Web Of Relationships Research Articles

Decentralization and diaspora capture: transnationalism, autocracy, and hybrid power in federal Ethiopia

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how transnational actors navigate the tensions between federal policy, more localized power structures, and informal forms of authority in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State (SRS). The concept of ‘diaspora capture’ foregrounds the efforts of state officials and transnational elites to take control of processes through which diaspora identities and patterns of coordination are formed and negotiated within webs of kinship and economic relations. Somali social structure has often been described as essentially ‘stateless’ or democratic to the point of anarchy, and Somali transnationalism is marked by webs of kinship-based reciprocity and informal economic practice. Nevertheless, we show that in eastern Ethiopia, post-conflict diaspora engagement since 2010 is characterized by persistent efforts of government elites and diaspora actors to gain influence over each other, reshaping the transnational terrain. We argue for more attention in transnational studies to how the conflicts and tensions between national or federal policy environments and subnational authority structures can create new fields of transnational interaction and unexpected collaborations between local governments (including autocratic ones) and diaspora constituents.

A style guide for the structuralist

AbstractOntic structuralists claim that there are no individual objects, and that reality should instead be thought of as a “web of relations”. It is difficult to make this metaphysical picture precise, however, since languages usually characterize the world by describing the objects that exist in it. This paper proposes a solution to the problem; I argue that when discourse is reformulated in the language of the calculus of relations ‐ an algebraic logic developed by Alfred Tarski ‐ it can be interpreted without presupposing the existence of objects. What is distinctive about the language of the calculus is that it contains no operator that resembles a quantifier, and yet it can be used to paraphrase any sentence expressible in first‐order logic. Since the use of a first‐order quantifier (or some similar operator) is usually what establishes commitment to an ontology of objects, and since the calculus of relations eschews the quantifier in favor of a composition operator that can be given a natural interpretation consistent with structuralist metaphysics, the calculus is an ideal language for the structuralist to use to describe the world.

​​Solace of Substance​: Agency, Surrender, and Consolation in Addiction and Polydrug Use

Although preceding its association with substance use, early uses of the term ‘addiction’ signified intense attachment or ‘devotion’ to an activity or pursuit, indicating compromised autonomy, a necessary ‘culling’ of conflicting obligations, such as family and other concerns, and a potentially dangerous surrender (Lemon 2018). Recent advances in biomedical and neuroscientific understandings of addiction, as a relapsing neurological disorder, have sharpened notions of substance use as being outside of conscious control. Yet framing addiction in terms of individual, neurobiological predispositions towards addictive behaviour, continues to impact how we view agency, responsibility, and autonomy, even as substances are ascribed their own powerful agencies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with individuals and third sector services in south-east Scotland, this article attends to ambiguous notions of agency attributed to and by people who use substances, and to substances themselves. It asks how responsibility for recovery becomes divested onto individuals, and how a moral ‘devotion’ to one’s recovery is mandated by medical and judicial institutions. The article further highlights how dyadic and intimate relationships with heroin are emplaced within wider webs of relations, and how heroin itself is suffused with agency and intentionality: becoming at once a force for destruction and source of life-giving surrender.

RESUME BUILDER USING REACT JS

Here is an abstract based on the contents of your presentation: The "Resume Builder Using React JS" project aims to simplify the often tedious task of creating professional resumes. By leveraging React JS and related web technologies, this application allows users to effortlessly generate well-structured and customizable resumes. Users can fill out a form with their personal, educational, and professional details, which the system then uses to create a tailored resume. Key features include an intuitive text editor, customization options, resume suggestions, and multiple downloadable formats. Despite some limitations, such as internet dependency and restricted customization, this project provides an efficient, user-friendly solution for resume creation, making it particularly beneficial for job seekers, students, and working professionals seeking to streamline their job application process.

Two-photon all-optical neurophysiology for the dissection of larval zebrafish brain functional and effective connectivity

One of the most audacious goals of modern neuroscience is unraveling the complex web of causal relations underlying the activity of neuronal populations on a whole-brain scale. This endeavor, which was prohibitive only a couple of decades ago, has recently become within reach owing to the advancements in optical methods and the advent of genetically encoded indicators/actuators. These techniques, applied to the translucent larval zebrafish have enabled recording and manipulation of the activity of extensive neuronal populations spanning the entire vertebrate brain. Here, we present a custom two-photon optical system that couples light-sheet imaging and 3D excitation with acousto-optic deflectors for simultaneous high-speed volumetric recording and optogenetic stimulation. By employing a zebrafish line with pan-neuronal expression of both the calcium reporter GCaMP6s and the red-shifted opsin ReaChR, we implemented a crosstalk-free, noninvasive all-optical approach and applied it to reconstruct the functional and effective connectivity of the left habenula.

