Universal Perspective Research Articles

The Era of Posthumanism

ABSTRACT Many of the theories that have been discussed in recent years are distrustful of the anthropological inroads or are openly hostile to them. The problems of the environment, global politics, and the discoveries of biology and medicine create a rich foundation for such attitudes. They are also manifested in the genres of comments that emanate from the domains of rigorous theory and science into the zones of unprovable projections, forecasts, and programs. Perhaps only media philosophy still dares to talk about the need for media anthropology. Yet how is it possible to try to determine what is human in such conditions—among conglomerations of particles (Whitehead-Latour) and entanglements (Barad), in the indiscernibility of the organic and the inorganic? What language can one still use to discuss it—the language of psychoanalytic loss, of scientific impartiality, of literary fiction? Through what concepts can one lay out the path—of function, of environment, of system? This article provides a brief summary of the selection of articles included in the present special issue. The authors of these articles attempt to talk about the human by unleashing this concept in their own way from a cosmic and universal perspective.

A Theology of Justice in Exodus. By Nathan Bills

This work is a revised dissertation that approaches the text of Exodus through the theological lens of creation and justice. Offering a synchronic reading, Bills highlights the creational motifs of Genesis as a critical backdrop to the narrative of Exodus. He argues against scholars who hold a particularistic view of God’s justice for Israel and contends that Exodus’s use of creational themes embraces a universal perspective on justice. He also links the theological theme of justice with Israel’s new life as a liberated people who, as servants to YHWH, are formed by the ethical mandate to live as a just people. The first chapter offers a detailed survey of how justice was perceived in the ancient Near East and in Israel. Bills notes that the biblical word pairing ‘justice and righteousness’ applies not only to Israel but to all humanity. This is made most explicit in the commands regarding the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner as a summary for those with the least power in society who are most in need of justice. The following two chapters turn to the Exodus narrative from Egypt to the wilderness. Bills explores the inner-biblical echoes with Genesis and contends that Exodus 1–4 looks back to God’s justice established in creation and looks forward to Israel’s role as God’s emissary of justice on earth. Exodus 5–15 continues with similar themes, but the question of sovereignty comes to the fore in the clash between Pharaoh and YHWH. The mixed multitude that leaves Egypt is a sign of God’s global desire for justice, and the drama reveals the demise of Pharaoh’s systematic injustice by the mythic victory of YHWH at the sea. In the fourth chapter, Bills turns to pedagogy and sees the wilderness wanderings as YHWH’s movement towards training Israel to be a holy and just people. This leads to the giving of the Law at Sinai, which ‘institutionalizes’ Israel’s vocation to express YHWH’s creational justice both to those within, and outside of, the covenant community. The fifth chapter examines the construction of the tabernacle. Bills contends that the portable shrine ‘institutionalizes’ the Sinai experience. Though he rightly connects the theme of justice to the worshipping community, it is here that his argument seems most stretched. Having minimized the descent of the divine presence foreshadowed in the burning bush, actualized at Sinai, and concluding with God’s glory filling the tabernacle, we find that the priestly motif of holiness becomes obscured. Bills has crafted an excellent argument for creational justice and pedagogy in Exodus, but it comes at the expense of the cult, atonement, purity, and holiness, which are all represented by the tabernacle and the divine presence. Even with a synchronic reading of Exodus, the tabernacle points directly to the work/worship of the cult as expressed in Leviticus. Despite this omission, Bills offers a compelling reading of Exodus that builds on a creational theology of justice found in Genesis. Throughout the book he makes use of canonical and intertextual links as well as a breadth of research to help build his argument. This volume will be an excellent resource for clergy and students of the Bible who are interested in the Exodus narrative and its relationship to God’s justice in the past and its importance in the world today.

