAFSIR TRADISIONALIS

Al-Ibrīz li Ma’rifati Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-‘Azīz by a traditionalist KH Bisri Musthafa has numerous scientific-nuanced interpretations, a nuance that is basically typical to modernist camp. Taking some examples, this article finds that Kiai Bisri engage scientific narratives in his exegesis under a condition that they also exist in the literatures of faithful (mu’tabara) tafsīr works for Sunnites. The examples show that the tafsir works of Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Qurṭubī and Fakhr al-Dīn alRāzī are likely to be the main sources for Kiai Bisri. When engaging scientific narratives, Kiai Bisri aims at showing the complexity result in the amazement in the readers’ psychology. It is noteworthy that unlike other mufasir engaging ‘ilmī narratives, Kiai Bisri did not want to respond to the Westerners and marginalize traditionalist exegetes. He rather wanted to contextualize Islamic teachings. In doing so, he drew a sort of corridor basing on Sunnite teachings. This explains why he cited more al-Rāzī, an exegete characterized by the openness toward philosophy and thus any kind of development. This also explains Kiai Bisri’s fatwas (on women’s issues, for example) that is in traditional way but at the same time it is also progressive.

Tortura e Migrazioni/Torture and Migration, by Fabio Perocco (ed.).

Reviewing this volume edited by Fabio Perocco and published in open access version by University of Venice Ca' Foscari Editions is no easy task. What makes it hard to sum up this work is not its length (430 pages), but rather its interdisciplinary approach, the depth of observations, the richness in contents and points of view, its geographical width. Yet, these aspects make the book fundamental for anyone willing to understand migratory movements in today's world. Its main merit is having addressed, consistently and systematically, the close relation that has come to be, over the course of decades, between torture and migration. Such relation is no recent piece of news: for a long time, torture has been indicated as one of the most widespread reasons for leaving, one of the most frequent experiences lived along the migration path and, more and more often, a reality that migrants are forced to tackle in receiving countries. Nevertheless, the scientific narrative of such relation is often limited, fragmented and, sometimes, manipulated. Torture has thus far been studied systematically in relation to power (MacMaster 2004), wars and dictatorships (Hajjar 2013, Cohen 2005, Rejali 2009), it is considered as lying at the basis of modernity (Reemtsma 2012) or of the process of civilization (Linklater 2007), but never before it had been analyzed as a structured element of migration. Thus, the volume deserves to be recognized as paving the way for an innovative field of research.

Creature features: The lively narratives of bacteriophages in Soviet biology and medicine.

The term ‘bacteriophage’ (devourer of bacteria) was coined by Félix d'Herelle in 1917 to describe both the phenomenon of spontaneous destruction of bacterial cultures and an agent responsible. Debates about the nature of bacteriophages raged in the 1920s and 1930s, and there were extensive attempts to use the phenomenon to fight infections. Whereas it eventually became a crucial tool for molecular biology, therapeutic uses of ‘phage’ declined sharply in the West after World War II, but persisted in the Soviet Union, particularly Georgia. Increasingly isolated from Western medical research, Soviet scientists developed their own metaphors of ‘phage’, its nature and action, and communicated them to their peers, medical professionals, and potential patients. In this article, I explore four kinds of narrative that shaped Soviet phage research: the mystique of bacteriophages in the 1920s and 1930s; animated accounts and military metaphors in the 1940s; Lysenkoist notions on bacteriophages as a phase in bacterial development; and the retrospective allocation of credit for the discovery of the bacteriophage during the Cold War. Whereas viruses have been largely seen as barely living, phage narratives consistently featured heroic liveliness or ‘animacy’, which framed the growing consensus on its viral nature. Post-war narratives, shaped by the Lysenkoist movement and the campaigns against adulation of the West, had political power—although many microbiologists remained sceptical, they had to frame their critique within the correct language if they wanted to be published. The dramatic story of bacteriophage research in the Soviet Union is a reminder of the extent to which scientific narratives can be shaped by politics, but it also highlights the diversity of strategies and alternative interpretations possible within those constraints.

