The Human Condition.
TL;DR: In some religious traditions, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness.
Abstract: Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:
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27 Mar 2015
TL;DR: In this article, a series of meditations on life, ground, weather, walking, imagination and what it means to be human are presented, with a focus on the life of lines.
Abstract: To live, every being must put out a line, and in life these lines tangle with one another. This book is a study of the life of lines. Following on from Tim Ingold's groundbreaking work Lines: A Brief History, it offers a wholly original series of meditations on life, ground, weather, walking, imagination and what it means to be human.
In the first part, Ingold argues that a world of life is woven from knots, and not built from blocks as commonly thought. He shows how the principle of knotting underwrites both the way things join with one another, in walls, buildings and bodies, and the composition of the ground and the knowledge we find there.
In the second part, Ingold argues that to study living lines, we must also study the weather. To complement a linealogy that asks what is common to walking, weaving, observing, singing, storytelling and writing, he develops a meteorology that seeks the common denominator of breath, time, mood, sound, memory, colour and the sky. This denominator is the atmosphere.
In the third part, Ingold carries the line into the domain of human life. He shows that for life to continue, the things we do must be framed within the lives we undergo. In continually answering to one another, these lives enact a principle of correspondence that is fundamentally social.
This compelling volume brings our thinking about the material world refreshingly back to life. While anchored in anthropology, the book ranges widely over an interdisciplinary terrain that includes philosophy, geography, sociology, art and architecture.
410 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the fact that gender equality and women empowerment have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice.
Abstract: The language of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ was mobilised by feminists in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of getting women’s rights onto the international development agenda. Their efforts can be declared a resounding success. The international development industry has fully embraced these terms. From international NGOs to donor governments to multilateral agencies the language of gender equality and women’s empowerment is a pervasive presence and takes pride of place among their major development priorities. And yet, this article argues, the fact that these terms have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice. Critically examining the trajectories of these terms in development, the article suggests that if the promise of the post-2015 agenda is to deliver on gender justice, new frames are needed, which can connect with and contribute to a broader movement for global justice.
271 citations
TL;DR: A network simulation model used to study a possible relationship between echo chambers and the viral spread of misinformation finds an “echo chamber effect”: the presence of an opinion and network polarized cluster of nodes in a network contributes to the diffusion of complex contagions.
Abstract: The viral spread of digital misinformation has become so severe that the World Economic Forum considers it among the main threats to human society This spread have been suggested to be related to the similarly problematized phenomenon of “echo chambers”, but the causal nature of this relationship has proven difficult to disentangle due to the connected nature of social media, whose causality is characterized by complexity, non-linearity and emergence This paper uses a network simulation model to study a possible relationship between echo chambers and the viral spread of misinformation It finds an “echo chamber effect”: the presence of an opinion and network polarized cluster of nodes in a network contributes to the diffusion of complex contagions, and there is a synergetic effect between opinion and network polarization on the virality of misinformation The echo chambers effect likely comes from that they form the initial bandwagon for diffusion These findings have implication for the study of the media logic of new social media
223 citations
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...The disappearance of media intermediation seems not to have, as was believed, fostered a space for direct meetings in a sort of online Habermasian public sphere, but rather to have implied that the “world between them has lost its power to gather them together, to relate and to separate them” [6] (p....
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...But despite early optimism about this ostensibly decentralized and democratic meetingplace, the online world seems less and less like a common “table” that “gathers us together” [6] (p....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a mediation model to explain the relationship between CEO humility and firm performance and found that when a more humble CEO leads a firm, its top management team is more likely to collaborate, share information, jointly make decisions, and possess a shared vision.
215 citations
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...Drawing on the communal power perspective (Arendt, 1958), we propose that humble CEOs do not stress power over other TMT members but, instead, have power to pursue goals for collective interest with the TMTs....
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...In this sense, humble CEOs exercise power in a way that diverts from an interpersonal power perspective (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015) and complies with a communal power perspective (Arendt, 1958)....
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TL;DR: The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies.
