Theoretical Critique Research Articles

Re-articulating feminisms: a theoretical critique of feminist struggles and discourse in historical and contemporary China

ABSTRACT In recent years, feminism has gradually become a buzzword in the global hyper-commercialized popular culture. Young women and girls are encouraged to please and empower themselves through consumption and/or ‘leaning in.’ On the other hand, feminist activism and movements against gender inequality and injustice continue to flourish at the local, national, and transnational levels. Yet, as systematic oppression and violence persist and intertwine, neither the depoliticized gendered popular culture nor the single-issue feminist advocacy and resistance can overturn the unequal power structures. This article explores feminist struggles and discourse in historical and contemporary China as a case to argue that feminist scholars and activists urgently need to revalorize the radical and political potential of feminisms as emancipatory ideas and actions. In response to the popular western-centric perception of feminism, I trace back to women’s movements in revolutionary and socialist China in the first half of the twentieth century. Following the critique of the enduring masculinist power and the rising prevalence of post-feminism in post-socialist and reforming China, I analyze the current popular discourse and public debates of feminism, feminist and queer activism, the grassroots NGOs for rural migrant women, and state-sponsored gender development programs. Built upon the analyses, the article calls for a re-articulation of feminisms through three strands: Engaging the great mass, making the broader range of feminist thoughts and praxis accessible to the general public, and recounting the historical legacy of feminist movements in specific contexts. Forming allies with various underprivileged and marginalized groups are still imperative for feminist struggles in present conjunctures.

EL SENTIDO DEL CONTENIDO DEPORTE EN EL PROGRAMA DE EDUCACIÓN PRIMARIA (URUGUAY)

The article essays a theoretical critique of the current Early and Primary Education Program for the uruguayan school. First, it reviews the content of the general components of all the areas of the design, stopping then at the specific one of the Area of Body Knowledge - Physical Education, particularly in the treatment of the sport content. Its main conceptualizations are compiled and analyzed in order to identify internal contradictions. It is concluded that its dissonances alter the coherence of the global structure of the document, which affects the pedagogical interests to which its contents respond with their consequences in the national educational political project.

Morality Meters and Their Impacts on Moral Choices in Videogames: A Qualitative Study

Morality meters are a commonly used mechanic in many ethically notable video games. However, there have been several theoretical critiques of such meters, including that people can find them alienating, they can instrumentalise morality, and they reduce morality to a binary of good and evil with no room for complexity. While there has been much theoretical discussion of these issues, there has been far less empirical investigation. We address this gap through a qualitative study that involved participants playing a custom-built visual novel game ( The Great Fire) with different intuitive and counter-intuitive morality meter settings. Overall, we found that players’ attitudes towards the morality meter in this game was complex, context sensitive and variable throughout gameplay and that the intuitiveness of the meter encouraged participants to treat the meter more ‘as a moral guide’ that prompts reflection and less ‘as a score’ to be engaged with reactively.

RE-THINKING THE IMPACT OF ORGANISATIONAL SPONSORSHIP WITH LACANIAN THEORY

Sponsoring has been positioned as a powerful intervention for the career advancement of women, with career resilience as a key benefit of sponsorship. In this paper we utilise a psychoanalytic framework namely Lacanian discourse theory, to argue that this may not be the case, and that sponsoring may actually create a diagonally opposite result by creating (ir)resilience in individuals being sponsored. Our theoretical critique is supported by empirical data from qualitative interviews with participants across Europe, as well as an examination of extracts from accounts of sponsoring in published research. Our analysis supports an alternate way of thinking about sponsoring and has implications for human resource practice. We suggest reversing the hierarchical positioning of sponsors and sponsees to counter the (ir)resilience created in a hierarchical sponsoring relationship. The resulting artificially introduced hystericisation will set the scene for radical change and build career resilience in women, both as sponsors and sponsees.

