This article seeks to locate the body and embodiment more centrally among the concerns of actor-network theory by exploring working bodies. Using a newly introduced national system of vocational training as an exemplary case, it explores the tension between representations of skilled human bodies—‘competencies’—as given to trainers and the ways in which these representations are incorporated into their everyday practice. Vocational training has had a long struggle with the apparent separability of subject and object—between what can be felt and (...) experienced as distinct from what can be stated, measured, and expressed in words. The argument is made that paying attention to bodies in vocational training can shed light on this struggle. Paying attention to bodies in networks can also strengthen network analyses. Like texts and other forms of materiality, ‘the body’ is not singular but multiple. Furthermore, body politics constitutes an important actor-network them e. (shrink)

Background Moral courage means courage to act according to individual’s own ethical values and principles despite the risk of negative consequences for them. Research about the moral courage of whistle-blowers in health care is scarce, although whistleblowing involves a significant risk for the whistle-blower. Objective To analyse the moral courage of potential whistle-blowers and its association with their background variables in health care. Research design Was a descriptive-correlational study using a questionnaire, containing Nurses Moral Courage Scale©, a video vignette of (...) the wrongdoing situation with an open question about the vignette, and several background variables. Data were analysed statistically and inductive content analysis was used for the narratives. Participants and research context Nurses as healthcare professionals (including registered nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and nurse paramedics) were recruited from the membership register of the Nurses’ Association via email in 2019. A total of 454 nurses responded. The research context was simulated using a vignette. Ethical considerations Good scientific inquiry guidelines were followed. Permission to use the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale© was obtained from the copyright holder. The ethical approval and permission to conduct the study were obtained from the participating university and the Nurses’ Association. Findings The mean value of potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage on a Visual Analogue Scale (0–10) was 8.55 and the mean score was 4.34 on a 5-point Likert scale. Potential whistle-blowers’ moral courage was associated with their socio-demographics, education, work, personality and social responsibility related background variables. Discussion and conclusion In health care, potential whistle-blowers seem to be quite morally courageous actors. The results offer opportunities for developing interventions, practices and education to support and encourage healthcare professionals in their whistleblowing. Research is needed for developing a theoretical construction to eventually increase whistleblowing and decrease and prevent wrongdoing. (shrink)

Professor Beare has attacked the position established by Alfred Körte in 1893 and accepted in large measure by Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge in Dithyramb, etc., and Festivals. The following reply is brief because I have dealt with the works of art at some length in Rylands Bulletin, xxxvi , 563 f. and in a forthcoming number of Ephemeris Archaiologike. The statement of Aristotle . I have tried to show that various elements in the ‘phallic performances’ were taken over by comedy and (...) that we have some evidence that the leaders of padded dancers wore the phallos. (shrink)

Civil society organizations attempt to induce corporations to behave in more socially responsible ways, with a view to raising labour standards. A broader way of conceptualizing their efforts to influence the policies and practices of employers is desirable, one centred upon the concept of civil governance. This recognizes that CSOs not only attempt to shape the behaviour of employers through the forging of direct, collaborative relationships, but also try to do so indirectly, with interactions of various kinds with the state (...) being integral. Drawing on evidence derived from UK-based CSOs involved in work and employment relations, four types of civil governance are identified and characterized. By elaborating the concept of civil governance, and demonstrating how different types of civil governance operate, the research extends our knowledge and understanding of how CSOs, as increasingly prominent actors in the field of work and employment relations, operate within, and contribute to, systems of labour governance. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of how non-human actors contribute to the acceptability of technologies. Acceptance and acceptability of technologies were examined as network formation and not, as in conventional technology acceptance models, as adoption by individual human actors. Using the approach of translation sociology, the acceptance work necessary for network formation was examined. As a result, the actibelt®-Actor-Network and five modes of acceptance work by non-human actors and their effects on patients were identified. The different modes (...) of acceptance work show that non-human actors, such as events, meetings, graphs, and socio-technical discourses, are not passive actors in the development of technology, but can enable, hinder, or condition acceptability. Therefore, non-human actors play a central and constitutive role in the translation process by performing acceptance work and contributing to the stabilisation and acceptability of the actibelt®-Actor-Network. (shrink)

