A theory of gender ought to be compatible with trans-inclusive definitions of gender identity terms, such as ‘woman’ and ‘man’. Appealing to this principle of trans-inclusion, Katharine Jenkins argues that we ought to endorse a dual social position and identity theory of gender. Here, I argue that Jenkins’s dual theory of gender fails to be trans-inclusive for the following reasons: it cannot generate a definition of ‘woman’ that extends to include all trans women, and it understands transgender gender (...) identity through a cisgender frame. (shrink)

The article provides a focused overview of the recent debates in political philosophy on the role of religious arguments (as reasons for action) in liberal democracy, as well as a preliminary defence of a particular approach to the issue. Drawing on Christopher Eberle’s typology, we distinguish three main camps – Justificatory Liberalism, basing its advocacy of a “doctrine of religious restraint” on Rawls’s account of public justification; its Liberal Critics, embracing a wholly permissive position vis-à-vis religious arguments in the public (...) sphere; and New Traditionalism, which assigns priority to the religious rationale. The article deals in more detail with the exchange between the first two camps. Upon considering their strengths and weaknesses, we argue for a more robust “third way” between exclusion from and unqualified inclusion of religious arguments in public debates in liberal democracy. Inspired by the work of Gerald Gaus and Kevin Vallier, we the outline in the closing sections a framework of such “minimal justificatory liberalism” that steers clear of several errors shared by both the defenders and the critics of justificatory liberalism. (shrink)

Literature frequently describes how ineffective implementation of instructional policy frameworks can make distance learning a lonely and unrewarding academic pursuit, characterized by high student drop-out rates, high failure rates and academic exclusion. In trying to mitigate this catastrophe, academic departments in distance learning institutions utilize learning management systems (LMSs) to stimulate students’ learning experiences. In keeping with techno-progressivism, the researchers (and authors of this paper) turned to extant documentary policy and literature to review – qualitatively – how the University (...) of South Africa’s (Unisa’s) Open Distance Learning Policy (ODLP) promotes academic inclusion and learning agency as cornerstones of student success and social justice, especially in an unequal society like South Africa. The findings revealed the following: 1) Unisa’s ODLP position has the impetus to influence the deployment of the LMS to promote academic inclusion; 2) Practical means of promoting inclusion were mirrored in the provision of manual or electronic learning material, computer laboratories and free internet connectivity in regional centres across all nine provinces of South Africa, as well as in the provision of laptops for National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS)-funded students, 30 gigabytes of free monthly mobile data to all students, and assistive technologies for students with disabilities; 3) Practical utilization of an LMS to foster self-regulated learning occurred through problem-based individual activities supplemented by asynchronous demonstrative learning material (e.g. audio, video), while collaborative learning agency was enabled through e-tutoring, which afforded students the opportunity to interact with e-tutors and their peers about the learning content; 4) Drawbacks in the use of the LMS stemmed from the insufficiency of assistive learning technologies that are required for students with disabilities to participate fully in online learning, and a corpus of students’ irregular attendance at and participation in e-tutoring discussions and their projection of a negative attitude towards the e-tutors. -/- . (shrink)

Feelings of marginalisation impact the lives of LGBT+ people in a fundamental way, but for those who have an intellectual disability, and are gay, there is a heightened sense of alienation. This article examines the unique oppression faced by these individuals in a heteronormative and ableist world, where a long history of extreme control of sexual intimacy has resulted in harsh forms of social exclusion. Although moves have been made to empower service users who are intellectually disabled and (...) identify as LGBT+ to participate fully in life, there is also a need to assess the relationship between rights, responsibility, and risk. This article further explores whether by drawing upon government social policy, barriers are being dismantled through the development of innovative local strategies that aim to deliver non-discriminatory person-centred services. (shrink)

This chapter delineates several distinct (and often problematically conflated) kinds of sexual exclusion: (1) lack of access to sexual gratification or pleasure, (2) lack of access to partnered sex, and (3) lack of social/psychological validation that comes from being seen as a sexual being. Liberman offers proposals about what our collective responses to these harms should be while weighing in on debates about whether there are rights to various kinds of sexual goods. She concludes that we ought to (...) provide mechanical assistance to those who are incapable of self-stimulation, enhance access to sexual education for everyone, and engage in a systematic effort to change the harmful social norms, stereotypes, and cultural ideals that drive exclusion from partnered sex and can lead to social invalidation. (shrink)

This article aims to make progress towards an account of social cohesion and participation in terms of which we can better understand how groups of people come to constitute stable social orders. It argues for a conceptual distinction between "inclusion" and "integration" and sheds new light on their theoretical relationship. While "integration" refers to group members' willingness to act in accordance with the given norms of a social structure, "inclusion" is linked to their participation opportunities. (...) Although inclusion also plays an essential role in integrating a normative order, levels of inclusiveness necessary for social cohesion may vary across different contexts. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Durante mucho tiempo las investigaciones sociológicas se centraron en el término exclusión. Existe, sin embargo, un abuso del término designando como tales, situaciones que en realidad responden a la vulnerabilidad creada por la degradación de las relaciones de trabajo, por la precarización o la marginación. Éstas son propiamente situaciones bajo amenaza de exclusión pero no son exclusión propiamente dicha, pueden desembocar en ella pero dependen de otra lógica. La lógica de la exclusión procede por discriminaciones oficiales, la marginación se (...) produce por procesos de desestabilización. En este trabajo se realizará un análisis comparado entre dos perspectivas tan disímiles como las subyacentes en las políticas de inclusión aplicadas en Argentina y Leonardo Polo pues de la confrontación fructífera emergerán las condiciones de posibilidad para una auténtica inclusión social en las organizaciones. SUMMARY: From longtime ago, sociological researches focused on the Word exclusion abusing on it. The fact is that many situations considered as exclusion really are the effect of vulnerability due to degrade of job´s relationships, or due to marginal and precarious situations. Those are situations under danger of exclusion but they are not properly exclusion, those could to end in exclusion but those depend on a different logic which runs by official discriminations. Marginality is consequence of process of unbalances. This article intend to analyzes two different perspectives, that from political plans from Argentinian government and that from Leonardo Polo because it is possible to confront in a positive way and then, many possibilities for authentic social inclusion in organizations will emerge. (shrink)

