Concerns related to the future of work has precipitated various studies aimed at ensuring that the labour market is a place where people can earn a living, work in dignity, and flourish as human beings. Studies on labour market inequalities and how macroeconomic policies can be used to address such inequalities are also plentiful. What macroeconomic studies have often failed to do, however, is highlight the differences _between_ individuals in the labour market. This is important, especially in an economy with (...) large inequalities, such as South Africa. These inequalities are further entrenched given that wage employment is the primary mode of income generation for the majority of households in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in quality of work at the microeconomic level in relation to changes in the macroeconomy, using a decent work index built from secondary labour force survey data. The data show that changes in the macroeconomic policy environment coincide with differential outcomes for different groups of workers in the labour market, with women benefitting in terms of quality of work during times in which the government undertakes an expansionary fiscal approach, although only in occupation groups which are male-dominated. The study also finds, however, that in some occupation groups, quality of work does not change in relation to shifts in the macroeconomy. The study highlights the need for microeconomic analyses to inform macroeconomic policies to ensure that expected outcomes are distributed in the intended way. (shrink)

D'après le philosophe Pierre Hadot, la vocation de la philosophie, à son origine, est celle d'une conversion, autrement dit d'une transformation radicale de nous-mêmes et de notre rapport au monde. L'exemple donné pour un tel changement intérieur est la pensée de Bergson, dont l'intuition fondamentale de la durée implique non seulement un élargissement métaphysique de la perception, mais suppose aussi une reconsidération éthique de notre engagement dans l'existence. Ce livre, né d'une épreuve personnelle, cherche à montrer comment cette conversion bergsonienne (...) du regard peut devenir une philosophie de vie qui nous ouvre à nous-mêmes et nous unit au-delà."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Cet article étudie les délimitations morphosyntaxiques des noms propres en s’inspirant de la sémantique de la syntaxe. Les propriétés typographiques, morphologiques et syntaxiques des noms propres sont mises en lien et se répondent parfois iconiquement afin de faire émerger une nouvelle description des noms propres en tant que nominaux – et non plus simples noms ou syntagmes nominaux. Les noms propres sont des unités de rang « nominal » qui cherchent à intégrer des formes potentiellement marginales au sein du domaine (...) nominal, par une double action 1) de préservation d’une altérité formelle et linguistique et 2) d’imitation du comportement morphosyntaxique du nom commun. L’analyse s’appuie principalement sur le corpus commun en anglais mais reste transposable en majeure partie aux exemples du corpus en français. (shrink)

What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. In philosophy, even less has been said on why women submit to men and the discussion has been equally contradictory—submission has traditionally been considered a vice or pathology, but female submission has been valorized as innate to women’s nature. Is there (...) a way to explore female submission in all of its complexity—not denying its appeal in certain instances, and not buying into an antifeminist, sexist, or misogynistic perspective? -/- We Are Not Born Submissive offers the first in-depth philosophical exploration of female submission, focusing on the thinking of Simone de Beauvoir, and more recent work in feminist philosophy, epistemology, and political theory. Manon Garcia argues that to comprehend female submission, we must invert how we examine power and see it from the woman’s point of view. Historically, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and even some radical feminists have conflated femininity and submission. Garcia demonstrates that only through the lens of women’s lived experiences—their economic, social, and political situations—and how women adapt their preferences to maintain their own well-being, can we understand the ways in which gender hierarchies in society shape women’s experiences. Ultimately, she asserts that women do not actively choose submission. Rather, they consent to—and sometimes take pleasure in—what is prescribed to them through social norms within a patriarchy. -/- Moving beyond the simplistic binary of natural destiny or moral vice, We Are Not Born Submissive takes a sophisticated look at how female submissiveness can be explained. (shrink)

Agonistic democrats have enriched debates on the political challenge of pluralism by raising awareness for the depth of disagreements and the political potentials of conflict. However, they have so far failed to explore the shape of institutional settings that are conducive to agonism and show how the agonistic stance may, in a very practical sense, strengthen democracies’ capacity to deal with pluralism and conflict. This article argues that this ‘institutional deficit’ of agonistic democracy can be overcome. It develops an approach (...) that reads theories of agonistic democracy as accounts of conflict regulation and uses principles of agonistic politics as measures for a critical assessment of institutional design. A discussion of a test case that is prominent in the recent literature on democratic innovations for pluralist societies—mini-publics—demonstrates that the principles of agonistic conflict regulation as developed by Mouffe, Connolly and Tully provide the basis for both a critique of certain institutions and a development of alternative designs. (shrink)

