274 research outputs found
Madness decolonized?: Madness as transnational identity in Gail Hornsteinâs Agnesâs Jacket
The US psychologist Gail Hornsteinâs monograph Agnesâs Jacket: A Psychologistâs Search for the Meanings of Madness (2009) is an important intervention in the identity politics of the mad movement. Hornstein offers a resignified vision of mad identity that embroiders the central trope of an âanti-colonialâ struggle to reclaim the experiential world âcolonizedâ by psychiatry. A series of literal and figurative appeals make recourse to the inner world and (corresponding) cultural world of the mad, as well as to the ethno-symbolic cultural materials of dormant nationhood. This rhetoric is augmented by a model in which the mad comprise a diaspora without an origin, coalescing into a single transnational community. The mad are also depicted as persons displaced from their metaphorical homeland, the âinnerâ world âcolonizedâ by the psychiatric regime. There are a number of difficulties with Hornsteinâs rhetoric, however. Her âethnicity-and-rightsâ response to the oppression of the mad is symptomatic of Western parochialism, while her proposed transmutation of putative psychopathology from limit upon identity to parameter of successful identity is open to contestation. Moreover, unless one accepts Hornsteinâs porous vision of mad identity, her self-ascribed insider status in relation to the mad community may present a problematic âre-colonizationâ of mad experience
Future Dominance by Quaking Aspen Expected Following Short-Interval, Compounded Disturbance Interaction
The spatial overlap of multiple ecological disturbances in close succession has the capacity to alter trajectories of ecosystem recovery. Widespread bark beetle outbreaks and wildfire have affected many forests in western North America in the past two decades in areas of important habitat for native ungulates. Bark beetle outbreaks prior to fire may deplete seed supply of the host species, and differences in fireârelated regeneration strategies among species may shift the species composition and structure of the initial forest trajectory. Subsequent browsing of postfire tree regeneration by large ungulates, such as elk (Cervus canadensis), may limit the capacity for regeneration to grow above the browse zone to form the next forest canopy. Five standâreplacing wildfires burned ~60,000 ha of subalpine forest that had previously been affected by severe ( \u3e90% mortality) outbreaks of spruce beetle (SB, Dendroctonus rufipennis) in Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) in 2012â2013 in southwestern Colorado. Here we examine the drivers of variability in abundance of newly established conifer tree seedlings [spruce and subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa)] and resprouts of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) following the shortâinterval sequence of SB outbreaks and wildfire (2â8 yr between SB outbreak and fire) at sites where we previously reconstructed severities of SB and fire. We then examine the implications of ungulate browsing for forest recovery. We found that abundances of postfire spruce seedling establishment decreased substantially in areas of severe SB outbreak. Prolific aspen resprouting in stands with live aspen prior to fire will favor an initial postfire forest trajectory dominated by aspen. However, preferential browsing of postfire aspen resprouts by ungulates will likely slow the rate of canopy recovery but browsing is unlikely to alter the species composition of the future forest canopy. Collectively, our results show that SB outbreak prior to fire increases the vulnerability of spruceâfir forests to shifts in forest type (conifer to aspen) and physiognomic community type (conifer forest to nonâforest). By identifying where compounded disturbance interactions are likely to limit recovery of forests or tree species, our findings are useful for developing adaptive management strategies in the context of warming climate and shifting disturbance regimes
Psychopolitics: Peter Sedgwickâs legacy for mental health movements
This paper re-considers the relevance of Peter Sedgwick's Psychopolitics (1982) for a politics of mental health. Psychopolitics offered an indictment of âanti-psychiatryâ the failure of which, Sedgwick argued, lay in its deconstruction of the category of âmental illnessâ, a gesture that resulted in a politics of nihilism. âThe radical who is only a radical nihilistâ, Sedgwick observed, âis for all practical purposes the most adamant of conservativesâ. Sedgwick argued, rather, that the concept of âmental illnessâ could be a truly critical concept if it was deployed âto make demands upon the health service facilities of the society in which we liveâ. The paper contextualizes Psychopolitics within the âcrisis tendenciesâ of its time, surveying the shifting welfare landscape of the subsequent 25 years alongside Sedgwick's continuing relevance. It considers the dilemma that the discourse of âmental illnessâ â Sedgwick's critical concept â has fallen out of favour with radical mental health movements yet remains paradigmatic within psychiatry itself. Finally, the paper endorses a contemporary perspective that, while necessarily updating Psychopolitics, remains nonetheless âSedgwickianâ
