Social theory has paid little attention to air, despite its centrality to bodily existence and air pollution being named the world’s biggest public health crisis. Where attention to air is found, the body is largely absent. On the other hand, conceptualizing the body without life-sustaining breath fails to highlight breathing as the ongoing metabolic bodily act in which the materiality of human and more-than-human intermingle and transmute one another. Political ecology studies how unequal power structures and knowledge production reproduce human–environment relations, including a nascent focus on the body and air – but as separate issues. This article argues that a political ecology of air would productively fuse with a political ecology of the body to bring the visceral realm into intersectional analysis of air’s contemporary materialities. A feminist political ecology situates explicitly air-and-breathing-bodies, their intimately posthuman, relational, elemental and corpomaterial intra-action, at the heart of such analysis.
The preservation and presentation of cultural heritage (CH) encompasses many domains and disciplines and ranges from tangible CH, traditionally taking the form of museum exhibits and historical sites that are open to the public to intangible CH, focussing on human and societal aspects of CH, as opposed to physical artefacts. The use of computer graphics (CG) and related techniques such as interactive virtual environments since the 1990s has had a profound impact on the presentation of and public engagement with CH, allowing virtual reconstruction of archaeological/historical sites as well as the virtual (re-)construction of culturally and historically relevant artefacts. These are frequently implemented using bespoke or proprietary systems, often explicitly created with a CH application in mind, which may require specialist expertise or significant investment. There exist, however, alternative approaches that can simplify and improve the uptake of CG for CH. In this chapter we discuss how off-the-shelf CG systems such as developer and artists’ tools for the entertainment industries, which are comparatively inexpensive, usually provide open developer licenses, and sometimes are even available free of charge, or affordable consumer-level hardware, can be used for the preservation and presentation of tangible and intangible CH, the application of which we illustrate with a set of case studies.
The article investigates how in the Soviet Arctic researchers and indigenous communities searched and understood the mammoth before and during the Cold War. Based on a vast number of published and unpublished sources as well as interviews with scholars and reindeer herders, this article demonstrates that the mammoth as a paleontological find fusing together features of extinct and extant species, plays an in-between role among various environmental epistemologies. The author refers to moments of interactions among these different actors as “environmental encounters,” which comprise and engagement with the physical, political, social and cultural environments of the Arctic. These encounters shape the temporal stabilisations of knowledge which enable the mammoth to live its post-extinct life. The article combines approaches from environmental history and anthropology, history of science and indigenous studies showing the social vitality of a “fossil object”.
Ethics education has become essential in modern engineering. Ethics education in engineering has been increasingly implemented worldwide. It can improve ethical behaviors in technology and engineering design under the guidance of the philosophy of technology. Hence, this study aims to compare China-US engineering ethics education in Sino-Western philosophies of technology by using literature studies, online surveys, observational researches, textual analyses, and comparative methods. In my original theoretical framework and model of input and output for education, six primary variables emerge in the pedagogy: disciplinary statuses, educational goals, instructional contents, didactic models, teaching methods, and edificatory effects. I focus on the similarities and differences of engineering ethics educations between China and the US in Chinese and Western philosophies of technology. In the field of engineering, the US tends toward applied ethics training, whereas China inclines toward practical moral education. The US is the leader, particularly in the amount of money invested and engineering results. China has quickened its pace, focusing specifically on engineering labor input and output. Engineering ethics is a multiplayer game effected at various levels among (a) lower level technicians and engineers, engineering associations, and stockholders; (b) middle ranking engineering ethics education, the ministry of education, the academy of engineering, and the philosophy of technology; and (c) top national and international technological policies. I propose that professional engineering ethics education can play many important roles in reforming engineering social responsibility by international cooperation in societies that are becoming increasingly reliant on engineered devices and systems. Significantly, my proposals contribute to improving engineering ethics education and better-solving engineering ethics issues, thereby maximizing engineering sustainability.
The essay studies the introduction and use of audio-visual media in contemporary Swedish courtroom praxis and how this affects social interaction and the constitution of judicial space. The background to the study is the increasing use of video technology in law courts during the last decennium, and in particular the reformed trial code regulating court proceedings introduced in Sweden in 2008. The reform is called A Modern Trial (En modernare raättegång, Proposition 2004/05:131). An important innovation is that testimonies in lower level court proceedings now are video recorded and, in case of an appeal trial, then are screened in the appellate court. The study of social interaction and the constitution of judicial space in the essay is based in part on an ethnographic study of the Stockholm appellate court(Svea hovraätt) conducted in the fall 2010; in part on a study of the preparatory works to the legal reform; and in part on research on how media technology affects social interaction and the constitution of space and place.