A world of images: tourism, gender and Hispanism in Georgiana Goddard King’s The Way to Saint James (1920)

ABSTRACT This paper examines the intertwining of early tourism, gender and scientific discourses in The Way to Saint James (1920), written by the American Art History professor Georgiana Goddard King. With the sponsorship of the Hispanic Society, Goddard King travelled to Spain several times during the first years of the twentieth century. This article analyses the overlap between a scientific narrative that focuses on the history, art, and architecture of Spain, on the one hand, and the gendered point of view that anticipates post-modern debates on scholarly knowledge, on the other. Secondly the relationship between this gendered perspective and the emergence of the so-called “tourist gaze” reveals the anxieties of contemporary tourism in its search for images and authenticity, while re-enacting the objective and distanced position of the scientific observer.

Failed revival: some results of the development of Russian evolutionary theory in the second half of the XX century

The historical and scientific narrative about the August 1948 session of Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, portrayed for more than half a century in historiography as a triumph of pseudoscience, has undergone significant changes in recent decades. People who participated in those events are increasingly envisioned as representatives of various scientific clans competing for the authorities’ protection, finances, materials and human resources. The confrontations among biologists of those years are also explained by the interference of ideologists from the US state Department and the Central Committee of the CPSU in the clash two scientific concepts. Based on the analysis of August session’s causes and consequences, the author considers its role in the development of Russian evolutionary theory in the second half of the XXth – early XXI centuries. In those years the state became the sole customer of scientific research and tried to use it effectively to raise economic and military power, to justify its ideological policy and increase its international status. The confrontation between supporters of Michurin’s biology (lysenkoists) and their opponents on both sides involved scientists who already shared the morals, plans, and worldview of the party and government apparatus. Realizing that only the state can provide funds for their research projects, they sought to reach an understanding with the authorities, emphasizing the “ideological correctness” of their research and its great ideological significance. But at the same time, Lysenko’s opponents sought to stay in the mainstream of world science, follow its standards, and therefore were sensitive to the interference of the authorities in determining the strategy of scientific search. As a result, ethical and political compromises were inevitable. Scientists engaged in a dialogue with the authorities in a language they understood, using ideologies they understood, demonstrating loyalty to the party’s policy and official philosophy, but at the same time demanding not only financial and material resources, but also non-interference in science itself. As a result, even after the official collapse of Lysenko’s dominance, the evolutionary theory in the Russian-speaking regions could not regain its leading position in the knowledge of the evolution’s laws and ways.

The Polio Pioneer: Dr. Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine by Linda Elovitz Marshall

Reviewed by: The Polio Pioneer: Dr. Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine by Linda Elovitz Marshall Deborah Stevenson, Editor Marshall, Linda Elovitz The Polio Pioneer: Dr. Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine; illus. by Lisa Anchin. Knopf, 2020 [40p] Library ed. ISBN 9780525646525 $20.99 Trade ed. ISBN 9780525646518 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780525646532 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad 6-9 yrs The polio epidemic and the invention of a life-changing vaccine have special resonance right now, so this picture book biography of Jonas Salk is timely indeed. Marshall follows him from his youth as a scholarly child in a poor but determined Jewish immigrant family to his study of medicine, including his early research developing a vaccine for influenza. The main focus, though, is on his work with the polio vaccine and its progress through testing to eventual success, after which Salk developed a research institute studying various diseases. The discussion of Salk's character doesn't really marry with the scientific narrative, but it's still a usefully streamlined if sometimes bland chronicle of the science behind the creation of a vaccine. The art is gently cheerful, even in the bustling lab scenes, adding a personal touch to the science. The message that a solution was found to a disease outbreak before is a reassuring one, and kids may wish to learn more about Dr. Salk. Unfortunately, no notes or further reading are provided. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Escaping Epidemy: Andrée Chedid’s The Sixth Day

Abstract: In early 2020 COVID-19 turned the whole world into place of horror, capitals into ghost-towns, and hospitals into tombs. But this was not the first time the world was hit by such a catastrophic pandemic. Many countries have hit by innumerable plagues, epidemics and pandemics. It is important to keep these terrible incidents in the collective memory so that precautions are taken and they do not happen again. In 1947, a huge spread of cholera hit Egypt leaving thousands of death and infected as well as a disastrous impact on the socio-economic life of the country. Writer Andrée Chedid sheds light on this epidemic in her novel The Sixth Day, which discusses a wide range of issues at a time when class division dominated in the country. The novel is a testimony to the poor medical condition of the Egyptian countryside.