Postdigital Game-Based Learning: Complexity, Continuity, and Contingency

AbstractDiscourses that establish the potential learning benefits of digital games for schooling too often focus on learning as a product of relations between student and gameplay, adopting overly deterministic positions that have long been associated with digital technologies and education. This paper draws on ideas from postdigitalism to problematise such narrow conceptualisations of digital game-based learning (DGBL). The analysis of one Australian school’s experience of incorporating digital games into their senior English curriculum provides a break from broad generations and allows a focus on the web of relations within which digital games exist when deployed in formal school contexts. An analytical framework which draws on three ideas emerging from postdigital studies is utilized to explore relations of power through which digital games interact as they are played and studied in schools. This analysis suggests that unitary logics about learning and digital games are insufficient and highlights the importance of engaging with the complexity, continuity and contingency in DGBL contexts to combat the hyperbole that surrounds digital games and education. Postdigital attention on actual instances of digital game deployment reveals the fragility of all knowledge claims about these technologies, contributing to a more critical discourse regarding their potential to impact school learning.

Personhood Disrupted: An Ethnography of Social Practices and the Attribution of Mental Illness in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

This paper explores the intricate interplay between living with mental illness and the processes of identifying mental illness in Abeokuta, Nigeria. With a particular focus on the contextual understanding of personhood, this study reveals how sociocultural backgrounds modulate the understanding of mental illness and its treatments within the Yoruba context. Through nine months of ethnographic fieldwork and discursive narrative analysis, the research revealed that becoming a mentally ill person is deeply intertwined with the everyday social life in the study site. The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of personhood, encompassing various aspects such as parenthood, friendship, employment, and financial freedom. These facets of personhood are shaped by specific social practices and embedded within complex webs of social relations, often becoming more pronounced when these relationships are disrupted, leading to certain behaviours being categorised as mental illness. This paper underscores the significance of recognising and acknowledging the contextual notion and understanding of mental illness to ensure the provision of acceptable and effective care and recovery strategies.

Tackling terricide, not (only) ecocide: further exploring the nexus between social-ecological destruction

ABSTRACT In a crises-ridden time where life is under threat due to human activities which exceed planetary boundaries, Indigenous women conceptualize such activities as terricide (Latin terra: ‘the world’ and cadere: ‘to kill’). A case study of the ‘Indigenous Women’s Movement for Buen Vivir’ in Argentina shows that its participants offer a conceptualization of terricide that condemns crimes against humanity and nature alike. They establish an ecocide-genocide-epistemicide nexus. Firstly, terricide frames human activities as destroying nature through ecocide (Greek oikos: ‘home’). Second, terricide results in genocidal phenomena because it harms humans by threatening or destroying their physical and socio-cultural existence. Third, terricide is epistemicide because it destroys the relational knowledge systems that oppose the human and culture/nature divide inherent in ‘modern’ thinking. From a relational perspective, everything that exists, humans, ecosystems and other-than-human subjectivities, form part of a dense web of relations constituting an interdependent, symbiotic community of life.

Who are the ‘real’ people? The concept of relational popular identity and the self-identification of populist voters in Poland

Research on national, political, and social identities in the study of populism is typically limited to analysing populist identity framing in political and media discourses and measuring its effects on individual populist attitudes. Thus, the self-identification of populists’ supporters, i.e. how they relate to populist identity framing when reflexively constructing their identities, remains largely unexplored. To address this issue, the article introduces the concept of relational popular identity, capturing the complexities of late-modern political identities, and the relational identity mapping technique used to investigate the web of relations forming these identities. The article also presents a case study of loyal voters of the Law and Justice party in Poland and discusses how a relational right-wing popular identity may serve as an ‘intermediary identity’ that articulates elements of other identities to maintain their integrity and a ‘community of last resort’ that unites the ‘real’ people through an immunitarian mechanism of exclusion.

