Music,rowing, and the aesthetics of rhythm

Having “good rhythm” is essential in both music and competitive rowing, but what exactly constitutes “good rhythm,” and how do we achieve it? Although rhythm is often discussed in purely auditory terms, I argue that rhythm is fundamentally a multisensory, kinesthetic phenomenon. By drawing parallels between music and rowing, I illustrate how biological motion principles underlie the parameters of rhythm in both disciplines, and how the cognition and appreciation of rhythm is deeply embodied. I suggest that the two main ways in which rhythms generate pleasure in both music and rowing are by enabling behavioral synchrony between individuals, and by engaging the body in the cognitive process of rhythm perception and prediction. In essence, “good rhythm”—a rhythm that is enjoyed and appreciated—is rhythm that moves.     

Mechanical tasting: sensory science and the flavorization of food production

The paper narrates the history of “texturometers”, devices that imitate the human biting mechanism and are used by food scientists in experiments on food texture. Two interrelated processes, characteristic of the emergence of industrialized food production in the twentieth century, are examined through this history of mechanical tasting. First, the paper surveys the pervasive project of transforming the phenomenological qualities of flavor and food texture into robust “objective” and “standardized” data. In constructing and using biomimetic texturometers, food sensory scientists attempted to translate texture qualities such as tenderness, crispness, crunch and chewiness into codified properties by producing formal definitions and graphical representations – an example of how the pursuit of objectivity and standardized knowledge coevolved with the rise of mass production and the emergence of sensory sciences. Secondly, the texturometers are related to an overall “flavorization”; that is, a historical process by which the complexes of sensory impressions became increasingly important for the production and consumption of food in late-modern industrialized societies.     

From fun to fraught: marketing to kids and regulating “risky foods” in Canada

ABSTRACT

In an era of industrialized food production, ultra-processed foods, “Big Food” marketing, and growing obesity rates, food has come to be framed as an object of risk – and as an object of regulation. Such reframing has fascinating implications related to issues of responsibility and decision making, especially when it comes to children’s food. This article probes the relationship between representation, regulation and “risky” consumption with respect to children’s food. I examine how child-targeted foods become framed as “risky” and what counts as “risky” food messaging under Health Canada’s commitment to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Detailing the tension between food as a risk object and food as a child object, I suggest how issues of semantic provisioning and the politics of the unseen work to complicate and destabilize the (seemingly) straightforward process of prohibiting unhealthy food marketing to children.     

Agentive Spaces,the “Background”, and Other Not Well Articulated Influences in Shaping our Lives

What is special about all our living exchanges with our surroundings is that they occur within the ceaseless, intertwined flow of many unfolding strands of spontaneously responsive, living activity. This requires us to adopt a kind of fluid, process thinking, a shift from thinking of events as occurring between things and beings existing as separate entities prior to their inter‐action, to events occurring within a continuously unfolding, holistic but stranded flow of events, with no clear, already existing boundaries to be found anywhere (Mol & Law, 1994)—a flow of events within which we ourselves are also immersed. We thus become involved in activities within which we find things happening to us, as much as we make things happen in our surroundings—in other words, our surroundings are also agentive in that they can exert “calls” upon us to respond within them in appropriate ways. Consequently, what we can learn in such encounters is not just new facts or bits of information, but new ways of relating or orienting ourselves bodily to the others and othernesses in the world around us—although much can “stand in the way” of our doing this. My concern below is to explore events happening on the (inter)‐subjective side of the Cartesian subject/object divide which “shape” our spontaneous ways of acting in, and reflecting on, the “worlds” within which we live out our lives.     

Structures of seeing: blindness,race, and gender in visual culture

This essay draws on critical disability studies and blindness studies to rethink our commonsense understanding of vision and unsettle the normative sensory subject that is lodged in visual culture studies. Through a disability studies critique of visual culture studies and a juxtaposition of blind studies alongside the canonical images of the “male gaze” and the “white gaze” this paper argues that (visual) difference does not exist in the world waiting to be seen, but that difference is produced in visual power relations. This essay proposes that the possibilities of visual culture are determined by structures of seeing, rather than physiology or optics, arguing that as long as visual culture and social justice studies are lodged within a Cartesian conception of the subject, they falter in conceptualizing the social construction of perception and difference, for they have not destabilized the “distribution of the sensible” (Rancière) of their own epistemic tradition. Race, gender, and disability are apprehended here not primarily as identity categories, but as possibilities of the body that develop(ed) in tandem in complex socio-historical formations.     

