<p> This dissertation explores the recent history and politics of the formation of the center or middle as the sovereign horizon of contemporary political practice and history. The political center has typically been imagined as the space between the two poles of Left and Right. Rather than beginning with an assumption of the political center's absolute relativity-a history absorbed by infinitely contingent contexts-this thesis understands centrism as itself a political position: a plural, yet relatively stable complex of meanings in urgent need of problematization. Guided methodologically by the work of Michel Foucault and Frederic Jameson, the thesis grounds this analysis in a reading of The Economist magazine between the years 1950-2007. A self-identified advocate of the "extreme center", the magazine functions as a primary archive through which to document shifts in the constitution of an historically-specific centrism, a political position with significant global traces and consequences.</p> <p> In the Introduction the basic theoretical coordinates of the center as a metaphor, concept and political fantasy are unpacked against the backdrop of a broader diagnostics of the present. Chapter 1 addresses itself to the Keynesian centrism prevalent in the years immediately following the war in Britain, one characterized primarily by ideas about balance, consensus, and moderation. Chapter 2 follows the content of this discourse across the break-down of post-war growth and its subsequent identification with "radical" Thatcherism. In Chapter 3, the contradictions accumulated in this shift from a thematics of caution to one emphasizing a radical break with consensus, are examined through the figure of the heretical manager, the pragmatist who presides over the inherently revolutionary fabric of capitalist space and innovation. Finally, the conclusion thinks through the ways in which the radical center functions within a broader cultural sensation of middleness very much a basic part of life in postmodern societies.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The increasingly universal information society has required also the Swedish Armed Forces to participate in the information flow, for example by publishing images from its operations in an open digital image archive. With use of the image archive’s photographs from the Swedish Armed Forces’ military operations in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012, the study seeks to examine the way in which the Swedish army depicts its involvement in the region. From a postcolonial perspective, based on Edward Said’s notions on Orientalism, this semiotic analysis examines the image publications in order to reveal what messages the images convey. How are Afghan women respectively Afghan men depicted in contrast to Swedish soldiers? How are Swedish soldiers portrayed in relation to their Afghan military allies? Such are the questions at hand. The study makes use of a methodological framework based on Roland Barthes and Charles Saunders Pierce and looks to reveal the denotative and connotative meanings in the image material. The result of the study shows a depiction of the military intervention in Afghanistan that largely portrays Afghan women and girls in need of saving and emancipation, while Swedish soldiers are ascribed the role of the hero. Moreover, images depicting Swedish soldiers as modern, powerful and progressive in contrast to weak and underdeveloped Afghan men are also recurrent in the material. The cooperation between the Swedish military and its Afghan allies is throughout the material depicted in a positive manner, and symbolic gestures of friendship between the two frequent the image publications. At large, a positive perspective permeates the Swedish military’s depiction of its operations in Afghanistan, and its soldiers are portrayed as powerful bringers of Western liberty and equality. Meanwhile, the East is depicted as all that the West is not: uncivilised, weak and infantile.