Forum: At the crossroads – Critical perspectives on the study of climate security

This discussion forum brings together some of the leading voices in the debate on climate change and security to reflect on the possibilities and limits of critical research in the face of global ecological crises. If we – as critical geography, IR, and security scholars – take the ongoing ecological crisis seriously, how must our questions, concepts, and methodologies change? How, if at all, can security be provided in a climate-changed world, for and by whom? How to come to terms with the unequal landscape of climate insecurity? What is left of security, and what comes instead: mere survival, resilience, or navigating through disasters?Seeking answers to these questions, the authors of these short forum pieces discuss and rethink core concepts and themes of human geography and neighboring disciplines. The reflection pieces trouble the racist imaginaries that often underpin existing policy debates on climate change, scarcity, and insecurity. They discuss the implications of climate security for the liberal international order, North-South relations as well as the relationship between humans and the non-human world. They reflect on the complicity of our research – both critical and problem-solving – in the violent transformation of the planet and the repression of the racialized “others” of colonial modernity. And they explore the emancipatory potential of alternative security discourses that center on the complex web of beings, practices, and relations endangered by the unfolding climate crisis.

A Low-power Environmental Supervision System Suitable for Livestock and Poultry Breeding

This paper is a kind of low power consumption environment suitable for livestock and poultry breeding regulation system, the system consists of livestock breeding related sensors, actuators, control equipment, LoRa gateway and control web parts, when the environment, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia gas and hydrogen sulfide harmful gas concentration over the threshold will alarm and the system will take corresponding measures to ensure the production efficiency of animal husbandry and food safety, and reduce the incidence of livestock and poultry disease and environmental pollution.

Applying Daoist Thoughts of Interconnectedness to Disaster Communities: Through the Lenses of Diaspora and Pluralism

The human community confronts a plethora of disasters, including man-made epidemics like COVID-19, environmental problems such as water and food resource depletion, biochemical warfare, and even threats from human-created artificial intelligence. Consequently, it is appropriate to term our current community a “disaster community”. This paper delves into the issue of diaspora, intrinsically linked to the fragmentation problem in the disaster community, where each subgroup tends to focus solely on its own community. This issue is scrutinized by categorizing the diaspora into larger and smaller categories, with cases from both the international and domestic levels examined respectively within each category. Among the many Daoist philosophical concepts, this paper focuses on the Daoist principle of interconnectedness. In examining Daoist thought on interconnectedness, it also confirms that the notion of interconnectedness is being increasingly emphasized in modern society and across various academic disciplines. This perspective affirms the pluralistic nature of existence, while also underscoring the fundamental interconnectedness that underpins the myriad forms and phenomena. It provides a framework for addressing the challenges faced by the disaster community, particularly in relation to issues of diaspora, by emphasizing the need for coexistence and collective responsibility within a web of mutual relations. The philosophy innovatively applied from Daoism emphasizes “recognizing diversity based on Dao, while acknowledging that each existence is interconnected”. Here, “recognition of diversity based on Dao” underpins pluralism, and “interconnectedness of all existence” forms the fundamental solution to the diaspora problem. This approach could be extended as a strategic response to various disasters that the human community encounters. Therefore, this paper assesses the current state of the disaster community, the severity of the diaspora issue, and some cases both between and within nations. It also discusses the core of Daoist philosophy and its creative application to overcome these challenges. The disaster community should transition towards a sustainable and open community, and on this journey, by acknowledging our interconnectedness, we can find solutions to not only the disasters we confront but also to the diaspora problem.

Turning into a Potted Plant: A Plant Studies' Approach to Han Kang's Short Story "The Fruit of My Woman"

Plant studies, a recent branch of cultural studies, is taking a new look at the ontological status of plants and, implicitly and explicitly, redefining the status of the human in the larger web of life. Scientists have discovered that plants are not merely passive objects, but active agents with amazing capabilities: they are mobile and intentional, capable to make intelligent choices, to communicate with each other and with their environment, they are a "who and not only a what" (Michael Marder). This essay takes a look at these major claims of plant studies and argues that using anthropomorphic terms for the newly discovered capabilities of plants is a philosophical choice with serious consequences for our understanding not only of the vegetal world, but also of our position within it. It allows us to step beyond our hierarchical and zoocentric attitude and understand ourselves as part of the larger web of relations. The essay then demonstrates the role of plant studies for literary studies by interpreting Han Kang's short story "The Fruit of My Woman."