Human Rights In Nigeria’s External Relations: Building The Record of A Moral Superpower, written by Philip C. Aka Examining Human Rights Issues And Democracy Project In Sub-Sahara Africa: A Theoretical Critique And Prospects for Progress in The Millennium, written by E. Ike Udogu

Human Rights In Nigeria’s External Relations: Building The Record of A Moral Superpower, written by Philip C. Aka Examining Human Rights Issues And Democracy Project In Sub-Sahara Africa: A Theoretical Critique And Prospects for Progress in The Millennium, written by E. Ike Udogu

Modernism in the Classroom: Lionel Trilling and the Experience of Literature

This essay surveys the career of Lionel Trilling to understand why he uses the phrase “modernism in the streets” to critique the 1960s counterculture. It focuses on his role as a teacher in relation to his writings on higher education, testimonies from his former students, the emergence of critical theory, and his understanding of the experience of literature. At stake in studying Trilling’s shift from an early champion of the modern imagination to his later defense of the rational intellect is his fear of the university’s commodification of art and the erosion of the liberal arts humanistic ideal. This essay ultimately argues that Trilling’s career reimagines the function of literature in the humanist tradition to account for the modernist and theoretical critique of humanism. In doing so, Trilling revitalizes the usefulness of irony as a mode of self-creation and exemplifies a new model of sincerity that teachers can adopt when faced with the task of helping students navigate the tension between the excess of modern literature and the decorum necessitated by social institutions.

Nacionalismo como lógica de partilha

Com base na análise de obras, entrevistas e posicionamentos políticos de Edward Said sobre as relações Israel-Palestina, o artigo discute como inflexões no ativismo do autor se articulam com a evolução de suas reflexões teóricas. Argumenta-se que mudanças de posição de Said sobre os conflitos da questão palestina refletem movimentos contínuos de sua produção teórica, particularmente o desenvolvimento de teses críticas a formas e práticas de filiação identitária. Conquanto Said mude algumas opiniões ao longo dos anos, sustenta-se que a crítica teórica a lógicas identitárias, em especial o que denomina “modelo de partilha” do nacionalismo, assim como o elogio de uma postura universalista se apresentam desde sempre em sua obra.

Loosening the grid: topology as the basis for a more inclusive GIS

ABSTRACT The past 25 years have seen a proliferation of interest in GIS among humanists and humanistic social scientists. Under various banners – historical GIS, qualitative and mixed methods GIS, spatial and digital history, digital humanities, spatial humanities or geohumanities – researchers have developed new ways to include qualitative data within the framework of GIS. At the same time, social and theoretical critiques of GIS as a tool wielded chiefly by and for those in power have increased awareness of its limitations, particularly for studying human perceptions, experiences, and the meanings of place. We agree with a growing chorus of geographers that the most common data structures in GIS are inadequate to capture or analyze the relational dimensions of subjectivity. As part of the solution, we propose an alternative hybrid framework that prioritizes topological relationships while retaining coordinate locations as points of connection between geographic places and experiential evidence. This article explains how the challenges posed by Holocaust survivor testimony inspired us to pursue inductive spatial analysis and non-coordinate means of mapping. We then set out a model for a topological GIS and illustrate its application with two survivor testimonies and a map of their experiences.

Why look at taxidermy animals? Exhibiting, curating and mourning the Sixth Mass Extinction Event

ABSTRACT What role do museums play in elevating the Sixth Mass Extinction Event within public consciousness? How is an increasing awareness of human-made extinctions and global biodiversity loss transforming the representational techniques employed by natural history curators? And what are the prevailing ideologies and emotional registers of contemporary exhibitions about anthropogenic extinctions? This essay answers these questions by analysing how recent natural history exhibitions communicate the Sixth Extinction through the affects of grief, loss and sadness. By unfolding a tripartite analysis, one which brings together natural history curatorial practices, theoretical critique from critical heritage studies and environmental humanities, and anti-institutional activism from groups such as Extinction Rebellion, I make the argument that while these exhibitions have the potential to develop posthumanist practices of curation that disrupt the dominant anthroponormativity of natural history, there remain unresolved questions surrounding their representational reliance on mourning.