Intensity,moderation, and the pressures of expectation: Calculation and coercion in the street-level practice of welfare conditionality

This article offers a street-level perspective on welfare conditionality as it was practiced in contracted-out UK activation programs between 2008 and 2015. Drawing on observation and in-depth interviews, the article illustrates the ways that behavioral conditionality provided street-level workers with the means to intensify or moderate activation for particular claimants. Responding to arguments about the curtailment of street-level discretion, the article argues that in the particular context of target-driven, work-first, and otherwise highly constrained services, discretion resided in the ability to intensify or moderate conditionality and its coercive potential—in decisions about how, on whom, and to what extent it would be applied. The article argues that attending to this form of discretion provides an alternative frame through which to view the differentiated treatment typically understood as “creaming” and “parking.” In so doing, the article problematizes accounts that draw clear lines between calculative, normative, and dispositional forms of street-level reason and practice. It shows how advisors' responses to the “street-level calculus of choice” were articulated in terms of expectation, where attempts at future-oriented calculation necessarily entailed making other forms of speculative and normative judgement about claimants and their situations. The article thus contributes to an understanding of both the causes and meaning of differentiated treatment in conditional welfare services.     

National Identity,Citizenship and Immigration: Putting Identity in Context

In this paper we suggest that there is a need to examine what is meant by “context” in Social Psychology and present an example of how to place identity in its social and institutional context. Taking the case of British naturalisation, the process whereby migrants become citizens, we show that the identity of naturalised citizens is defined by common‐sense ideas about Britishness and by immigration policies. An analysis of policy documents on “earned citizenship” and interviews with naturalised citizens shows that the distinction between “elite” and “non‐elite” migrants is evident in both the “reified” sphere of policy and the “common sense” sphere of everyday identity construction. While social representations embedded in lay experience construct ethno‐cultural similarity and difference, immigration policies engage in an institutionalised positioning process by determining migrants' rights of mobility. These spheres of knowledge and practice are not disconnected as these two levels of “managing otherness” overlap—it is the poorer, less skilled migrants, originating outside the West who epitomise difference (within a consensual sphere) and have less freedom of mobility (within a reified sphere). We show that the context of identity should be understood as simultaneously psychological and political.     

E-Nose for News?

ABSTRACT

Many journalists claim to have a “nose for news.” This metaphor, where a body part is used in a transferred sense for metaphorical change has occupied a central place in journalists' discourses. It appears to express something essential about their identity, profession, practice, and how they “see” and experience the world. This article uses the figure/ground approach of Marshall McLuhan to inform an exploration of the “nose for news” metaphor. By studying the “nose for news” we can understand how and why electronic noses and the Internet have made this once vital and living metaphor obsolete. We can also discover ways to reanimate this metaphor in order to: (a) help recover something of the essence of journalism expressed by journalists' claims to possess a “nose for news,” and (b) re-conceptualize the current “crisis” in journalism.     

Governance, Forced Migration and Welfare

This paper explores the welfare of forced migrants (i.e. refugees, asylum‐seekers, those with humanitarian leave to remain, and “failed asylum‐seekers/overstayers”) at three linked levels. First, it considers the governance of forced migrants at a supranational (in this case European Union) level. Second, particularly, but not exclusively in the context of the UK, it considers the extent to which the welfare rights of forced migrants in EU member states have been subject to a process of “hollowing out” or “dispersal”. Third, utilizing data from a recently completed qualitative research project, the paper outlines the complex local systems of governance that exist in relation to the housing and social security rights of forced migrants in the UK. The consequences of these networks are highlighted.     

Slippery Concepts, Shifting Context: (National) States and Welfare in the Veit-Wilson/Atherton Debate

The debate between Veit‐Wilson and Atherton raises key conceptual questions for the analysis of welfare states. Veit‐Wilson, in particular, focuses on the important, but strangely neglected question of when and why a state qualifies as a welfare state. Atherton usefully draws attention to historical debates about the legitimate purposes of state welfare policies and worthy recipients of state benefits, particularly in the Anglo‐Saxon countries. His contribution may draw our attention to the shifting meaning of concepts (such as poverty) over time. In this contribution I seek to broaden the debate. First, without underestimating the importance of such criteria, rather than presenting one single (normatively based) “discriminating criterion” defining welfare statehood, I argue that other conceptions of “the welfare state” may be useful as well—so long as analysts are clear and explicit about how they are using the phrase. Second, in the current conjuncture of the perceived “transformation” perhaps even “destruction” of the welfare state, historical and comparative research grounded on clear and explicit concepts is crucial.     

