Humanities & Social Sciences

This Open-Access-book examines the phenomenon of discrimination using a descriptive approach. Discrimination is omnipresent, whether it is people who discriminate against other people or, more recently, also machines that discriminate against people. The first part of the analysis employs decision theory on discrimination, leading to two fundamental subtypes: taste-based discrimination and statistical discrimination. The second part links taste-based discrimination to social identity theory, demonstrates that not all taste-based discrimination is ultimately statistical discrimination, and reveals the evolutionary origins of our tastes. The third part surveys how people get their beliefs for statistical discrimination and thereby shows that they often deviate from Bayesianism: they have inherent prior beliefs and do not exclusively update their beliefs according to Bayes’ law. Additionally, the analysis of belief formation highlights the importance of the learning environment. The last part reassembles the previously dissected aspects of discrimination, presents a new descriptive model of discrimination, and lists five implications for a normative theory of discrimination.

Communicating in the Face of Global Crises explores the complex ways organizations and their strategic practices are communicatively constituted in relation to the ethical expectations of global publics. Positioning organizational strategies as communicative accomplishments, an international team of authors redirect attention to the important role of communication in constituting responses to global crises and to the ways global crises are themselves contested and embedded in conflicting discourses about their nature and resolution. Bringing an important and much needed communicative orientation to the exploration of global crises, the book provides valuable guidance for understanding and addressing today’s most pressing issues facing our global communities. This cohesive volume uniquely bridges the theoretical traditions of strategic communication and the communicative constitution of organization. It will interest researchers and postgraduate students exploring the intersection of organizational communication and global crises.

Globalizing the Library focuses on the globalization of information and the library in the period following the Second World War. Providing an examination of the ideas and aspirations surrounding information and the library, as well as the actual practices and actions of information professionals from the United States, Britain, and those working with organizations such as Unesco to develop library services, this book tells an important story about international history that also provides insight into the history of information, globalization, and cultural relations. Exploring efforts to help build library services and train a cohort of professional librarians around the globe, the book examines countries in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific during the period of the Cold War and decolonization. Using the ideas of ‘library diplomacy’ and ‘library imperialism’ to frame Anglo-American involvement in this work, Laugesen examines the impact library development work had on various countries. The book also considers what might have motivated nations in the global South to use foreign aid to help develop their library services and information infrastructure. Globalizing the Library prompts reflection on the way in which library services are developed and the way professional knowledge is transferred, while also illuminating the power structures that have shaped global information infrastructures. As a result, the book should be essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of libraries, development, and information. It should also be of great interest to information professionals and information historians who are reflecting critically on the way information has been transferred, consumed, and shaped in the modern world.

To what extent is it possible for a literary text to contribute to the ethical development of its reader? This book tries to provide readers with a nuanced answer to this question, as well as with methodological premises to bring to light the ethical effects of a literary text. The novels of the Dutch author Frans Kellendonk (1951-1990) offer insightful contexts and questions related to this issue. Kellendonk is one of the most controversial Dutch writers of the end of the twentieth century. Today, he is mainly considered as a kind of prophet that advocated a certain scepticism towards a multicultural society. Kellendonk’s novels systematically put into question one-way interpretations of their works. They invite readers to find other interpretations, putting into question the simplifying conceptual framework that has shaped the author’s posture until now. They also lay the foundations for an ethics of reading that relies on the very diegetic world to which the reader can adjust his/her own reading. This ethics is more specifically an invitation to recognize the undecidability that every reading entails.

"In recent decades, the term ‘mobility’ has emerged as a defining paradigm within the humanities. For scholars engaged in the multidisciplinary topics and perspectives now often embraced by the term Pacific Studies, it has been a much more longstanding and persistent concern. Even so, specific questions regarding ‘mobilities of return’—that is, the movement of people ‘back’ to places that are designated, however ambiguously or ambivalently, as ‘home’—have tended to take a back seat within more recent discussions of mobility, transnationalism and migration. This volume situates return mobility as a starting point for understanding the broader context and experience of human mobility, community and identity in the Pacific region and beyond. Through diverse case studies spanning the Pacific region, it demonstrates the extent to which the prospect and practice of returning home, or of navigating returns between multiple homes, is a central rather than peripheral component of contemporary Pacific Islander mobilities and identities everywhere."

