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Scatter and resist: Ferrier writing Fukushima
Get PDFThis article explores the many ways in which Michaël Ferrier, novelist,
academic, and essayist, writes about the triple disaster, known in the west
as ‘Fukushima’, that struck Japan on 11 March 2011. He travelled up to the
stricken area from Tokyo and wrote a witness account of his experiences,
Fukushima: récit d’un désastre [‘Fukushima, Account of a Disaster’] (2012).
During the ten years since Ferrier has continued to write prolifically about
the disaster and its aftermath. This article discusses the hybrid genres used
in Fukushima: récit d’un désastre to capture the appalling realities Ferrier
witnessed and analyses how the generic hybridity arises from what I call an
aesthetics of scatteredness, a model that also accurately describes the ensemble of his writings on Fukushima. It will also show how Ferrier’s generic choices indicate his ecological awareness and his desire to decentre the human in thecontext of disaster writing
Taxonomy of the Australian Nicotiana benthamiana complex (Nicotiana section Suaveolentes; Solanaceae): five species, four newly described, with distinct ranges and morphologies
Get PDFAlthough some authors previously questioned the circumscription of Nicotiana benthamiana, it has never been treated taxonomically as more than a single widespread, variable species. A recent study employing phylogenetic and population genetic analyses has demonstrated that N. benthamiana comprises five species that are geographically and morphologically distinct. Here, we describe four new species in the N. benthamiana complex, namely, N. bilybara M.W.Chase & Christenh., N. candelabra M.W.Chase & Christenh., N. rupestris M.W.Chase & Christenh. and N. scopulorum M.W.Chase & Christenh., and illustrate all five. We provide descriptions, a diagnostic key and a table of morphological characters distinguishing these closely related species. The major morphological feature that distinguishes N. benthamiana from the other four species is its petiolate leaves that become sessile only near the apex of the inflorescence; N. candelabra is distinct in its bifacial branching, N. bilybara in its commonly winged petiole with an auriculate base, N. rupestris in the leafy apices of its calyx lobes, and N. scopulorum is the least morphologically divergent species, conforming most closely to the general description of the N. benthamiana species complex
United We Stand? Marketization, institutional change and employers’ associations in crisis
Get PDFThe continuous process of marketization of employment relations in a variety of European countries has raised questions about the power of collective social actors and their legitimizing role in policy-making. The article examines the responses of employers’ associations to institutional changes towards marketization in the context of the Greek economic crisis. The analysis exposes the hidden fractures between and within the peak-level employers’ associations and unveils a variation in their strategic responses towards institutional changes. To explain this variation, the article advances a power-based explanation and argues that the institutional changes altered the associations’ interest representation and power resources, which in turn, redefined their role and identities in the employment relations system
Contextualising intersectionality: a qualitative study of East Asian female migrant workers in the UK
Get PDFPrevious intersectional research on ethnic minority women has largely focused on inequalities and disadvantages associated with the intersection between their minority gender and ethnic identities. In this study, we challenge the static and dichotomous assumption of the existing intersectionality framework (e.g., privilege versus disadvantage) and adopt Holvino’s intersectional perspective of simultaneity as a theoretical lens through which to demonstrate the importance of understanding intersectionality within various levels of contexts, or contextualising social differences. Interviews with 43 female migrant workers from China, Japan, and Korea living in the UK revealed that these women perceived disadvantage in terms of gender/ethnic stereotyping and discriminatory practices at work. At the same time, however, their accounts provided evidence of contextualised privilege, namely ‘relative privilege’ (privilege in comparison to multiple reference groups), ‘assigned privilege’ (privilege assigned by their employers and the host society), and ‘ambiguous privilege’ (privilege as a double-edged sword). Based on these observations, we suggest that the location of East Asian women is not fixed within the interlocking systems of oppression in the host country; rather, this location is dynamic and fluid within interpersonal, organisational, and societal contexts in the home and host countries, moving back and forth between disadvantage and (limited) privilege
Objects that direct visuospatial attention produce the search advantage for facing dyads
Get PDFWhen hidden amongst pairs of individuals facing in the same direction, pairs of individuals
arranged front-to-front are found faster in visual search tasks than pairs of individuals