The relationship between agriculture and nature is a central issue in the current agricultural debate. Organic Farming has ambitions and a special potential in relation to nature. Consideration for nature is part of the guiding principals of organic farming and many organic farmers are committed to protecting natural qualities. However, the issue of nature, landscape, and land use is not straightforward. Nature is an ambiguous concept that involves multiple interests and actors reaching far beyond farmers. The Danish research project Nature (...) Quality in Organic Farming has investigated the relationship between nature and organic farming. This article will focus on an expert workshop held in connection with the project that investigates the way different actors conceptualize nature. Farmers, scientists, and non-governmental organizations came together to discuss their experiences of nature and expectations of organic agriculture. From this interaction, it was clear that nature is a contested notion. Different understandings of nature exist within the three groups and there is disagreement as to whether emphasis should be given to biological qualities, production values, or experiential and aesthetic perspectives. This complexity provides a challenge to organic farming as well as to the implementation of nature considerations in general. It illustrates an underlying battle for the right to define nature and nature quality and essentially decide what organic farmers should work towards. We argue that successful implementation requires organic farmers to carefully consider what expectations they wish to meet. Optimally it is dependent on a dialog between stakeholder interest groups that allows for multivocality and pluralism. (shrink)

Cet article propose un regard historique sur la notion d’exercice en art, à travers le cas du métier de comédien dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Alors qu’une véritable théâtromanie s’empare de la société française, les acteurs et les actrices doivent répondre aux exigences d’un public friand de nouveautés à l’affiche. L’article met en lumière des pratiques peu visibles du travail artistique, comme l’effort de mémorisation des rôles, ou les modalités d’organisation des exercices au sein de la première école (...) dramatique française (1786-1789). Nous montrons également que la reconnaissance croissante de la centralité de l’exercice, à la fois corporel et intellectuel, dans le métier de comédien contribue à définir la spécificité de l’art dramatique dans le second XVIIIe siècle. (shrink)

Background Rationing and allocation decisions at the clinical level – bedside rationing – entail complex dilemmas that clinicians and managers often find difficult to handle. There is a lack of mechanisms and aids for promoting fair decisions, especially in hard cases. Reports indicate that clinical ethics committees sometimes handle cases that involve bedside rationing dilemmas. Can CECs have a legitimate role to play in bedside rationing? Main text Aided by two frameworks for legitimate priority setting, we discuss how CECs can (...) contribute to enhanced epistemic, procedural and political legitimacy in bedside rationing decisions. Drawing on previous work we present brief case vignettes and outline several potential roles that CECs may play, and then discuss whether these might contribute to rationing decisions becoming legitimate. In the process, key prerequisites for such legitimacy are identified. Legitimacy places demands on aspects such as the CEC’s deliberation process, the involvement of stakeholders, transparency of process, the opportunity to appeal decisions, and the competence of CEC members. On these conditions, CECs can help strengthen the legitimacy of some of the rationing decisions clinicians and managers have to make. Conclusions On specified conditions, CECs can have a well-justified advisory role to play in order to enhance the legitimacy of bedside rationing decisions. (shrink)

The present work proposes to explore the discourse on migration in Arabic language media outlets. Present scientific literature in discourse analysis studies consistently analyzed discourses on migration and displayed the consistency of its features. In this paper, we will analyze how the Arabic discourse on migration in the Mediterranean area, either inbound or outbound, are realized and if they are shaped by the European discourse, in order to add an Arabic language contribution to the scientific discussion. The research showed (...) that, while most established categories typical of discourses of racism were present, others were put into discussion, and a context-bound system of representation emerged, with its specificities concerning the reality of migration into and from Arabic countries. However, the European discourse resulted a strong presence, even in the representation of outbound migration of the specific ingroup. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand the kind of activities that industrial actors develop in order to protect their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. A series of political unrest, insurgency, economic turmoil, deadly earthquakes, and economic embargo at the Indo- Nepal boarder escalated the industrial crisis in Nepal. The quest for sustainability of enterprises during the enduring nature of the crisis stimulated for a more detail conversation and survey. A perceptual survey of industrial actors accompanying conversation therein indicates that trade union (...) and association leaders develop positive attitude and advance specific activities for protecting their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. The study finds that an empathic nature helps to develop a positive attitude among the industrial actors, which seems contributory for enterprises to survive during crisis conditions. The actors tend to positively perceive significance of specific activities under the conditions of difficulties and hardships and enhance immunity to the industrial crisis. This paper argues that the empathic nature of the industrial actors becomes more effective to safeguard the pluralistic interests of the stakeholders of the enterprise than the self- centric nature of the actors. The actors are not only engaged in safeguarding their claims on the industry but are also contributing—beyond their routine work—positively to strengthen the enterprise immunity during difficulties. This paper concludes with an insight of shifting managerial attention from the generic concepts like cost minimisation and product differentiation to the concepts of regularity in supply of goods and services in the business network by expanding the scope of industrial relations vertically and horizontally. The empathic nature of industrial actors enhances the effectiveness of the general system theory and social network theory by developing understanding of the role of industrial actors’ relations in sustaining and operationalizing a business network under organizational crisis conditions. (shrink)