Abstract: Beginning in the 1940s, mass production of antibiotics involved the industrialscale growth of microorganisms to harvest their metabolic products. Unfortunately, the use of antibiotics selects for resistance at answering scale. The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies. In turning to biological manifestations of antibiotic use, sciences fathom material outcomes of their own previous concepts. Archival work with stored soil and clinical samples produces a record described here as ‘the biology of history’: the physical registration of human history in bacterial life. This account thus foregrounds the importance of understanding both the materiality of history and the historicity of matter in theories and concepts of life today.
204 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the critical role of filming plays in the production and communication of knowledge pertaining to transparency and concealment in intimate, private and public spaces, and they conceptualize the zooming-in on these micro-moments that the video camera afforded as unconscious optics.
Abstract: This article deals with the critical role filming plays in the production and communication of knowledge pertaining to transparency and concealment in intimate, private and public spaces. Drawing on fieldwork and filmmaking with young Muslim women in Copenhagen, in the neighborhood of Norrebro, I describe intimate scenes I was allowed to film. The concealment enacted as the women move from private to public space is discussed here, and I conceptualize the zooming-in on these micro-moments that the video camera afforded as unconscious optics. I argue that this filmmaking with young Muslim women enabled embodied, sense-filled encounters and provided audiovisual notes to revisit, helping me draw nearer to gendered enactments of revealing and concealment across online and offline realms: the video camera and video-enabled smartphones affording an infrastructure of unconscious optics.
24 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the notion of subaltern modernity is defined as a process of epistemological coalescence constituting a transverse solidarity politics, which is empirically informed by the narratives of the livelihood-environmental resistance launched by subalterns in the Indian state of Kerala.
Abstract: In engaging with the debate on modernity, this article constructs the notion of a ‘subaltern modernity’ as a process of epistemological – spatial/temporal/agential – coalescence constituting a transverse solidarity politics. This is empirically informed by the narratives of the livelihood-environmental resistance launched by subalterns in the Indian state of Kerala, known for its twin legacies – of communist government and social development – which have proved to be a direct challenge to the state/corporate-led developmentalism in the region. The article thus attempts to contribute to the debate on modernity more from the perspective of resisting subjects and agents, with their particular subjective experience and understandings of science and reasoning. However, their resistance generates transformative events of universal relevance and thereby global issues of epistemology. As such, the article develops a theory of knowledge that takes subaltern resistance itself as modernity.
24 citations
09 Dec 2017
TL;DR: A series of large scale fabrication projects offered to students from 2012-2014 in Christchurch, New Zealand, under the umbrella of FESTA challenged the students to confront a series of ‘firsts’; to work collaboratively, to present themselves professionally, to navigate regulatory bodies, to engage with a client, and to realise a project at full, one to one, scale.
Abstract: Design is considered one of the most important parts of an architectural education. Much emphasis is placed upon the Design Studio within a School of Architecture, yet in the traditional tutor/student model how much opportunity is there for the student to understand the process of designing when emulation forms the heart of the learning?This paper reflects upon a series of large scale fabrication projects offered to students from 2012-2014 in Christchurch, New Zealand, under the umbrella of FESTA. These projects challenged the students to confront a series of ‘firsts’; to work collaboratively, to present themselves professionally, to navigate regulatory bodies, to engage with a client, and to realise a project at full, one to one, scale.These projects tend to exist without a specific precedent for students to draw upon, as would be usual when designing one of any number a normal building typology. This forces students into a space of discovery, one where a design can change for any multitude of reasons. Students are moved from the usual Design Studio experience of problem solving to one where the situation is uncertain and problematic, to a space of problem setting.
24 citations
22 Oct 2020
24 citations
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: This thesis conducts a philosophical, theoretical, and practical exploration of digital technology design to examine how digital technologies can fulfill the two-facet of existentiality.
Abstract: This thesis conducts a philosophical, theoretical, and practical exploration of digital technology design to examine how digital technologies can fulfill our two-facet of existentiality – i ...
23 citations