Towards an Epistemic Sensibilization

This paper examines the ways in which the concept discussed under the term “intersectionality” can provide a productive framing for entangled inequalities, as both concepts have a lot in common. The paper argues that an intersectional sensibilization to conceptualizations of inequalities helps capture inequalities in their entangled historical, micro and macro level dimensions and avoid one-dimensional reductions. However, this concept which is itself deeply Euro- and U.S.-centric must be improved for use in transnational contexts and for other locations of knowledge production. As such, an intersectional epistemic sensibilization can prove useful for contextualizing and situating multiple knowledges and modes of knowledge production and provide a frame for an implicit critique of hegemony. This conceptual work is a necessary step towards developing ways to overcome asymmetrical social power structures as expressed in unequal circulations of knowledge

Right-Wing Populism and Gender: A Preliminary Cartography of an Emergent Research Field

Dietze G, Roth J. Right-Wing Populism and Gender: A Preliminary Cartography of an Emergent Research Field. In: Dietze G, Roth J, eds. Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond. Gender Studies. Bielefeld: Transcript; 2020: 7-21

Sugar and slaves: The Augsburg Welser as conquerors of America and colonial foundational myths

Roth J. Sugar and slaves: The Augsburg Welser as conquerors of America and colonial foundational myths. Atlantic Studies. 2017;14(4: German entanglements in transatlantic slavery):436-456

How is your mind-set? Proof of concept for the measurement of the level of emotional development

Background In persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, not only cognitive brain functions, but also socio-emotional processing networks may be impaired. This study aims to validate the Scale of Emotional Development—Short (SED-S) to provide an instrument for the assessment of socio-emotional brain functions. Method The SED-S was applied in 160 children aged 0–12 years. Criterion validity was investigated at item and scale level in terms of the agreement between the scale classification and the child’s chronological age. Additionally, interrater reliability and internal consistency were assessed. Results For the majority of items, the expected response pattern emerged, showing the highest response probabilities in the respective target age groups. Agreement between the classification of the different SED-S domains and chronological age was high (κw = 0.95; exact agreement = 80.6%). Interrater reliability at domain level ranged from κw = .98 to 1.00 and internal consistency was high (α = .99). Conclusion The study normed the SED-S in a sample of typically developing children and provides evidence for criterion validity on item, domain and scale level

Maternal Antibody Blocks Humoral but Not T Cell Responses to BVDV

Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) contributes significantly to health-related economic losses in the beef and dairy industry. Antibodies of maternal origin can be protective against BVDV infection, however, calves with low titres of maternal antibody or that do not receive colostrum may be at risk for acute BVDV infection. Interference by high titres of maternal antibodies prevents the development of an antibody response following vaccination with either a killed or attenuated BVDV vaccine. However, the T cell mediated immune response to BVDV may be generated in the absence of a detectable serum neutralizing antibody response. Two trials were conducted to evaluate the potential to elicit T cell mediated immune responses to BVDV in calves with circulating maternal antibody to BVDV. In the first trial, calves with high levels of circulating maternal antibody to BVDV 1 and BVDV 2 were experimentally infected with BVDV 2 (strain 1373) at two to five weeks of age. The T-cell mediated immune responses of the experimentally infected calves and non-infected calves were monitored monthly until circulating maternal antibody was no longer detectable in either treatment group. Calves experimentally infected with BVDV developed BVDV specific CD4+, CD8+, and δ T cell responses while high levels of maternal antibody were circulating. A second challenge with BVDV 2 (strain 1373) was performed in the experimentally infected and control calves once maternal antibody could no longer be detected. Previous exposure to BVDV in the presence of maternal antibody protected calves from clinical signs of acute BVDV infection compared to the control calves. In the second trial, three groups of calves with circulating maternal antibody to BVDV were given either a modified live vaccine (MLV) containing BVDV 1 and BVDV 2, a killed vaccine containing BVDV 1 and BVDV 2, or no vaccine, at seven weeks of age. Serum neutralizing antibody levels and antigen specific T cell responses were monitored for 14 weeks following vaccination. Calves vaccinated with MLV BVDV developed BVDV 1 and BVDV 2 specific CD4+T cell responses, and BVDV 2 specific γδ T cell responses, in the presence of maternal antibody. Vaccination with killed BVDV did not result in the generation of measurable antigen specific T cell immune responses. In this trial, a second vaccination was performed at 14 weeks to determine whether an anamnestic antibody response could be generated when calves were vaccinated in the presence of maternal antibody. Calves vaccinated with either a MLV or killed BVDV vaccine while they had maternal antibody developed an anamnestic antibody response to BVDV 2 upon subsequent vaccination. The results of these trials indicate that vaccinating young calves against BVD while maternal antibody is present may generate BVDV specific memory T and B cells. The data also demonstrated that seronegative calves with memory T and B cells specific for BVDV may be immune to challenge with virulent BVDV