Language issues, often linked with ideas of history, sentiment, identity, ideology, maintenance, revitalization, minority, and indigenous peoples, are raised constantly in Taiwan. This study focused on examining issues related to language planning and bilingual education at the elementary school level in Taiwan. The research purposes were: 1) to examine the current language education practices in the elementary school by employing perspectives of language planning and bilingual education in Taiwan; and 2) to make recommendations about the current language planning and policy of Taiwan with respect to elementary school language education. There were 123 participants involved in this study. They were elementary school language teachers, language professionals, and parents. Data collection began in the winter of 2004 and continued through the summer of 2005. The research context was elementary school language education. Transcripts and questionnaires were the primary sources for data analysis. Five major phenomena with respect to elementary school language education in Taiwan were found. First, there was no systematic language planning for the present elementary school language education in Taiwan. Second, the three language subjects, Mandarin, English, and Dialects, within the Language Arts area were seen as independent courses without any interdisciplinary integration. Third, parental decisions about the prior order of language learning were structured upon a profound process related to language ideology and instrumentalism. Fourth, the elementary school language curriculum was guided by the concept of Han-centrism. Fifth, because of the phenomenon of language shift, Mandarin has become most children's mother tongue rather than the local languages. Based on the five findings, I suggest that first, team teaching is helpful for elementary school language teachers to integrate children's learning of different languages. Second, parents, language professionals, and language teachers should have more opportunities to communicate with each other about children's language learning. Third, language planners should bear the Han-centric phenomenon in mind, especially when considering issues of educational resources and opportunities and social justice. Fourth, the definition of mother tongues needs to be redefined. Fifth, it is important for every elementary school to develop its own school-based language policy.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:26:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Renan Evangelista Silva.pdf: 1131779 bytes, checksum: fa28f01d3bbd662b8bb71c0aef54a4b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-10-26 / The philosopher Enrique Dussel has sought throughout his thinking and his works, make a new approach and reinterpretation of the colonizing process in Latin America. Our part of the author's thesis that the year 1492 was the beginning of the Amerindian masking by a domineering and violent ethos brought by Europeans. In the first chapter of the thesis, presents the historical context of Latin American from 1492 with the arrival of Columbus and the beginning of the deployment of European colonization process from the idea that culture and life of the natives did not have any ethical value and cultural, forcing the indigenous culture to give rise to the culture of the colonizers. In the second chapter, it is critical to the concept of Euro centrism, especially the Hegelian view of history, starting from the liberating practice of Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, who knew how to understand and respect the differences between Indians and settlers and to develop a "Good Colonization" , respecting differences and customs of the natives. In the chapter sees himself as the philosopher Enrique Dussel presents a new way of conceiving ethics Latino Americana, a new release called ethos, in which the otherness of lost Latino Americano resumed though the awakening of the victims, through their awareness the situation of oppression. This principle of freedom will find in the philosopher's ethics E. Lévinas support needed to understand the dimension of otherness and respect for the victims of the process of Euro centrism / O filósofo Enrique Dussel vem buscando ao longo de seu pensamento e de suas obras, fazer uma nova abordagem e releitura do processo colonizador na América Latina. Nosso autor parte da tese de que o ano de 1492 foi o começo do encobrimento do ameríndio por um éthos dominador e violento trazido pelos europeus. No primeiro capítulo da dissertação, apresenta-se o contexto histórico latinoamericano a partir de 1492 com a chegada de Colombo, e o início da implantação do processo colonizador europeu, a partir da ideia de que a cultura e a vida dos nativos não possuíam nenhum valor ético e cultural, obrigando a cultura indígena a dar lugar à cultura dos colonizadores. No segundo capítulo, faz-se a crítica ao conceito do eurocentrismo, principalmente à visão hegeliana da história, partindo da prática libertadora de Frei Bartolomeu de Las Casas, que soube entender e respeitar as diferenças entre índios e colonizadores e desenvolver uma Boa Colonização , respeitando as diferenças e os costumes dos nativos. No terceiro capítulo vê-se como o filósofo Enrique Dussel apresenta uma nova maneira de se conceber a ética latinoamericana, um novo éthos chamado libertação, em que a alteridade perdida do latinoamericano é retomada através do despertar das vítimas, por meio de sua tomada de consciência da situação de opressão. Esse princípio de libertação encontrará na ética do filósofo E. Lévinas o seu apoio necessário para entender a dimensão da alteridade e do respeito para com as vítimas do processo do eurocentrismo

This thesis outlines a study into institutional change analysing how certain senior individuals, called opinion leaders, were able to achieve change within the strongly institutionalized environment of medical education. It is situated in the complex and contested context of the English National Health Service, which for more than 60 years has seen numerous managerial, organizational, political and professional changes, which have impacted upon the roles and relationships of medical professionals, managers and government. Adopting a retrospective case study approach, the research centres on the specific case of the Enhancing Engagement in Medical Leadership (EEML) project, which had national-level sponsorship and status, directly involving a multitude of senior NHS bodies, representatives and individuals, to embed leadership and management training into medical curricula. Medical curricula are a mediated result of cultural, social, political and economic forces (Kuper and D’Eon, 2011) rooted in the construction of professional identity and transformation from lay person to professional. Prior to this project, there had been limited attempts to engage the medical profession in leadership and management conspicuously through the curriculum, because of the difficulty of including new content into already crowded specialty curricula, given the constraints of time and resources for medical training. Using conceptual insights into agency in institutional theory, such as institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006) and institutional entrepreneurship (DiMaggio, 1988); practice theory (Feldman and Orlikowski, 2011; Nicolini, 2012); social position (Battilana, 2011) and capital (Lockett et al., 2014; Bourdieu, 1986), this study explores how project members enacted change within medical education. It analyses the processes involved in their actions and practices and establishes how this case furthers understanding of strongly institutionalized environments. Interviews were conducted with members of the EEML project team and steering group, many of whom had positions of influence and status in other relevant organizations in this field. In addition, a review of documentary data encompassing published and non-published project materials was undertaken. An open coding and thematic analysis approach was taken to gain deeper insight into the interview data, whilst the documentary evidence was used to confirm and support the interview analysis. This case study research reveals that contextual and environmental conditions, as well as exogenous shocks and endogenous motivation led to this change initiative occurring. Routine and recognised ‘practices’ resulted in significant change through embedding the Medical Leadership Competency Framework (MLCF) into contested medical curricula space. Opinion leaders were able, with other project members, to adopt an approach to change, understanding the prevailing conditions, identifying the project’s purpose and committing to an emerging form of practice known as ‘mirroring’. Moreover, this study explores how opinion leaders achieved change through making use of theirs’ and others’ capital resources to form a cross-field collective capital, known as system capital. Using this, they adopted a disposition in their practice beyond professions known as system centrism.

