Within child and adolescent psychiatry, there are a number of potential dilemmas pertaining to diagnosis, treatment, the protection of the child, as well as the child's own developing intelligence and moral judgement. Diagnostic Dilemmas in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is the first in the IPPP series to explore this highly complex topic.

Some moral theorists argue that innocent beneficiaries of wrongdoing may have special remedial duties to address the hardships suffered by the victims of the wrongdoing. These arguments generally aim to simply motivate the idea that being a beneficiary can provide an independent ground for charging agents with remedial duties to the victims of wrongdoing. Consequently, they have neglected contexts in which it is implausible to charge beneficiaries with remedial duties to the victims of wrongdoing, thereby failing to explore the limits (...) of the benefiting relation in detail. Our aim in this article is to identify a criterion to distinguish contexts in which innocent beneficiaries plausibly bear remedial duties to the victims of wrongdoing from those in which they do not. We argue that innocent beneficiaries incur special duties to the victims of wrongdoing if and only if receiving and retaining the benefits sustains wrongful harm. We develop this criterion by identifying and explicating two general modes of sustaining wrongful harm. We also show that our criterion offers a general explanation for why some innocent beneficiaries incur a special duty to the victims of wrongdoing while others do not. By sustaining wrongful harm, beneficiaries-with-duties contribute to wrongful harm, and we ordinarily have relatively stringent moral requirements against contributing to wrongful harm. On our account, innocently benefiting from wrongdoing _per se_ does not generate duties to the victims of wrongdoing. Rather, beneficiaries acquire such duties because their receipt and retention of the benefits of wrongdoing contribute to the persistence of the wrongful harm suffered by the victim. We conclude by showing that our proposed criterion also illuminates why there can be reasonable disagreement about whether beneficiaries have a duty to victims in some social contexts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 109-111 [Access article in PDF] Seventh International Buddhist-Christian Conference David W.Chappell Soka University of America Pack your bags! The annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies in Nashville decided that the next international conference will be held August 5-12, 2003, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.An invitation was extended to the society by Dr. John Butt, director of the Institute for the (...) Study of Religion and Culture (ISRC), and by the president of Payap University, Dr. Boonthong Poocharoen. As a Presbyterian faculty member of the McGilvary Faculty of Theology, John has extensive interreligious experience in Thailand and participated in the society's last international conference held in Tacoma, Washington, in August 2000.The institute's associate director, Professor Saeng Chandrangam, is a former Buddhist monk and is one of Thailand's most highly respected Buddhist laymen. He was Chair of the Department of Oriental Studies and the Department of Modern Languages and was Dean of Humanities of the government's Chiang Mai University, where he taught philosophy and theology. Currently he teaches at a Buddhist university in Chiang Mai as well as serving as the associate director ofISRC. Also, Donald Swearer, who has been active with the society since the first international conference in 1980, will be in residence in Chiang Mai in the springs of 2002 and 2003 and can help plan the conference.Payap University was founded in 1974 by the Church of Christ in Thailand, a consortium ofThai Christian congregations begun by Presbyterian, American Baptist, and Disciples missionaries. However, about 95 percent of Payap University's nine thousand students are Buddhist since Chiang Mai is centrally located in the Burmese-Thai axis with the heaviest concentration of Buddhists in the world. As a result, the conference will be set in a context of Protestant missions within a Theravadin Buddhist culture. This setting will increase the presence of conservative and evangelical Christians, as well as Theravadin Buddhists, to serve as an important balance to the already strong Mahayana and Catholic dialogue leaders in our international conferences. John wrote that "Holding the next conference here would demonstrate that there are other forms of Christian faith quite different from that represented by the evangelical missionaries" and that there are other ways of understanding and approaching other different religious communities. Accordingly, a possible theme [End Page 109] might be "Rethinking Mission Motivation and Practice (both Buddhist and Christian) for the Twenty-first Century."Chiang Mai is a city of a population of about three hundred thousand that preserves much of the charm of traditional Thai culture, while also having modern conveniences like Western fast foods and ATMs, but has not yet succumbed to the congestion of Bangkok. Its weather should be in the eighties or nineties and its hotels are inexpensive (about twenty-five dollars per day for two). The meetings at Payap University will be in air-conditioned rooms in a picturesque setting. Payap has three campuses and is affiliated with the McCormick Hospital. It offers twenty-four undergraduate degrees, as well as master's degrees in divinity, linguistics, business administration, international business, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, philosophy, and Christianity.Payap University can draw on considerable experience for hosting foreign programs. The vice president for external affairs, Martha Butt (wife of John), heads a committee that has planned, developed, and operated the in-country segments of all the Thai Elderhostel programs involving over three thousand participants. Also, they will be joined by faculty members from Mahidol, Chulalongkorn, and Thammasat Universities, including Dr. Parichart Suwanbubbha of Mahidol University, a Thai Buddhist (with a degree from Chicago comparing the concepts of karma and grace), who attended the Tacoma conference in 2000.ISRC is located on the Crystal Spring campus of Payap University and was founded in 1996 to serve as a research and study center for scholars and others interested in the comparative study of religion and culture. The institute's primary goal is to provide and nurture a broad ecumenical religious vision for the people ofThailand and Southeast Asia and for others visiting or working... (shrink)