This paper reflects on lessons learned from a validated model of international collaboration based on research and practice. During the European Year for Active Ageing, a partnership of seven organizations from the European Union plus Turkey implemented the Lifelong Learning Programme partnership “Connecting Generations‘ which involved universities, non-governmental organizations, third age Universities and municipalities in collaboration with local communities. Reckoning that Europe has dramatically changed in its demographic composition and is facing brand new challenges regarding intergenerational and intercultural solidarity, each (...) partner formulated and tested innovative and creative practices that could enhance better collaboration and mutual understanding between youth and senior citizens, toward a more inclusive Europe for all. Several innovative local practices have experimented, attentively systematized and peer-valuated among the partners. On the basis of a shared theoretical framework coherent with EU and Europe and Training 2020 Strategy, an action-research approach was adopted throughout the project in order to understand common features that have been replicated and scaled up since today. (shrink)

The theoretical underpinnings of public international law have taken the sovereign status of the nation-state for granted since the beginning of the modern era. After centuries of evolution in legal and political thought, the state's definition as a bounded territorial unit has been strictly codified. The legal development of the nation-state was an ideological project informed by extra-legal considerations. Additionally, the ever-narrowing scope of the juridical idea of sovereignty functioned as a boundary mechanism instrumental in colonising Africa and other regions. (...) While international law claims universal liberalism today, the current system based on sovereign nation-states represents not social inclusion but fierce and dangerous exclusion. -/- The central thesis of this book is that the development of legal sovereignty was, rather than part of the modernist progress narrative, a historically contingent evolutionary regression. While other social systems such as economics and science became globalised, politics and law counterintuitively became more territorialised. It is argued that the nation-state today is not only anachronistic but is dangerously ill-equipped for facing international problems such as the climate crisis or global pandemics. Finally, it also leaves African states and many other formerly-colonised territories at a particular disadvantage by regulating their political practices into a predefined mould. (shrink)

This study focuses on the engagement of children and youth in their communities and the ways they are included in and excluded from community life. Using a content analysis of a small town United States newspaper over a one-year period, examples of engagement were identified and classified into 12 categories: programs, clubs and special events; fundraising and community ser- vice; business and community support; participation in community events; school events; athle- tic and other performances; employment; involvement in local planning and (...) decision making; serving as a community representative; visibility and recognition; criminal activity and accidents; and use of public space. Examples of community exclusion were identified as well. Young peo- ple were engaged primarily through activities that were adult-directed or supervised, or organi- zed through schools, churches, and youth clubs. There was little involvement in local planning, decision making, or activism. Some evidence existed of peer teaching, leadership, and self-initia- ted activities, as well as intentional efforts by adults to give youth a greater voice in community activities. Implications include several ethical issues regarding the role of young people in com- munity life, particularly young children, and the need for greater awareness on the part of com- munities of the contributions young people can make. (shrink)

The idea of dignity is pervasive in political discourse. It is central to human rights theory and practice, and it features regularly in conceptions of social justice as well as in the social movements they seek to understand or orient. However, dignity talk has been criticized for leading to problematic exclusion. Critics challenge it for undermining our recognition of the rights of non-human animals and of many human individuals (such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities). (...) I argue that, on a plausible articulation of it, the idea of dignity does not lead to these exclusions and that it in fact helps defend an appropriately inclusive moral and political treatment of all individuals. Difficult issues about equality and diversity indeed arise, but a dignitarian approach can provide good answers to them or at least help make them clearer and more tractable. (shrink)

A. Klimczuk, Book review: A. Rimmerman, "Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities: National and International Perspectives", New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, "Human Rights Review" Vol. 16, Iss. 4 2015, pp. 397-399.

The term 'sexual inclusion’ is commonly taken to refer to the adjustment of our social and educational practices to counteract prejudices that are connected to sex. The project of sexual inclusion can be used, for example, to advocate against the discrimination of the LGBTQIA+ (gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, ally, and others) community or certain unconventional BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism, and masochism) dynamics and activities. This essay, however, takes sexual inclusion as (...) the project that promotes the equal and largely indiscriminatory opportunity for each person to engage in meaningful and pleasurable nonmorally good sexual experiences, because, as I will argue, sex is part of what it means to live a flourishing and good human life. This essay focuses specifically on nonmorally good sex, how we experience it, and its fundamental role in promoting sexual inclusion – if one does not experience nonmorally good sex, one cannot feel or be considered as being sexually included. To have a better grasp on the project of sexual inclusion and what it is, I discuss the different mechanisms that can lead to sexual exclusion and how experiencing sexual exclusion can hinder our progress towards living a good and flourishing life. I conclude that due to its subjective nature, the experience of nonmorally good sex itself challenges and limits us in our pursuit of the advancement and achievement of sexual inclusion. Engaging in a sexual activity with another person due to the motivating reasons to provide that person with a nonmorally good sexual experience (with the goal of advancing their sexual inclusion), is not an input-output kind of process. If we are unable to guarantee nonmorally good sex for others, the result is that we cannot guarantee their sexual inclusion either. (shrink)