Translocating the Caribbean, Positioning Im/Mobilities: The Sonic Politics of Las Krudas from Cuba

Roth J. Translocating the Caribbean, Positioning Im/Mobilities: The Sonic Politics of Las Krudas from Cuba. In: Graham M, Raussert W, eds. Mobile and Entangled America(s). Interamerican Research: Contact, Communication, Conflict. Oxford: Routledge; 2016: 103-130

"Decolonizing American Studies: Toward a Politics of Intersectional Entanglements"

Roth J. "Decolonizing American Studies: Toward a Politics of Intersectional Entanglements". Fiar. Forum for Inter-American Research. 2014;7(3):135-170

¿Puede el feminismo vencer al populismo?

Recently, far-right candidates, such as Donald Trump in the USA and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil were elected regardless of the scandals they had caused with their openly sexist and racist comments. Likewise, the electoral success of both presidents was opposed by widespread intersectional feminist protests. Thus, this essay pursues a double objective: first, to examine the logic and the role of gender for (right-wing) populism with the aim of re-evaluating the phenomenon and amplifying the theories towards more complex forms of description and analysis. Secondly, the essay outlines spaces and practices of resistance which also draw on gender politics (or make resistance against anti-sexism their point of departure). Based on the assumption that gender is not a side effect or a minor aspect of current populist rhetoric, it is argued that gender provides a fundamental and central stage for the current struggles for cultural hegemony that numerous societies currently find themselves confronted with in the light of precariousness and neoliberal crises. Thus, an intersectional approach towards gender in populism not only enriches the field of studying but may also provide an innovative parameter for a re-evaluation of the phenomenon and the theorisation of (right-wing) populism

Feminism Otherwise: Intersectionality beyond Occidentalism

Roth J. Feminism Otherwise: Intersectionality beyond Occidentalism. InterDisciplines. Journal of History and Sociology. 2018;8(2):97-122.Based on the paradigm of Eurocentric hegemony and the respective cartographies of knowledge, feminist theorizing is conventionally perceived as being situated in the academy and in the so-called »Global North.« Feminism seems to be »owned« by Western European and US-American academic (and mostly white) feminists, whereas other regions and epistemes serve as object of knowledge production. For example, the concept of »intersectionality« has by now become an academic concept in the humanities and the social sciences, even so the idea behind it originates from African American feminist and activist contexts. Also black feminists from »peripheral« spaces such as the Caribbean or Brazil had for a long time been claiming the need for examining the interdependent inequalities they experience as addressed in the concept, however mostly not under the same terminology. Exemplifying the Occidentalism paradigm for addressing epistemic inequalities, this article elaborates on the persistent geopolitics of knowledge within and between different feminism(s) and between different feminisms in different regions of the world. Against the backdrop of the ways in which the feminist concept of »intersectionality« for addressing interdependent axes of stratification has travelled, the article seeks to discuss possible forms of solidarity and theorizing across and beyond borders. For analyzing epistemic asymmetries between feminisms, the article proposes the concept of Occidentalism, which, in a broader and more structural sense than Eurocentrism, implies a structural organization of highly unequal, asymmetrical and hierarchical knowledge production and circulation. Furthermore, a critical Occidentalist approach critical of hegemony and focusing on a relational understanding serves for imagining feminist practice and theorizing beyond Eurocentrism and Occidentalism