In The Paradox of Predictivism I tried to demonstrate that there is an intimate relationship between predictivism and epistemic pluralism. Here I respond to various published criticisms of some of the key points from Paradox from David Harker, Jarret Leplin, and Clark Glymour. Foci include my account of predictive novelty, the claim that predictivism has two roots, the prediction per se and predictive success, and my account of why Mendeleev’s predictions carried special weight in confirming the Periodic Law of (...) the Elements. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Fulfilling Mitzvot through the Practice of Lovingkindness and WisdomDavid J. GilnerSince it has been more than forty years since I last wrote a paper in comparative religion, I have chosen not to attempt a scholarly paper. Rather, after a biographical sketch, I will discuss examples of Jewish texts that underpin my choice to pursue a path that includes practices drawn from the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, and explain how (...) I plan to teach these practices within traditional Jewish settings.I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a Jewish family that identified with the Conservative movement. When I turned five, I was sent to a modern Orthodox yeshiva. For three and a half hours each morning, first five, then six days a week, I studied a comprehensive Jewish curriculum—taught in modern Hebrew—which included Bible, commentaries, Talmud, history, grammar, and the laws and customs of Ashkenazic Jewry. At fourteen, I left the yeshiva to attend a nondenominational Christian prep school. This seemingly radical change in schools and religious traditions occasioned no significant intellectual conflicts or spiritual anxieties. By fourteen, I sensed that religion was something people were born into; it was one of the cards life dealt you at birth.My sophomore year at Emory University saw the beginning of my interest in Buddhism. I began to practice Sōtō Zen sitting (zazen), and, in my readings, stumbled upon the koan Mu, which occupied my attention in and out of meditation for several years. I became a religion major and was particularly interested in modern Japanese religions. However, my advisor discouraged me from pursuing this interest in graduate school and suggested I build further on my strong traditional Jewish education, which is how I came to Hebrew Union College in 1972 to pursue a PhD in biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies.It was at that time that I began to practice Transcendental Meditation, and, subsequently, the TM Sidhis program, a practice that took, on average, three hours per day, and four and a half hours on days when I did group practice. Not finding a job teaching Bible led me to library school, after which I returned to Hebrew Union College in 1977 to work as a librarian. I became involved in interfaith community outreach, and lectured, led Bible study groups, and conducted Passover seders at local [End Page 27] churches, toward the goal of enhancing interfaith dialogue and understanding in the community. At this time I was fortunate to become friends with Paul Knitter, then a professor at Xavier University.In 1997, after twenty-five years of dedicated twice-daily practice, it became clear to me that I was "attached" to my TM meditation program and that this attachment was hindering my growth. I put my TM Sidhis practice aside and went back to zazen. Soon, I became associated with the Dzogchen organization led by Lama Surya Das, and trekchö became my basic practice. As a member of the online "three-year mandala program," I received a cassette-based education in various Tibetan meditation practices, which included my first experiences with visualization, as part of Tara and Machigma practices.In 2001, I learned of many unfilled requests sent to Hebrew Union College by small congregations asking for students to lead High Holidays services, so I volunteered. For the past ten years, I have served as the High Holidays rabbi at Congregation Tikkun Olam in Woodstock, Illinois. The phrase tikkun olam, often translated as "repairing the world," has become popularized in Jewish culture over the past two decades.In 2003, a friend sent me a teaching tape by Lama John Makransky on loving-kindness practice. My immediate gut reaction was that everything else I had done for thirty-five years was preparation for this teaching. I attended several courses in which Lama Makransky taught practices to cultivate innate lovingkindness and wisdom, and in 2007 I was privileged to attend the week-long course in which he taught his then forthcoming book Awakening through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness. Since then, I have attended other courses taught by Makransky under the aegis of the Foundation for Active Compassion. Within the realm of Ati Yoga, I think it... (shrink)