Winds of change, from the political perspective in Mexico, invite us to reformulate the methodological vision for the direction of public policy in the field of social development, directing their actions towards the construction of a methodological proposal that allows us to direct ourselves towards achieving higher levels of Well-being Social in our country, as a desirable objective of public policy and which is expected to be inclusive, participatory and democratic. -/- In this sense, it is important to (...) recognize that the current debate, in the academic and political sphere, questions what is being well? What is the life that is worth living? And that, additionally, the recognition of the satisfaction of life goals, at an individual and collective level, which invites us to reflect, if the current economic and social policy and strategy has produced results in what we envision as social welfare? Is a new approach necessary to solve the problem? What strategy should it be to consider the new methodological approach that seeks social welfare? And what components should be considered in the measurement of social welfare? This document is an invitation to review the concept of social welfare, as a proposal whose purpose is to correct the deficiencies or historical deficiencies suffered by the population, in the elemental enjoyment of social rights, a situation that causes social backwardness, marginalization, and that it is aimed at the impossibility of participating in the social decisions of the community and in collective decisions, such as: speaking, proposing, being heard and demanding compliance with fundamental human rights such as: health, food, housing, employment and security, among others. These deficiencies in the enjoyment of social and human rights are seen in the presence of social exclusion, and that together these social deficiencies explain the degree of multidimensional poverty suffered by the population in rural and urban areas. It is here that he invites us to reflect: what is the problem that social welfare seeks to solve? Multidimensional poverty, social exclusion, social backwardness or social inequality? And consequently, how to define the components to identify social welfare? -/- The document is made up of three sections: i) Social welfare: A retrospective look; ii) Social Welfare, an integrative view: The contribution of Sen, Naussbam, Rawls, Actis Di Pasquale and Keyes; and iii) Social Welfare: The recognition of limits in economic development -/- The first section presents a review of the proposals, which in the area of economic development have been presented since 1968 in the Human Condition Project, until the 2015 proposal of Sustainable Development Goals. -/- In the second section, the contributions of (Rawls, 1995), (Sen, 1982), (Nussbaum, 2011), (Keyes, 1998) , (Actis Di Pasquale, 2015) and (Actis Di Pasquale, 2017) are presented in order to present an integrative approach to the concept of social welfare. And finally, the third section presents the recognition of limits in development, as well as an invitation for action from a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective in the study of social welfare. -/- August 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24147.20006/1 LicenseCC BY-SA 4.0 -/- . (shrink)

Our research aimed to study the ongoing phenomena of cross-border displacement of the Ukrainian population resulting from the Russian aggression that started on the 24th of February 2022. In the first stage of this research, we managed to get the opinions of over 500 refugees with a focus on their needs, concerns, plans, and expectations. Collected data also allowed a reconstruction of social-demographic profiles of fleeing Ukrainian refugees. The preliminary outcomes are presented in the report.

Publics trust experts for personal and pro-social reasons. Scientists are among the experts publics trust most, and so, epistemic trust is routinely afforded to them. The call for epistemic trust to be more socially situated in order to account for the impact of science on society and public welfare is at the forefront of enhanced epistemic trust. I argue that the value-free ideal for science challenges establishing enhanced epistemic trust by preventing the inclusion of non-epistemic values throughout the (...) evaluation of evidence and communication of these values. By selectively silencing non-epistemic values, the ideal cannot take into account publics’ social and moral responses to inductive risk, which are instrumental for defining and determining public welfare. Furthermore, by emphasising epistemic values almost exclusively in science education and communication, the value-free ideal is presented to publics in such a way that it becomes a social indicator of trust. I show this through examination of the importance of values in decisions to trust, and conclude that values (and restrictions on them) can be used by lay publics to help decide which experts to trust. (shrink)

Social Inclusion Theory The Proposals for a Society in which Humans and Animals Coexist in Harmony.

This chapter surveys essentialist and anti-essentialist theories of sex and gender. It does so by engaging three approaches to sex and gender: externalism, internalism, and contextualism. The chapter also draws attention to two key debates about sex and gender in the feminist literature: the debate about the sex/gender distinction (the distinction debate) and the debate about whether sex and gender have essences (the essentialism/anti-essentialism debate). In addition, it describes three problems that theories of sex and gender tend to face: the (...) Inclusion Problem, the Definition Problem, and the Exclusion Problem. Lastly, the chapter highlights why the division between essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts of sex and gender is not clear. (shrink)

What makes paternalism wrong? I give an indirect answer to that question by challenging a recent trend in the literature that I call the exclusionary strategy. The exclusionary strategy aims to show how some feature of the paternalizee’s normative situation morally excludes acting for the paternalizee’s well-being. This moral exclusion consists either in ruling out the reasons for which a paternalizer may act or in changes to the right-making status of the reasons that (would) justify paternalistic intervention. I argue (...) that both versions of the exclusionary strategy fail to explain the wrongness of paternalism and that they struggle to accommodate the mainstream view that paternalism is only pro tanto wrong. Their failure consists either in being implausibly strong expressions of antipaternalism or in struggling to spell out the scope of exclusion in an uncomplicated way. After discouraging this exclusionary strategy, I suggest we can capture what is appealing about it—as well as avoiding its pitfalls—by sketching a philosophical model in which we compare the weights of reasons for and against paternalistically interfering. To precisify this sketch, I introduce some conceptual tools from the literature on practical reasoning—in particular, the concept of modifiers—and suggest that these tools offer a better starting point for figuring out what makes paternalism (pro tanto) wrong. (shrink)

We associate the method of reflective equilibrium with developing principles of social justice, but it can also be used on a literary canon, with the aim of identifying principles of inclusion and exclusion. But I note three risks of doing so, using the American literary canon as an example.