A Driving Force: Relational Bodies in the Ethnographic Periphery

This paper examines how the act of driving a car shapes identity through relational moments of contact. So often in our social interactions individuals are recognized through the roles they inhabit or actions they repeatedly undertake, whether that be teacher, father, gardener, etc. These roles are not solidified identities, but are rather momentary performances that an individual must temporarily embody in accordance with the circumstances they find themselves in. For many people, driving is a mundane practice that enables ‘more important’ activities in their daily lives, and yet for the time that a person operates a motor vehicle they must make their embodiment of that role a top priority. Using auto-ethnography, I will be looking at how a person ‘becomes’ a driver when they are driving by locating themselves in relation with their surroundings and how those interactions may shape identity for the duration of time that a person is driving. I will be considering how the individual is an intermediary point of contact in a web of relations and how responses to those interactions can shape how that person shows up in the world by considering how a person recognizes and accommodates for their relations with the objects, environments, and people they come into contact with while operating a motor vehicle.

Person, Property, Relationships: A Cont(r)actual View

AbstractThis article challenges the long-standing boundary that separates human beings from non-human entities, whether animate or inanimate. In doing so, it engages with the jurisprudential strands that debate the transformative power of law in moving towards a fuller recognition of human relations with non-human entities. To this end, the article first examines the legal theoretical strategies that scholars have so far developed to overcome the dichotomous vision that pits humans against non-humans. It then argues for a new model of understanding property, called cont(r)actualisation, which seeks to reconfigure existing strategies. It makes the case that the legal categories of person and object should be brought together under the overarching heading of ‘legal entity’. Rather than being built around humans as persons/subjects and non-human entities as objects/objects, law should be built around the contingent points of contact between particular entities in a particular web of relations. In this way, the article advances a view that does justice to how these entities contribute to what human beings are and do.

3 Stories from the Chthulucene

“3 Stories from the Chthulucene” attempts to work through some of the theoretical framework outlined in Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016). The term “Chthulucene” derives from H. P. Lovecraft’s science-fictional tentacled being, the Cthulhu. Haraway theorizes the Chthulucene as an alternative to dominant notions of our time as the Anthropocene. Rather than seeing humans as separate from the environment and acting on it, Chthulucene theorists see humans as part of an intricate web of relations between human and more-than-human life, where humans act through the environment. The methodology used in this article is research-creation, specifically creation as research. This article begins with three autofictional vignettes that aim to play with research questions such as: How might Haraway’s concept of “tentacular thinking" impact the way narrative is structured? Is there an accessible way to write Haraway’s theories so that they are approachable but still “writerly"? How can writer and reader together (re)imagine utopias, in particular queer utopias, so that they are still situated strongly in the present? A supplementary essay follows these three vignettes and attempts to tease out some of these findings within a more typically academic format.

Between Koenji and Brooklyn: Tokyo, New York, and the Circulations of Experimental Musics in a Global World

Using a group of Japanese‐born experimental musicians who make their lives in Tokyo and New York as a case study, this article examines how new musical genres are created, shared, and mediated through layers of circulations, identities, and locations. The author argues that these musicians’ lives and music have a kind of “noisy” quality, complicating genre boundaries and identity binaries in their wake. Through ethnographic “thick descriptions” and the words of the musicians themselves, the author shows the web of musical genres, languages, geopolitical identities, and gender relations that combine to make up the texture of musical performances. This article is also thinking through and with a sea change in the study of Japanese music. In recent years, building on the work of scholars of Japanese cultural studies, ethnomusicologists have critiqued how monocultural and mono‐ethnic mythologies have influenced the study and production of Japanese music. Ethnomusicology and area studies are Cold War enterprises, designed to create research that would help maintain that world order, educate Americans as global leaders, and change hearts and minds in foreign lands, leading to a cultural conservatism that often led scholars to focus on “traditional” Japanese music. Recently, however, research on Japanese music has increasingly focused on popular and experimental musics and examines how Japanese contemporary identity is created and maintained through music. Thus this article gives readers a view of how US‐based Japanese music scholarship is moving away from such Cold War paradigms and contributes to this shift in studies of Japanese music and culture.