The article discusses fashion advertising as a means to access and understand contemporary social imaginary significations of the body politic, focusing on an advertising for Louis Vuitton. The article suggest that one can read advertising as a form of continuous, running commentary that society makes of itself, and through which one can unearth the social imaginary. The article finds a plethora of meanings in the selected advertising for Louis Vuitton, but the central finding is that the fashion advertising represents community as an absence of community; in other words as a deficit that the brand somehow is able to rectify.
The article explores the use of civil disobedience and non-violent direct action (NVDA) as a strategy and method in climate activism in Sweden, with a particular focus on the group Extinction Rebellion (XR). The article describes and analyzes a number of XR actions carried out in 2019-2022, with a focus on meaning-making practices. The uses of civil disobedience and NVDA are presented within a historical, cultural and social context; the question of the role and legitimacy of civil disobedience in democratic societies is discussed.
XR has civil disobedience and NVDA as central strategy and in this way the group has put these protest methods in focus, and after each major action there is a need to both explain and justify their use. This is more noticeable in a Swedish cultural context that is characterized by consensus and a stigmatization of disobedience. This relationship in turn affects the planning and execution of disobedient and disruptive protest actions in Sweden. The article explores how activists in XR Sweden relate to this specific cultural context and how they try to influence it; hence XR Sweden works not only to influence those in power and public opinion regarding the climate crisis, but also on the possibilities and forms of civil political protests.
The article is based on participant observation. These began in the spring of 2019 and are still ongoing. The study has an anthropological perspective, with an emphasis on semiotics and hermeneutics.
This article contains an interview with professor Linda Nochlin, Department of History of Art, Yale University. The interview was made in New Haven, Connecticut, on September 24, 1991. Professor Nochlin responds to questions on her published works, and in particular on her essay "Why have there been no Great Women Artists?” (1971). She discusses the position of feminism within the academic institution, her own position within the same institution, and her understanding of the documentary status of her essays. She reflects on critique she has received for her 1971 essay, on sources for the same essay, and on her present and future projects. Professor Nochlin also addresses the questions of how different discourses interact and how painting becomes an integral part of the social construction of reality.
The article describes and analyses how the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) Sweden makes use of art as part of nonviolent direct actions, a form of action which often is referred to as artivism. The article is based on direct observations of actions, documented online chats, interviews with participants, and content analysis of films, photographs and social media posts. The artivist actions were performed in Stockholm in 2020-2022. The interviews were made in the autumn 2022. The first part of the article is descriptive, presenting a series of artivist actions performed by the XR group. There is also a critical and historical discussion of politically engaged art and the use of art in activism. The second part of the article consists of a thematic analysis of the interview material. The article argues that artivism is import- ant both as a means of communication and for the internal culture in the activist group. As a form of meaning-making, artistic creation challenges the ready-made framing of political issues. The artivist performance is a form of place-making, temporarily transforming the meaning of public space, set- ting the stage for a carnivalesque where climate activists can appear as Fossil Fuel Industry executives, openly revealing disinformation and Greenwashing campaigns. Artivist action constitutes a form of aesthetics of resistance, chal- lenging hegemonic ideological representation. Many of the artivist actions performed by the XR group were satirical, where humour plays an important part. Humour is also important in other ways, to keep up the spirit and en- gagement of the activists, and to defuse possible tension with bystanders and representatives of law enforcement.
The subject of this essay is the extensive use of metalepsis as an argumentative and rhetorical device in media discourse, and in particular in advertising. Metalepsis, a form of metonymy, sets up an inverted relation - causal, logical or contiguous - between terms and/or objects, either as an aesthetic effect or a means of persuasion. The first part of the essay discusses the use of metalepsis in literature and film; the second part discusses the use of the figure in mass media and advertising; the third part discusses the relation between advertising, art, and popular culture. The final part of the essay discusses the pervasive use metalepsis in advertising. Since metalepsis is a powerful rhetorical device, I have chosen the figure of the tiger to illustrate how it operates in advertising and media discourse.
Examining the inherent spatiality of law, both theoretically and as social practice, this book presents a genealogical account of the emergence and the development of the juridical. In an analysis that stretches from ancient Greece, through late antiquity and early modern and modern Europe, and on to the contemporary courtroom, it considers legal and philosophical texts, artistic and literary works, as well as judicial practices, in order to elicit and document a series of critical moments in the history of juridical space. Offering a more nuanced understanding of law than that found in traditional philosophical, political or social accounts of legal history, Dahlberg forges a critical account of the intimate relations between law and politics that shows how juridical space is determined and conditioned in ways that are integral to the very functioning – and malfunctioning – of law.