Although conceptually distinct, ‘ time ’ and ‘community’ are multiply intertwined within a myriad of key debates in both the social sciences and the humanities. Even so, the role of conceptions of time in social practices of inclusion and exclusion has yet to achieve the prominence of other key analytical categories such as identity and space. This article seeks to contribute to the development of this field by highlighting the importance of thinking time and community together (...) through the lens of political apologies. Often ostensibly offered in order to re-articulate both the constitution of ‘the community’ and its future direction, official apologies are prime examples of deliberate attempts to intervene in shared understandings of political community and its temporality. Offering a detailed case study of one of these apologies, I will focus on Australian debates over the removal of indigenous children from their families, known as the Stolen Generations, and examine the temporal dimensions of the different responses offered by former prime ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd. (shrink)

In the beginning of the 1970s, Michel Foucault dismisses the terminology of ‘exclusion’ for his projected analytics of modern power. This rejection has had major repercussions on the theory of neoliberal subject-formation. Many researchers disproportionately stress how neoliberal dispositifs produce entrepreneurial subjects, albeit in different ways, while minimizing how these dispositifs sometimes emphatically refuse to produce neoliberal subjects. Relying on Saskia Sassen’s work on financialization, I argue that neoliberal dispositifs not only apply entrepreneurial norms, but also suspend their application (...) for groups that threaten to harm the population’s profitability. Neoliberal dispositifs not only produce entrepreneurial subjects, but also surplus populations that are expelled from the overall population to maintain its productivity. Here, the concept of ‘exclusion’ is appropriate if understood in Agamben’s sense of an inclusive exclusion. The surplus population is part of neoliberal dispositifs, but only as the element to be abandoned. (shrink)

In response to the Royal Society report’s claim that “the acceptability of geo­engineering will be determined as much by social, legal, and political issues as by scientific and technical factors” (Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty [London: Royal Society, 2009], ix), a number of authors have suggested the key to this challenge is to engage the public in geoengineering decision-making. In effect, some have argued that inclusion of the public in geoengineering decision-making is necessary for any geoengineering (...) project to be morally permissible. Yet, while public engagement on geoengineering comes in various forms, the discussion in geoengineering governance and the ethics of geoengineering have too often conceptualized it exclusively in terms of public participation in decision-making, and supported it by various liberal democratic values. However, if the predominant understanding of public engagement on—or, the role of the public in—geoengineering decision-making is indeed only grounded on liberal democratic values, then its normative relevance could be challenged by and in other ethical-political traditions that do not share those values. In this paper, I shall explore these questions from a Confucian perspective. I argue that the liberal democratic values invoked in support of the normative importance of public participation are, at least, foreign to Confucian political philosophy. This presents a prima facie challenge to view public participation in geoengineering decision-making as a universal moral requirement, and invites us to reconsider the normative significance of this form of public engagement in Confucian societies. Yet, I contend that the role of the public remains normatively significant in geoengineering governance and the ethics of geoengineering from a Confucian perspective. Drawing from recent work on Confucian political philosophy, I illustrate the potential normative foundation for public engagement on geoengineering decision-making. (shrink)

This commentary offers a coherent reading of the papers presented in the special issue ‘Exclusion, Engagement, and Empathy: Reflections on Public Participation in Medicine and Technology’. Focusing on intellectual self-trust it adds a further perspective on the harmful epistemic consequences of social exclusion for individual agents in healthcare contexts. In addition to some clarifications regarding the concepts of ‘intellectual self-trust’ and ‘social exclusion’ the commentary also examines in what ways empathy, engagement and participatory sense-making could (...) help to avoid threats to intellectual self-trust that arise form being excluded from participation in communicative practices in the context of healthcare. (shrink)

In this chapter, I bring insights from the social sciences, about the role of time in exclusionary practices, into debates around the under-representation of women in philosophy. I will suggest that part of what supports the exclusionary culture of philosophy is a particular approach to time, and thus that changing this culture requires that we also change its time.

Here I will put forward a claim about rhythm – that rhythm is relation. To develop this I will explore the entanglement of and antagonism between two notions of the musical avant-garde and its theorization. The first of these is derived from the European classical tradition, the second concerns Afrodiasporic musical practices. This essay comes in two parts. The first will consider some music-theoretical and philosophical ideas about rhythm in the post-classical avant-garde. Here I will explore how these ideas have (...) been used to, on one hand, stage a critique of Afrodiasporic musics, and specifically jazz, and, on the other hand, diminish and obscure the relation between the post-classical and Afrodiasporic avant-gardes. In the second part I will develop another lineage of rhythm, orthogonal to that of the post-classical avant-garde. Drawing from philosophy and Afrocentric, Afromodernist and, finally, Afrofuturist theory, I will map a theoretical move from rhythm understood, in its post-classical guise, as an exclusive and strictly musical category, to rhythm understood as an inclusive and plural category. This likewise charts a passage from an aesthetically autonomous understanding of objects of art to social and collective forms of artistic practice. (shrink)

Thus far, the recognition approach as described in the works of Axel Honneth has not systematically engaged with the problem of poverty. To fill this gap, the present contribution will focus on poverty conceived as social exclusion in the context of the European Union and probe its moral significance. It will show that this form of social exclusion is morally harmful and wrong from the perspective of the recognition approach. To justify this finding, social (...) class='Hi'>exclusion has to fulfil three conditions: (i) it has to be experienced as harmful by the socially excluded, (ii) it has to meet certain objective criteria, and (iii) it has to violate normative claims embedded within society. (shrink)