Methodological and conceptual issues in studying effort-reward fit

PurposeResearch on effort-reward “imbalance” (ERI) has gained popularity in the occupational health literature, and authors typically use effort-reward ratios (ERRs) to study this phenomenon. This article provides a methodological and theoretical critique of this literature and suggestions on how future research can better study joint effects of efforts and reward.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a simulation study, analyzed panel data and surveyed the literature on the theoretical and methodological basis of the “imbalance” concept.FindingsThe simulation study indicates that under many conditions the ERR captures main effects of effort and reward and that effects also depend on the scaling of the variables. The panel data showed that when main effects and the interactions of effort and reward are entered simultaneously in a regression predicting mental and physical health, the significant effect of the ERRs disappears. The literature review reveals that psychological theories include more elaborate theoretical ideas on joint effects of effort and reward.Research limitations/implicationsThe results suggest that moderated multiple regression analyses are better suited to detect a misfit between effort and reward than ERRs. The authors also suggest to use the term effort-reward fit in future research.Originality/valueMethodologically and conceptually the authors showed that the ERR is not an appropriate approach because it confuses main effects with interaction effects. Furthermore, the concept of ERI is better substituted by a broader conceptualization of effort-reward fit that can be integrated with the existing literature on person-environment fit. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Collateral Paternalism and Liberal Critiques of Public Health Policy: Diminishing Theoretical Demandingness and Accommodating the Devil in the Detail.

Critical literatures, and public discourses, on public health policies and practices often present fixated concerns with paternalism. In this paper, rather than focus on the question of whether and why intended instances of paternalistic policy might be justified, we look to the wider, real-world socio-political contexts against which normative evaluations of public health must take place. We explain how evaluative critiques of public health policy and practice must be sensitive to the nuance and complexity of policy contexts. This includes sensitivity to the 'imperfect' reach and application of policy, leading to collateral effects including collateral paternalism. We argue that theoretical critiques must temper their demandingness to real-world applicability, allowing for the detail of social and policy contexts, including harm reduction: apparent knock-down objections of paternalism cannot hold if they are limited to an abstract or artificially-isolated evaluation of the reach of a public health intervention.

Chasing rainbows? A recognition-based critique of Primark’s precarious commitment to inclusion

This paper develops a dialectical critique of organizational commitments to inclusion showing how, as rhetorical gestures, such commitments are undermined by practices of over-inclusion and exclusion. It argues that these practices are not distinct but interrelated aspects of the instrumental ways in which organizations respond to encounters with difference, limiting the latter’s capacity to open up new ways of being, and of organizing. This theoretical critique is illustrated with reference to two examples of Primark’s recent treatment of LGBTQ employees and communities. The first, the company’s recent introduction of a range of Pride-themed clothes and accessories, illustrates how inclusion is pursued through an appropriating co-optation or ‘over inclusion’ of difference. The second, the company’s treatment of a transgender employee and subsequent tribunal evidence, indicates how Primark’s espoused commitment to inclusion is also undermined by an exclusionary negation. The discussion draws on insights from Judith Butler’s writing on recognition and precarity to develop a recognition-based critique of how the simultaneous pursuit of twin strategies of over-inclusion and exclusion perpetuates a reification of difference, examining the consequences of this for those involved and for the critical evaluation of corporate commitments to inclusion more widely.

Diálogos entre Geografia e Ciências Sociais: Região, Regionalidade e América Latina e Caribe

O presente artigo propõe desenvolver uma reflexão crítica a partir da Geografia e das Ciências Sociais Latino-Americanas, acerca da relação entre dinâmicas regionais e as categorias de análise geográfica e regional América Latina e Caribe. O objetivo é analisar a possível insuficiência do universalismo europeu sobre as nomenclaturas América Latina e Caribe frente a particularidades culturais, territoriais e processos sociais contra-hegemônicos. O método qualitativo norteará a metodologia baseada na interpretação de materiais bibliográficos clássicos e contemporâneos para analisar outras alternativas de regionalização deslocadas do essencialismo econômico, colonial e imperialista da cartografia tradicional. Acreditamos em outras linguagens possíveis de distintas cartografias conforme diferentes regionalizações do continente, baseados em aspectos históricos, críticas teóricas, fluxos migratórios, populações étnico-raciais, distribuição sócioespacial de grupos econômicos e aspectos político-ideológicos.
 Palavras-chave: Geografia, Ciências Sociais, Região, América Latina.