This essay studies the propaganda language of contemporary – or late – fossil capital. Whereas the traditional understanding of propaganda focuses on the dissemination of information (or disinformation) in order to promote a political cause or ideology, I argue that the main form and vehicle of propaganda for late fossil capital is the massive use of terms and tropes, together with particular rhetorical devices, for example, the interpellation of the individual consumer as responsible for mitigating climate change. The essay studies the language of fossil capital based primarily on marketing material by fossil fuel companies, in the US and other Western countries, such as advertising and advertorials, current and archived websites, social media, corporate sustainability reports, as well as material produced by industry organisation such as the American Petroleum Institute and the Heartland Institute. A large part of the material is taken from two North American legal complaints, Connecticut v. Exxon Mobil Corporation (2020) and City of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corp. et al. (2021).
The video game industry is the combination of two worlds: technology (IT) and show-biz/media/cultural industries. This paper explores this tension by exposing the shortcomings of the culture economics perspective and its lack of understanding for the unique characteristics of the video game medium, thus subsequently proposing a deeper analysis of the medium by turning to literary theoretical perspectives on games, such as ludology and narratology. Due the lack of technological dimensions in its theoretical framework, narratology is deemed less fruitful as an analytical tool and ludology is preferred. Ludology, with Espen Aarseth's cybertext theory elucidates aspects of "interactivity ", author-medium-reader power relations and the mechanical organization of textual machines, which provides perspectives on practice in the video game industry.
This paper explores the intersection of race, humour and interactivity in Grand Theft Auto 3. We argue that video games not only diffuse cultural and symbolic meanings, but also provide new loci for reflection and critique of issues of inter alia race. Two different analytical perspectives are juxtaposed when studying racial issues of GTA3. The first perspective is Critical Race Theory (CRT). The second perspective derives from the phthonic and incongruity theory of humour (Morreall 1986). We will argue that the CRT perspective is consistent with the phthonic theory of humour, while the incongruity theory goes beyond CRT presenting a novel way of interpreting games. This theoretical framework is applied when analysing the controversial game GTA3. By presenting stereotypical images of race in GTA3 as humorous, the player is provided with cues for reflecting and evaluating his/her own perspectives on issues of race.
In considering deep time ethics and Anthropocene heritage, this paper (and subsequent chapter) discuss intragenerational care in the registers of feminist posthumanities and environmental humanities through the case of the waste-to-energy plant Gärstadsverken i Linköping, Sweden.
In order for the green transition in Sweden to succeed, more than 100 000 people to move to the northern part of the country in the coming years to work in the new industries being established there and in the rapidly growing communities. What are the stories that could attract people to move there, and who should hear these stories?
This is an analysis of stories about Norrland for those who have barely been there, for those who were born there, for those who might consider moving there, and for those who influence without being there. The analysis provides a number of tangible recommendations on how to describe the North in a way that can be varied depending on the audience, but still united by a narrative of the region as a whole.
This paper examines the phenomenon of refugees and resettled persons in the process of forcedmigrations in the aftermath of man-made disasters. Although some of the ideas presented here couldhave wider application, the focus is on post-conflict zones within the former Yugoslavia, namely BiH.The paper uses the questions of ethnicity and nationalism within resettlement, dislocation and immigrationas a backdrop, into which the issue of globalization is also briefly reflected. The intention hereis not to cover a wide range of pressing topics, but simply to relate a number of issues arising in contemporarylarge-scale forced migrations to a resurgence of cultural specificity and ethnicized nationalismas counterpoints to globalization. The paper introduces the concept of “limbo diasporas” in the caseof Bosnian refugees in Sweden through reflection and linkage with the aforementioned concepts. Thepaper ends with some recommendations and open questions on social rehabilitation and ethnic healingas well as some general conclusions.
Drawing on Foucault’s conceptualisation of power - as a set of actions performed upon other actions andreactions - this article aims to understand the mechanisms behind cultural conservation where nexus ofconflictual powers is particular densified as an effect of both an occupation force and the internationalcommunity intervention. Thereby, it examines the way discourses of cultural meanings are formed,transformed and correlated influenced by the multiple powers involved in the politics of cultural conservation.The link between discourse and power is illustrated through a particular enactment of a concrete research inwhich the Historic Centre of Nablus in Palestine is identified as a case. Conflict of power relations and interestsis a universal question however it becomes a unique phenomenon when happening in an occupied society. Thisarticle argues that occupation force, local resistance and international community interventions have exposedthe cultural resources of the Palestinian Historic centres to ‘concentrated’ processes of both ‘destruction’ and‘conservation’. Understanding the current mechanisms behind cultural conservation may therefore explorepossible ways for locally-sensitive cultural conservation.