AI is increasingly becoming based upon Internet-dependent systems to handle the massive amounts of data it requires to function effectively regardless of the availability of stable Internet connectivity in every affected community. As such, sustainable development (SD) for rural and mountain communities will require more than just equitable access to broadband Internet connection. It must also include a thorough means whereby to ensure that affected communities gain the education and tools necessary to engage inclusively with new technological advances, whether they (...) be focused on machine learning algorithms or community infrastructure, as they will be increasingly dependent upon the automational capabilities of AI. In this essay, an exploration will be conducted into the means whereby student-engaged learning (SEL) can effectively be utilized to provide targeted, inclusive education to rural and mountain communities regarding the implications of AI for SD. (shrink)

The embedding and promotion of social change is faced with aparadoxical challenge. In order to mainstream an approach to socialchange such as responsible research and innovation and makeit into a practical reality rather than an abstract ideal, we need tohave conceptual clarity and empirical evidence. But, in order to beable to gather empirical evidence, we have to presuppose that theapproach already exists in practice. This paper proposes a social labmethodology that is suited to deal with this circularity. Themethodology (...) combines the defining features of social labs emergingfrom the literature such as agility and real-world focus withestablished theories and approaches such as action research andexperiential learning. Thereby it enables the parallel investigationand propagation of RRI. The framework thus constructed provides atheoretical embedding of sociallabs and overcomes some of theknown limitations of the constitutive approaches. (shrink)

This article aims to explore, through the civil society’s opinion, the polarisation between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and the group of the ‘new excluded’, or ‘new poor’, that has emerged as a result of the European economic crisis and the social transformations that followed in the Greek society. Based on the Theory of Justice introduced by John Rawls (1971), and using the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, this study focuses on the discourse analysis of the perception of 97 representatives of (...) local and national NGOs, both formal and informal. The main results focus on different self and others’ presentations, especially during the economic crisis, and on the creation of an unbalanced, fragmented and exclusion-cantered society. However, the definition of rich and poor appears ambiguous through the analysis of various linguistic strategies of Greek NGOs revealing a hidden face of the society. (shrink)

My main point is that the creation of a free public time implies the creation of a democratic collective inspired by the project of social ecology. The first and second parts of this article focus on the modern social phenomena correlated to the general crisis and the emergence of the Internet Age (Castells, 2012). The third and fourth parts focus on new significations that seem to inspire modern social movements and the challenges that modern democratic ecological collectivities (...) face. I use the term “social ecology” as defined by Murray Bookchin: “Social ecology is based on the conviction that nearly all of our present ecological problems originate in deep-seated social problems” (Bookchin, 2006, p. 19). And I use the term “democracy” exclusively in the original, true meaning, of direct democracy where society is self-governed by the equal participation of every individual to political decisions and functions, as opposed to a modern representative democracy or republic, where political decisions rest in the hands of an oligarchy. In this sense, a truly democratic political collectivity is a truly ecological collectivity and vice versa. (shrink)

