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'Why bother?' Skeptical doubt and moral imagination in care for people with profound intellectual disabilities
No full textCaring well for people with profound intellectual disabilities is challenging. This challenge is often framed in terms of their complex needs and the ambiguity of interpreting these needs. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article argues that behind these challenges lies a more fundamental challenge of doubt: doubt stemming from uncertainties about the mind of the other, and thus about the purpose of care itself. Drawing on Stanley Cavell's notion of skepticism, the article explores how this challenge arises and how caregivers grapple with it. The study finds that skeptical doubt always threatens care for people with profound intellectual disabilities, but often remains unseen. This is because caregivers deftly manage to ward off their skeptical doubt, by 'placing people into life': imagining the people in their care as participants in a shared human everyday life. The article tracks such exercises of 'placing people into life' to document how caregivers manage to retain faith in the purpose of their care. In this way, the article gives ethnographic texture to the challenge of caring well for people with profound intellectual disabilities and gathers clues for improving this care-which can also aid in improving care in other contexts of cognitive difference
Humanism in Crisis:A New Draft of Humanist Philosophy
Get PDFIn his speech ‘Humanism in crisis’, Christoph Henning examines how humanism can be reconceived today. To do this, we first have to be sureof philosophy as a method: what can philosophy still accomplish today? He defines it as an approach that neither lectures people nor arrogantly ignores other opinions, but first listens and does justice to diverse views. We need to understand why many people no longer have faith in humanism. Their experiences need to be taken seriously. But he draws another conclusion: There are many crises that point us back to a renewed humanism as a unification of humankind. Without it, the dangers we will be exposed to in the future cannot be addressed: the global climate crisis, the erosion of minimum political standards and the loss of human standards by new technologies. It is essential to understand humans as vulnerable beings who are dependent on nature and each other and who must unite if we are to pass the tests of the coming times
The impact of religious identity on intergroup encounters.
No full textIn recent decades, social cohesion in Western societies has been progressively undermined, leading to increased polarisation and fragmentation. Efforts to counteract this trend have included organising intergroup activities to restore trust and foster ‘bridge-building’ between different communities. While social psychology has extensively explored the dynamics of intergroup encounters, particularly in terms of their ability to promote successful community bridging, the role of religious identity in these encounters remains underexplored. Through an integrative literature review, this article aims to investigate the influence of participants’ religious identity on the outcomes of these bridging activities. A systematic literature search was conducted across various academic databases, utilising combinations of search terms such as ‘intergroup encounters’ and ‘religion’. In the search, both forward and backward snowballing techniques were added to ensure a comprehensive selection of relevant literature. Our analysis reveals that two central aspects of religious identity – religious truth claims and the perception of religious identity as a voluntary choice – pose significant challenges to bridging initiatives. In addition, minority versus majority status and self-uncertainty further complicate the effectiveness of these encounters. While interfaith interventions are often presented as mechanisms for enhancing bridging social capital, the findings suggest that they may inadvertently lead to increased bonding within religious groups, reinforcing existing divisions rather than fostering broader social cohesion. The implications of these findings for community-building initiatives are discussed
Rhizomatic religious belonging in times of the fourth industrial revolution
No full textDigital innovations are increasingly impacting our lives. While ‘offline’ religious practices and material religious culture had already been culminating in hybrid forms of religious belonging, such as rhizomatic religious belonging, technological innovations, and the digitalization of the immanent frame in which we engage in religious cultures complicates this picture even more. In this article, I will argue in favor of the conceptual frame of rhizomatic belonging to understand the negotiation of religious diversity in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I argue that a post-human religion is emerging, which, instead of being fragmented, individualized, or generally ‘lost’, is a transformation towards a new form of belonging, in which care, community, and play are elements. These post-human assemblages of rhizomatic religious belonging emerge at the intersection of digital culture and ‘offline’ material life. TikTok and Instagram become powerful tools for ‘Generation Z’ to explore new networks of religious connections. Digital dimensions of religion, such as the live streaming of the death wake of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, and the development of artificial intelligence as vicarious religious actors are expressions of new forms of religious constellations that are strongly impacting the affective and phenomenological experiences of religious belonging. I will conclude that ‘belonging’ in the digital age is fundamental in understanding the challenges of our times and our communities because it elicits sentiments of ‘feeling at home’ in a dynamic world in crisis
