Knowledge and knowers of the past: A study in the philosophy of evolutionary biology.

This dissertation proposes an exploration of a variety of themes in philosophy of science through the lens of a case study in evolutionary biology. It draws from a careful analysis and comparison of the hypotheses from Bill Martin and Tom Cavalier-Smith. These two scientists produced contrasted and competing accounts for one of the main events in the history of life, the origin of eukaryotic cells. This case study feeds four main philosophical themes around which this dissertation is articulated. (1) Theorizing: What kind of theory are hypotheses about unique events in the past? (2) Representation: How do hypotheses about the past represent their target? (3) Evidential claims: What kind of evidence is employed and how do they constrain these hypotheses? (4) Pluralism: What are the benefits and the risks associated with the coexistence of rival hypotheses? This work both seeks to rearticulate traditional debates in philosophy of science in the light of a lesser-known case of scientific practice and to enrich the catalogue of existing case studies in the philosophy of historical sciences

MIS Guidelines for Employment Law Programs in Poland

The guidelines presented in this report propose an efficient architecture for structuring the huge volume of information flow necessary to manage and administer the several labor market programs operated by the SOLO (System of Labor Offices). The proposal includes a recommendation for the sequence of events in developing the many parts of the system which exploits the latest technical and methodological possibilities, but recognizes the practical constraints of time and money. At the heart of the proposed automated management information system (MIS) to support planning, evaluation, and budgeting for labor market programs in Poland is a set of performance indicators. These performance indicators are the main instrument for monitoring the effectiveness of the several programs. The use of performance indicators will allow a standardized assessment of program performance across voivods, local offices, and programs which is not provided by other methods of evaluation

Liminally-Recognized Groups: Between Equality and Dignity

This dissertation explored existing tensions between legal structures aimed at achieving justice—specifically, concept of dignity and the concept of equality—and groups not fully recognized under the law (“Liminally-recognized groups”). It approached this tension from a critical perspective on identity, exploring it both in the U.S. and in Israel/Palestine. While not comparative in the traditional sense, the dissertation nevertheless journeyed between both geographies, drawing inspiration from each, and exploring similar questions and their differing (albeit parallel) answers in each locality. It examines the limitations of the concept of equality within anti-discrimination law, stemming mainly from its dependency upon legal recognition. Simultaneously, it similarly explores the perils of dignity-based universal protections, rooted in dignity’s cultural and racial biases. For this purpose, all three chapters center groups in a liminal state of legal recognition—groups that often challenge dominant binaries of sex/race/disability—as a methodological vantage point from which to examine legal systems and orthodoxies. It analyzes law’s ability to see past recognition, and its effectiveness for groups who have yet to meet—and shoulder—the burden of recognition. Simultaneously, it explores the ability of liminally-recognized groups to see past the law, and to seek alternative routes for political power. The first chapter, Coming Out of the Shadows: The Non-Western Critique of Dignity, focuses on the intersection between Mizrahi Jews (i.e., descendants of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries who immigrated to Israel) and the right to dignity, exploring this right’s racialized undertones within Israeli courts. Following a conceptual and cultural exploration of the development of dignity (a universal, status-neutral right) as the antithesis of honor, this chapter questions the strong divide and moral hierarchy between both terms. Applying critical race methodology, methods of close reading, and doctrinal analysis, it analyzes multiple legal cases to explore Western influences on the societal and judicial imagination of Israeli dignity. The chapter concludes by arguing that dignity’s pretense of universality obscures racial biases in its interpretation and application. The second chapter, Whiteness at Work, focuses on U.S. antidiscrimination law and identity groups at the margins of whiteness. The chapter analyzes workplace discrimination cases where whites have sued other whites for racial discrimination. Examining intra-white racial discrimination cases, this chapter demonstrate that they suffer from an under-theorization of whiteness, and from the judicial assumption that race becomes relevant only in instances involving racial minorities. Instead, I argue, courts should recognize instances in which white people police other whites to behave according to racial expectations regarding whiteness as instances of racial discrimination. This could be implemented through Title VII’s stereotype doctrine. Accordingly, discrimination against whites due to their association with people of color, as well as discrimination against poor whites not seen as ‘refined’ or ‘sophisticated’ enough for the workplace, are both instances in which whites are discriminated against for failing to perform their racial identities according to white supremacist expectations. The third and final chapter of the dissertation, Identity at Work, develops a thematic, overarching argument regarding liminally-recognized groups and their place within anti-discrimination law. Following an analysis of various types of liminal recognition under U.S. anti-discrimination law, and the normative case for and against recognition, I examine non-essentializing strategies to promote justice that do not force marginalized communities to leave their narratives of oppression (rooted in sexism, white supremacy, ableism, etc.) at the door, but that also do not force these communities to bind their oppression to a rigid sense of what it means to be who they are. The first strategy focuses on possible readings of anti-discrimination laws that enable recognition of patterns of racism, sexism, etc. without tying them back to specific (recognized) identities. The second strategy highlights the potential rooted in labor law to promote antidiscrimination ideals

Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe. A Critical Assessment and Literature Review

Ever since the 1990s, social capital has attracted attention from social science researchers. With its focus on the importance of intangible resources such as trust, social capital appeared to supplement existing theories of social and economic change. For its early proponents such as Bourdieu, Coleman and more famously, Putnam, social capital could be understood as a critical component in social reproduction, educational achievement and administrative efficiency. Social capital seems especially relevant in Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Not only does it direct attention to informal networks as ways of getting things done, it also explores how strong ties of personal trust co-exist with low levels of general trust and how this can affect economic and political reform. In terms of its actual policy implications, the conclusions of social capital research have not always been clear and it may be fair to say that expectations have been scaled down since the World Bank declared that social capital to be the missing link. This study offers a critical review of over seventy studies that have applied social capital to developments in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The author draws from a variety of social science disciplines as well as including several reports from international organisations. The review investigates five principal fields in which social capital has been used to date and to provides a series of suggestions as to how such research can help encourage institutional and policy innovation.