The prediction defended in this paper is that over the next fifty years we will see a return of the ancient tradition of “universal history”; but this will be a new form of universal history that is global in its practice and scientific in its spirit and methods. Until the end of the nineteenth century, universal history of some kind seems to have been present in most historiographical traditions. Then it vanished as historians became disillusioned with the search for grand (...) historical narratives and began to focus instead on getting the details right through document-based research. Today, however, there are many signs of a return to universal history. This has been made possible, at least in part, by the detailed empirical research undertaken in the last century in many different fields, and also by the creation of new methods of absolute dating that do not rely on the presence of written documents. The last part of the paper explores some of the possible consequences for historical scholarship of a return to a new, scientific form of universal history. These may include a closer integration of historical scholarship with the more historically oriented of the sciences, including cosmology, geology, and biology. Finally, the paper raises the possibility that universal history may eventually be taught in high schools, where it will provide a powerful new way of integrating knowledge from the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

Part 1. Lecture 1. What is big history? ; Lecture 2. Moving across multiple scales ; Lecture 3. Simplicity and complexity ; Lecture 4. Evidence and the nature of science ; Lecture 5. Threshold 1, Origins of Big Bang cosmology ; Lecture 6. How did everything begin? ; Lecture 7. Threshold 2, The first stars and galaxies ; Lecture 8. Threshold 3, Making chemical elements ; Lecture 9. Threshold 4, The earth and the solar system ; Lecture 10. The early (...) earth, a short history ; Lecture 11. Plate tectonics and the earth's geography ; Lecture 12. Threshold 5, Life -- Part 2. Lecture 13. Darwin and natural selection ; Lecture 14. The evidence for natural selection ; Lecture 15. The origins of life ; Lecture 16. Life on earth, single-celled organisms ; Lecture 17. Life on earth, multi-celled organisms ; Lecture 18. Hominines ; Lecture 19. Evidence on hominine evolution ; Lecture 20. Threshold 6, What makes humans different? ; Lecture 21. Homo sapiens, the first humans ; Lecture 22. Paleolithic lifeways ; Lecture 23. Change in the Paleolithic Era ; Lecture 24. Threshold 7, agriculture -- Part 3. Lecture 25. The origins of agriculture ; Lecture 26. The first agrarian societies ; Lecture 27. Power and its origins ; Lecture 28. Early power structures ; Lecture 29. From villages to cities ; Lecture 30. Sumer, the first agrarian civilization ; Lecture 31. Agrarian civilizations in other regions ; Lecture 32. The world that agrarian civilizations made ; Lecture 33. Long trends, expansion and state power ; Lecture 34. Long trends, rates of innovation ; Lecture 35. Long trends, disease and Malthusian cycles ; Lecture 36. Comparing the world zones -- Part 4. Lecture 37. The Americas in the later Agrarian Era ; Lecture 38. Threshold 8, the modern revolution ; Lecture 39. The Medieval Malthusian Cycle, 500-1350 ; Lecture 40. The Early Modern Cycle, 1350-1700 ; Lecture 41. Breakthrough, the Industrial Revolution ; Lecture 42. Spread of the Industrial Revolution to 1900 ; Lecture 43. The 20th century ; Lecture 44. The world that the modern revolution made ; Lecture 45. Human history and the biosphere ; Lecture 46. The next 100 years ; Lecture 47. The next millennium and the remote future ; Lecture 48. Big history, humans in the cosmos. (shrink)

