Search results for "Piste"
showing 10 items of 1658 documents
Recognition and democracy – An introduction
2016
This is an introduction to a special issue on recognition and democracy. We outline the constitutive and enabling relations between democracy and recognition. We distinguish between pre-political and political forms of identity and recognition, between horizontal and vertical forms of recognition, and between democratic and other ways or arranging the vertical and horizontal aspects of political life. We also distinguish between the roles of a subject and a co-author of law. The intruduction also includes an overview of the individual articles in this special issue. The issue tries to fill some theoretical gaps in theories of democracy and recognition, with a special emphasis on feminist p…
On Thinking the Tragic with Adorno
2016
This article seeks to provide a template for understanding the tragic dimension of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy through a reading of his early collaborative work with Max Horkheimer, the Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). While Adorno’s view has often been considered to be tragic, little has been done to reconstruct the tragic dimension of his thought. I argue that the view of the human condition, presented in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, is founded on metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical convictions that have structural similarities with the positions held by theorists and philosophers of tragedy and the tragic. Since traces of these tragic elements can be found throughout Adorn…
Insults, humour and freedom of speech
2016
In this article we argue that freedom of speech should be understood as a social freedom. In the public discussion after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, it has often been understood as an absolute right to say anything – to offend, to make a fool of others and of oneself, and to express any opinion regardless of the consequences. We challenge this view and propose that advocating freedom of speech without understanding its social foundations is misleading and counterproductive. Based on the critical social theories of Erich Fromm, Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth, we show that there is an alternative tradition in which freedom is fundamentally rooted in social relations and therefore requires re…
Epistemic, interpersonal, and moral stances in the construction of us and them in Christian metal lyrics
2011
Abstract Religious groupings and subcultures both tend to have well-articulated interests, aims, and values that unite certain people but also alienate those who do not share their interests. The case is then made for the construction of difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This paper examines the construction of such a group boundary in the previously little studied context of the Christian metal (CM) music subculture. The focus of analysis is on the kinds of stances that are taken and attributed to ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the English lyrics of Finnish CM groups. The particular types of stance are related to questions of epistemology, interpersonality, and morality. The paper shows that the bord…
Studying ideology and discourse as knowledge, power and material practices
2021
The notion of ideology plays a crucial role in the social sciences in general and discourse studies in particular because it helps us conceptualize, problematize and understand the complex relation...
Retóricas del momento: (per)versiones (mis)antropológicas
2018
Durante la organización del XIV Congreso de Antropología celebrado en Valencia en septiembre de 2017, bajo el lema Antropologías en transformación: sentidos, compromisos y utopías, los miembros del comité organizador dudábamos de cuál podría ser el tópico de la conferencia de clausura y qué insigne personalidad de nuestro campo podría ocupar ese lugar privilegiado. Como no teníamos a nadie en cartel ni tampoco osábamos importunar a algún/a colega con tamaña empresa emprendimos la tarea de crear un personaje ad hoc que reuniera el suficiente atractivo en una ocasión tan connotada. En seguida vimos que la idea ofrecía una oportunidad incomparable para reflexionar de forma crítica sobre la aca…
Studying social media as semiotic technology: a social semiotic multimodal framework
2018
How do we study social media technology? While social semiotics provides an extensive toolkit for analysing multimodal texts and semiotic practices, the study of social media as semiotic technology poses a significant challenge to existing research methodologies. In this article, we present a social semiotic framework that allows us to describe in analytical details the multimodal meaning potentials offered by digital social media technology and connect these to multimodal text-making and semiotic practices while underscoring the role of technology. Our framework is organized around seven interrelated and inherently informed dimensions: (1) multimodality, (2) practice, (3) the social, (4) m…
Developing a new approach to managing and mediating conflicts
2017
Generally speaking, words can be elusive and they need to be carefully selected when conveying messages, ideas and proposals between parties. This is all the more evident in mediation process as language has to be neutral and mediators should avoid expressions directing parties. In this regard, recent theoretical developments in postmodern social theory and the social constructionist movement in the social sciences and humanities have provided the field of alternative dispute resolution with a new approach to managing and mediating conflicts. These developments are organized around the ‘narrative approach’ which helps us to see how the language we use to describe and understand our conflict…
Heterogeneous knowledge: Trends in German discourse analysis against an international background
2011
This contribution maps the complex field of discourse analysis in Germany by situating its major currents and putting them in historical perspective. In a first step, it presents the major intellectual sources, such as (post-)structuralism, pragmatism/interactionism as well as hermeneutics, which have served as a backdrop for the establishment of discourse analysis as an interdisciplinary field since the 1980s. In a second step, it takes a closer look at the intellectual conjunctures in the social sciences such as Critical Theory and systems theory before turning to the discourse analytical tendencies that have emerged since the 1980s in the light of Foucault's reception in Germany. Finally…
Negotiating the Terminological Borders of ‘Language Mediation’ in English and Italian. A Discussion on the Repercussions of Terminology on the Practi…
2015
Linguistic and cultural mediation has been playing an increasingly important role in contemporary society as a result of the intensification of international exchanges and migration flows; however, the definitions that have been given of it are still rather vague and inconsistent. In some cases linguistic and cultural mediation is seen as a broad superordinate category, comprising a range of different interlinguistic and intercultural activities serving the purpose of facilitating communication across languages, cultures and societies in various areas of civil society: industry, business, trade, law, literature, academia, institutions, public services, etc. In other cases, instead, the defi…