Good Health, Quality Education, Sustainable Communities, Human Rights

The publication collects the contributions presented during the International Symposium of the Italian UNESCO Chairs (CONIUS) entitled Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals 2030, which took place on 16 November 2018 at the University of Florence. The contributions of national and international experts address the Global Aims for Sustainable Development of the UNESCO including Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) n. 3 Improvement of the ‘Global Health’, n. 4 ‘Quality Education’, n. 11 ‘Cities and Inclusive Human Sett lements’ and n. 16 ‘Peace and Justice’, using transdisciplinary and transnational perspectives and implemented through theoretical studies and good practices

Constructing Autism Inside and Outside the Clinic: Exploring Relationships Between Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists' and Activists' Discourses

This research investigated the construction of autism in clinical and social terrains. Study one drew from Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP) to examine the language of psychoanalytic psychotherapists in constructing the phenomenon of autism spectrum disorders. This study relied on interview data with eight experienced psychoanalytic psychotherapists using a Free Associative Narrative Interview design. The investigation of the therapists’ discourses revealed four main interpretive repertoires that organised the rhetorical agenda’s of participants. The analytic notions of interpretive repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions demonstrated how neo-liberal political frameworks influenced the therapists' negotiation of the meaning of autism. The implications of this discursive framework were subjected to a critical analysis revealing the limitations that they impose on the possible ways of being for autistic people. The second study used multimodal analysis to investigate an activist’s momentary identities on a “viral” YouTube video entitled: “In My Language” (see appendix 4). It focused on the verbal and non-verbal elements of the video material. The analytic attention predominantly settled on the interplay between the various semiotic resources that the activist utilised to negotiate a multiplicity of meanings. A wide range of identities produced by the participant’s social actions, exploring a political manifesto against the social oppression exerted on people with autism. The findings suggested that meaning-making inside this video was intricately related to the pathological language that saturates autistic lives from their beginning. This study also considered how multimodal designs of research could add to the investigations of disability and autism studies, pointing to the need to employ more autism lead research in the clinical and non-clinical sites. The findings from both studies highlighted two critical factors in autism as a discursive and multimodal phenomenon occupying a socio-cultural niche. A) Autism evolves through a conflictual and irreconcilable discursive framework. This conflict reflects profound issues of power that were taken as residing in a micro-fascism political dynamic. B) A need to break from the dichotomous deployment of autism in the current political setting is becoming apparent. The current clinical and social arrangement needs to change; a negotiation in which psychoanalytically and relationally inspired disability politics may become central. Part of this new “diplomacy” lies in engineering new discursive research designs that could offer the opportunity for the two realms to inter-relate in unforeseen and unpredictable ways

Research in the Archival Multiverse

Over the past 15 years, the field of archival studies around the world has experienced unprecedented growth within the academy and within the profession, and archival studies graduate education programs today have among the highest enrolments in any information field. During the same period, there has also been unparalleled expansion and innovation in the diversity of methods and theories being applied in archival scholarship. Global in scope, Research in the Archival Multiverse compiles critical and reflective essays across a wide range of emerging research areas and interests in archival studies; it aims to provide current and future archival academics with a text addressing possible methods and theoretical frameworks that have been and might be used in archival scholarship and research

Wilderness perception mapping : a geographic information systems (GIS) approach to the application of wilderness perceptions to protected areas management in New Zealand

Increasing demands for wilderness experiences, principally through outdoor recreation and tourism, are creating an ever greater need for careful management of natural and pristine areas in order to preserve the natural ecological processes of an area while also permitting appropriate wilderness use. This study addresses these pressures by emphasising the application of varying perceptions of wilderness within a geographic information systems (GIS) framework as an approach to balancing the ecological and experiential conditions that characterise wilderness environments. The specific objective is to delimit the spatial extent of multiple perceptions of wilderness, held by backcountry users, as a means of improving the effectiveness of management approaches, via a GIS framework . A wilderness perception mapping (WPM) methodology is operationalised through two alternative approaches. The first method applies perceptions of wilderness settings, from an attitudinal scale, and maps the spatial extent of these perceptions . This is achieved through a direct overlay process using GIS. The second method utilises multivariate techniques which enable a weighted overlay process to be performed. The initial results obtained from employing the WPM methodology are examined through the application of the two approaches to a case-study, namely North-West Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand. The end products for each approach provide new and useful information that has applicability to both management and research. After comparing the end products, the results for the first method are further analysed with respect to protected areas management. The role and implications of WPM are discussed with reference to wilderness management in North- West Nelson and in New Zealand, and to protected areas management at a broader level