Die von Irene Dingel und Herman Selderhuis versammelten Beiträge widmen sich der europäischen Ausstrahlung des Genfer Reformators Johannes Calvin und den weitgreifenden Wirkungen des Calvinismus. Dabei kommt der Calvinismus als ein länderübergreifendes konfessionelles System in den Blick, dessen Gestaltungskräfte sich sowohl in theologischer als auch in gesellschaftlicher, politischer und kultureller Hinsicht äußerten, mit bestehenden Systemen in Interaktion traten und so wesentlich zur Ausprägung des modernen Europa beitrugen. In drei thematischen Schwerpunkten kommen zunächst die Person Calvins und ihre Einflüsse in West- und Osteuropa zur Sprache, sodann die durch Vertreibung, Exil und Neuaufbau geprägte Wirklichkeit des frühneuzeitlichen Calvinismus und schließlich die in einer spezifischen Spiritualität und deren »Medien« Gestalt gewinnende geistige Kraft des Calvinismus. Der Band greift die verschiedenen aktuellen Forschungsdiskurse auf, führt sie unter der Perspektive der europäischen Wirkmächtigkeit des Calvinismus zusammen und eröffnet durch seine Interdisziplinarität und Internationalität zugleich neue Blickwinkel, um auf diese Weise impulsgebend auf die Forschung zu wirken.

This collection of thirteen essays examines sociolinguistic phenomena in a wide variety of marginal environments, providing both an overview of globalizaiton on the margins and a foundation for an expanded understanding of the processes of linguistic and cultural changes at work in these settings. Taking an expansive conceptual view of margins, the volume is organized in three parts, looking at examples of marginal spaces in the nation-state, in online environments, and in the peripheries of urban locations, globally to call attention to new and changing discursive genres, patterns, practices, and identities emerging in these spaces as a result of contemporary mobilities, the evolving global economy, and socio-political changes. With previous research previously confined to the study of globalization in urban areas, this volume opens the door for further research on the complex sociolinguistic processes resulting from globalization on the margins, making this an ideal resource for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, globalization and heritage studies, new media, anthropology, and cultural studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)

This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness regarding the definition of violence. But in daily life, Athenians had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They did so by enacting a discourse on violence in the performance of these genres, during which complex negotiations about the legitimacy of violence took place. Since discourse and reality were intertwined and the discourse was ritualized, actual violence might also have been partly ritualized. By still respecting the on-going desire to harm one’s enemy, this partial ritualization of violence helped restrain violence and thus contributed to Athens’ relative stability.

Today, when darkness of all kinds, cast by humans, is trying to prevail and is endangering prosperous life on the planet, we need a reflection on how to reconcile the darkness with light of living. Tatjana Capuder Vidmar examines four perspectives on the topic through four masterpieces of art: László Moholy-Nagy’s »Das Lichtrequisit«, Daniel Libeskind’s »Der Holocaust Turm«, Senenmut’s »Temple of Queen Hatshepsut«, and Alvar Aalto’s »Studio Aalto« in Helsinki. Architecture can contribute to a better world. To do so, architecture needs to be relational and sunlight has a special role in it. The volume is illustrated with the author’s artworks, which are interpretations of beautiful light ‒ shadow relations in tectonics of natural structures.

The book provides critical information and knowledge on the importance of livestock in the global effort to alleviate poverty and promote human health. It describes and evaluates case studies, examines theoretical frameworks, and discusses key global policy development issues, challenges and constraints related to smallholder livestock-production systems around the globe. The book is written for academic professionals, industry experts, government officials and other scholars interested in the facts and issues concerning the contribution of livestock to the social and economic progress of developing countries.