English summary: The focus of the contributions in this volume is on the relationships of the young Kierkegaard with the philosophy in Berlin and also with Pietism whose influence expresses itself mainly in his later edifying writings. Berlin and Halle are important reference points for Kierkegaard's roots of thinking which can be characterized as passion and inwardness. Texts about love from all periods of his work together with musical and visual reflections on Kierkegaard combine both aspects and provide an aesthetic (...) comment to the scholarly contributions in this volume. These contributions are the results of two German-Danish conferences in the Kierkegaard Year 2013 in Berlin and Halle, which were funded by the Danish Carlsberg Fond and the Centre for Theology and Theological Education of the Church of Denmark and were organized by the theological faculties in Berlin and Halle. German description: Zentral fur diesen spannenden Aufsatzband sind Beziehungen des jungen Kierkegaard zur Berliner Philosophie sowie sein Verhaltnis zum Pietismus in den erbaulichen Schriften vor allem des spaten Kierkegaard. Berlin und Halle sind wichtige Bezugspunkte fur die Wurzeln des Kierkegaardschen Denkens, die man gut mit den begriffen 'Leidenschaft' und 'Innerlichkeit' charakterisieren kann. Texte uber die Liebe aus allen Phasen des Kierkegaardschen Werkes mit musikalischen und visuellen Reflexionen zu Kierkegaard verbinden die beiden Aspekte miteinander und fungieren als ein asthetischer Kommentar zu den wissenschaftlichen Beitragen. Die Beitrage des Bandes gehen auf zwei deutsch-danische Tagungen im Kierkegaardjahr 2013 in Berlin und Halle zuruck, die vom danischen Carlsbergfond und dem Theologisch-Padagogischen Zentrum der danischen Volkskirche finanziert wurden und in Zusammenarbeit mit den theologischen Fakultaten in Berlin und Halle stattfanden. Mit Beitrager von Svend Andersen, Philipp David, Tim Hagemann, Albrecht Haizmann, Eberhard Harbsmeier, Anders Kingo, Per Ohrgaard, Markus Pohlmeyer, Joachim Ringleben, Christian Senkel und Traugott Vogel. (shrink)

El propósito de esta investigación radica en determinar el rol unificador entre estado de naturaleza y Estado civil de la representación desarrollado en el capítulo XVI del Leviatán. La representación es un momento de transición entre estado natural y Estado civil: donde lo simbólico toma el lugar de la racionalidad práctica y se sedimenta como lo real para los hombres. Es por la capacidad de crear personas artificiales que los hombres pueden atribuir libremente predicados a cosas que no los tienen (...) realmente y, además de donar su cuerpo físico, pueden crear la persona del Estado, el Leviatán; asumir la soberanía y la sujeción y recrear la subjetividad humana políticamente. (shrink)

en este artículo la imaginación es el concepto clave para identificar la evolución epistemológica del hombre natural. A través de la primacía del sentimiento de placer se va a exponer, en tres momentos, el desarrollo de las facultades mentales en donde, primero, predomina una imaginación pictórica individual que refiere el placer a los objetos de la sensibilidad y utiliza la razón calculadora para asegurárselos de forma continua. Segundo, su paso hacia una imaginación pictórica mediada por un poder capaz de reunir (...) a los hombres e imponerse, que refiere el placer hacia una realidad de signos y comportamientos comunes. Por último, la inmediatez del sentimiento de placer de la imaginación pictórica es subordinada al placer derivado de la creación de símbolos significativos lingüísticos y se ciñe a ellos. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn Critical Discourse Studies and in other linguistics oriented scholarly journals we now see more research which draws upon multimodality as part of carrying out analyses of how text...