The Resilience of EU Member States to the Financial and Economic Crisis

Based on the JRC conceptual framework for resilience (Manca et al. in Building a Scientific Narrative Towards a More Resilient EU Society, JRC Science for Policy Report, JRC28548, 2017), this study presents an empirical analysis of the resilience of EU Member States to the recent financial and economic crisis. We address two main research questions: (1) Which countries had a resilient outcome, in terms of both shock absorption during the crisis and recovery in its aftermath? (2) Are there pre-determined country characteristics that help to explain resilient performance? To address these questions, we first select 34 key indicators of economic performance and societal well-being, going well beyond the merely economic growth perspective. Resilience is then measured by the properties of the joint dynamic response of these variables to the crisis shock at different time horizons. Our results demonstrate substantial differences between countries in each of the resilience capacities considered. Regression analysis also reveals that certain predetermined characteristics—such as government expenditures on social protection, political stability or a favourable business environment—are strongly associated with resilient outcomes. Our methodology and findings offer lessons for monitoring resilience and for entry points for effective policy interventions in the future.

Totalitarny islamizm czy totalny islam? Irracjonalny lęk czy uzasadniony strach? Mirosława Sadowskiego integralna i kontekstowa analiza szariatu

TOTALITARIAN ISLAMISM OR TOTAL ISLAM? IRRATIONAL ANXIETY OR JUSTIFIED FEAR? MIROSŁAW SADOWSKI’S INTEGRAL AND CONTEXTUAL SHARIA ANALYSISIn the article, the author presents his reflections on the publications of Mirosław Sadowski, the book Islam. Religia i prawo Islam. Religion and law and the article “Czy islam ma charakter totalitarny?” Is Islam of a totalitarian nature?. The main references are the systemic nature of Islam totalitarianism and total theocracy and the problem of political correctness. The text elaborates on selected theses, characteristic of current research, which pays homage to selective analysis based on the paradigm of Islamophobia. The scientific narrative consisting of the reduction of complex phenomena to one code has been criticized.

The Storytelling Brain: How Neuroscience Stories Help Bridge the Gap between Research and Society.

Active communication between researchers and society is necessary for the scientific community's involvement in developing science-based policies. This need is recognized by governmental and funding agencies that compel scientists to increase their public engagement and disseminate research findings in an accessible fashion. Storytelling techniques can help convey science by engaging people's imagination and emotions. Yet, many researchers are uncertain about how to approach scientific storytelling, or feel they lack the tools to undertake it. Here we explore some of the techniques intrinsic to crafting scientific narratives, as well as the reasons why scientific storytelling may be an optimal way of communicating research to nonspecialists. We also point out current communication gaps between science and society, particularly in the context of neurodiverse audiences and those that include neurological and psychiatric patients. Present shortcomings may turn into areas of synergy with the potential to link neuroscience education, research, and advocacy.

Wild toxicity, cultivated safety: aflatoxin and kōji classification as knowledge infrastructure

ABSTRACTIn 1960, the trajectory of aflatoxin as one of the earliest and best studied cases of a naturally occurring carcinogen in food intersected with the trajectory of an industrial microbe known in the Japanese vernacular as kōji, used for centuries in Japan to make sake, soy sauce, and miso. Over about two decades, the aflatoxin crisis spurred the emergence of a new evolutionary narrative of kōji, Aspergillus oryzae, as a domesticated, non-toxigenic species unique to the Japanese brewery that was clearly distinguishable from its wild, commonly found in nature, and aflatoxin-producing close relative, Aspergillus flavus. It was a shift that came hand-in-hand with the reconstruction of kōji classification. This essay examines the challenges of microbial classification after 1960. By asking how mycologists made a scientific narrative that originated in the interests of Japanese national industries convincing internationally, it explores the knowledge infrastructure that underlay both manufacturing issues and knowledge in microbiology.

Community, network or both?