NAVIGATING GLOBAL COMMERCE: AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF INDIA’S TRADE RELATION :

In today's era of unprecedented globalization, international trade stands as a vital pillar of global economic integration and prosperity. Within this intricate web of trade relations, India emerges as a pivotal player, endowed with a rich history, diverse economic landscape, and growing influence on the global stage. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of India's trade relations, exploring its historical evolution, contemporary dynamics, and future prospects within the global commerce landscape. India’s journey in international trade reflects a tale of remarkable transformation, marked by shifts in economic policies, geopolitical realities, and technological advancements. As India assumes a key role in the global economy, understanding its trade relations becomes imperative, not only for its own development trajectory but also for the broader dynamics of global trade. At the heart of this exploration is the recognition of India's strategic importance, driven by factors such as its burgeoning population, thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, and rich human capital. India's vast market potential, coupled with rapid urbanization and a growing middle class, positions it as an attractive destination for trade and investment. However, India's trade journey is not devoid of challenges. Navigating tariff and non-tariff barriers, addressing trade imbalances, and managing regulatory frameworks pose significant hurdles to sustained economic growth and global competitiveness. Additionally, geopolitical dynamics, regional tensions, and evolving trade norms further complicate India's trade relations, influencing its engagement with key partners worldwide.Against this backdrop, this paper endeavors to offer a comprehensive understanding of India's trade relations, analyzing key drivers, challenges, and opportunities. Drawing upon a rich tapestry of data, case studies, and scholarly insights, it seeks to unravel the nuances of India's trade policy landscape, sectoral dynamics, and socio-economic implications. Keywords: India, trade relations, globalization, economic integration, geopolitical dynamics, trade policy, challenges, opportunities.

“Thy function was to heal and to restore”: The Sounds and Rhythms of the River Ecosystem in William Wordsworth’s The River Duddon Sonnets

Abstract The writings of William Wordsworth evince a deeply ecological consciousness, a firm belief in the underlying connectedness of all living and non-living entities accounting for their continued existence. Such a consciousness becomes particularly evident in The River Duddon, A Series of Sonnets from 1820 as the poetic account of the river’s flow from its source in the mountains to its estuary between Morecambe Bay and the North Lonsdale coast. For not only does it constitute a core element of the Lake District, which Wordsworth deemed the best example of a region of eco-friendly and hence socially unified communities; it is also depicted, as will be elaborated in this paper, as an ecosystem consisting in a complex web of symbiotic interactions between the fluvial, vegetal, animal and human.Instead of focusing on verbal representations of such more-than-human interrelations through semiotic processes that appropriate their otherness and render them intelligible in solely human terms, however, this paper argues that Wordsworth’s “speaking monument” (Wordsworth 1954: 247, iii, l. 3) rather enacts these ecosystemic interactions on a vocal, aural, and rhythmical level. It thereby foregrounds the materiality and corporeality of poetic speech that precedes as well as grounds meaning and so connects the human to the river ecosystem in a pre-reflexive and somatic way. In this context, it will be pointed out how not only the speaker and other human characters participate in the Duddon’s web of reciprocal relations through rhythmical synchronisation and sonic attunement, but also how the reader becomes an active part in them through their vocal performance of the sonnets. The river’s autopoietic structure illustrated through the metaphor of the hydrological cycle, it will thus be shown, is thereby continued through the sonnet cycle as a direct organic product and hence integral component of the ecosystem that, by repeatedly giving rise to various idiosyncratic readings, will poetically contribute to the Duddon’s continued existence.

Thinking Planetary About Global Futures: Posthuman Cosmopolitanism

Abstract The link between the global condition and planetary thinking is a crucial one when thinking about the future. Positing itself in the context of future-oriented history and posthumanist and planetary thinking, the essay reflects on a central concept of global thought such as cosmopolitanism, theorizing the possibility of a posthuman cosmopolitanism. Built on concepts such as multiple modernities and secularities, philosophical posthumanism, and non-anthropocentric history, posthuman cosmopolitanism is primarily future-focused, globally rooted, and planetary oriented. Specifically, by proposing as a case study of a sort a posthumanist approach to a rethinking of cosmopolitanism, the essay emphasizes how thinking planetary and in a posthumanist and post-anthropocentric way does not entail, as it may be assumed, a relativization and loss of relevance of “the human” per se, but a more complex web of intra-active relations. By building on the work of authors such as Braidotti, Domanska, Chakrabarty, Simon, and Latour, the essay proposes an original reflection, engaging with a crucial issue such as how to think about a global future that focuses on globality as the product of interconnected, multiple processes and constantly shifting interrelations between human and non-human forces.