378 research outputs found
Subjectivities in transition: gender and sexual identities in cases of sex change and hermaphroditism in Spain, c. 1500-1800
Reinventing grounded theory: some questions about theory, ground and discovery
Grounded theoryâs popularity persists after three decades of broad-ranging critique. In this article three problematic notions are discussedââtheory,â âgroundâ and âdiscoveryââwhich linger in the continuing use and development of grounded theory procedures. It is argued that far from providing the epistemic security promised by grounded theory, these notionsâembodied in continuing reinventions of grounded theoryâconstrain and distort qualitative inquiry, and that what is contrived is not in fact theory in any meaningful sense, that âgroundâ is a misnomer when talking about interpretation and that what ultimately materializes following grounded theory procedures is less like discovery and more akin to invention. The procedures admittedly provide signposts for qualitative inquirers, but educational researchers should be wary, for the significance of interpretation, narrative and reflection can be undermined in the procedures of grounded theory
Captivating behaviour: mouse models, experimental genetics and reductionist returns in the neurosciences
This a post-print, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in The Sociological Review. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Blackwell. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.comNo Abstract availabl
Knowledge versus Knowledge : Louis Althusser on the Autonomy of Science and Philosophy from Ideology
Repelling neoliberal world-making? How the ageingâdementia relation is reassembling the social
Growing old âbadlyâ is stigmatizing, a truism that is enrolled into contemporary agendas for the biomedicalization of ageing. Among the many discourses that emphasize ageing as the root cause of later life illnesses, dementia is currently promoted as an epidemic and such hyperbole serves to legitimate its increasing biomedicalization. The new stigma however is no longer contained to simply having dementia, it is failing to prevent it. Anti-ageing cultures of consumption, alongside a proliferation of cultural depictions of the ageingâdementia relation, seem to be refiguring dementia as a future to be worked on to eliminate it from our everyday life. The article unpacks this complexity for how the ageingâdementia relation is being reassembled in biopolitics in ways that enact it as something that can be transformed and managed. Bringing together Baumanâs theories of how cultural communities cope with the otherness of the other with theories of the rationale for the making of monsters â such as the figure of the abject older person with dementia â the article suggests that those older body-persons that personify the ageingâdementia relation, depicted in film and television for example, threaten the modes of ordering underpinning contemporary lives. This is not just because they intimate loss of mind, or because they are disruptive, but because they do not perform what it is to be âresponse-ableâ and postpone frailty through managing self and risk
Monsters: interdisciplinary explorations in monstrosity
There is a continued fascination with all things monster. This is partly due to the popular reception of Mary Shelleyâs Monster, termed a ânew speciesâ by its overreaching but admiringly determined maker Victor Frankenstein in the eponymous novel first published in 1818. The enduring impact of Shelleyâs novel, which spans a plethora of subjects and genres in imagery and themes, raises questions of origin and identity, death, birth and family relationships as well as the contradictory qualities of the monster. Monsters serve as metaphors for anxieties of aberration and innovation. Stephen Asma (2009) notes that monsters represent evil or moral transgression and each epoch, to speak with Michel Foucault, evidences a âparticular type of monsterâ (2003, 66). Academic debates tend to explore how social and cultural threats come to be embodied in the figure of a monster and their actions literalize our deepest fears. Monsters in contemporary culture, however, have become are more humane than ever before. Monsters are strong, resilient, creative and sly creatures. Through their playful and invigorating energy they can be seen to disrupt and unsettle. They still cater to the appetite for horror, but they also encourage us to feel empathy. The encounter with a monster can enable us to stop, wonder and change our attitudes towards technology and our body and each other. This commentary article considers the use of the concepts of âmonstersâ or âmonstrosityâ in literature, contemporary research, culture and teaching contexts at the intersection of the Humanities and the Social Sciences
Anatomy of life and well-being: A framework for the contributions of phenomenology and complexity theory
This paper proposes an anatomy of the phenomena of life and of correlate qualitative modes of empirical research, theory, and professional practice concerned with health and well-being. I explicate the qualitative dynamic operative at every level of order, from the biological realm of cells and organisms, through distinctively human lifeworld experiences and practices, to communities of organisms in ecosystems and bio-cultural regions. This paper clarifies the unity of the dimensions of life and aligns these with demonstrated and emerging contributions of hermeneutical phenomenology and current complexityâautopoietic theory (including disciplinary and professional interpretations of empirical findings). The intent is begin to delineate a common framework upon which we could buildâfacilitating better understanding of the distinctive contributions of each specialization as well as the integration of diverse qualitative approaches with each other (and with quantitative complements)
Philosophy as political technÄ: The tradition of invention in Simondonâs political thought
Gilbert Simondon has recently attracted the interest of political philosophers and theorists, despite he is rather renowned as a philosopher of technics â as the author of Of the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects â who also elaborated a general theory of complex systems in Individuation in the Light of the Notions of Form and Information. A group of scholars has developed Gilles Deleuzeâs early suggestion that Simondonâs social ontology might offer the basis for a re-theorisation of radical democracy. Others, following Herbert Marcuse, have instead focused on Simondonâs analysis of the relationship between technology and society. However, only a joint study of Simondonâs two major works can reveal their implicit
political stakes. As I will argue, Simondonâs anti-Aristotelianism and his anti-Heideggerian understanding of the Greek origins of philosophy, allow us to conceive philosophical thought as a âtradition of inventionâ, that is, a pedagogical technÄ endowed with the political task of maintaining the openness of the social system and allowing normative invention to emerge from within
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