Negotiating a coach identity: a theoretical critique of elite athletes’ transitions into post-athletic high-performance coaching roles

ABSTRACT There has been a growing trend of elite athletes being fast-tracked into post-athletic high-performance coaching roles in association football and rugby union in England and Wales. This has been facilitated by an increase in bespoke and condensed formal coach education courses that are designed to accelerate current and/or former elite athletes in attaining their coaching accreditation. Hitherto, however, the individual lived experiences of former athletes on this career trajectory during their transition to coaching remains under-investigated. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to analyse how elite male association football and rugby union athletes based in England and Wales (re)created, re-negotiated or transformed their identities when negotiating a fast-tracked career pathway into a post-athletic high-performance coaching role. Fifteen male rugby union (n = 10) and association football (n = 5) athletes were interviewed on two separate occasions over twelve months. Interviews coincided with the start and end dates of the level three coach education course which they were concurrently enrolled on. Interviews focused upon how they (re)created their professional identities upon negotiating the career transition into a post-athletic high-performance coaching role. Data were critically theorised against sociological concepts associated with the theoretical frameworks of Bourdieu, Goffman and Foucault. Results identified how the development of a coaching identity was articulated through the need to define a ‘coaching philosophy’. Upholding a coach identity in an ‘honest’ disposition so athlete to coach respect could be best attained was expressed by all participants and contrasted with Goffman’s concepts of front and backstage impression management. Self-reflexive practices of Foucault’s askesis were engaged to varying levels to create a coach identity. In three cases this resulted in participants' contestation of their respective club’s identity/culture and losing employment as a coach. Finally, recommendations on how coach education structures can further support these coaches in their career transitions are made.

Second Language Acquisition of English Unaccusative Verbs: A Theoretical Critique and Prospects for Future Studies

Unaccusative verbs are a focus of second language acquisition research. Taking the second language acquisition of English unaccusative verbs as an example, this study first reviews the Unaccusative Hierarchy Hypothesis, the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis and the Semantic Verb Class Hypothesis, which are exclusively concerned with the acquisition of unaccusative verbs. Then it examines the Entrenchment Hypothesis and the Interface Hypothesis, which address language acquisition in general, but shed light on the second language acquisition of English unaccusative verbs. This study maintains that these five hypothesis help to provide a panoramic view of second language acquisition of English unaccusative verbs. But it also points out that these hypotheses need to be further tested. It advises future studies to take a usage-based theoretical approach. It also calls for more attention to the possible between-verb variations, the possible influence of L1 transfer and the online processing of English unaccusative verbs

IR Moral Realism’s Epistemology

Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers received 16 book reviews within 6 months of its publication. Among them, the one by Professor Rajesh Rajagopalan (which appeared in the India Quarterly, 75:3) is the most academically and theoretically compelling. I highly appreciate his sincere theoretical critiques that encourage me to rethink my theory. His review inspired me to have a written conversation with him about the epistemology of the international relations (IR) theory of moral realism.

Deliberative Systems Theory and Citizens’ Use of Online Media: Testing a Critical Theory of Democracy on a High Achiever

Deliberative systems theory is a promising candidate for a normative theory of democracy that combines ideal requirements with feasibility. Yet, recent theoretical elaborations and studies of citizens’ online media use inspired by the theory suffer from an incomplete account of the public sphere’s epistemic function, too rough interpretations of participatory levels, shortcomings in the understanding of online media, and a context-insensitive notion of policy reform. Addressing these weaknesses, the article argues for a refined version of deliberative systems theory. Particular attention is given to feasibility considerations. Reviewing studies of online democracy in Norway, the article shows that the theoretical critique has practical significance. It is also argued that the amended version of the deliberative systems approach produces a diagnosis of Norwegian online democracy more in line with reasonable expectations to a high achiever. This is taken as a prima facie indicator of feasibility.

A comparison of four vowel overlap measures

Multiple measures of vowel overlap have been proposed that use F1, F2, and duration to calculate the degree of overlap between vowel categories. The present study assesses four of these measures: the spectral overlap assessment metric [SOAM; Wassink (2006). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119(4), 2334-2350], the a posteriori probability (APP)-based metric [Morrison (2008). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 123(1), 37-40], the vowel overlap analysis with convex hulls method [VOACH; Haynes and Taylor, (2014). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 136(2), 883-891], and the Pillai score as first used for vowel overlap by Hay, Warren, and Drager [(2006). J. Phonetics 34(4), 458-484]. Summaries of the measures are presented, and theoretical critiques of them are performed, concluding that the APP-based metric and Pillai score are theoretically preferable to SOAM and VOACH. The measures are empirically assessed using accuracy and precision criteria with Monte Carlo simulations. The Pillai score demonstrates the best overall performance in these tests. The potential applications of vowel overlap measures to research scenarios are discussed, including comparisons of vowel productions between different social groups, as well as acoustic investigations into vowel formant trajectories.