Supporting care‐experienced adults' educational journeys: “Linked lives” over the life course

Research highlights the role of key actors and relationships in supporting the educational attainment and progress of children in care and care leavers. We know less about how relationships influence the educational journeys of people with care experience over time and how to support the educational progress and engagement of adults with care experience. The principle of “linked lives” is central to the life course perspective referring to the interdependence of human lives throughout the life course. This paper explores how the principle of linked lives can illuminate our understanding of how relationships positively influence the educational journeys of adults with care experience over time. Educational life history interviews were conducted with 18 care‐experienced adults (aged 24–36) in Ireland. Findings suggest that the principle of linked lives is a valuable conceptual tool for providing new insights on this issue. Four key themes were identified: (a) opportunities for educational support are present across the life course; (b) “family” is a central source of educational support; (c) there is intergenerational capacity for educational support; and (d) relationships beyond the “family” are supportive of education. Implications for practice, policy, and research are explored.     

Studying democratic innovations: toward a problem-driven approach to case study research

ABSTRACT

Hajer and Wagenaar (2003. Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv, 16) advanced a conception of policy analysis – “Deliberative Policy Analysis” – that “rests on three pillars: interpretation, practice and deliberation.” This form of policy analysis, they argued, supports “more direct, participatory forms of democracy” involving “democratic deliberation on concrete issues” (xv, 29). Since their writing, empirical research on such initiatives – “democratic innovations,” for short – has blossomed. However, while deliberative policy analysis is itself post-positivist in orientation, many researchers bring a (quasi-) positivist orientation to their work on democratic innovations. A key challenge for deliberative policy analysts is, then, how to participate in this field of inquiry while maintaining a post-positivist orientation. Pragmatist philosophy, I submit, can help them to meet this challenge. Pragmatism rejects a number of positivist assumptions about the nature of empirical inquiry. Relatedly, it supports the claim that policy analysis should be interpretive, practice-oriented, and deliberative. Indeed, it suggests that policy analysis cannot avoid being so. By way of illustration, I indicate how pragmatism points to an approach to case study research that rests on the three pillars.     

Followership,deity and leadership

Two questions are addressed in this article: 1. Why are people attracted to leaders? 2. How are leaders' images construed? The first question is analyzed by using the concept of “deity” as a frame of reference for an “ideal model” of leadership. God as a “screen of projections” can satisfy the believer's fundamental needs and desires, as well as serving as a reference for causal attributions and a provider of transcendental meaning. Using Construal Level Theory (CLT) (Libermann & Trope, 1998), deity, as a frame of reference, also facilitates analysis of the second question. This analysis explains universal principles underlying the leadership construal, and the psychological principles and culture‐bound processes relevant to construing different images of leadership in different collectives.     

The Intrinsic Influence of the Poetics of Yanzhi on Modern Chinese Literature

否定与批判“言志”诗学, 曾是中国现代文学转型的标志。但从五四新文学开 始, “言志”诗学不仅没有被剔出中国现代文学的审美范畴, 相反, 却借助于西方 话语得到合理的传承。“言”救亡图存的启蒙之“志”, 与“抒”忧国忧民的个人 之“情”, 中国现代文学都未摆脱“志”者“大情”、“情”者“小志”的传统思 维, 具体表现在: 主“思”派提倡文学创作的功利意识, 进而以“志”代“情”回归 “道”统; 主“情”派则提倡文学创作的真情实感, 进而以“情”传“志”, 回归 “道”统。中国现代文学的理论与实践, 虽然涂抹着光怪陆离的“西化”色彩, 但 其重新“释道”与巧妙“言志”的本质特征, 恰恰表明了它对传统文化的价值认同, 而不是简单地抛弃“传统”后走向了“西方”。

关键词: “言志”诗学 “志”与“道” “志”与“情” 古典主义

Rejection and denunciation of the poetics of “yanzhi” (literally “expressing one’s thought or ideals”) was once a marker of Chinese literature’s modern transformation. However, right from the beginning of May Fourth new literature, the poetics of “yanzhi” was not only not cast out of the aesthetic canon of modern Chinese literature but was, on the contrary, legitimately transmitted via Western discourse. Whether modern Chinese writers were expressing enlightenment ideas of saving the nation or voicing their personal feelings for their country and their people, they remained convinced that “zhi” was “feelings” writ large and “feelings” were a lesser form of “zhi.” Specifically, the school stressing the idea that “literature expresses thought” advocated utilitarian literary creation and returned to the traditional Chinese poetics of “yanzhi” by replacing “feelings” with “zhi.” Those stressing the idea that “literature expresses feelings” advocated writing with genuine emotion; they went on to express “zhi” via “feelings,” thus returning to the traditional Chinese way of thought. Both the theory and practice of modern Chinese literature have a strange “Western” tint. Nevertheless, this literature’s essential character of “reinterpreting the ‘dao’ (way)” and sophisticated “expression of thought” or “yanzhi” indicate its value identification with traditional culture rather than the simple abandonment of “tradition” in pursuit of “the West.”     

