This paper engages in the debate between cultural modernists and cultural traditionalists concerning the importance of cultural fidelity as faced by African people via globalization and its alleged homogenizing tendency. Central to this debate is the issue of cultural truths and its use, that is, development. The paper therefore argues that African peoples do not need to “essentialize” their cultures. This is because the “truths about reality” with which they intend to employ in this quest for development are not exclusive (...) to any particular cultural society. The implication of the foregoing is the paper’s insistence that Africans adopt a complementarist attitude in their determination for cultural fidelity. It maintains that this attitude will make Africans avail themselves of ideas from elsewhere. Ultimately, the paper posits that this new disposition of Africans to their cultures and those of non-African societies will set her beleaguered states on a solid developmental trajectory. (shrink)

Humans, more than any other species, have been altering their paths of development by creating new material forms and by opening up to new possibilities of material engagement. That is, we become constituted through making and using technologies that shape our minds and extend our bodies. We make things which in turn make us. This ongoing dialectic has long been recognised from a deep-time perspective. It also seems natural in the present in view of the ways new materialities and digital (...) ecologies increasingly envelop our everyday life and thinking. Still the basic idea that humans and things are co-constituted continues to challenge us, raising important questions about the place and meaning of materiality and technical change in human life and evolution. This paper bridging perspectives from postphenomenology and Material Engagement Theory is trying to attain better understanding about these matters. Our emphasis falls specifically on the human predisposition for technological embodiment and creativity. We re-approach the notion Homo faber in a way that, on the one hand, retains the power and value of this notion to signify the primacy of making or creative material engagement in human life and evolution and, on the other hand, reclaims the notion from any misleading connotations of human exceptionalism. In particular, our use of the term Homo faber refers to the special place that this ability has in the evolution and development of our species. The difference that makes the difference is not just the fact that we make things. The difference that makes the difference is the recursive effect that the things that we make and our skills of making seem to have on human becoming. We argue that we are Homo faber not just because we make things but also because we are made by them. (shrink)

This paper attempts to critique the existential philosophy of Martin Buber’s theory of the “I-Thou” using the Yoruba concept of okun omo iya. The need for the realization of a sustainable environment has been a point of focus for researchers, scholars, and government policy makers. The reason for this realization is not far-fetched. According to a record from World Health Organisation (WHO), one-quarter of all deaths worldwide are attributed to over-exploitation and reckless usage of the environment. This undoubtedly has caused (...) several human-induced disasters such as floods. The reckless usage and abuse of the environment is predicated on the domineering tendency of humans towards the environment. Martin Buber, in his existentialist philosophy, argues that humans should treat their relations as “I-Thou” (as subjects) and not as “I-It” (as objects). It follows that humans must be considerate in relating with each other such that fellow humans should not be treated as a means to an end, rather as ends in themselves. Simply put, fellow humans should not be seen as objects that others can either control, dominate, or subdue. However, Buber’s existentialist philosophy is human-centered, as it excludes the non-human entities and as well, failed to explain the relationship that should exist between humans and non-human entities. Hence, the Yoruba concept of okun omo iya will be used as a paradigm to remodel and re-configure the existentialist philosophy of Buber in a way that is environmentally inclusive. (shrink)

There is a ‘catch 22’ situation about applying coercion in psychiatric care. Autonomous choices undeniably are rights of patients. However, emphasizing rights for a mentally-ill patient could jeopardize the chances of the patient receiving care or endanger the public. Conversely, the beneficial effects of coercion are difficult to predict. Thus, applying coercion in psychiatric care requires delicate balancing of individual-rights, individual well-being and public safety, which has not been achieved by current frameworks. Two current frameworks may be distinguished: the civil (...) liberty approach and the Stone model. Both frameworks are restrictive, and not respectful of human dignity. In a civil liberty approach, individuals who are severely mentally-ill but not dangerous would be denied care because they do not meet the dangerousness threshold or because the use of coercion will not lead to rebirthing of autonomy. This is unsatisfactory. Albeit involuntary interventions such as talk therapies, peer-support etc., may not always lead to rebirthing of autonomy or free patients from mental illness; they can however help to maintain the dignity of each mentally ill patient. In place of these frameworks, this study proposes a new ethical framework for applying coercion in psychiatric care that is respectful of human dignity. Specifically, it draws on insights from the African ethico-cultural system by using the Yoruba concept Omo-olu-iwabi to develop this new framework. This way, the study shows that only a more respectful approach for applying coercion in psychiatric care can lead to the careful balancing of the competing interests of individual's rights, individual's well-being and public safety. (shrink)

