This essay uses the phenomenal advent of women's climbing as a paradigm case for integrating feminism and phenomenology, and for analyzing how women experience and evolve free movement and existence. In contrast to the paradigm set by Iris Marion Young's “Throwing like a Girl,” it stresses the category of the lived body over the category of gender, and it reveals how women, by employing and cultivating the body's motility and spatiality, engage and transcend the limits of crux situations.

: This essay uses the phenomenal advent of women's climbing as a paradigm case for integrating feminism and phenomenology, and for analyzing how women experience and evolve free movement and existence. In contrast to the paradigm set by Iris Marion Young's "Throwing like a Girl," it stresses the category of the lived body over the category of gender, and it reveals how women, by employing and cultivating the body's motility and spatiality, engage and transcend the (gender) limits of crux situations.

Women face extraordinary difficulty in seeking sterilization as physicians routinely deny them the procedure. Physicians defend such denials by citing the possibility of future regret, a well‐studied phenomenon in women’s sterilization literature. Regret is, however, a problematic emotion upon which to deny reproductive freedom as regret is neither satisfactorily defined and measured, nor is it centered in analogous cases regarding men’s decision to undergo sterilization or the decision of women to undergo fertility treatment. Why then is regret such a concern (...) in the voluntary sterilization of women? I argue that regret is centered in women’s voluntary sterilization due to pronatalism or expectations that womanhood means motherhood. Women seeking voluntary sterilization are regarded as a deviant identity that rejects what is taken to be their essential role of motherhood and they are thus seen as vulnerable to regret. (shrink)

This conversation between two scholars of international law focuses on the contemporary realities of feminist analysis of international law and on current and future spaces of resistance. It notes that feminism has moved from the margin towards the centre, but that this has also come at a cost. As the language of women’s rights and gender equality has travelled into the international policy worlds of crisis management and peace and security, feminist scholars need to become more careful in their analysis (...) and find new ways of resistance. While noting that we live in dangerous times, this is also a hopeful discussion. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Reason One: To Preserve the Public Sphere Reason Two: Symbols May be Offensive Reason Three: Symbols May be Oppressive Reason Four: Symbols May be Disruptive Moving Forward: What Can Schools Reasonably Do? Conclusion Notes References.

Set within the socio‐political context of standards‐based education reform, this article explores the constitutive role of teaching standards in the production of the practice and identity of the ‘accomplished’ teacher. It contrasts two idioms for thinking about and studying these standards, the representational and the performative. Utilising the material‐semiotic approach of actor‐network theory, it addresses the issue of how the representational idiom of teaching standards has become so authoritative that it readily eclipses other ways to think and ‘do’ them. In (...) tracing the development of a specific set of teaching standards as part of a national research project, the argument is made that standards should be understood as performative knowledge and identity practices. And, accounting them should also be performative. Accordingly, attention is given to key locales in which this development is taking place. Teaching standards emerge as ontologically variable and it is struggles around this variability that can create conditions for a renewed practice and politics of education reform. (shrink)

This book presents an overview of these studies and attempts to clarify apparently disparate results by placing them in a coherent theoretical framework.

The figure of Donna Haraway’s cyborg continues to loom large over contemporary feminist engagements with questions of technology. Across a range of analytical projects ranging from cosmetic surgery to employment practices it has come to be one of the defining figurations through which the social and discursive construction of bodies in a technological age are theorized. Indeed, it has become a widely accepted and largely unquestioned orthodoxy of postmodern feminist thinking. Not only has the cyborg offered a theoretical framework for (...) exploring the feminist possibilities of technologies, it has provided a focus for situating questions of technology and bodies into broader feminist theoretical considerations of the structures of knowledge, particularly those of binary oppositions and the logic of identity. While a productive and influential intervention into feminist theorizing, the cyborg is not without limitations. One of these is pointed out by Kirby (1997) as a failure to break convincingly with the logic ofidentity in the way Haraway theorizes the intersection of bodies and technologies in the fabrication of the cyborg. This article examines that criticism and then explores the possibilities which Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblageoffers as a mean of thinking the meetings of bodies and technologies beyond binary oppositions. (shrink)