Rediscovering the importance of Antarctic Law for the early twenty-first century

ABSTRACT International law provides a system of legal order for the conduct of international relations. Within this system, states may constitute regional legal regimes in a continuous geographical area to address their own regional problems. In Antarctica, states active in the region have developed a sui generis regional legal regime (conceptualised here as ‘Antarctic Law’) to address problems of the Antarctic. During most of the twentieth century, Antarctic Law played a central role in understanding human interaction within, and international ordering of, the Antarctic region. However, over the last two decades, understanding the importance of the legal and regional nature of Antarctic law has become less prominent. Instead, Antarctic scholarship (including legal analysis) has moved towards a universalist perspective, interdisciplinary scholarship and critical approaches. We argue these approaches have under-appreciated the importance of the legal ordering of the region. New challenges within the region will require responses that draw on this regional legal ordering. This paper therefore aims to be a first step towards rediscovering the importance of the concept of ‘Antarctic Law’ as a regional and legal regime with a key role in providing successful international order within the Antarctic region to meet the challenges of the early twenty-first century.

A Research Design Based on The Framework of Tafseer Al-Fiqhiy (Quranic Juristic Commentary)

Research design is essential in constructing any conducted research. It is a plan, strategy and investigation structure in a particular element defined in accordance with research objectives. However, the current research design is based on the Conventional Research Method (CRM) which fails to address Islamic based researches. CRM and Islamic Research Method (IRM) are different in many features. As the first is claimed as being constructed based on a universal perspective, IRM is structured on the pertinent fundamentals of Islamic overview. Somehow, before its good rapport, CRM is considerably counted in Islamic and Muslim intelligentsia. It brings to the question of how far the CRM is relevant to study the above-mentioned items as its perspective and epistemology are different from IRM. Hence, this study was conducted to construct one of the IRM research components that will be able to contribute to the framework of tafseer al-fiqhiy. Tafseer al-fiqhiy is a set of a guideline of commentary or interpretation employed by mufassirin (authors of tafseer) in discussing fiqh’s problems, relevant jurisprudence (laws) which are in line with the interpreted Quranic verses. It laments some strategies, specific steps and indicators focusing on the pattern of tafseer al-fiqhiy are in lieu of applying it into researches of Islamic fiqh. In achieving this aim, the qualitative approach was conducted focusing on exploratory design to study the pattern of tafseer al-fiqhiy. Apart, the study took into consideration the purpose of examining the relevant works of literature. The discussions in this research are divided into two folds: firstly, identifying the tafseer al-fiqhiy and secondly, analyzing the elements of tafseer al-fiqhiy to be applied into IRM. The findings suggest some notions regarding the suitability and relevance of tafseer al-fiqhiy can be utilised in the concerned. It also ties up with the Islamic juristic issues. Under the status quo, tafseer al-fiqhiy posits its appropriateness in the research of fiqh prior to its accuracy and reliability. It is also parallel to the Islamic standard as the tafseer al-fiqhiy is retrieved from the vital branch of Islamic sciences viz. tafseer al-Quran. Thus, it can be a frame of reference amongst the scholars who have the interest to venture into the study of Islamic discourses.
 
 Received: 23 September 2021 / Accepted: 21 December 2021 / Published: 5 March 2022

Is a New Public Medical School Linked to Compulsory Service Necessary to Strengthen Public Health Care in Korea?: Who Wants to Build a New Public Medical School Linked to Compulsory Service? And Why?

The purpose of this study is to clarify the background of the controversial attempt to establish a new public medical school linked to compulsory service as a means of strengthening public healthcare in Korea, and to raise anticipated problems with possible solutions. In Korea, healthcare is predominantly provided by the private sector focused on medical care, rather than public healthcare, even under the national health insurance system. The government has been mainly in charge of public health and unmet medical services from a residual perspective, but health inequalities still exist. To resolve this issue, the government created the concept of public health and medical service (PHMS) from a universal perspective and tried to strengthen the infrastructure of public healthcare and to foster core PHMS doctors by establishing a new public medical school linked to compulsory service in medically vulnerable areas. This study investigated the reality and concept of the new public medical school planned by the government, and identified problems such as the possibility of obtaining accreditation and evaluation before its establishment, the side effects of dividing doctors’ roles, the waste of huge amounts of resources, and insensitive policies. In conclusion, in order to resolve health inequalities in Korea, we need to train doctors through medical school education that strengthens the social responsibility of doctors along with strengthening public healthcare infrastructure, and to provide a better environment for doctors working in medically vulnerable areas through sophisticated policies.