In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a symmetrical anthropology (...) of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actor-network theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of non-humans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of science, politics, ecology and cosmos. This reflection, we conclude, opens up a new intellectual territory, allowing us to trace techno-animist streams of thinking both ‘East’ and ‘West’, beyond the confines of the scientific naturalism indigenous to European thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores the influence of transpersonal thinking, including the mythological perspective of Joseph Campbell and the holotropic perspective of Stanislav Grof, on actor training using the neutral mask. An outline of training in the neutral mask is given, focusing on the approach of David Latham, as experienced by the author in his own training. Points of correspondence with the vision of Campbell and Grof, and their influence, are discriminated and discussed. These correspondences open up two areas of inquiry: (...) the transformative effect of the mask work when conducted in a transpersonally-oriented set, and the use of the neutral mask as an approach to the study of myth and archetype. Both are discussed, and some preliminary conclusions drawn based on experiences reported by student-actors and the author’s observations during his own research and his practice as actor and teacher. (shrink)

Foreword Philip T. Grier The attempt to retrieve a work of scholarship buried under as much historical debris as was IA Il'in's original two-volume commentary on the philosophy of Hegel presented distinct challenges, as well as possible ...

Midstream modulation is a form of public engagement with science which benefits from strategic application of science and technology studies (STS) insights accumulated over nearly 20 years. These have been developed from STS researchers’ involvement in practical engagement processes and research with scientists, science funders, policy and other public stakeholders. The strategic aim of this specific method, to develop what is termed second-order reflexivity amongst scientist-technologists, builds upon and advances earlier more general STS work. However this method is focused (...) and structured so as to help generate such reflexivity—over the ‘upstream’ questions which have been identified in other STS research as important public issues for scientific research, development and innovation—amongst practising scientists-technologists in their specialist contexts (public or private, in principle). This is a different focus from virtually all such previous work, and offers novel opportunities for those key broader issues to be opened up. The further development of these promising results depends on some important conditions such as identifying and engaging research funders and other stakeholders like affected publics in similar exercises. Implementing these conditions could connect the productive impacts of midstream modulation with wider public engagement work, including with ‘uninvited’ public engagement with science. It would also generate broader institutional and political changes in the larger networks of institutional actors which constitute contemporary technoscientific innovation and governance processes. All of these various broader dimensions, far beyond the laboratory alone, need to be appropriately open, committed to democratic needs, and reflexive, for the aims of midstream modulation to be achieved, whilst allowing specialists to work as specialists. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works also include the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. (...) We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.ResultsGiven the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the integrity and research culture. We first found that different actors have different perspectives on the problems that affect the integrity and culture of research. Problems were either linked to personalities and attitudes, or to the climates in which researchers operate. Elements that were described as essential for success were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research culture and research integrity. Even though all participants agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, participants generally did not feel responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups.ConclusionsOur findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion. First, the research integrity debate must revisit and tackle the way in which researchers are assessed. Second, approaches to promote better science need to address the impact that research climates have on research integrity and research culture rather than to capitalize on individual researchers’ compliance. Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making must be given priority to ensure that the perspectives of the full research system are captured. Understanding the relations and interdependency between these perspectives is key to be able to address the problems of science.Study registrationhttps://osf.io/33v3m. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales (e.g., regional, national, international), thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche (...) innovators can become important actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program (Postgraduate Diploma in Local Agroecological Dynamization at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey (n = 46) and in-depth interviews (n = 16) were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales, thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche innovators can become important (...) actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program, to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey and in-depth interviews were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