The micro-regional focus of bioregionalism is a small unit of physical space, typically a watershed region. In bioregional discourse, natural systems become metaphors for cultural coherence. However, when we look for laws embedded in the natural world, those that are found do not then reveal themselves as principles which apply to systems of culture. Further, within most individuals, the sense of regional identity spans several scales because our past narratives and present affiliations span several localities. Humans are not immersed in (...) singular niches, nor is the bioregionalist an existential, primordial localist, for his or her choice has been crafted. (shrink)

This study aims to address how and when retailers’ sustainability efforts translate into positive consumer responses. Hypotheses are developed and tested through a scenario-based experiment among 672 consumers. Retailers’ assortment sustainability and distribution sustainability are manipulated. Retailers’ sustainability efforts lead to positive consumer responses via two underlying mechanisms: consumers’ identification with the store and store legitimacy. The effects of sustainability efforts are strengthened if consumers have personal norms favoring shopping at environmentally friendly stores. Remarkably, when controlling for moderation by personal (...) norms, social norms weaken the effects. The findings show that traditional marketing mix elements provide opportunities for retailers to improve their organizations’ bottom line and positively affect consumer well-being. This study helps retailers decide whether or not to invest in and communicate about sustainability. Past research has shown the clear potential for positive consumer responses to firms’ sustainability efforts, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms and the conditions under which such responses take place. This study advances theory by examining personal and social factors as mediators and moderators of the retailers’ sustainability efforts–consumer responses relationship. (shrink)

Many opponents of BIG programs believe that receiving guaranteed subsistence income would act as a strong disincentive to work. In contrast, various areas of empirical research in psychology suggest that a BIG would not lead to meaningful reductions in work. To test these competing predictions, a comprehensive review of BIG outcome studies reporting data on adult labor responses was conducted. The results indicate that 93 % of reported outcomes support the prediction of no meaningful work reductions when the criterion for (...) support is set at less than a 5 % decrease in either average hours worked per week or the rate of labor participation. Overall, these results indicate that adult labor responses would show no substantial impact following a BIG intervention. (shrink)

We suggest edits to Part Four of the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) to help the US bishops address and clarify essential Church teachings on specific beginning-of-life issues facing Catholic health care today. As a teaching tool, Part Four must be updated so that Catholic health care professionals and the lay faithful can understand and apply Church teachings to new ethical challenges. Further, more direction and clarity from the ERDs is needed in applying general principles to assisted procreative technologies, pre- (...) and post-viability induction of labor, ectopic pregnancies, genetic screening and diagnosis, and contraception. Catholic health care clinicians and administrators also need to receive ongoing instruction on the ERDs’ teachings as well as the theological and philosophical rationales that undergird them. (shrink)

"We often find that the state of not-knowing can be a precursor to moments of rich discovery which possess a dynamic, transformative power that exceeds any prior expectation." From the Introduction In daily life, when we see, hear or touch something that we don't recognise, we are instantly at our most alert. In that condition of 'not-knowing' we are in a state of alive, lithe awareness: asking questions, inviting input, open to learning, looking for significance and meaning... These essays, most (...) by practising psychotherapists, some of them Buddhists, take as their starting point the idea that not-knowing is fundamental to conscious reflection and the desire to know must always arise in the first instance from the self-awareness of not-knowing. Read in any order, on waking, before sleeping or when in doubt... they will be of interest to anyone who has ever sat in either chair in a psychotherapist's or counsellor's room - as well as anyone troubled or intrigued by what it takes to live comfortably and well in a condition of not knowing all (or even any) of the answers. (shrink)