The article shows that an uncritical view of domination is a weakness of current accounts of realist legitimacy and it argues that an agonistic supplement can help overcome that weakness. Two accounts of realist legitimacy are discussed: the moral minimum account and the acceptance account. In each case, certain modifications of the argument are needed to establish a distance from moralism, but these modifications create an indifference to domination. The incorporation of an agonistic principle into realist legitimacy can solve this (...) problem. The agonistic case for effective possibilities for contestation endows realist legitimacy with a critical stance towards arrangements that are unresponsive to criticism on the part of those who are subject to them without, however, introducing a moralist argument. (shrink)

While the benefits of including local communities in multi-stakeholder initiatives have been acknowledged, their successful involvement remains a challenging process. Research has shown that large business interests are regularly over-represented and that local communities remain marginalized in the process. Additionally, little is known about how procedural fairness and inclusion can be managed and maintained during multi-stakeholder initiatives. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate how marginalized stakeholders, and local communities in particular, can be successfully involved during the course (...) of a multi-stakeholder initiative. An action research approach was adopted where the first author collaborated with a social housing association on an initiative to involve the local community in the design and implementation of circular economy approaches in a low-income neighbourhood. This study contributes to the multi-stakeholder initiative literature by showing that the successful involvement of marginalized stakeholders requires the initiators to continuously manage a balance between uncertainty–certainty, disagreement–agreement and consensus- and domination-based management strategies. Furthermore, our study highlights that factors which are regularly treated as challenges, including uncertainty and disagreement, can actually play a beneficial role in multi-stakeholder initiatives, emphasizing the need to take a temporally sensitive approach. This study also contributes to the circular economy literature by showing how communities can play a bigger role than merely being consumers, leading to the inclusion of a socially oriented perspective which has not been recognized in the previous literature. (shrink)

This qualitative study proposes a multimodal framework for modelling subordinate constructions in spontaneous conversation, based on their action on interpretative frames. Subordinate constructions have long been described in linguistics as dependent elements elaborating upon some primary features. However, Cognitive Grammar has challenged this view in showing that syntactic embedding often only reflects the starting point speakers choose to convey their message. Subordinate constructions are practices in interaction that offer an interpretative reconstruction of discourse. The different syntactic types of subordinate constructions (...) refer to different interpretative frames in the speaker’s experience. The selection of these interpretative frames is expressed by the different amount of prosodic and gestural boundary cues produced in co-occurrence with each syntactic type of subordinate construction. (shrink)

Realist political theory is often confronted with the objection that it is biased towards the status quo. Although this criticism overlooks the fact that realist political theories contain various resources for critique, a realist approach that is strong in status quo critique and contributes, constructively, to the theorising of alternatives to the status quo is a desideratum. The article argues that contextual realism, which sources its normativity from particular contexts, harbours an underexploited potential to establish such a form of political (...) theorising. By drawing on ideas and principles that have guided critical engagements with social and political forms in a particular context, and on widely shared views of need for reform, realists can identify deficits of the status quo and contribute to a debate on how these deficits might be addressed. This article describes and illustrates the idea of a transformative contextual realism, and defends it against some potential objections. (shrink)

This essay examines how Brazilian literature has broached changes in the country’s political and social scenario since 2013. Literary production has not only considered socio-political upheavals such as the 2013 protests, the 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, and, more recently, the assassination of Rio city council member Marielle Franco as well as the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic. Literature has also expanded the signification of “democracy,” broadening the democratic lexicon by employing a language of both demands and entitlements and dispute. By (...) creating a democratic imaginary that oscillates between vindication and exigency, contemporary Brazilian literature delineates the tensions inherent to present-day democratic culture, poised between expanding rights and what scholars have called a "democratic erosion."Keywords: Democracy. Democratic Erosion. Literature. Poetry. ResumoEste ensaio examina como a literatura brasileira tem abordado mudanças no cenário político e social do país desde 2013. A produção literária não aborda apenas levantes sociopolíticos como os protestos de 2013, o impeachment da presidente Dilma Rousseff em 2016 e, mais recentemente, o assassinato da vereadora Marielle Franco e a pandemia COVID-19. A literatura também tem expandido o significado de “democracia”, ampliando o léxico democrático ao empregar uma linguagem de demandas, direitos e disputa. Ao criar um imaginário democrático que oscila entre a reivindicação e a denúncia, a literatura brasileira contemporânea delineia as tensões inerentes à cultura democrática atual, equilibrada entre a expansão de direitos e o que os estudiosos chamam de "erosão democrática".Palavras-chave: Democracia. Erosão Democrática. Literatura. Poesia. (shrink)