This paper overviews scientific narratives surrounding communities and networks both off- and online and criticizes the dichotomous approach to the topic, according to which each social structure can be classified as either a community or a network. It is argued that such a division does not facilitate comprehension of the contemporary online social structures with their complexity and dynamism. The study provides an alternative view on the issue assuming that community and network are not mutually exclusive concepts and can be studied holistically. The proposed theoretical statement is operationalized and piloted on the example of ‘Aarhus Internationals’ Facebook group – an online venue for international expats in Denmark. A content analysis of the group`s posts showed how exactly community and network aspects of social structures may coexist and interact online.

Modes of documentary films produced by the future generation of ‘scientists-as-filmmakers’

ABSTRACTSix documentary modes are recognised: poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive and performative. Scientists untrained in filmmaking most often choose the expository mode since it possesses the same traits and conventions as used in most scientific narratives. Yet, this need not be the case given that a new generation of ‘scientists-as-filmmakers’, can be taught to appreciate and apply other documentary modes. In this study, we surveyed the possible documentary modes that scientists from nine Swiss universities and research centres would use, both before and after studying filmmaking courses. As expected, before the start of the courses, the majority of the participants (83.33%) said they would use the expository mode, while 27.45% said they would use the observational mode. However, after attending the filmmaking courses, the number of participants interested in the expository mode fell almost by half, while the number of participants who said they would use the observational mode almost doubled. Unexpectedly, after the course the most chosen mode was the poetic (70.58%), and there was also fair amount of interest in the participatory (38.23%) and reflexive (17.64%) modes. The films produced in the future by the generation of ‘scientists-as-filmmakers’ will contain a much greater variety of documentary modes.

The Necessity of Philosophy in the Exercise Sciences

The pervasive and often uncritical acceptance of materialistic philosophical commitments within exercise science is deeply problematic. This commitment to materialism is wrong for several reasons. Among the most important are that it ushers in fallacious metaphysical assumptions regarding the nature of causation and the nature of human beings. These mistaken philosophical commitments are key because the belief that only matter is real severely impedes the exercise scientist’s ability to accurately understand or deal with human beings, whether as subjects of study or as data points to be interpreted. One example of materialist metaphysics is the assertion that all causation is physical- one lever moving another lever, one atom striking another atom, one brain state leading to another (Kretchmer, 2005). In such a world, human life is reduced to action and reaction, stimulus and response and as a result, the human being disappears. As such, a deterministic philosophy is detrimental to kinesiologists’ attempts to interpret and understand human behavior, for a materialistic philosophy, must ignore or explain away human motivation, human freedom and ultimately culture itself. In showing how mistaken these philosophic commitments are, I will focus on the sub-discipline of sport psychology for most examples, as that is the field of exercise science of which I am paradigmatically most familiar. It is also the field, when rightly understood that straddles the “two cultures” in kinesiology (i.e., the sciences and the humanities). In referencing the dangers of the materialistic conception of human beings for sport psychology, I will propose, that the materialist’s account of the natural world, causation and human beings stems from the unjustified and unnecessary rejection by the founders of modern science of the Aristotelian picture of the world (Feser, 2012). One reason that this mechanistic point of view, concerning human reality has gained ground in kinesiology is as a result of a previous philosophic commitment to quantification. As philosopher Doug Anderson (2002) has pointed out, many kinesiologists believe that shifting the discipline in the direction of mathematics and science would result in enhanced academic credibility. Moreover, given the dominance of the scientific narrative in our culture it makes it very difficult for us not to conform to it. That is, as Twietmeyer (2015) argued, kinesiologists do not just reject non-materialistic philosophic conceptions of the field, we are oblivious to their possibility. Therefore, I will propose two things; first, Aristotelian philosophy is a viable alternative to materialistic accounts of nature and causation and second, that Aristotle’s holistic anthropology is an important way to wake kinesiologists from their self-imposed philosophic slumber.