BackgroundWith the enactment of Bill C-7 in Canada in March 2021, people who are eligible for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), whose death is reasonably foreseeable and are at risk of losing decision-making capacity, may enter into a written agreement with their healthcare provider to waive the final consent requirement at the time of provision. This study explored healthcare providers’ perspectives on honouring eligible patients’ request for MAiD in the absence of a contemporaneous consent following their loss of decision-making capacity. (...) MethodA critical qualitative methodology, using a feminist ethics theoretical lens with its focus on power and relationality, was used to examine how socio-political and environmental contexts influenced healthcare providers' moral agency and perspectives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 healthcare providers (13 physicians, six nurse practitioners, nine nurses and two social workers) from across Canada who provide MAiD-related care.ResultsThemes identified include; (1) balancing personal values and professional responsibilities, (2) anticipating strengths and limitations of the proposed waiver of final consent amendment, (3) experiencing ethical influences on decisions to enter into written agreements with eligible patients, (4) recognizing barriers to the enactment of MAiD in the absence of a contemporaneous consent and (5) navigating the potential for increased risks and burden.DiscussionTo our knowledge, this is the first study in Canada to explore healthcare providers’ perspectives on waiving the final consent for MAiD using a written agreement. Most participants supported expanding eligible people’s access to MAiD following loss of capacity, as they believed it would improve the patients’ comfort and minimize suffering. However, the lack of patients’ input at the time of provision and related ethical and legal challenges may impact healthcare providers’ moral agency and reduce some patients’ access to MAiD. Providers indicated they would enter into written agreements to waive final consent for MAiD on a case-by-case basis. This study highlights the importance of organizational, legal and professional support, adequate resources, clear policies and guidelines for the safety and wellbeing of healthcare providers and to ensure equitable access to MAiD. (shrink)

Implicit learning is said to occur when a person learns about a complex stimulus without necessarily intending to do so, and in such a way that the resulting knowledge is difficult to express. Over the last 30 years, a number of studies have claimed to show evidence of implicit learning. In more recent years, however, considerable debate has arisen over the extent to which cognitive tasks can in fact be learned implicitly. Much of the debate has centred on the questions (...) of how unconscious, and how abstract, is implicitly acquired knowledge? The aim of this book is to provide students and researchers with a self-contained and balanced summary of the various theoretical and empirical positions that are currently shaping this exciting area of research. (shrink)

The diagnosis was Turn-to-Stone disease. None of us had heard of it and rushed to Google. Her body calcified itself, painfully turning tissue to bone. She planned her funeral; turning stone to ashes.Meanwhile Viagra four times a day took blood to her hands and feet. “Viagra!” she’d joke, “you’d think I was hard..

Research ethics principles and regulations typically have been applied to the protection of individual human subjects. Yet, new paradigms of research that include the place-based community and cultural groups as partners or participants of environmental research interventions, in particular, require attention to place-based identities and geographical contexts. This paper argues the importance of respecting “place” within human subjects protections applied to communities and cultural groups as part of a critical need for research ethics and cultural competence training for graduate research (...) students. These protections and benefits are extensions of the Belmont Principles and have been included in recent recommendations from research regulatory committees. (shrink)

The 'business judgement rule ' requires corporate directors only to act with honesty and reasonable care in the interest of shareholders. A stronger ' fiduciary ' duty is required where one party requires protection from another. This paper argues that where corporations take risks with the environment, directors are fiduciaries. Stakeholders are in that case the general public, future generations and other species, which have not voluntarily accepted risk and cannot limit liability. Recognition of fiduciary duty in such cases is (...) consistent with recent trends in the law of equity. It would require all economic activities to move from open to closed systems. (shrink)

How to live at multiple scales? Immersed in infrastructure, economics and politics functioning at a scale beyond our immediate experience, our capacities for reason and abstraction have led to the geological era of the Anthropocene. Yet it is also these capacities that mean we are the singular planetary species with any chance of developing systems that can assure less rather than more devastation as a result of these planetary shifts. This essay explores the ways in which we can use our (...) capacity for reason, abstraction, to design what a future ought to be: open to regular revision in response to our practical behaviours given the persistent contingency of the conditions in which we are immersed. (shrink)

The male muse in the psychic territory Adrienne Rich called in 1971 ‘The Man’ represents sexualized death and phallic mourning, a concept of masculinity marked by the legacy of the 20th century’s two world wars. In the context of representations of ‘The Man’ in North American white women writers coming of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sylvia Plath’s journal account of the Saint Botolph’s Review party, where she met her husband, and its fictional transformation in her 1957 (...) short story, ‘Stone Boy with Dolphin’, demonstrate Plath’s examination of the Bostonian Puritan heritage and the psychic aftermath of the Second World War. Plath’s constructions of heterosexual romance as participating in the history of Fascism and her concept of writing as sexy violence coincide culturally with Lacan’s theory of phallic signification. (shrink)