This paper aims to examine the value of cultural considerations in urban planning and to contribute to the current discussion on Botswana’s planning system. ‘Integrated Conservation’ and ‘Cultural Planning’, as two dominant international streams on culture and planning, are compared with the local context of Botswana to identify possibilities and challenges for the planning review. The Town and Country Planning Act, in addition to two case study areas, is presented to highlight the Botswanan context. The results reveal a distinct need for a shift from ‘planning for culture’ to ‘cultural institutionalisation’, where the traditional division between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ urban development tendencies is challenged to allow a wider scale of actors and interests to interact deliberately rather than engage.
The aim of this study is to contribute into the discussion on the current review of the spatial planning and relevant legislation. The focus has been on the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act. Before conducting the review of the Act the field research started by carrying out analyses of the local values and process of urban planning. Therefore Shoshong village have been analysed to develop some understandings of Tswana culture. This was followed by analyses of Sowa town which was planned and designed based on Tswana culture. With the empirical findings in mind, the TCP Act and other spatial and relevant legislation have been analysed, showing how the planning system lack attention to the local values and have consequently contributed in the loss of Botswana’s cultural identity. The results were discussed at the National Museum where representatives of a number of government, civic, and voluntary institutions were invited.
In this article, we explore how executive search consultants in Austria, Finland and Sweden address ethnicity. Our findings suggest that while consultants working in these different sociocultural settings may attribute different meanings to ethnicity, they share a tendency to evade questions of ethnicity with regard to the search process. We specify three discursive practices that serve to eliminate questions of ethnicity from executive search: constructing whiteness as self-evident, constructing varieties of whiteness (articulating deficiency and lack for those not belonging to Us), and distancing responsibility for the current situation to clients and society. In view of these findings, we argue that executive search can be understood as an arena for ethnosociality that stops cultural diversity at the door of management suites and serves to undermine efforts to promote cross-cultural understanding in organizations. Our study indicates that sustaining whiteness as a privileged ethnicity takes multiple forms. While executive search consultants play an important role in these processes, it is suggested that they inherit a more fundamental problem in society and they have few opportunities to change the ethnic status quo at the top.
Resilienz bedeutet Flexibilität, Widerstandsfähigkeit und Anpassungsvermögen. In der Debatte um globale Klima- und Umweltveränderungen erlaubt es das Konzept der Resilienz, soziale, technische und ökologische Katastrophen nicht als vermeidbare gesellschaftliche Probleme aufzufassen, sondern als Chancen, als Generatoren des sozial-ökologischen Wandels umzudeuten.
This paper introduces a virtual tour, Visit the Louvre, designed specifically to engage older adults in an immersive visit through part of the Louvre by a distant real-life guide. An initial diary study and a creative workshop were conducted to understand the needs and values of older adults and how to support participation to virtual museum visits with a video-based communication system. Preliminary results show that ‘virtual visitors’ experienced high levels of social and spatial presence; immersion and engagement were quite high independent of the level of interactivity of the guide, or the presence of others.
This paper addresses the new opportunities and pitfalls of smart cities, with a particular view to the maintenance and use of historical-cultural resources in a city. The emergence and wide-spread application of digital technology appears to shape a new arena for urban cultural policy analysis, especially in the framework of big data in relation to social media information platforms. The paper argues that in a digital age new forms of data metrics policy are needed for an affective cultural heritage policy in cities.
An attractive cultural heritage is an important magnet for visitors to many cities nowadays. The present paper aims to trace the constituents of the destination attractiveness of 40 global cities from the perspective of historical-cultural amenities, based on a merger of extensive systematic databases on these cities. The concept of cultural heritage buzz is introduced to highlight: (i) the importance of a varied collection of urban cultural amenities; (ii) the influence of urban cultural magnetism on foreign visitors, residents and artists; and (iii) the appreciation for a large set of local historical-cultural amenities by travelers collected from a systematic big data set (emerging from the global TripAdvisor platform). A multivariate and econometric analysis is undertaken to validate and test the quantitative picture of the above conceptual framework, with a view to assess the significance of historical-cultural assets and socio-cultural diversity in large urban agglomerations in the world as attraction factors for visitors. The results confirm our proposition on the significance of urban cultural heritage as a gravity factor for destination choices in international tourism in relation to a high appreciation for historical-cultural amenities.