In Toleranz im Konflikt and in other works the German philosopher Rainer Forst presents an intricate interpretation of tolerance as a moral-political virtue. His aim is to resolve many of the well-known paradoxes by distinguishing different components of tolerance and distinguishing the reasons that we may have for objecting, accepting or rejecting certain practices and views. Good ethical reasons for objecting to certain practices and views do not morally justify their suppression by legal means and state power. In this way (...) Forst connects his inclusive analysis of tolerance, with both his account of the contexts of justification and his defense of what he calls the moral right to justification. In his critical discussion Tim Heysse sounds the political implications of this analysis of tolerance. He criticizes its exclusive focus on political and legal power and its corresponding neglect of social power. However, he also calls attention to the fact that Forst’s analysis has the merit of revealing tolerance as a potential source of political conflict in society. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis examines the phenomenon of Filipinization, specifically understood as the ideological construction of a “Filipino identity” or ‘Filipino subject-consciousness” within the highly determinate context provided by the Filipino ilustrado nationalists such as José Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and their fellow propagandists inasmuch as it leads to the nineteenth (19th) century construction of the modern Philippine nation. Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, this study undertakes a genealogical critique engaged on the concrete historical examination of what is meant by (...) the term “Filipino” across a select historical timeline (1864-1898) and the various notions of Filipino identity implied by the different contexts within which the term “Filipino” has been employed. More specifically, it undertakes a selective philosophical excavation of three seminal texts in the history of Filipinization, viz.: 1) the Manifiesto of Padre Jose Burgos; 2) the writings of the Filipino ilustrados in La Solidaridad; and 3) Jose Rizal’s Annotations on Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. -/- The philosophical claim of this work is the idea that Filipinization, taken as the differential construction of Filipino identity, is the effective translation of the colonial epistemic violence of Eurocentric racism and its consequent “horror of absolutism” into the homo-hegemony of Filipino nationalisms. By fetishizing the notion of a carefully constructed and essential “Filipino-identity,” Filipinization and the current nationalist discourses that utilize them, unwittingly, stands complicit with the same colonial violence and hegemony that they wish to combat. This happens precisely when the very structures of colonial oppression, on the ideological and practical levels, are transmogrified into nationalist ideals that assume legal and political power unto themselves in a self-referential and self-legitimating fashion. -/- Three processes will demonstrate the above thesis: first, by examining historical texts and setting itself against established nationalist historiographies, a genealogical analysis of the term “Filipino” reveals it as a pliable signifier whose semantics have evolved through time. From its originary referent in the Spanish criollo (creole), it has come to refer to people who would have been otherwise entirely alien to this class, viz., the mestizos (both Spanish and Chinese), the principalia (native elite), and eventually, the lowland Catholicized natives themselves. The historical hermeneutic of this identity-discourse in Padre José Burgos’ Manifiesto yields the fact that what gives the term “Filipino” its semantic consistency as a class concept is its essential constitution as a Hispanic and Catholic identity. -/- Second, from this semantic identification of the term “Filipino” as a Hispano-Catholic identity, we proceed to clarify the meaning of Filipinization in terms of the nationalist propaganda carried out by the Filipino ilustrados in the fortnightly periodical La Solidaridad. Here, the specific ilustrado construction of Filipino identity as a Spanish citizen (ciudadano Español) is revealed precisely as a political and legal construct that served as the basis for their own politics of social inclusion/exclusion. Filipinization can only be applied to those who have been hispanized and Christianized and never to those tribes who have resisted and remained outside Spanish colonial authority. Filipinization is thus revealed as a process of Hispanization and Christianization whereby the recipients of Spanish colonial hegemony are transformed into the religiously docile bodies of the Spanish Empire. -/- From this highly determinate context, the study proceeds to examine Rizal’s ontological grounding of collective Filipino-ness in the mythological construction of the pre-hispanic past as the source of a unique Filipino ancestrality. In his work on de Morga’s Sucesos, what is revealed is a mythologization that grounds a native, essential Filipino identity within a past unscathed by the Spanish colonial experience. Such mythologization, however, can only be possible through an anachronistic nationalist interpretation of historical data. Here, Filipinization is revealed as an exclusive prerogative, a nationalist program by which Rizal and the ilustrado class can combat the evils and excesses of the Spanish colonial enterprise. Ironically, though, this same struggle for emancipation also became an instrument by which the ilustrado class can retain their unjustified position of power over those who belonged to the colonial underside, thus, securing the possibility of perpetuating their own ilustrado bourgeois class interests. -/- Such discursive complicity is the essence of the myth of Filipinization: it presents nationalist identity discourse as an anti-colonial enterprise while being underlined by an economy of motives designed to cater primarily to the exclusive interests of the elite and ilustrado class. Thus, instead of securing the genuine, inclusive emancipation of all colonial subjects and a more humane existence for the poor and suffering majority, ilustrado nationalism has, ironically, merely reinforced those operative structures of colonial discrimination and oppression when the ilustrados: 1) grounded their racial theory upon the very same discourse of Eurocentric superiority that they are precisely supposed to question and 2) claimed a patrimony over Filipinas as their exclusive sovereign inheritance. These two factors illustrate how the manifest transfer of power from the Spanish Empire to the Philippine sovereign nation (and later as a nation-state) illustrate how Filipinization merely has transmogrified the face of Spanish colonialism into its new, subtle, and worse form in Filipino nationalism. -/- In this vein, the existence of the 19th century modern Philippine nation merely masked and deferred the crisis that was supposed to transfer power from the Spanish Empire to the multitude of the poor and suffering native indio majority. This crisis became all the more difficult to address be-cause of the duplicitous character of the discourse of Filipinization itself. It has not only effectively transferred power into the hands of the nationalist elite but also captured authentic emancipatory discourse within the identity-trap against which it can only hope to get out. This study concludes with the claim about the impossibility of ever escaping and overcoming the epistemic and practical violence necessarily contained within the historical discourse of colonialism. Or simply, we have no language or discourse that would enable us to overcome the complicity of Filipinization with the very (epistemic) violence against which it has set itself. (shrink)

Cities today are increasingly at the forefront of the environmental and social crisis—they are simultaneously a major cause and a potential solution. Across the world, a new wave of urban social movements is rising to fight against corporate control, social exclusion, hostile immigration policies, gender oppression, and ecological devastation. These movements are building economic, social, and political alternatives based on solidarity, equality, and participation. This anthology develops the debates that began at the recent Transnational Institute (...) of Social Ecology’s (TRISE) conference about the dire need to rebuild the social and political realities of our world’s cities. It discusses the prospects of radical urban movements; examines the revolutionary potential of the concept of “the Right to the City,” and looks at how activists, scholars, and community movements can work together towards an ecological and democratic future. A fruitful conversation between theory and practice, this book opens new ground for rethinking systemic urban change in a way that challenges oppression and transforms how people work, create, and live together. (shrink)

Highlights: -/- • Breastfeeding and breastfeeding support can contribute to mitigating climate change. • Achieving global nutrition targets will save more emissions than fuel-switching. • Breastfeeding support programmes support a just transition. • This work can support the expansion of mitigation options in energy system models. -/- Abstract: -/- Renewable gas has been proposed as a solution to decarbonise industrial processes, specifically heat demand. As part of this effort, the breast-milk substitutes industry is proposing to use renewable gas as a (...) substitute for fossil natural gas. However, decarbonising the industrial processing of breast-milk substitutes can increase social license for these products, potentially undermining breastfeeding. World Health Organisation nutrition targets aim to increase exclusive breastfeeding to at least 50% globally by 2025 to improve maternal, infant, and young child health and nutrition. This target will have implications for the energy transition. A weakness of existing energy models is that demands for end-use products such as breast-milk substitutes are typically not considered explicitly. This paper develops an analytical framework for explicitly representing infant feeding methods in energy systems models. We compare the emissions saved in Ireland from decarbonising the industrial processing of breast-milk substitutes with renewable gas with the emissions saved by an increase in exclusive breastfeeding to 50% in both Ireland and a key export market, China. We demonstrate that the emissions saved from achieving the minimum global breastfeeding target are greater than when renewable gas is used to displace natural gas in the production of breast-milk substitutes in Ireland. We discuss the decarbonisation of breast-milk substitutes in relation to the principle of justice as non-maleficence, a principle based on the commitment to avoid harm, a novel application of a principle of justice. We conclude that breastfeeding support can be considered a demand-side measure for mitigating climate change by reducing the demand for energy services to produce breast-milk substitutes. A key recommendation is to position breastfeeding support as both a public health and a climate justice issue that is relevant for a just transition. The framework developed for this paper could be applied to support the inclusion of a wider range of mitigation options with social justice outcomes in energy system models. [Open access]. (shrink)