The forms of status quo critique that current approaches to realist political theory enable are unsatisfactory. They either formulate standards of constructive critique, but remain uncritical of a great range of political situations, or they offer means for criticising basically all political situations, but neglect constructive critique. As part of the endeavour to develop a status quo critique that is potentially radical and constructive, realists might consider possibilities to use non-standard social practices – social practices that function differently than stipulated (...) by existing political forms – as resources for critique. The article shows how the capacity of non-standard social practices to serve as resources for critique might be exploited. It also defends the proposed procedure against the likely objection that it relies on moralist argumentation. The evaluation of the status quo and the selection of social practices need normative argumentation, but such argumentation can be grounded in the actual to an extent that safeguards its realist nature. (shrink)

Improvisational theater is a booming theatrical practice, applying in many fields. Its effects on cognitive and behavioral processes are beginning to be demonstrated, despite scientific publications that are still rare, particularly about language. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of improv on adolescent narrative skills. Twenty-seven middle school students were recruited and divided into two groups: an IMPRO group, composed of novice and intermediate improvisers, and a CONTROL group, composed of middle school students doing theater. The evaluation took place (...) in two experimental times spaces 3 months apart. It consisted in the creation of a written narrative resulting from previously observed images. We used quantitative criteria to carry out the analysis of this story, according to the methodologies of PELEA and EVALEO. We showed an effect of the improv on coherence, which suggests that the practice of improv introduces teenagers to improve the narrative skills and the planification of a story, unlike written theater. (shrink)

La notion d’imagination est centrale dans l’œuvre de Thomas Hobbes et pourtant sous-étudiée. Derrière une apparente homogénéité du corpus, la notion d’imagination subit des évolutions importantes au fil des décennies. Hobbes la comprend peu à peu comme une activité indissociablement cognitive et affective. L’intérêt pour le rôle des affects dans la vie mentale va conduire Hobbes à placer l’imagination au cœur de son anthropologie et de son système politique. Cet article défend l’idée selon laquelle Hobbes fait de l’imagination le fondement (...) de l’institution sociale et politique. (shrink)

This introductory chapter gives an overview of the debate on realism in political theory and sets out two themes that are particularly important for this debate: the role of practice in realist political theory and the nature and place of normativity in realist political theory. These two themes are not only among the most discussed topics in the debate on possibilities to do realist political theory. Answers to the question of what more applied forms of realist political theory might look (...) like will also depend significantly on how realists specify the role of practice in political theory and the meaning of realist normative argumentation. We outline some of the main positions in the field and highlight questions that have been insufficiently addressed. Finally, we give an overview of the arguments of the articles assembled in this collection and how they contribute to the ongoing debates on the two themes. (shrink)

Regenerative Medicine promises to develop treatments to regrow healthy tissues and cure the physical body. One of the emerging developments within this field is regenerative implants, such as jawbone or heart valve implants, that can be broken down by the body and are gradually replaced with living tissue. Yet challenges for embodiment are to be expected, given that the implants are designed to integrate deeply into the tissue of the living body, so that implant and body become one. In this (...) paper, we explore how regenerative implants may affect the embodied experience of implant recipients. To this end, we take a phenomenological approach. First, we explore what insights the existing phenomenological and empirical literature on embodiment offers regarding the experience of illness and of living with regular (non-regenerative) implants and organ transplants. Second, we apply these insights to better understand how future implant recipients might experience living with regenerative implants. Third, we conclude that concepts and considerations from the existing phenomenological literature do not sufficiently address what it might be like to live with an implantable technology that, over time, becomes one with the living body. We argue that the interwovenness and intimate relationship of people living with regenerative implants should be understood in terms of ‘entanglement’. Entanglement allows us to explore the complexities of human-technology relations, acknowledging the inseparability of humans and implantable technologies. Our theoretical foundations regarding the role of embodiment may be tested empirically once more people will be living with regenerative implants. (shrink)