The article considers modern tendencies prevailing in the higher education system while training technical specialists nowadays. According to the authors, excluding the humanitarian courses from curriculum results in the complete dissolution of subjectivity in the impersonal world, which is deprived of “living” knowledge, that is, definite knowledge of a definite person. The application of such an approach is illustrated by the actor–network theory (ANT). While studying several works by ANT founders, it turned out to be clear that such an (...) approach eliminates any differences between natural and humanitarian, engineering, and philosophical knowledge. As a result, the net emerges consisting of numerous actants and which requires from every participant his “building‐in” a model with the functions being delegated to him in advance. The article concludes that an “alive” component is disappearing from the higher education nowadays when the main stress is being made on the knowledge acquired a priori, not a posteriori. (shrink)

Institutionalism gives priority to structure over agency. Yet institutions have never developed and operated without the intervention of interested groups. This paper develops a conceptual framework for the role of agency in historical institutionalism. Based on recent contributions following the coalitional turn and drawing on insights from sociological institutionalism, it argues that agency plays a key role in the creation and maintenance of social coalitions that stabilize but also challenge institutions. Without such agency, no coalition can be created, maintained, or (...) changed. Similarly, without a supporting coalition, no contested institution can survive. Yet, due to collective action problems, such coalitional work is challenging. This coalitional perspective offers a robust role for agency in historical institutionalism, but it also explains why institutions remain stable despite agency. In addition, this paper forwards several portable propositions that allow for the identification of who is likely to develop agency and what these actors do. (shrink)

Il'in's classic work is the most impassioned and cogent work by a Russian jurist on the rule of law. The product of nearly four decades of labor, which could not be published in the former Soviet Union, this revised edition places the work in the context of developments since its first English translation in 2013. The text is accompanied by one of Il'in's early and influential articles on law and power, a bibliography devoted to his life and (...) work, and informed introductory essays about his contribution to the rule of law dialogue, the origins and transformations of the concept of legal consciousness and the fascinating history of his treatise on that subject. x, 403 pp. Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in (Доктор государственных наук) [1883-1954], sometime professor, Moscow Lomonosov State University, is one of the most widely-read legal philosophers of the twentieth century in post-Soviet Russia. William E. Butler is the John Edward Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law, Penn State Dickinson Law; Emeritus Professor of Comparative Law, University College London; and author of numerous works on post-Soviet legal systems, including Russian Law and Legal Institutions (3d ed.; 2021). Philip T. Grier, who has written extensively on Hegel and Il'in and translated Il'in's principal treatise on Hegelianism, is the Emeritus Thomas Bowman Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. (shrink)

The article focuses on working time policies introduced in Belgium during the period 1975-1990. As a country with early mass-unemployment, the magnitude of the unfolding Labour market problems fostered a specific set of responsive strategies. The initial trajectory of Belgian working time policies was centered around cutting standard weekly working hours in order to enhance Labour market effects. In the course of a marked issue transformation, work sharing objectives were substituted by the notion of temporal flexibility which focused primarily (...) on concerns for and changes in the economie performance of individual firms. The author outlines various structural features of the Belgian socio-economic system and argues that these profoundly affected the goals identified with working time policies as much as the actor constellations endorsing the respective measures. (shrink)

Beyond the reaches of scholarly debates about how to define and value civility properly, social actors across various institutional domains routinely demarcate civil from uncivil behavior. Yet this everyday classification process remains understudied and undertheorized, despite being widespread and having significant stakes for the individuals and groups involved. This article begins to fill this gap by developing the concept of civility contests—practical efforts to draw symbolic boundaries between civil and uncivil individuals, groups, or behaviors. Through a focus on the realm (...) of political protest in the United States, this article demonstrates that civility contests involve a wide range of political actors (including institutionalized power holders, opposing movements, and the media) who engage in this boundary-work in order to justify the control or (de)legitimation of protest. It then highlights patterned disparities in the outcomes of these contests, demonstrating that the likelihood of being marked as uncivil and the extent to which this prompts negative social sanction is shaped by one’s social position. Overall, the article seeks to stimulate and guide future empirical research on civility contests and to deepen theoretical understandings of the relationship between symbolic and social boundaries and the role of symbolic boundary-work in the reproduction of political inequality. (shrink)