Set within the socio-political context of standards-based education reform, this article explores the constitutive role of teaching standards in the production of the practice and identity of the ‘accomplished’ teacher. It contrasts two idioms for thinking about and studying these standards, the representational and the performative. Utilising the material-semiotic approach of actor-network theory, it addresses the issue of how the representational idiom of teaching standards has become so authoritative that it readily eclipses other ways to think and ‘do’ them. In (...) tracing the development of a specific set of teaching standards as part of a national research project, the argument is made that standards should be understood as performative knowledge and identity practices. And, accounting them should also be performative. Accordingly, attention is given to key locales in which this development is taking place. Teaching standards emerge as ontologically variable and it is struggles around this variability that can create conditions for a renewed practice and politics of education reform. (shrink)

Issues of sexual orientation elicit ethical debates in schools and society. In jurisdictions where a legal right has not yet been established, one argument commonly rests on whether schools ought to address issues of same-sex relationships and marriage on the basis of civil equality, or whether such controversial issues ought to remain in the private sphere. Drawing upon an antiperfectionist liberal framework, Dianne Gereluk argues that schools have an obligation to educate students in two important ways. First, students must (...) develop an awareness and understanding of the range of acceptable and permissible ways of life that may lead to human flourishing. Second, students must understand the requisite protections and recognition afforded to individuals in a pluralist society. (shrink)

In this article, an argument is made for extending bioethical principles to place-based community and cultural group protections when there are conflicting perspectives on reporting individual results of biomonitoring studies. Bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, respect for autonomy, and justice can incorporate participatory decision-making and understandings of the group conditions of individual research participants, particularly for research studies with vulnerable groups. Arguments for and against biomonitoring communication to individual participants are reviewed here. Assessments of risks and benefits of biomonitoring communication (...) can be improved by considering the contextual conditions of cultural groups and place-based communities. Providing participatory decision-making with all stakeholders about biomonitoring communication can provide more fair benefits than adopting a general, prescriptive clinical standard that favors only group report-backs when clinical utility is low and the scientific understandings of low dose exposures of chemical contaminants to humans are still uncertain. (shrink)

Individual research protections provided by bioethical principles can be extended to group protections, particularly for place-based communities and cultural groups who may share a common harm or burden. In this article, an argument is made for the need to consider the group conditions of individual research subjects in the ethics of individual report-backs of human biomonitoring results. Human biomonitoring, the measuring of concentration of chemicals or their metabolites in blood, urine, breast milk, hair, and other biological samples, can provide an (...) assessment of an individual's exposure to a chemical and can integrate exposures from multiple pathways and sources. Biomonitoring studies have been increasing in the past decade for such purposes as measuring the levels of chemicals that are ingested by members of the general population and at what concentrations, to determine if exposure levels are higher in some groups vs. others, to track temporal trends to establish reference ranges for chemical exposures, and to investigate an association with health. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the worth of a materialist/posthumanist approach to ethics, specifically affirmative ethics, within the field of education. I work empirical material that ‘does’ this ethics in classrooms and draw on Deleuze’s ethically guided materialism as taken up by Braidotti, to gain purchase on it. Defined as a relational matter of human and non-human powers of acting in pursuit of affirmative values, affirmative ethics focuses up relations, forces and affects. It poses considerable challenges to (...) a normalised construction of ethics as located solely within a constituted human subject with moral intentionality as its core. Affirmative ethics presents empirically as an emergent property of relational assemblages of human and more than human elements that bring ethical subjectivity into effect. Pedagogy and curriculum perform a constitutive role in these assemblages, as does pedagogic affect, showing how this ethics can be activated. A materialist affirmative ethics makes for a multi-faceted and generative practice of ethics. Oriented to collectivity and with relationality ‘built-in’, it has the potential to play a significant role in the reconstitution of individualised subjectivity which neoliberal modes of governance continue to advance in education. (shrink)