In Mexico, the Productive Organization Program for Indigenous Women (POPMI) seeks the empowerment of productive capacities in indigenous women. Our study analyzes POPMI outreach, focusing our attention on women beneficiaries who present a high degree of social exclusion and multidimensional poverty in the State of Veracruz. In the study area, the 542 indigenous women benefited in POPMI, presented a condition of multidimensional poverty and a degree of social exclusion: very high, high and medium, they represent only (...) 22.19% of the total beneficiaries of this program In 2010, since at the state level a total of 2,243 indigenous women were cared for. The results show that the localities where the condition of multidimensional poverty and very high, medium and high levels of social exclusion have been excluded in the coverage of POPMI. (shrink)

Many countries throughout the globe function in a system that allows the usage of more than one language. Such a multilingual social reality’s construction, especially in societies like the one in which I am living, is perceived in many different ways: attempting thus to provide for the process of differentiating identity’s oneness and sameness into various cultural subcategories, which already represent new realities. Due to newly created social realities, semiotics naturally discusses the differences and/or oppositions that can contribute (...) to various cultures’ mutual exclusivity or inclusivity, in terms of various heterogeneous “transformations,” which would thus overcome dualities, and be viewed as single acts of signs, or as a result of a process of singularization of their constituent components. I shall also attempt using a semiotic style that may enact a semiotics of action, grounded on the semiotics of passions, through a way of producing semantic taxonomies as pride versus humiliation, hegemony versus subordination, etc., obtainable due to disjunctive and/or conjunctive semiotic relations such as contextualization versus de-contextualization. (shrink)

People often assume that everyone can be divided by sex/gender (that is, by physical and social characteristics having to do with maleness and femaleness) into two tidy categories: male and female. Careful thought, however, leads us to reject that simple ‘binary’ picture, since not all people fall precisely into one group or the other. But if we do not think of sex/gender in terms of those two categories, how else might we think of it? Here I consider four distinct (...) models; each model correctly captures some features of sex/gender, and so each is appropriate in some contexts. But the first three models are inadequate when tough questions arise, like whether trans women should be admitted as students at a women’s college or when it is appropriate for intersex athletes to compete in women’s athletic events. (‘Trans’ refers to the wide range of people who have an atypical gender identity for someone of their birth-assigned sex, and ‘intersex’ refers to people whose bodies naturally develop with markedly different physical sex characteristics than are paradigmatic of either men or women.) Such questions of inclusion and exclusion matter enormously to the people whose lives are affected by them, but ordinary notions of sex/gender offer few answers. The fourth model I describe is especially designed to make those hard decisions easier by providing a process to clarify what matters. (shrink)

Towards an Inclusive Democracy, it is argued, offers a powerful new interpretation of the history and destructive dynamics of the market and provides an inspiring new vision of the future in place of both neo-liberalism and existing forms of socialism. It is shown how this work synthesizes and develops Karl Polanyi’s characterization of the relationship between society and the market and Cornelius Castoriadis’ philosophy of autonomy. A central component of Fotopoulos’ argument is that social democracy can provide no answer (...) to neo-liberalism, so the only viable alternative to neo-liberalism is the form of inclusive democracy he elaborates. Reviewing Castoriadis’ concept of autonomy, it is argued that while Fotopoulos is certainly correct given the present deformed nature of social democracy, there is no reason to exclude social democracy as such from what Fotopoulos calls the tradition of autonomy. It is suggested that if the working class movement could free itself from the capitalist imaginary and return to its quest for autonomy, a synthesis of a radically reformed social democracy and inclusive democracy could greatly improve the prospects of each to successfully challenge not only neo-liberalism, but also the emerging liberal fascism of USA, Britain and Australia. (shrink)

Teaching at a private, conservative religious institution poses unique challenges for equality, diversity, and inclusivity education (EDI). Given the realities of the student population in the Honors College of a private, religious institution, it is necessary to first introduce students to the contemporary realities of inequality and oppression and thus the need for EDI. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework and pedagogical suggestions for teaching basic concepts of social justice in a team-taught, interdisciplinary social science course. The course (...) integrates four different approaches to justice: theoretical, social scientific, narratological, and experiential. The discussion of the experiential dimension of the course references practical pedagogical strategies for making social justice and inequality real for our students. Understanding the realities of social inequality and its roots can foster a better understanding of the social forces and structures that perpetuate inequality. Furthermore, this approach can plant the intellectual and empathic seeds to challenge in-group bias and hopefully germinate into fruitful interaction with diverse others. Finally, this rich, interdisciplinary encounter with social inequality and justice can prepare students to work for just social structures that will lead to a more inclusive world. (shrink)

I use critical phenomenological resources in Tetsurō Watsuji and Sarah Ahmed to explore the spatial origin of some social impairments in Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I argue that a critical phenomenological perspective puts pressure on the idea that social impairments in ASD are exclusively (or even primarily) neurocognitive deficits that can be addressed by focusing on cognitive factors internal to the autistic person — for example, training them to adopt a more neurotypical approach to social cognition. Instead, (...) I argue that the structure and character of some neurotypical spaces may play a regulative role in shaping aspects of at least some of the social impairments autistic people exhibit when they inhabit these spaces. I also briefly consider some possible therapeutic applications of this critical phenomenological approach. (shrink)

The fear of the other is the main focus of this paper, which analyse Tehran protest squares as inside-out spaces where the state attempts to maintain some form of control, and where the public attempts to occupy it. The fear of ‘others’ can lead to exclusion from the public space of those who are seen as threatening. This process of ‘otherness’ renders fear as an arena of conflict and highlights the political utility of fear by particular groups and individuals.