West Meets East: Balancing an Unbalanced World and View of the World

Abstract This article argues that misunderstanding between nations, especially between West and East, is often the source of conflicts. The current study of the Chinese/Asian approach to international relations has been dominated by Western perspectives that have often misrepresented, misinterpreted, or denied the existence and uniqueness of Chinese/Asian values and ways of dealing with international relations. The Western monotheist belief is very much West-centric, characterized by the nature of dualism, perceiving things in terms of a fundamental concept of dichotomy between right and wrong, angels and demons, white and black, leaving little room for competition, compromise, or integration. This approach will lead, and has led, to conflicts and even wars between nations. Yet, most Asian nations, though each has its own culture, tradition, and approach to international relations, share certain norms that are very much non-Western. Eastern wisdom conceives of international relations from a melioristic and genuinely universal perspective and is distinct from the parochial stand of the Westphalian system. For instance, the concept of harmony and the belief in moral force in a close association with unity of the Chinese nation and the world, which has been missed in Western political conceptualizations, has been deeply rooted in the mind of Chinese elites, which could be a supplement or alternative to the Western idea of power politics. Thus, this article advocates for a post-Orientalism approach to the East and an in-depth and thorough study and understanding of Asian culture and its way of handling international affairs to promote East–West communication, collaboration, and harmony.

A Brazilian Universalist: Manuel Alvaro de Souza Sá Vianna and international law in Brazil in the early twentieth century

The purpose of this contribution is to shed light on Sá Vianna’s universalist approach to international law, considering his theoretical perspective and trajectory as a jurist in Brazil. Without seeking to exhaust all the nuances of his thinking in this article, we will explore his academic trajectory and the ways in which Sá Vianna analyzed issues related to the universal character of international law. Despite the impact of Sá Vianna’s ideas on the work of Brazilian, Latin American, and even European and US jurists in the early years of the twentieth century, Sá Vianna’s marked universalist perspective, as opposed to Álvarez’s regionalism, seems to have been forgotten. However, a detailed analysis of Sá Vianna’s thinking constitutes a fundamental step in mapping the contours of a Brazilian approach to international law.

Human Rights: An Unenforceable Concept

This qualitative article analyzes the idea of human rights as inalienable rights. Long before modernity changed the world, it signed many agreements to establish human rights, particularly those governing the boundaries of the authority of leaders and citizens. Although moral assumptions are involved, they have no significant impact on its enforcement. Thus, along with its limited capability, the concept of human rights is solely a decorative element of the constitution and legal framework. Under such circumstances, recognizing the significance of understanding human rights needs an all-out concerted effort, mainly from a universal perspective and a legal enforcement effort. The study seeks to determine why human rights enforcement in Indonesia is ineffective and contrary to the concept of universal human rights. The author employs qualitative research with a descriptive method to address this issue. This research is also desk (library research), as I entirely based it on library data sources on library research. In addition, it employs literature related to the enforcement of Human Rights (HAM) from a legal perspective. This study concludes that human rights enforcement in Indonesia is weak because of flaws in the law and the state's lack of political will to enforce human rights and obligations. These changes include ensuring that the enforcement of human rights is absolute and not influenced by political perspectives and motivations and thus guarantees human freedom. The author suggests that establishing a more effective institution and agency is a more critical step in the coming years.