Auto-thanato-theory: Dark Narcissistic Care for the Self in Sedgwick and Zambreno

Auto-thanato-theory:Dark Narcissistic Care for the Self in Sedgwick and Zambreno Irving Goh (bio) this essay advances what i call "auto-thanato-theory," which I draw from certain aspects of autotheory.1 I am particularly interested in two texts that look toward death, namely Eve Sedgwick's A Dialogue on Love (1999) and Kate Zambreno's Appendix Project (2019). Even though Sedgwick's text predates the announcement of the term "autotheory" in the contemporary theoretical scene, and Zambreno's text has yet to be embraced as autotheory, they can nonetheless be considered to be part of the genre's growing archive. This is because, if we take autotheory to be a genre-fluid mode of writing where a self—in all its history, biography, and psychology—intercalates itself explicitly within a theoretical reflection on a contemporary being-in-the-world, A Dialogue on Love and Appendix Project share these features.2 But at stake in A Dialogue on Love and Appendix Project is a self that desires to be done with existence, if not a self that feels already dead. Such a disposition seemingly goes against the optimistic horizon, or even celebratory intention, of foregrounding the self in autotheory, the aim of which is arguably to give its critique of being-in-the-world a more complex, affective, and perhaps authentic layer, rather than leaving critique at the level of theoretical deftness or rhetorical ruse. And yet, if a self that looks toward death or feels itself already dead finds a discursive space today, I would say that such a space was opened up by autotheory, precisely through its narcissistic dimension, one which arguably gets us to rethink narcissism as a "care for the self" in the Foucauldian sense.3 [End Page 197] As I hope to make clear, there is an important reckoning to be made in the discussion of autotheory with respect to the self that desires its departure from the world. autotheory, or from narcissism to a care for the self Let me first elaborate on the narcissistic dimension in autotheory by turning to two seemingly foundational texts: Maggie Nelson's Argonauts (2015), in which the term autotheory first entered into contemporary theoretical discourse, and Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie (first published in Spanish in 2008 and translated into English in 2013), in which the opening proclamation as "self theory" serves as inspiration for Nelson's own work (11). These autotheory texts make the self an extensive foreground, and they do so by giving equal, if not greater, exposition of the self's experiential engagements and affective responses in their respective theoretical critique of a contemporary being-in-theworld. They also inscribe, explicitly at the outset, the self's queer sexual desires and activities: The Argonauts opens with anal sex between the narrating/theorizing self and the transgender lover while Testo Junkie offers the theorizing/transgender narrator filming himself masturbating while addressing his dead lover. In both scenes, a certain narcissism is depicted. Nelson acknowledges as much through both her allegiance to Eileen Myles, who has disclosed the "dirty secret" that everything she writes is about herself, and her declaration that all the affects she negotiates while being in a queer relationship and raising a child with her transgender partner are nothing short of "the personal made public" (60). Nelson qualifies this narcissism as distinct from the narcissistic performance that is the "instantaneous, noncalibrated, digital selfrevelation" afforded by contemporary social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, which Nelson finds alienating (60–61). Her narcissism, she claims, is more deliberative, ethical even, which furthermore has an ontological basis: it exhibits itself as "writing that dramatizes the ways in which we are for another or by virtue of another, not in a single instance, but from the start and always" (60). This is a kind of ethico-political narcissism in the sense of actualizing a veritable queer theory, advanced by a "self-involved thinking," that, in Nelson's view, reaffirms Eve Sedgwick's dictum that the use of the first-person pronoun serves to disseminate and affirm queer subjectivities (41). [End Page 198] As Nelson notes, "Sedgwick once proposed that 'what it takes—all...

Observing people working as fieldwork: methodological notes on ethnography in postindustrial coworking spaces

This article is an approximation to the ethnographic approach deployed in coworking spaces in Poblenou, Barcelona. A theoretical critique of the phenomenon is carried out in order to reflectively expose the different ethnographic experiences collected by apprehending some changing units of analysis in precarious condition. Also, due to the coworking spaces function as urban platforms for a supposed new economy based on atomized workers and fragile business initiatives. Finally, some preliminary data and conclusions will be presented to shed some light on a phenomenon that has not been anthropologically explored.