I distinguish between two ways in which Kuhn employs the concept of incommensurability based on for whom it presents a problem. First, I argue that Kuhn’s early work focuses on the comparison and underdetermination problems scientists encounter during revolutionary periods whilst his later work focuses on the translation and interpretation problems analysts face when they engage in the representation of science from earlier periods. Secondly, I offer a new interpretation of actors’ incommensurability. I challenge Kuhn’s account of incommensurability (...) which is based on the compartmentalisation of the problems of both underdetermination and non-additivity to revolutionary periods. Through employing a finitist perspective, I demonstrate that in principle these are also problems scientists face during normal science. I argue that the reason why in certain circumstances scientists have little difficulty in concurring over their judgements of scientific findings and claims while in others they disagree needs to be explained sociologically rather than by reference to underdetermination or non-additivity. Thirdly, I claim that disagreements between scientists should not be couched in terms of translation or linguistic problems, but should be understood as arising out of scientists’ differing judgments about how to take scientific inquiry further.Keywords: Thomas Kuhn; Incommensurability; Normal science; Revolutionary science; SSK. (shrink)

Abstract.Ecclesial divisions shape and distort the developing interdisciplinary dialogue between Christian theology and the natural and social sciences in ways that can be better understood by focusing on pneumatology, specifically on the variety of ways in which by grace we relate to the Holy Spirit—as giver of life, as Lord, as powerful anointing, as God's gift of wisdom, and as wellspring from Jesus Christ. Each denominational camp of Christians has centered its appreciation of the Holy Spirit on one of these (...) relationships, sometimes to the neglect or marginalization of others. This appreciation drives the favoring of some scientific disciplines and suspicion of others. For instance, Pentecostals and charismatics emphasize the Spirit upon us, speaking through the prophets. This tends to privilege personal narrative and testimony. The closest cognate science is cultural anthropology. Issues of social construction of reality, cultural imperialism and relativism, and narrative history dominate consideration of science's theological possibilities and pitfalls in ways distinctive to that pneumatological camp. Engagement and disengagement with other disciplines of learning are driven in part by our theological loyalties and antipathies to unreconciled bodies. Hence a fuller engagement with the sciences becomes an ecumenical task, not just a generically Christian or specifically Pentecostal or Wesleyan one. (shrink)

Trade and immigration are generally described as separate dimensions of globalization. This Article challenges that story by focusing on settings where states and private actors are bringing the two together to achieve disparate economic and policy goals. In one of the two sets of cases analyzed here, governments in the Global South are seeking to increase trade through the use of migrant labor, attracting transnational firms to export manufacturing zones by importing lower-cost workers from other countries. In the other, policymakers (...) in the Global North are seeking to decrease immigration through the use of trade by investing in export processing zones in migrant origin countries, on the theory that more trade, and the employment it creates, will deter onward migration to the Global North. I use these contexts as the starting point for a reconsideration of core ideas in trade and migration policy and theory. In the first set of cases, governments are constructing a comparative advantage in labor from whole cloth, by bringing in workers from other countries on terms that restrict their freedom and subject them to exploitation at work. This challenges the usual description in the trade literature of labor cost as a natural phenomenon based on local wage and productivity levels, and thus a legitimate source of advantage in trade. Meanwhile, transnational firms that locate production in such export processing zones sidestep the ordinary choice between benefiting from global wage differentials by moving work overseas or by hiring migrant workers. Instead, they do both simultaneously, a strategy I term “double labor arbitrage.” I explore the ways in which the construction of comparative advantage and double labor arbitrage operate together to extract additional value from workers for the benefit of states and corporations. With regard to the second set of cases, I draw on recent empirical economic scholarship to challenge the argument that more trade will decrease emigration. More profoundly, I question the normative justification for these proposals, given the treatment of workers in the zones. Although proposed as a “solution” to immigration, I argue that they are much more likely to deepen the problems that drive it. Immigration and trade law do not bar any of the developments I analyze here. The question is whether they should. This Article—the first step in a larger project—launches that inquiry. (shrink)