Die Quellensammlung zur Revolution 1848/49 in Brandenburg, ausgewählt überwiegend aus Dokumenten des Brandenburgischen Landeshauptarchivs in Potsdam, gibt einen repräsentativen Überblick darüber, wie die revolutionären Ereignisse, von Berlin ausstrahlend, in der Kernprovinz Preußens ihre spezifische Prägung erhielten. In einer knappen Einleitung beschreibt der Bearbeiter die ökonomische, soziale und politische Situation in Brandenburg und den Ablauf der Ereignisse. Anhand der Dokumente kann der Leser verfolgen, wie die politischen Forderungen nach demokratischen Rechten für alle Staatsbürger in einem Verfassungsstaat verschmolzen mit dem Kampf der städtischen und ländlichen Unterschichten um die Sicherung ihrer Existenzbedingungen.

El libro contiene un memorable tour d’horizon de los problemas que tuvo que enfrentar Rafael Reyes a su llegada a la Presidencia, y una defensa de sus esfuerzos de solucionarlos. Llama la atención el tono muy ponderado, balanceado, de esta defensa, excepcional en una publicación política colombiana, y aún más en una de fecha tan cerca a la administración defendida. Sanín Cano siguió a su jefe en resistir la tentación de culpar a las administraciones anteriores, de permitirse ‘esteriles recriminaciones’. No escribió ninguna apologia á outrance, admitió que la Presidencia de Reyes inevitablemente tuvo sus errores, además que sus aciertos, y sin esquivar responsabildades insistió en lo limitado del alcance del poder de cualquier Gobierno. Reyes tuvo grandes ambiciones, quiso ser “el Porfirio Díaz de Colombia” —en lo constructivo, no tanto en lo autoritario—. Malcom Deas

Dieses Open-Access-Handbuch gibt einen aktuellen Überblick über die sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungslandschaft zum Thema Mobilität und Verkehr. Dabei wird deutlich, was die spezifische sozialwissenschaftliche Sicht auf das Thema ausmacht und wie sich diese von anderen disziplinären Zugängen (etwa der Verkehrsplanung oder der Verkehrsökonomie) abgrenzt. In der gesellschaftlichen, aber auch der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion über Mobilität und Verkehr dominieren bisher immer noch ökonomisch-individualistische Perspektiven auf der einen Seite und planerisch-technische Lösungsansätze auf der anderen Seite. Erst in jüngster Zeit gelingt es vermehrt, auch soziologische und politikwissenschaftliche Perspektiven prominent in die Debatte einzubringen. Das Handbuch will daher das konsolidierte Wissen der sozialwissenschaftlichen Mobilitätsforschung bündeln und kompakt zugänglich machen. Jenseits dieser Konsolidierungsfunktion zeigt Handbuchs den Mehrwert sozialwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse für eine Lösung gesellschaftlicher Krisenphänomene, insbesondere der Klimakrise, auf. Dazu soll auch deutlich werden, wie sich sozialwissenschaftliche Mobilitätsforschung über die rein disziplinär-akademische Forschung hinaus in gesellschaftliche Transformationsprozesse einbringt. Neben der Darstellung theoretischer Zugänge und bisheriger Erkenntnisse sollen die Beiträge daher möglichst pointiert Thesen dazu formulieren, unter welchen Bedingungen moderne Gesellschaften ihre Mobilitätssysteme zukünftig gezielt ökologisch und sozial verträglich umbauen können -oder was einem solcher Umbau möglicherweise im Wege steht. Explizit kritische Perspektiven sollen breiten Raum erhalten.

It has been one hundred years since a formal work was published on the role of women in the history of the city of Cleveland. This book adds to the early pioneering work, Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve. In addition, over 200 fascinating historical photographs have been reproduced, some to illustrate the text, and the rest in a series of photographic essays covering the following topics: Growing Up, Sports and Recreation, Marriage and the Family, Work, Fashion, Clubs and Associations, and Growing Old.