African experiences and alternativity in International Relations theorizing about security

Abstract Deconstructing International Relations (IR) episteme acknowledges its generation of power imbalances in security knowledge that relegate African experiences to the margins of global politics. Central to this process of relegation is a pervasive ‘methodological whiteness’, which, while eliding coloniality and racism, projects white experience as a universal perspective. Accompanying this Eurocentric bias has been the intrusive projection of the Weberian state as the most effective site for security governance and conflict prevention on a continent with states that are characterized by a hybridity of political orders, which deviate substantially from the ideal-type state that they seek to mimic. Not only has this resulted in disastrous policies in many parts of Africa, but critical questions arise as to the relevance of conventional IR and security studies as neutral sites for dispassionate knowledge production and policy-making on African security, thereby necessitating alternative perspectives. This article reflects on the ways in which IR and security studies have been responsible, in part, for the production of a racialized mode of security knowledge generation that obfuscates the security policies and experiences of people in African locales. It draws on insights from post-colonial discourses and the episteme of alternativity to explore how the study of events and processes in Africa in a theoretically conscious manner could advance IR scholarship as a whole. It contends that incorporating African experiences as they manifest through hybrid security orders can broaden the empirical base for IR theorizing about security since they offer another perspective outside the conventional western assumptions and experiences.

POLÍTICAS DE ASSISTÊNCIA ESTUDANTIL E EDUCADORES NÃO DOCENTES NOS INSTITUTOS FEDERAIS DE EDUCAÇÃO, CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA

ABSTRACT: This article aims to analyze the Student Assistance Policies (Paes) and the professionals involved in their implementation at the Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology (IF) from an educational perspective. To this end, the triangulation of a quantitative-qualitative approach was used to analyze the data obtained through documentary research. Information was obtained about the professionals and PAES of 31 institutes, in which the prediction of support services is under a universal or exclusively selective perspective. There are 2,782 assistants involved in Student Assistance (AE) to serve 473,897 students in the IF. There are a greater number, respectively, of student assistants, social workers, psychologists, and pedagogues. 25 Paes that explicitly provided for universalist programs or actions were identified. However, for such policies to be effective, the number of professionals must be sufficient to guarantee support services from a universal perspective. This aspect of action legitimizes, to Student Assistance professionals, their educating identity which needs to be incorporated by professionals in such a way that it is equally perceived by the academic community and effectively contributes to the development of the educational process.

Lexical and grammatical transformations from the Chinese language perspective: universal approach

The paper describes different approaches to lexical and grammatical transformations in modern translation studies. It sheds new light on traditional approaching Chinese translation studies. Using experience of teaching students studying the French and the German languages the authors provide several reasons for proposing the Russian traditional classifications of lexical and grammatical transformations into courses of translation from Chinese practical. According to this approach, there are such types of transformations as lexical and grammatical, as well as complex (or mixed) ones. Such consistent and universal perspective is aimed to help students to understand grammatical and lexical asymmetry of the source and the target languages and it can be of great use in writing research papers.

Globalisation and HR practices in Africa: when culture refuses to make way for so-called universalistic perspectives

The paper examines how some factors embedded in the cultural and institutional framework in Sub-Saharan African organisations interact with global perspectives and the degree of resistance they present to changes in human resource management (HRM) processes. The paper considers aspects of the universalistic perspectives that have resonance for human resource practices in Africa. Furthermore, it evaluates the question of the tensions between the contributions derived from indigenous and historical factors, and the inputs from external sources, to human resource management in Africa. The research is based on a survey among 100 practicing African HRM professionals drawn from the major institutional actors in Nigeria. The research found that, despite the impact of globalisation and the Westernisaion of training and development in Africa, HRM practices remain largely culture-bound. Many aspects of Sub-Saharan African cultures pervade organisational processes, e.g. collectivism and paternalism, that ‘refuse’ to make way for change. However, the paper concludes that some of these temerarious cultural aspects - often described as counter-productive in much of the literature - could be utilised for community and employee engagement. The paper makes a significant contribution to the literature on HRM practices in Africa, an area under-researched. It provides an opportunity for African HR managers to be more pragmatic in identifying the contextual issues and begin to identify aspects of African culture that could be value-adding in a fast-changing management landscape. The paper demonstrates that HRM policies have specific cultural orientations and reflect the societal predispositions of the region; this exemplifies how cultural paradigms, the political sphere and organisational life are intertwined in an African context.