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia-in turn, enabling irrigation (...) for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase-with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe-consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework-forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr's book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C. (shrink)

Pese a la estricta contextualización de lomágico como demoníaco en el tejido dela narrativa de El asno dorado de Apuleyo,una corriente que se ha descuidado enla academia moderna explora su legadopagano –r et i ene el al cance par a unahi pót esi s fact i bl e en l a forma de unacoalición paradigmática entre su progeniei nevi tabl e, l as bruj as desesperadas aligual que una comunidad distinguida detaumaturgos, los teúrgos, cuya identidaden el discurso intelectual proporciona elejemplo (...) más fino de las formas politeistasde adivinación. En Sobre los misterios deJamblico, se clarifica la representación deotra tipología de magia, la natural, queavala un notable paralelo en una premisacompartida –los niveles de motivación.Deseo proponer, que en tanto arroja luzsobre una clasificación dual de la magiac omo demoní ac a y nat ur al , t ambi énrefleja de manera fascinante los grados deunidad entre las brujas desesperadas ylos teúrgos en cuestión –las operacionesde l os pri meros a menudo sust ent ans us pl a n t e a mi e n t o s pa r a o c ul t a r e lconocimiento y su potencial no es inferiora l as preocupaci ones el evadas de l ossegundos.Despite the strict contextualization ofmagic as demonic within the fabric ofnar r at i ve i n Aput ei us ’ Go l de n As s , aneglected current in modern academia itspagan legacy - retains scope for a feasiblehypothesis in the form of a paradigmaticcoalition between its inevitable progeny,desperate witches as well as a distinguishedc o mmu n i t y o f t h a u ma t a u r g o i , t h etheurgist, whose identity in intellectualdi scour se, chi ef l y t he f i nest possi bl ee x e mpl um of pol yt he i s t i c f or ms ofdi vi nat i on I ambl i chus’ De Myst eri es,clarify their representation of anothertypology of magic, natural, endorsinga striking parallel in a shared premise -levels of motivation. I wish to propose,that in as much as it throws light on twofold classification of magic as demonic andnatural it also fascinatingly reflects degreesof unity, though not without reserve insome areas, between the desperate witchesand theurgists in question - the formerwhose operations often underpin theirclaims to occult knowledge and whosepotential is no less inferior to the elevatedconcerns of the latter. (shrink)

Poppe r e nt i e nde l a r a c i ona l i da d e ntérminos de nuestra actitud intelectual.Nuestra racionalidad no es una facultad ni un don intelectual.No es al go dado a un i ndi vi duo, deacuerdo con él. Es una actitud que hemosadquirido de nuestra relación intelectualcon otros. Popper no usa “racionalismo”como un término filosófico que significaintelectualismo en oposición a empirismo.El artículo muestra claramente que Popperent i ende el r aci onal i (...) smo no como l agr a nde z a de l a r a z ón, s i no c omo l acomprensión de uno del límite de la razón.Sin embargo, surge una pregunta; ¿qué tanbien ha comprendido tal racionalista ellímite de su propio racionalismo? ¿Cómodebemos entender este límite? Popperafi rma que un raci onal i sta ha notadoel límite del racionalismo al prever elcarácter auto-destructivo del racionalismoc ompr e he ns i vo. A f i n de ha c e r má scomprensible su afirmación tenemos queexplicar el racionalismo comprehensiveque Popper aprehendió.Popper understands the rationality interms of our intellectual attitude. Ourrationality is neithera faculty nor an intellectual gift. It isnot something given to an individual,according to him. It is an attitude thatwe have acquired from our intellectualintercourse with others. Popper does notuse “rationalism” as a philosophical termthat means intellectualism in oppositionto empiricism.This paper clearly shows that Popperunde r s t a nds r a t i o na l i s m no t a s t heal mi ght i nes s of r eas on, but as one’ srealization of the limit of reason. However,there arises a question; how has such arationalist realized the limit of his ownrationalism? How we should understandthis limit? Popper asserts that a rationalisthas noticed the limit of rationalism byenvisaging the self-defeating character ofthe comprehensive rationalism. In order tomake more understandable his assertion,we must at first explain the comprehensiverationalism apprehended by Popper. (shrink)

This essay explores the question of why M figures in the names of all of Beckett’s major characters. I connect M to the word murmuring, which proliferates in his work, and I claim that Beckett was influenced by a passage in Dante’s Purgatorio, in which each face in a group of penitents is inscribed with the letter M. With a rounded eye socket below each arch, the faces of the penitents spell omo or man. I argue that M stands for (...) man – not the humanist form of man that existed for Dante, but rather a ruined figure that is adequate to this moment. Throughout, I engage with critical approaches to Beckett that attempt to connect the posthumanism suggested in his work with the new form of ethics – and of love – that it makes possible. (shrink)