Damaging hydrological events during the exiting of the Little Ice Age in a highland area of Southern Italy

Historical documentary sources reflect a myriad of social, cultural, political, and scientific narratives about weather, climate and hydrological effectiveness. Their use in climate research provides an important contribution to current debates about climate and related damaging hydrological events. In Europe, the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1840-1920) was characterized by an unusual mixture of storms, floods and landslides. They have marked profoundly the regional landscape of the highlands of the Tammaro area (Campano Apennines, Southern Italy). In this way, we found that episodes of climate variability and its extremes have often disrupted ecosystems during stormy wintertimes (September-March) by injuring plant development phases, and causing sometimes disruption, while also creating new interactions with the agricultural and social environment. The results indicated that the end of the 19th century was the stormiest period of the series 1800-2000, in conjunction with landscape deforestation started in 1850.

Narrative- and Space-Making in the City on the Example of Lublin

This paper discusses the literary, artistic, scientific, and educational narratives that are (re)created to facilitate the city’s recovery of memory in the wake of the Holocaust.This is the case with Lublin.The story of the complete destruction of its Jewish quarter in the Second World War is a tragically familiar one in Central Europe, even though it had been silenced and forgotten for decades during the communist period. I would like to analyze an essayistic project that searches for a new language about a place left empty. How could one fill the void by making it mean something to new people, becoming their own narrative, and preserving the presence of the city’s former inhabitants? How is it possible to create a new mythology of a place? I assume that such questions must have been the starting point for essays on Lublin byWładysław Panas (1947–2005), related to the commemoration in the context of urban space. My text comes in four parts. I begin with general information and historical background, as well as an introduction to the analysis of Panas’s essay Oko Cadyka (The Eye of the Tzaddik) − the main subject of my paper − which exemplifies the reflection on the creation of narrative and urban space in contemporary humanities. In the second part, I focus on and contextualize the relationship between text and city that the essay postulates. The third part deals with theoretical approaches to interpretation. The fourth part underlines the scientific and critical aspects of Panas’s text, which questions the language of science − the humanities, historiography, and theory in general. I end with a look at some artistic projects inspired by his images.

Transformative pedagogy: Dinka playgroups as spaces for cultural knowledge productions of Western science

As increasing numbers of families migrate from a range of countries into communities where Western science is viewed as valued curriculum content, a need for understanding the cultural nature of teaching Western science has become more urgent. The study reported in this paper sought to investigate pedagogical responses to everyday and scientific learning of pre-school children from a group of Dinka (South Sudanese) families now living in a large Australian city. Adopting a cultural-historical methodology, we analyzed 42 h of digital video observations of 34 children, one teacher and 22 parents during their participation in a regular play group in their community. We identified four pedagogical approaches being used to support children’s learning. The videos capture how the use of observational pedagogy, physically helping pedagogy [in the spirit of Barbra Rogoff’s (Hum Dev 57:69–81, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1159/000356757) “pitching in”], verbally helping pedagogy, and embedded scientific narratives, supported new forms of cultural knowledge production by the children. The study suggests that together these relational dimensions of the pedagogy in the playgroup are “transformative” because they support genuine access and participation to other forms of cultural knowledge, such as Western science.

Lithic abstractions: geophysical operations against the Anthropocene

ABSTRACTThe invention of new forms of geo-social knowledge has become one of the imperatives to resist the so-called Anthropocene. Critical theorists have called for enhanced interdisciplinary collaborations between the earth sciences and the social sciences and humanities to disrupt conventional nature/culture divisions and imagine more sustainable futures. The condition for such geo-social encounters, the argument goes, is the politicization of the geosciences, or the correction of their abstracted modes of knowing.Inspired by feminist science studies and geophilosophies, in this article I follow geophysicists to find in their encounters with lithic things alternative modes of knowledge production. By tracking ethnographically their scientific practices, I try to render visible the pragmatics of the abstractions through which they attempt at apprehending inhuman elements and processes. Particularly, I identify two geophysical operations. First, what I call the geo-affective operation of geophysics, or its constitution on a sensual and embodied ecology that does not suspend the abyssal difference between ‘us’ and the radical alterity of geological things, but is rather the consequence of an open being-with inorganic matter. Second, I engage with geo-poetics as a genre of scientific narration that integrates geological entities into scientific accounts, while at the same time preserving their impossible distance with the human. Both operations, I argue, gesture towards a mode of geo-social knowledge in which geophysical abstraction-making, against the call of critical theorists, is empowered to avoid anthropocentric absorptions and symbioses – and hence towards the reformulation of what politicization means in catastrophic times.