Book reviewed in this article: Practical Medical Ethics. By Alastair Campbell, Grant Gillett, and Gareth Jones. If I Were a Rich Man Could I Buy a Pancreas? and Other Essays on the Ethics of Health Care. By Arthur L. Caplan. Bloomington Ethics on Call: A Medical Ethicist Shows How to Take Charge of Life and Death Choices in Today's Health Care System. By Nancy Dubler and David Nimmons.

We propose a principle of sustainability to complement established principles used for justifying healthcare resource allocation. We argue that the application of established principles of equal treatment, need, prognosis and cost-effectiveness gives rise to what we call negative dynamics: a gradual depletion of the value possible to generate through healthcare. These principles should therefore be complemented by a sustainability principle, making the prospect of negative dynamics a further factor to consider, and possibly outweigh considerations highlighted by the other principles. We (...) demonstrate how this principle may take different forms, and show that a commitment to sustainability is supported by considerations internal to the ethical principles already guiding healthcare resource allocation. We also consider two objections. The first of these, we argue, is either based on implausible assumptions or begs the question, whereas the second can be adequately accommodated by the principle we propose. (shrink)

We are very grateful for the responses given to our article and for the editor of this journal for inviting us to have this kind of interaction. We simply need to have this kind of open discussion...

Stephens and Grahamset themselves an apparently modest task, to understand why people who experience alien voices and inserted thoughts do not believe that they themselves are the source of these experiences. However, it soon becomes clear that there are many connected issues here. In eight short chapters, they address the phenomenology and ontology of consciousness, the phenomenology of alien voices, inserted thoughts, obsessive-compulsive thoughts and feelings, and other cases of unusual experience often associated with psychopathology, including brief discussion of multiple (...) personality disorder. They survey some of the main empirical explanations of the phenomenology, set out the shortcomings of these theories, and end by proposing their own schematic account. (shrink)

While there need be no conflict in theory between addressing global inequality (inequalities between people worldwide) and addressing domestic inequality (inequalities between people within a political community), there may be instances in which the feasible mechanism for reducing global inequality risks aggravating domestic inequality. The burgeoning literature on global justice has tended to overlook this type of scenario, and theorists espousing global egalitarianism have consequently not engaged with cases that are important for evaluating and clarifying the content of their theories. (...) This chapter explores potential tensions between promoting global and domestic inequality. We introduce a class of second-best scenarios that global justice theorists have neglected to demonstrate the importance of such scenarios as an aid to constructing and evaluating ideals of global justice. (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With (...) respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

An important way to become self-deceived, omitted by Mele, is by intentionally ignoring and avoiding the contemplation of evidence one has for an upsetting conclusion, knowing full well that one is giving priority to one's present peace of mind over the search for truth. Such intentional self-deception may be especially hard to observe scientifically.

In this collection of scenarios and episodes, many of which were experienced by the authors in their years as school administrators, you will find an array of provocative examples of social injustice in the classroom, and what you can do to prevent it in your own school community.

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With (...) respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

This book explores the significance of implicit understandings and tacit expectations of the parties to different kinds of contractual agreements.

In order to responsibly protect certain cherished values, for instance, human or environmental health, privacy, or ‘human dignity’, societies see a need for oversight, guidance and regulation of de...