This study examined two key dimensions of women’s status in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region of Ethiopia based on regional data collected from five randomly selected zones and one city administration; namely, Sidama, Hadya, Gamo Gofa, South Omo, Bench Maji and Hawassa City Administration. The analysis revealed that while joint decision is fairly high, women’s independent decision making on key household domains is generally low. Significant proportions of women in the region are exposed to violence by their partners ranging (...) from insult to heavy physical injury. The fact that nearly half of the women experienced insult and close to a quarter of them faced beating is indicative of the low status of women in society. The regression analysis indicated that seven variables determine the occurrence of violent acts against women in the study area, namely household size, education, access to radio, value of children index, wealth index and level of women autonomy. On the other hand, decision making autonomy is affected by wealth status, household size, access to radio and sex preference index. Finally, the study highlighted the importance of addressing the limited technical and operational capacities to implement gender policy and legal frameworks effectively and efficiently. (shrink)

In Berlin, the pronunciation of /ç/ as [ɕ] is associated with the multi-ethnic youth variety. This alternation is also known to be produced by French learners of German. While listeners form socio-cultural interpretations upon hearing language input, the associations differ depending on the listeners’ biases and stereotypes toward speakers or groups. Here, the contrast of interest concerns two speaker groups using the [ç]–[ɕ] alternation: multi-ethnic adolescents from Berlin neighborhoods carrying low social prestige in mainstream German society and French learners of (...) German supposedly having higher cultural prestige. To understand the strength of associations between phonetic alternations and social attributes, we ran an Implicit Association Task with 131 participants using auditory and written stimuli. In experiment 1, participants categorized written words as having a positive or negative valence and auditory stimuli containing pronunciation variations of /ç/ as canonical [ç] or non-canonical [ɕ]. In experiment 2, identical auditory stimuli were used but the label Kiezdeutsch was changed to French Accent. Results show faster reaction times when negative categories and non-canonical pronunciations or positive categories and canonical pronunciations were mapped to the same response key, indicating a tight association between value judgments and concept categories. Older German listeners match a supposed Kiezdeutsch accent more readily with negatively connotated words compared to a supposed French accent, while younger German listeners seem to be indifferent toward this variation. Young multi-ethnic listeners, however, seem to associate negative concepts more strongly with a supposed French accent compared to Kiezdeutsch. These results demonstrate how social and cultural contextualization influences language interpretation and evaluation. We interpret our findings as a loss of cultural prestige of French speakers for the YMO group compared to the OMO group: younger urban listeners do not react differently to these contextual primes. YMU listeners, however, show a positive bias toward their in-group. Our results point to implicit listener attitudes, beliefs, stereotypes and shared world knowledge as significant factors in culturally- and socially situated language processing. (shrink)

Twenty-five years ago, drawing on her fieldwork among the Zapotec, the legal anthropologist Laura Nader proposed the term harmony ideology to characterize postcolonial systems of justice. She found outward social harmony to be the result of coercion, as people were denied access to legal means and were forced either into alternative dispute resolution or into autocoercion, in which marginalized people presented unity to outsiders to avoid state interference. This proposition constitutes a relevant advance in relation to previous approaches to conflict (...) and harmony in the social sciences, but it falls short by failing to account for indigenous notions of and demands for harmony. Ethnographic data from rural Kyrgyzstan and the South Omo region of Ethiopia indicate that there are models of harmony active at various social levels and that harmony is a genuine concern of communities. Demands for harmony are performatively integrated into social practices. The authors argue that, rather than searching for a scale of sociality where harmony might be “organic,” it is necessary to critically assess proclamations of and demands for harmony as means of coercion even within small communities. A focus on social practice in such places reveals that the experience of community partly derives from acts of collectively condemning and sanctioning deviance. (shrink)