The target article by Bernard Baars presents a quick way of grasping the gist of his book In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind, published recently . The metaphor of consciousness as a theatre has a long history. A prototype of the theatre model may be traced back to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which we are like prisoners living in a cave just observing the shadows of reality. The modern theatre model insists on consciousness being (...) under the control of attention by introducing a searchlight metaphor . The target article explores some evidence from the viewpoint of Global Workspace theory by using a method of ‘contrastive analysis’. According to this theory, GW works as the publicity organ of the brain and has a facility for accessing, disseminating, and exchanging information, and for exercizing global coordination and control . Baars describes his GW as a theatre. ‘As the house lights begin to dim and the audience falls silent, a single spotlight pierces the descending darkness, until only one bright spot, shining on stage, remains visible. You know that the audience, actors, stagehands, and spotlight operators are there, working together under invisible direction and guided by an unknown script, to present the flow of visible events on stage. As the house lights dim, only the focal contents of consciousness remain. Everything else is in darkness’ . According to GW theory, a theatre stage with a bright spot is just a working memory. So I would like to comment on some general characteristics of the working memory and related spotlight problem. (shrink)

One of the strikingly iconoclastic features of actor-network theory is its juxtaposition of the claim to be a realist perspective with denials that supposedly natural phenomena existed before scientists “made them up.” This paper explains and criticizes such arguments in the work of Bruno Latour. By combining referent and reference in the concept of assemblages, Latour provides a superficially viable way to reconcile these apparently incompatible claims. This paper will argue, however, that this conflation of referent and reference (...) leads Latour’s ontology into difficulties that can only be resolved by abandoning it in favor of a more conventional—critical—realism. (shrink)

Studies of creative industries typically contend that creative work is profoundly precarious, taking place on a freelance basis in highly competitive, individualized and contingent labour markets. Such studies depict creative workers as correspondingly self-enterprising, self-reliant, self-interested and calculative agents who valorise care-free independence. In contrast, we adopt the ‘ethics of care’ approach to explore, recognize and appreciate the communitarian, relational and moral considerations as well as interpersonal connectedness and interdependencies that underpin creative work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with (...) creative workers in a range of marginal socio-cultural contexts, we argue that creative workers cultivate and sustain a diverse array of practices of care arising from an affective concern with the well-being of others. Far from being merely individualistic and crudely competitive actors, creative workers enact practical ethical responsibilities and affectivities towards a range of human and non-human others, including families, local communities and neighbourhoods, colleagues, artistic scenes and their adjacent genres, and surrounding national and linguistic cultures. In emphasizing the fundamental and structuring role of care in contingent labour markets our approach accords with recent trends in the social sciences that ‘affirmatively’—as opposed to ‘negatively’ and ‘suspiciously’—recognize that mutuality, solidarity and affectivity are powerful drivers of action on a par with or even exceeding market-driven self-centredness. (shrink)

Malm and colleagues (2008) consider (and reject) five arguments putatively justifying the idea that healthcare workers (HCWs) have a duty to treat (DTT) during a pandemic. We do not have sufficient...

In the mid twenty-tens, many major food companies committed to sustainably source their priority ingredients, including North American commodity crops. With deadlines set for the decade’s end, companies joined multi-stakeholder initiatives and developed standards, metrics, and other assessment tools to help them track and drive progress. In short, they embarked on the sort of corporate supply chain governance that agri-food scholars have long studied. But how would this governance happen, especially in the commodity supply chains where companies knew and controlled (...) little about upstream production? Treating supply chain governance as not just a corporate undertaking but also the work of mid-level sustainability managers, this paper examines the practical skills and knowledge, or mētis, employed by managers in their efforts to win the support of colleagues, farmers, and other supply chain actors. This analysis provides insight into how and why food companies’ approaches to governing agricultural sustainability have changed since they set their 2020 sourcing goals. More broadly, it highlights the contingent nature of their governance. (shrink)

Background The world is urbanizing rapidly; more than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, leading to significant transition in lifestyles and social behaviours globally. While offering many advantages, urban environments also concentrate health risks and introduce health hazards for the poor. In Bangladesh, although many public policies are directed towards equity and protecting people’s rights, these are not comprehensively and inclusively applied in ways that prioritize the health rights of citizens. The country is thus facing many issues (...) that raise moral and ethical concerns. Methods A narrative literature review was conducted between October 2016 and November 2017 on issues related to social justice, health, and human rights in urban Bangladesh. The key questions discussed here are: i) ethical dilemmas and inclusion of the urban poor to pursue social justice; and ii) the ethical obligations and moral responsibilities of the state and non-state sectors in serving Bangladesh’s urban poor. Using a Rawlsian theory of equality of opportunity to ensure social justice, we identified key health-related ethical issues in the country’s rapidly changing urban landscape, especially among the poor. Results We examined ethical dilemmas in Bangladesh’s health system through the rural–urban divide and the lack of coordination among implementing agencies. The unregulated profusion of the private sector and immoral practices of service providers result in high out-of-pocket expenditures for urban poor, leading to debt and further impoverishment. We also highlight policy and programmatic gaps, as well as entry points for safeguarding the right to health for Bangladeshi citizens. Conclusions The urban health system in Bangladesh needs a reform in which state and non-state actors should work together, understanding and acknowledging their moral responsibilities for improving the health of the urban poor by engaging multiple sectors. The social determinants of health should be taken into account when formulating policies and programs to achieve universal health coverage and ensure social justice for the urban poor in Bangladesh. (shrink)