Passible polyphony:An extensive team-reflexivity process for hierarchical, transdisciplinary research teams
No full textThis article showcases an extensive team-reflexivity process of an embarking transdisciplinary research team in psychiatry. It explores a multilayered tension between the authors, five Dutch researchers with different embodied positions, from diverse research traditions and at different stages of their careers. This article represents a meaningful collision between the rise of horizontalizing participatory research practices, and persistent traditional hierarchies in academic psychiatry. We show how this played out in a hierarchical, transdisciplinary research team, including its emotion work and power ambiguities. Such an intensive and shared reflexivity process is novel, that is, not typical of a responsive research design. The value of this article is that we show and analyze what we have come to call our ‘passible polyphony’: a thorough grappling with multiple perspectives in often disharmonious interactions
Public strategic leaders and their reflective practice in accelerated times:a narrative exploration of a utopic story
No full textPurpose – In the leadership debate, one of the questions for public leaders nowadays is how to reflect and experience meaning in these complex and accelerated times. This article compares three dominant theoretical narratives with the narratives of public strategic leaders in practice. The statement in literature is that leaders in organisations need to create time to reflect on “creating meaning” with others as an answer to the adaptive challenges. The limitation of these studies is that they do not explore leaders’ experiences in practice. We fill this gap by examining the experiences of public strategic leaders and exploring the implications.Design/methodology/approach – We qualitatively explore the narratives of 25 public strategic leaders using interviews, group dialogues and surveys.Findings – The central finding is a problematic gap between theory and practice. This is a concern because of the utopic ideology of reflectivity, which does not consider the forces present in political and bureaucratic organisations and the leaders’ perceptions of their role and position. The narrative exploration shows a pattern of leaders trying “to do good”, avoiding disruptions caused by doubts, emotions or intuitions.Practical implications – The narratives of public strategic leaders show three persistent ideologies putting pressure on their reflective space in daily practice. These narratives offer a starting point for public organisations regarding the reflective practices of strategic leaders.Originality/value – This article opens a debate about leadership and reflectivity paradigms in theory and practice. It offers a reality check for leaders’ and coaches’ daily practices, as opposed to the often utopic theories
Getting To(wards) Know(ing) Together:An Innovative Collaborative Approach in Residential Care for People with (Severe) Intellectual Disabilities and Behaviour That Challenges
No full textPeople with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities (M/S ID) and behaviour that challenges are still almost exclusively encountered and understood within a highly specialized professional care system context. They are almost invisible in the societal mainstream, where a wider variety of perspectives on (everyday) manners, encounters, relationships and life applies. These (and other) exclusionary dynamics render everyday relations with residents with M/S ID whose behaviours challenge still largely dependent on the interpretative frameworks and actions of professionals. Professionals are trained and socialized within highly specialized professional care system contexts, despite a growing scientific and professional awareness that behaviour that challenges is a multifaceted and contextual phenomenon. In this paper, we report on a pioneering initiative (titled Project WAVE) which aimed to cultivate a fresh and comprehensive approach to behaviours that challenge within stagnant care practices. Our goal was to foster an innovative collaborative paradigm by facilitating an extensive and enduring exchange between "insiders"-professionals of specialized care system contexts-and "outsider-researchers"-individuals socialized through alternative avenues. We present our epistemological and methodological approach, the data collection process (a multiple case-informed community of practice), and the most important lessons learned
Professional guidelines for social work:A study of the current state, practice and further development of guidelines for social work in the Netherlands
Get PDFIn Nederland is al geruime tijd discussie over de wenselijkheid en noodzaak van professionele richtlijnen voor het sociaal werk. Richtlijnen kunnen sociaal werkers ondersteunen bij het maken van afwegingen in de praktijk, door wetenschappelijke kennis, best practices en ethische normen samen te brengen. Tegelijkertijd bestaat er aarzeling, omdat richtlijnen ook geassocieerd worden met controle en standaardisering, wat kan botsen met de nadruk op maatwerk en ontextgevoeligheid die het sociaal werk kenmerkt.In the Netherlands, there has been considerable debate about the desirability and necessity of professional guidelines for social work. Guidelines can support social workers in making practical decisions by bringing together scientific knowledge, best practices, and ethical standards. At the same time, there is hesitation because guidelines are also associated with control and standardization, which can conflict with the emphasis on customization and context-sensitiveness that characterizes social work