The Flesh and the World: Intercorporeal Body-selves,Ageing and Dancing

ABSTRACT

In this paper I address the role that embodiment, embodied consciousness and what can be termed “extradiscursive” experiences such as body memory and ekstasis as a form of ecstatic experience assume in understanding the body-self of mature dancers. I argue that the body-self of the dancer becomes increasingly intersubjective in maturity through her/his bodily practice, and that this can be understood in terms of the notions of intercorporeity, and of the “flesh” derived from the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. I argue that ways of manifestation of intercorporeity in bodily experience are discursively elusive, drawing on two forms of bodily experience—body memory and ekstasis—and examining experiences narrated by mature dancers who were interviewed in my Ph. D. study on ageing, gender and dancers' bodies. I contend that the experience of ekstasis is the “glue” of a corporeal subjectivity that transforms itself through momentary identification with the world, that calls on the invisible as well as the visible. Body memory also challenges Western dualist conceptions of consciousness and bodily experience, and is more easily aligned with Eastern understandings of consciousness as embodied. Finally, I suggest that the concept of body memory is useful for imbuing the body-subject with a cohesion and authenticity through the body's capacity for nonconscious remembrance of movement through a proprioceptively stored “body history,” which enables the constitution of a coherent body-self in older age.     

The Social as Heaven and Hell: Pierre Bourdieu's Philosophical Anthropology

Many authors have argued that all studies of socially specific modalities of human action and experience depend on some form of “philosophical anthropology”, i.e. on a set of general assumptions about what human beings are like, assumptions without which the very diagnoses of the cultural and historical variability of concrete agents' practices would become impossible. Bourdieu was sensitive to that argument and, especially in the later phase of his career, attempted to make explicit how his historical‐sociological investigations presupposed and, at the same time, contributed to the elaboration of an “idea of the human being”. The article reconstructs Bourdieu's philosophical anthropology, starting with his genetic sociology of symbolic power, conceived as a form of critical theory (latu sensu), and concluding with an account of the conditio humana in which recognition (“symbolic capital”) appears as both the fundamental existential goal through which human agents strive to confer meaning on their lives and the source of the endless symbolic competition that keeps society moving. The agonistic vision of the social universe that grounds his sociological studies returns in his philosophical anthropology under the guise of a singular synthesis between Durkheim's thesis that “Society is God” and Sartre's idea that “hell is other people”.     

Protest or Partnership? The Voluntary and Community Sectors in the Policy Process

The growing emphasis on partnership is opening up new opportunities for voluntary and community organizations, many of which have felt themselves hitherto to be “outsiders” in the policy process. But it is also generating new dilemmas as they strive to maintain their autonomy while increasingly operating as insiders. This article examines the strategic choices that such organizations make in seeking to influence policy and the challenges that they face. It rejects the simple categorizations made between “insiders” and “outsiders” in the policy process, arguing that strategic choices are more complex and dynamic than this, with insider strategies dependent on outsider strategies and vice versa, and many organizations operating from both arenas.     

Under the Influence: The Interplay among Industry,Publishing, and Drug Regulation

The relationships among academe, publishing, and industry can facilitate commercial bias in how drug efficacy and safety data are obtained, interpreted, and presented to regulatory bodies and prescribers. Through a critique of published and unpublished trials submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for approval of a new antidepressant, vortioxetine, we present a case study of the “ghost management” of the information delivery process. We argue that currently accepted practices undermine regulatory safeguards aimed at protecting the public from unsafe or ineffective medicines. The economies of influence that may intentionally and unintentionally produce evidence-biased—rather than evidence-based—medicine are identified. This is not a simple story of author financial conflicts of interest, but rather a complex tale of ghost management of the entire process of bringing a drug to market. This case study shows how weak regulatory policies allow for design choices and reporting strategies that can make marginal products look novel, more effective, and safer than they are, and how the selective and imbalanced reporting of clinical trial data in medical journals results in the marketing of expensive “me-too” drugs with questionable risk/benefit profiles. We offer solutions for neutralizing these economies of influence.