The question of judgment has become one of the central problems in recent social, political and ethical thought. This paper explores Hannah Arendt's decisive contribution to this debate by attempting to reconstruct analytically two distinctive perspectives on judgment from the corpus of her writings. By exploring her relation to Aristotelian and Kantian sources, and by uncovering debts and parallels to key thinkers such as Benjamin and Heidegger, it is argued that Arendt's work pinpoints the key antinomy within political judgment (...) itself, that between the viewpoints of the political actor and the political spectator. The paper concludes by highlighting some lacunae and difficulties in the development of Arendt's account, difficulties that set challenges for those theorists (such as Seyla Benhabib and Alessandro Ferrara) who wish to appropriate and extend Arendt's contribution into the field of contemporary critical theory. Key Words: action • aesthetics • community • freedom • history • judgment • reflection. (shrink)

Most of human-robot interaction (HRI) research relies on an implicit assumption that seems to drive experimental work in interaction studies: the more anthropomorphism we can reach in robots, the more effective the robot will be in 'being social.' The notion of 'sociomorphing' was developed in order to challenge the assumption of ubiquitous anthropomorphizing. This paper aims to explore the notion of sociomorphing by analysing the possibilities offered by actor-network theory (ANT). We claim that ANT is a valid framework (...) to re-think the conceptual couple anthropomorphizing / sociomorphing and answer the following question: What kind of negotiation process and social practices can be developed in HRI, given the notion of sociomorph interactional networks? (shrink)

While recent science and technology studies literature focuses on “projectification” and its felt tensions for researchers, a surprising scarcity of empirical work addresses experiences at the “other end,” such as funding bodies often held “responsible” for tensions encountered by researchers. Actors in funding bodies experience similar tensions, however. While projectification necessitates predictability and individual project objectives, research funding is also increasingly organized in networks promoting local experimentation. Moreover, funding bodies are part of a system of accountability in which investments (...) are legitimized politically in often reductionist ways. We argue for the salience of more detailed empirical investigations into the work of funding bodies as they navigate these tensions. We apply a dramaturgical perspective to investigate the “staging work” of program committees responsible for the management of funded programs, identifying three forms of staging work: setting the scene, temporal narration, and signifying success. All come with discursive, material, and symbolic dimensions. We develop the notion “adaptive coherence” to show how the program committee sought to maintain the coherence of the overall program despite continuous risks of fragmentation due to projectification, local experimentation, and divergence in interests. “Adaptive coherence” proves productive in incorporating the temporal and spatial dimensions of staging work in networked contexts. (shrink)

Cleaning the floor, stripping the bed, arranging a bouquet of flowers—such tasks are essential to keeping a hospital room clean and creating a pleasant atmosphere. They usually fall under the purview of female* nurses, cleaning staff and housekeepers. In everyday hospital life, the demands for hygienic cleanliness commingle with the imperatives of economization, marketing logic, and attention to the affective and emotional needs of the actors in these rooms. Although the standards of clinical hygiene are based on medical knowledge, the (...) division of labor and the demands for cleanliness at various hierarchical levels also reveal gendered and partly racialized ideas that point beyond the clinical context. This blending of imperatives in the hospital environment invites deeper consideration of the history of bacteriology: The logic and language of defense against infection in science and everyday life is also interwoven with social markers of difference.Drawing on the findings of an ethnography on cleanliness and cleaning work in hospitals, as well as a history of knowledge approach, the article links the question of (feminized) care for the environment with the question of the atmosphere of clinical rooms. In what ways, and to what effect, does scientific knowledge about medical hygiene also carry with it cultural and aesthetic perceptions of beautiful and pleasant cleanliness that reveal feminine connotations rooted in the nineteenth century? (shrink)