But Not Both:The Exclusive Disjunction in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
The application of Boolean logic using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is becoming more frequent in political science but is still in its relative infancy. Boolean âANDâ and âORâ are used to express and simplify combinations of necessary and sufficient conditions. This paper draws out a distinction overlooked by the QCA literature: the difference between inclusive- and exclusive-or (OR and XOR). It demonstrates that many scholars who have used the Boolean OR in fact mean XOR, discusses the implications of this confusion and explains the applications of XOR to QCA. Although XOR can be expressed in terms of OR and AND, explicit use of XOR has several advantages: it mirrors natural language closely, extends our understanding of equifinality and deals with mutually exclusive clusters of sufficiency conditions. XOR deserves explicit treatment within QCA because it emphasizes precisely the values that make QCA attractive to political scientists: contextualization, confounding variables, and multiple and conjunctural causation
A Highly Active and Tolerable Neoadjuvant Regimen Combining Paclitaxel, Carboplatin, 5-FU, and Radiation Therapy in Patients with Stage II and III Esophageal Cancer
Taking Nothing for Granted in Management Education: A Systemic Perspective on the Role of Reflective Questioning
Contracting outsourced services with collaborative key performance indicators
While service outsourcing may benefit from the application of performanceâbased contracts (PBCs), the implementation of such contracts is usually challenging. Service performance is often not only dependent on supplier effort but also on the behavior of the buying firm. Existing research on performanceâbased contracting provides very limited understanding on how this challenge may be overcome. This article describes a design science research project that develops a novel approach to buyerâsupplier contracting, using collaborative key performance indicators (KPIs). Collaborative KPIs evaluate and reward not only the supplier contribution to customer performance but also the customer's behavior to enable this. In this way, performanceâbased contracting can also be applied to settings where supplier and customer activities are interdependent, while traditional contracting theories suggest that output controls are not effective under such conditions. In the collaborative KPI contracting process, indicators measure both supplier and customer (buying firm) performance and promote collaboration by being defined through a collaborative process and by focusing on endâofâprocess indicators. The article discusses the original case setting of a telecommunication service provider experiencing critical problems in outsourcing IT services. The initial intervention implementing this contracting approach produced substantial improvements, both in performance and in the relationship between buyer and supplier. Subsequently, the approach was tested and evaluated in two other settings, resulting in a set of actionable propositions on the efficacy of collaborative KPI contracting. Our study demonstrates how defining, monitoring, and incentivizing the performance of specific processes at the buying firm can help alleviate the limitations of traditional performanceâbased contracting when the supplier's liability for service performance is difficult to verify
Contesting the psychiatric framing of ME / CFS
ME/CFS is a medically contested illness and its understanding, framing and treatment has been the subject of heated debate. This paper examines why framing the condition as a psychiatric issueâwhat we refer to as âpsychiatrisationââhas been so heavily contested by patients and activists. We argue that this contestation is not simply about stigmatising mental health conditions, as some have suggested, but relates to how people diagnosed with mental illness are treated in society, psychiatry and the law. We highlight the potentially harmful consequences of psychiatrisation which can lead to peopleâs experiential knowledge being discredited. This stems, in part, from a psychiatric-specific form of âepistemic injusticeâ which can result in unhelpful, unwanted and forced treatments. This understanding helps explain why the psychiatrisation of ME/CFS has become the focus of such bitter debate and why psychiatry itself has become such a significant field of contention, for both ME/CFS patients and mental health service users/survivors. Notwithstanding important differences, both reject the way psychiatry denies patient explanations and understandings, and therefore share a collective struggle for justice and legitimation. Reasons why this shared struggle has not resulted in alliances between ME and mental health activists are noted
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