In this paper, we set out to inquire into how exactly testimony is and should be placed within the framework of virtue epistemology, and more specifically within Ernest Sosa’s exposition and defense thereof. We begin this inquiry (in Sect. 3.2) by formulating conditions of adequacy that can be extracted from recent criticisms of virtue epistemological approaches more generally. In Sect. 3.3, we reconstruct two branches of Sosa’s treatment of testimony, with respect to which we point out problems of inner coherence (...) and compatibility. We won’t stop there but then go on to see first (in Sect. 3.4) whether and, if so, how the two branches can be balanced out within the architecture of Sosa’s theory of knowledge. And second (in Sect. 3.5), we offer and outline a more comprehensive account that solves not just the problems formulated at the outset, but also a number of problems identified along the way. (shrink)

Measuring and assessing the different aspects of gambling behavior and its consequences is crucial for planning prevention, treatment, and understanding the development of at-risk and problem gambling. Studies indicate that instruments measuring problem gambling produce different results based on the characteristics of the population assessed. To accurately measure at-risk and problem gambling behavior, especially in a low-risk population, measures must cover a wider set of dimensions than the negative consequences already manifest. The Jonsson-Abbott Scale includes items that cover overconsumption, actions (...) that reinforce gambling behavior, and belief in gambling fallacies, based on a three-factor structure and has previously demonstrated good psychometric properties. However, there is a need to investigate how the instrument also functions in low-risk populations. This study aims to do so using both confirmatory factor and Rasch analysis; this research included 1,413 Swedish participants who endorsed at least one JAS item. The results replicated the previous three-factor solution and indicated that the instrument had good reliability. In addition, the results demonstrated that the three factors are independent, and the overall score per factor needs to be analyzed. In summary, the JAS appears suitable for use in low-risk populations to measure various aspects of gambling behavior. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever-present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine “what is right”. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research paper (...) examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entrepreneur’s personal world-view. (shrink)

Introductory anthology to the philosophy of hate crime, written in the EU project "When Law and Hate Collide".

. Sponsorship, Academic Independence and Critical Engagement: a Forum on Shell, the Ogoni Dispute and the Royal Geographical Society Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 219-257.

Prevalent narratives of agricultural innovation predict that we are once again on the cusp of a global agricultural revolution. According to these narratives, this so-called fourth agricultural revolution, or agriculture 4.0, is set to transform current agricultural practices around the world at a quick pace, making use of new sophisticated precision technologies. Often used as a rhetorical device, this narrative has a material effect on the trajectories of an inherently political and normative agricultural transition; with funding, other policy instruments, and (...) research attention focusing on the design and development of new precision technologies. A growing critical social science literature interrogates the promises of revolution. Engagement with new technology is likely to be uneven, with benefits potentially favouring the already powerful and the costs falling hardest on the least powerful. If grand narratives of change remain unchallenged, we risk pursuing innovation trajectories that are exclusionary, failing to achieve responsible innovation. This study utilises a range of methodologies to explore everyday encounters between farmers and technology, with the aim of inspiring further work to compile the microhistories that can help to challenge robust grand narratives of change. We explore how farmers are engaging with technology in practice and show how these interactions problematise a simple, linear notion of innovation adoption and use. In doing so, we reflect upon the contribution that the study of everyday encounters can make in setting more inclusionary, responsible pathways towards sustainable agriculture. (shrink)

It has become common to find diagrams and flow-charts used in our organizations to illustrate the nature of processes, what is involved and how it happens, or to show how parts of the organization interrelate to each other and work together. Such diagrams are used as they are thought to help visualization and simplify things in order to represent the essence of a particular situation, the core features. In this paper, using a social semiotic approach, we show that we need (...) to develop a much more critical sense of how these diagrams and flowcharts can easily abstract, conceal and substitute actual causalities, work roles and relationships. We demonstrate this using the example of a series of interrelated flows-charts used to implement a new system of target-based learning in preschool/kindergartens in Sweden – a system which works highly in favor of a rapidly privatizing education sector. Here, the flow charts shape how school processes and learning are presented to devalue the former system and value the new. (shrink)