Quando o professor José Iran entrou como professor do quadro efetivo do DFIL,em 2003, faltavam apenas dois períodos para eu concluir meu curso de graduação.Nenhuma das disciplinas que eu estava matriculado era ministrada pelo professor José Iran. Não o conhecia ainda. Além disso, havia umas disciplinas que eu precisava estar matriculado, e Filosofia do Direito, à época uma disciplina optativa, não era definitivamente uma dessas disciplinas necessárias naquele contexto. Não era necessária para mim, mas alguns amigos fizeram a matrícula em (...) Filosofia do Direito. omo naquela época o sistema de oferta de disciplinas funcionava em modo de bloco aberto, era muito comum que pegássemos disciplinas diferentes daquelas que pegavam os nossos colegas contemporâneos de ingressão no curso. Meus colegas matriculados em Filosofia do Direito estavam muito preocupados com o conteúdo da disciplina.Mas sempre faziam comentários positivos sobre como a aula era conduzida pelo professor. Comentavam acerca das dificuldades que o conteúdo oferecia.Diziam o quanto achavam a filosofia hegeliana densa. Mas, a despeito da densidade de Hegel, também ressaltavam sobre o quanto o professor era muito preparado. Admiravam a habilidade que ele tinha em costurar dialeticamente as ideias de Hegel com as ideias de outros filósofos. Esses comentários foram me chamando a atenção. Eu nunca havia pegado uma disciplina cujo foco era Hegel. Na verdade, naquela condição de graduando, eu sabia muito pouco sobre a filosofia hegeliana.Fui olhar o horário da disciplina. Vi que ela acontecia nas quartas e sextas, no horário das quatorze às dezesseis horas. Nas quartas eu tinha o horário livre. Decidi chegar mais cedo nas quartas e assistir como ouvinte.Quando o professor entrou na sala, me dirigi a ele. Pedi permissão para ver a disciplina na condição de ouvinte. Sendo solícito como costuma ser, o Professor José Iran permitiu de pronto. (shrink)

Students’ active learning behavior determines learning performance. In post-COVID-19 period, Online Merging Offline method become a common way of university students’ learning. However, at present, there are few studies in active learning behavior in the OMO mode. Combined with learning satisfaction and Technology Acceptance Model, this paper proposes an Online Active Learning Model to predict the influencing factors of college students’ active learning behavior and then analyzes the differences between OMO model and pure online model by multi-group analysis based on (...) the model. The designed questionnaire was distributed, and a total of 498 valid questionnaires were collected. Using SmartPLS to analyze partial least squares structural equation modeling and MGA, it is found that: there are differences in the influencing factors of active learning between OMO and pure online model; the moderating effect of learning complaint in OMO mode is not established, and social isolation and age does not affect active learning in OMO mode; learning quality, perceived ease of use, expectation, perceived usefulness, and social isolation indirectly affect active learning through learning satisfaction in both OMO model and pure online model; learning satisfaction is an important mediating variable affecting active learning; and learning complaints will negatively regulate the relationship between learning satisfaction and active learning only in pure online model. According to these findings, the paper provides theoretical and practical implementation suggestions implications for OMO teaching and OAL to ensure the expected learning outcome. (shrink)

This study explored how the people of Moba in Ekiti State, Nigeria, use three of their traditional festivals and rites—odun ijesu, itugbe and oku-omo-ile—for moral education. Qualitative method of research was used with unstructured interview guide utilized for data collection. Purposive sampling technique was adopted for selecting people comprising leaders and practitioners, who have deep knowledge of the three festivals as participants for the study. Interviews were conducted and the data collected were content analysed. The study found that there are (...) moral lessons embedded in these festivals particularly in every act of the celebration. The leaders need to deliberately highlight these lessons emphasising their significance as the very essence of the festivals and rites in order for people to understand, imbibe and put them into practice. (shrink)

A presente proposta tem como objetivo dialogar sobre o papel social da religião e sua relação com o desrespeito à alteridade no espaço escolar. Partindo do conceito de Lévinas sobre alteridade, buscar-se-á analisar a relação conflituosa existente entre alunos adeptos de religiões de matriz africana e alunos que professam outra religião, buscando assim refletir para sobre o papel do professor nesses casos. Discussões como estas se fazem necessárias, pois buscam meios para amenizar esses conflitos; para isso, fundamenta-se em pensadores que (...) abordam a importância da não banalização do outro e da valorização das religiões de matriz africana, compreendendo que as mesmas fazem parte da realidade dos alunos e que, por muito tempo, foram inviabilizadas, demonizadas e hoje ainda passam por um processo de não aceitação por parte da sociedade, neste caso no meio escolar. Parte deste artigo foi apresentado durante o I Colóquio Internacional Bullying Submerso: Religião e Etnicidade na Escola, promovido pelo Programa de pós Graduação em Ciências da Religião da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás, em outubro de 2015, e é fruto de pesquisas realizadas[1] no doutorado e de vivências enquanto professora de 1° e 2° fase da rede estadual da mesma cidade, e como umbandista Omó Ifá e abiã de orisá. [1] Essa pesquisa não recebeu financiamento, porém, parte dela foi realizada durante os estudos de doutorado. (shrink)