arranged back-to-back. Two rival explanations have been advanced to explain this search
advantage for facing dyads. According to one account, the search advantage reflects the fact
that front-to-front targets engage domain-specific social interaction processing that helps
stimuli compete more effectively for limited attentional resources. Another view is that the
effect is a by-product of the ability of individual heads and bodies to direct observers’
visuospatial attention. Here, we describe a two-part investigation that sought to test these
accounts. First, we found that it is possible to replicate the search advantage with non-social
objects. Next, we employed a cueing paradigm to investigate whether it is the ability of
individual items to direct observers’ visuospatial attention that determines if an object category
produces the search advantage for facing dyads. We found that the strength of the cueing
effect produced by an object category correlated closely with the strength of the search
advantage produced by that object category. Taken together, these results provide strong
support for the directional cueing account
A problem shared? The role of the public in the legitimation of policy: a case study of gendered welfare change in the United Kingdom
Get PDFThis article argues that shared problematizations—shared political and public ways of thinking—legitimize policies and their outcomes. To support this argument, it examines the legitimation of gendered welfare reform in the recent U.K. context. Drawing on focus groups with the public, it provides evidence that the public’s problematization of welfare, specifically that reform was necessary to “make work pay” and “restore fairness”, aligned with that of politicians. It argues that the assumptions and silences underpinning this shared problematization, especially silences relating to the value and necessity of care, have allowed for welfare policies that have disadvantaged women
Towards an understanding of the experiences of deaf gay men: an interpretative phenomenological analysis to an intersectional view
Get PDFSimilarities between developing a deaf identity and a sexual minority identity have been postulated upon the parallel experience of oppressed minority positions. Sign language interviews with eight deaf gay British men explored their intersectional understanding of deaf-gay lived experiences, analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. During their adolescence deaf gay men sometimes experienced being in a position where they were trying hard to be something they were not: oral and heterosexual for hearing non-signing others (including heterosexual members of their family of origin). Participants spoke of increasingly being drawn towards a welcoming signing cultural world that supported them against deaf minority stress. Coming out as gay presented not only potential family of origin difficulties, but also threatened connection with the deaf community, leaving participants intensely fearful of gay visibility and stigma. Self-fulfillment and community building was sought through positions that ranged from oralist-heteronormativity through to the deaf-gay community. Along the way these journeys included experiences of pride and success alongside those of struggle. Our findings extend research on intersectionality by presenting a distinct set of obstacles, caveats, and nuances to identity conjunction
Research on emotions in second language acquisition: reflections on its birth and unexpected growth
Get PDFPersonal reflections on the emergence of emotion within Second Language Acquisition, and argument against predeterministic thinking. The field developed in a chaotic way where chance played a big role
The diachronic account of attentional selectivity
Get PDFMany models of attention assume that attentional selection takes place at a specific moment in time which demarcates the critical transition from pre-attentive to attentive processing of sensory input. We argue that this intuitively appealing standard account of attentional selectivity is not only inaccurate, but has led to substantial conceptual confusion. As an alternative, we offer a “diachronic” framework that describes attentional selectivity as a process that unfolds over time. Key to this view is the concept of attentional episodes, brief periods of intense attentional amplification of sensory representations that regulate access to working memory and response-related processes. We describe how attentional episodes are linked to earlier attentional mechanisms and to recurrent processing at the neural level. We review studies that establish the existence of attentional episodes, delineate the factors that determine if and when they are triggered, and discuss the costs associated with processing multiple events within a single episode. Finally, we argue that this framework offers new solutions to old problems in attention research that have never been resolved. It can provide a unified and conceptually coherent account of the network of cognitive and neural processes that produce the goal-directed selectivity in perceptual processing that is commonly referred to as “attention”
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