L’affaire Weinstein et le mouvement #MeToo ont mis la question des violences sexuelles au premier plan. Depuis, le consentement renvoie naturellement au consentement sexuel et amoureux, envisagé comme un sésame de l’égalité entre femmes et hommes. Pourtant, il est bien difficile à définir, et soulève trois problèmes. Le problème juridique, bien connu de celles et ceux qui suivent l’actualité, peut être résumé ainsi: que faire pour que les cas de viol, d’agression et de harcèlement sexuels soient efficacement punis ? Le (...) deuxième problème est moral : comment penser des relations amoureuses et sexuelles qui ne soient pas fondées sur des normes sociales sexistes et inégalitaires ? Enfin, le problème politique : comment ne pas reconduire les injustices de genre qui se manifestent dans les rapports amoureux et sexuels ? La magistrale analyse du consentement que propose Manon Garcia revisite notre héritage philosophique, plongeant au cœur de la tradition libérale, mettant à nu ses impensés et ses limites. De John Locke aux théoriciennes féministes françaises et américaines, en passant par Michel Foucault et les débats sur la pratique du BDSM, c’est une nouvelle cartographie politique de nos vies privées que dessine cet essai novateur. Au terme de ce livre, il s’agira en somme, pour reprendre la formule de Gloria Steinem, d’« érotiser l’égalité » plutôt que la domination : en ce sens, le consentement sexuel, conçu comme conversation érotique, est sans doute l’avenir de l’amour et du sexe. (shrink)

Postmortem reproduction refers to normally unnatural situations that are made possible by modern medical technology. It's a definition that applies to a situation in which one parent of an offspring is dead at the time of conception of the offspring or at the time of birth of the offspring. It is a situation which raises complex and multifactorial dilemma as with most issues that concern decisions over human life; accordingly, this discussion of its ethical ramifications is not intended to be (...) exhaustive, but illustrative. (shrink)

Le volontarisme de la RDA en direction des femmes et les mesures favorisant leur intégration au monde du travail sont des aspects bien connus du régime socialiste est-allemand. Celui-ci reprit en effet à son compte l’idée héritée du marxisme faisant de l’activité professionnelle des femmes la condition première de leur émancipation. L’existence en RDA d’une recherche sur les femmes n’a pourtant pas bénéficié de la même notoriété que la politique de l’État est-allemand en leur faveur. Outre le caractère confidentiel de (...) ses publications, l’activité du Conseil scientifique « La femme dans la société socialiste » de 1964 à 1990 fut considérée après la chute du mur comme nulle et non avenue en raison de l’absence de distance critique avec le parti au pouvoir. La nouvelle génération de chercheuses est-allemandes récusa en effet toute dimension féministe à cette recherche officielle. Pourtant, l’étude de l’histoire de ce Conseil révèle une réalité plus nuancée. (shrink)

Au cours du xixe siècle, porter l’uniforme est devenu un élément constitutif de l’identité militaire, particulièrement en France où le service militaire s’est progressivement universalisé à la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale. Objet matériel doté de fonctions symboliques, l’uniforme introduit l’historien au cœur du fonctionnement d’un milieu social qui est alors l’un des laboratoires de la masculinité. Décrit, critiqué, modifié par les médecins militaires soucieux de fonctionnalité et de bien-être, il donne à voir un corps qui demeure cependant largement (...) façonné, redressé par une armature de tissu dissimulant une réalité beaucoup moins idéale. Son port est le fruit d’un long apprentissage qui agrège le jeune soldat à la communauté masculine qui l’entoure. Offert au regard d’autrui, à celui des femmes tout particulièrement, il construit une identité masculine en quête de reconnaissance et se trouve situé, par conséquent, au cœur des processus de construction de la différence sexuée. (shrink)

Au cours du xixe siècle, porter l’uniforme est devenu un élément constitutif de l’identité militaire, particulièrement en France où le service militaire s’est progressivement universalisé à la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale. Objet matériel doté de fonctions symboliques, l’uniforme introduit l’historien au cœur du fonctionnement d’un milieu social qui est alors l’un des laboratoires de la masculinité. Décrit, critiqué, modifié par les médecins militaires soucieux de fonctionnalité et de bien-être, il donne à voir un corps qui demeure cependant largement (...) façonné, redressé par une armature de tissu dissimulant une réalité beaucoup moins idéale. Son port est le fruit d’un long apprentissage qui agrège le jeune soldat à la communauté masculine qui l’entoure. Offert au regard d’autrui, à celui des femmes tout particulièrement, il construit une identité masculine en quête de reconnaissance et se trouve situé, par conséquent, au cœur des processus de construction de la différence sexuée. (shrink)