The debate on equality and non-discrimination is certainly not a new one, but the way it is incorporated in that on social exclusion leads to several shifts within the discourse on social justice. The term social exclusion is multidimensional although its western use in a selective way about markets promoting equality separates it from the Indian emphasis on social justice as linked to ending discrimination of dalit groups. The concept of social exclusion (...) is inherently problematic as it faces three major challenges in India: the first relates to the historical discrimination of certain groups and their exclusion; the second is about the political economy of the excluded; and the third questions the way in which equality responses are restricted within the framework of social exclusion. (shrink)

This article explores Axel Honneth’s attempts to reconnect the struggles of workers with the normative content of modernity through Hegel’s intersubjective account of recognition. The importance of Honneth’s writings lies in his attempt to extend Habermas’ account of normative self-constitution to labor via the morally motivated struggles of workers to correct the modern maldistribution of social worth. To this extent, the expansion of ethical life is predicated on the struggles of excluded participants to gain inclusion within the normative (...) content of modernity. From this perspective Habermas’ attempt to legitimate the exclusion of labor (by the system) from the normative content of modernity appears unjust and unjustified. Unfortunately, Honneth shares with Habermas a tendency to locate the economic system beyond the (culturally defined) limits of ethical life. He thereby fails to acknowledge the extent to which workers play a major role in re-moralizing the former via the de-reification of the latter. (shrink)

Robots as social companions in close proximity to humans have a strong potential of becoming more and more prevalent in the coming years, especially in the realms of elder day care, child rearing, and education. As human beings, we have the fascinating ability to emotionally bond with various counterparts, not exclusively with other human beings, but also with animals, plants, and sometimes even objects. Therefore, we need to answer the fundamental ethical questions that concern human-robot-interactions per se, and we (...) need to address how we conceive of »good lives«, as more and more of the aspects of our daily lives will be interwoven with social robots. (shrink)

Nearly thirty years ago, Robert Alexy in his book The Concept and Validity of Law as well as in other early articles raised non-positivistic arguments in the Continental European tradition against legal positivism in general, which was assumed to be held by, among others, John Austin, Hans Kelsen and H.L.A. Hart. The core thesis of legal positivism that was being discussed among contemporary German jurists, just as with their Anglo- American counterparts, is the claim that there is no necessary connection (...) between law and morality. Robert Alexy has argued, however, that the law, besides consisting conceptually of elements of authoritative issuance and social efficacy, necessarily lays a claim to substantial correctness, which is derived from analytical arguments. Furthermore, if this claim to substantial correctness necessarily requires the incorporation of moral elements into law, then the ‘necessary connection thesis’, as defended by non-positivism, can be justified. Some of the most significant objections to this sort of claim, stemming from the Anglo-American world, are those introduced by Joseph Raz. In his ‘Reply’ to Robert Alexy, Raz raises at least three interesting criticisms, including, first, the ambiguity of ‘legal theory in the positivistic tradition’, second, the indeterminate formulations of the ‘separation thesis’, and, third, the necessary claim of law to legitimate authority as a moral claim. As a point of departure, I will argue that Raz’s three criticisms are misleading. For they do not enhance our understanding of the genuine compatibility or incompatibility between legal positivism and non-positivism. Despite the frequently reformulated theses of legal positivism and the various kinds of opponents responding thereto, the essential divergence between legal positivism and non-positivism was and remains the answer to the question of the relation between law and morality. Furthermore, I will clarify that in the strictest sense there can be three and only three logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality: the connection between them is either necessary, or impossible (i. e. they are necessarily separate), or contingent (i. e. they are neither necessarily connected nor necessarily separate). The first position is non-positivistic, while the latter two positions are, indeed, both positivistic, but in different forms: one may be called ‘exclusive’ legal positivism, the other ‘inclusive’ legal positivism. I will continue by showing that these three positions stand to one another in the relation of contraries, not contradictories, and that, taken together, they exhaust the logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality, never mind the tradition or authority from which these positions are derived. Raz mentions, however, many changeable formulations of the separation thesis, which even leads him to acknowledge ‘necessary connections between law and morality’. One who is trying to understand legal positivism would no doubt be puzzled by this claim. Nevertheless, I will argue that this is an alternative strategy of legal positivism, and it points to naturalistically oriented view. Although this necessary separation between law and morality, understood naturalistically, strikes one as strengthening the separation, in the end it leads to a weakened notion of necessity. This weakened necessary separation thesis, however, cannot be justified through the so-called claim of the law to legitimate authority, defended by Raz, for it is difficult to answer the question of whether a normally justified but factual authority can gain legitimate authority. Finally, the necessary connection between law and morality in a strong sense can still be justified by the claim of law to correctness, as per Alexy’s argument. (shrink)

This essay briefly summarizes the key characteristics and social philosophies in Japan’s vision of Society 5.0. Then it discusses why Vietnam, as a developing country, can learn from the experiences of Japan in establishing its vision for an AI-powered human-centric society. The paper finally provides five concrete recommendations for Vietnam toward a harmonic and human-centric coexistence with increasingly competent and prevalent AI systems, including: Human-centric AI vision; Multidimensional, pluralistic understanding of human-technology relation; AI as a driving force for socio-economic (...) development; Bottom-up, participatory approach for building the vision; and Sustainability and inclusion in the adoption of AI. (shrink)