Translating Semiotic “Polyphony” of Texts as a Culture-Formative Creation

“The Master and Margarita” is generally considered Mikhail Bulgakov’s literary masterpiece. It is a “melting pot” of literary genres, motives, themes, imagery and intertextual references. All these elements cooperate in creating a “polyphonic” novel, in Bakhtin’s sense of the word, not only when it comes to the different nature and “voice” of single characters but also with reference to the “poly-structured” construction of the text itself. The paper will illustrate the peculiarity of Bulgakov’s novel and the semiotic and semiosic character of his creation. The adjective “semiosic” derives from “semiosis” as defined, among others, by C.S. Peirce, who stresses the meaning-making “power” of some semiotic processes. The paper aims also at answering the question why this novel has been translated several times into Polish and Italian since 1967 (when the first edition of the novel was published in Western Europe). Due to the very specific construction of the plot and of the formal aspects of the novel, translators had to deal with a significant number of problems of “untranslatability” that they could solve only by using their creative potential. It was Roman Jakobson who through his linguistic analysis reached the conclusion that for the untranslatable—poetry for example—“Only creative transposition is possible”. Using creativity translators were also able to discover further interpretations of Bulgakov’s literary work and to perform a culture-formative act as their efforts offer new points of view on reality and its perception, wider knowledge of the social life not only in Soviet times but in a more universal perspective as well as new models of text and literariness. That’s why a novel like Bulgakov’s masterpiece has been translated so many times and it is still translated in the two languages selected for the purposes of this research and all over the world. And this is also the reason why it can be considered a meaning-generative and culture-formative text even if its first edition appeared in 1940.

An Empirical Examination of the Impact of Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Value Sensitive Design for Autonomous Systems

The removal of direct human involvement from the decision to apply lethal force is at the core of the controversy surrounding autonomous weapon systems, as well as broader applications of artificial intelligence and related technologies to warfare. Far from purely a technical question of whether it is possible to remove soldiers from the ‘pointy end’ of combat, the emergence of autonomous weapon systems raises a range of serious ethical, legal, and practical challenges that remain largely unresolved by the international community. The international community has seized on the concept of ‘meaningful human control’. Meeting this standard will require doctrinal and operational, as well as technical, responses at the design stage. This paper focuses on the latter, considering how value sensitive design could assist in ensuring that autonomous systems remain under the meaningful control of humans. However, this article will also challenge the tendency to assume a universalist perspective when discussing value sensitive design. By drawing on previously unpublished quantitative data, this paper will critically examine how perspectives of key ethical considerations, including conceptions of meaningful human control, differ among policymakers and scholars in the Asia Pacific. Based on this analysis, this paper calls for the development of a more culturally inclusive form of value sensitive design and puts forward the basis of an empirically-based normative framework for guiding designers of autonomous systems.

Editor's Column

Editor's Column

Well-being in long-term care: an ode to vulnerability

In health care, well-being is considered to be composed of multiple interacting dimensions and to regard the subjective (affective and cognitive) evaluation of these dimensions. These dimensions are often referred to as physical, psychological, and social domains of life. Although there are various disease-specific and group-specific conceptual approaches, starting from a universal perspective provides a more inclusive approach to well-being. Indeed, universal approaches to well-being have striking overlaps with dementia-specific approaches. Although many initiatives have been launched to promote person-centered care and attention for well-being in recent decades, the current COVID pandemic showed that the primary focus in (Dutch) long-term care was still on physical health. However, a well-being perspective can be a central base of care: it is a means to include positive aspects, and it can be applied when addressing problems such as challenging behavior in the sense that both are about needs. Furthermore, providing care from this perspective is not only about the well-being of frail people and their loved ones but also about the well-being and needs of the involved professionals. Increasingly, research shows the importance of the quality of the resident-carer relationship, the carer’s behavior, and their well-being for improving the well-being of residents. Applying the care approaches ‘attentiveness in care’ and relationship-centered care can contribute to the well-being of all involved stakeholders as these uphold the reciprocity of care relationships and take the values and attitudes, but also the vulnerability of those involved, into account.

The problem of universalism in (diachronic) cognitive linguistics

AbstractModern cognitive science and cognitive linguistics are characterized by a universalist perspective, i.e., they are investigating features and principles of cognition which can be found in all members of the human species. This in turn means that they should not only be relevant for present-day cognizers and language users, but also historically. This theoretical, programmatic paper first explores this notion of universalism in cognitive science and cognitive linguistics and suggests that the notion of cognitive universalism should be supplemented by perspectives from cognitive sociology and social cognition. These offer a middle ground in that they look at cognition as it is socially and culturally grounded, and hence inter-individual, but yet not universal. A final section on diachronic cognitive linguistics shows that in language history all three perspectives, individual, social, and universal, can have their place, and that one line of future research should explore this new perspective of social cognition in language history in order to arrive at a fuller picture of historical language users and their cognition.

Staffing effectiveness across countries: An institutional perspective

AbstractThis study draws on institutional theory to investigate why and how staffing effectiveness varies across countries. Utilising data from multiple sources (Cranfield Network on Comparative Human Resource Management [CRANET], Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness [GLOBE], World Economic Forum [WEF], Transparency International, Tightness‐Looseness Index), it covers 2,918 organisations in 11 countries. Extending earlier research on comparative staffing that focuses on cultural or regulatory differences separately, our findings show that companies in different countries implement staffing practices in line with their normative (i.e., cultural), regulatory, and cognitive institutions. A second key finding shows that institutionally embedded staffing practices are associated with organisational turnover, thus challenging dominant universalist perspectives on staffing effectiveness. Finally, we shed light on a central yet understudied boundary condition of contextual perspectives on staffing by identifying the strength of institutional pressures (i.e., societal tightness‐looseness) as a moderator of the relationships between national institutions, staffing, and turnover.

Technology-Mediated Education Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflected in Students and Teachers’ Stories Via the Application of Storytelling Techniques

The article focuses on stories, revealing personal experiences related to the technology-mediated education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and storytelling as a tool in qualitative research. Stories and storytelling may play an important part in qualitative research through presenting a unique, subjective view, which may contribute to the universal perspective. The transition to online teaching has been related to the pandemic, that constitutes a traumatic experience, generating further difficult experiences of an individual nature, which need to be told and shared. That is why, the research through storytelling in the context of the transition to online reality, caused by the pandemic seems to be adequate. Stories as natural phenomena to the human psyche and everyday existence may provide an interesting insight into online teaching, which might have been lost in the limitations of other research tools.

THE STRUCTURING OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND DOCTRINE OF STATE DEFENSE IN FACING HYBRID WARFARE

<div><p class="Els-history-head">Defense Doctrine and Strategy are designed to be able to synergize the performance of military and non-military components to protect and maintain Indonesia's national interests. The current doctrine of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) Military Campaign is still dominant in dealing with military threats, even though based on the 2018 Indonesian Defense White Paper, the TNI must also be able to deal with hybrid threats. With its adaptive nature to changing threats, problems will arise if the military campaign doctrine has not accommodated the TNI's strategy and way of acting in dealing with hybrid threats. The defense doctrine must be able to accommodate the integration of military and non-military components is facing various types of warfare and threats such as military threats, non-military threats, and hybrid threats. Especially for the kind of hybrid threats namely cyber threats, terrorism, and other unconventional threats. Through an analytical descriptive analysis based on qualitative methods, it is hoped that the proper organization and doctrine will be disentangled in the face of this model war. Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) as the war organizations that prioritize a modern universal perspective are a necessity as one of the efforts offered. This needs to be supported by the doctrine of national defense which accurately defines how an effort against hybrid warfare can transform from conventional to unconventional warfare and the actors involved. Military or TNI organizations that prioritize a modern universal perspective are supported by the doctrine of national defense which accurately maps how an effort against hybrid warfare could transform from conventional warfare to unconventional.</p></div>