Since mindless actions of the South African society persist in the form of environmentally degrading behaviour, the sustainability of healthy eco-systems is constantly threatened. Practical ways of acquiring environmental literacy is necessary to develop environmental responsible behaviour of citizens. Theory-based research on nature-based extreme sports participation rarely acknowledges its positive transformative value on society. This neglect roots, in part, from naïve or novice misconceptions that motives for participation are primarily risk-focused in pursuit of an adrenaline rush. Thrill-seeking theories often make anthropocentric assumptions of a rivalry human-nature relationship to showcase individual prowess. As a result, “extreme” is naïvely associated with “out-of-control” or “reckless” actions. Phenomenological traditions from Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty navigate a hermeneutical understanding of a bodily-being-towards-death in such high-risk sports activities. This interpretative phenomenological analytical study considers the lived experiences of 10 expert South African nature-based extreme sports participants who take calculate risks. Their first-hand narrations provide evidence, which derails the naïve stigma and identify voluntary high risk-taking as a by-product of participation. For some, the extensive period of time spent in the wilderness, where their survival depends on the collaboration with natural elements enable a realization that humanity is part of a larger functioning network. Findings from semi-structured interviews present an eco-centric outlook on the facilitative role of participation, in eco-sensitivity. Flow and mindfulness are recognised as contributing factors in the display of pro-environmental behaviour of nature-based extreme sports participants. How participation encourages an intimate bond with and sensitivity of nature, which permits a setting for extraordinary physical and psychological changes, is explored. From this study, eco-centric management principles can be discovered and its educational principles incorporated within schools and sport organizations to become more ecologically sensitive and just. / Dissertstion (MA (Human Movement Science))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences / MA (Human Movement Science) / Unrestricted

The aim of the dissertation is to analyse works of a Moscow conceptualist Dmitrij Prigov. Prigov approached his medially diversified legacy (that was characterized by media diversity and quantitative hypertrophy) as a life-long project Dmitrij Aleksandrovič Prigov. (project DAP). One of the goals of the project was to remain unidentified, which means to suspend the straight-forward relation between an individual media product and the intention of the authorial subject. However, the connection between the media products and the authorial subject preserved. It is the modality of the connection that changed. The dissertation focuses on the analysis of the modality of the connection. The research begins with an analysis of the media products and proceeds toward the issue of authorial subjetʼs identity construction. Nevertheless, it is the media products that the identity of the authorial subject is constructed by. Authorial subject, however, plays the role of the (co-)agent in the production process of the media products together with other non-human agents like iterable patterns, instruments, techniques and semiotic systems. Methodologically, the dissertation emerges from the intersection of media theories, social theories and the theoretical reflection of the phenomena gathered under the umbrella...

This thesis explores what an aesthetic judgment would be if we take existence to be non-duallyinterconnected. Interconnectedness and aesthetic judgment does not seem to be compatible becauseaesthetic judgment seems to depend on, at least, the dualism of the beautiful and the ugly and that ofsubject and object. In contrast, interconnectedness can not accept these dualisms.Zen philosopher Dōgen provides a non-dually interconnected framework that allows for aestheticjudgments in an interconnected view of existence. Zen philosophy concludes that we can both havedualism and non-dualism and that the ideas do not cancel each other out but deal with differentaspects of existence. Dualism with a centric view where existence is viewed from a standpoint andthus is restricted by a perspective, and enlightenment, where existence is perceived non-duallyinterconnected, can coexist. Because Aesthetic judgments are dependent on dualism, they must takeplace on the centric plane of existence. However, because, in enlightenment, everything is seen asBeautiful, it can not reveal much about an object’s beauty. Instead, the aesthetic judgment revealssomething about the standpoint taken in judgment. In light of this reformulation of the meaning ofaesthetic judgments, aesthetics will become phenomenological no matter if you deal with howcentric or enlightened ways of existence reveal themselves. Whether your focus is on aestheticjudgments, appreciation, or artistic practice, you will always deal with aesthetic experiences.

In this thesis, I develop a method that will help you, understand, and solve deep disagreements. In forming my method I draw on Zen Buddhist philosophy. In chapter one my understanding of deep disagreement is presented. Deep disagreements is seen as being caused by underlying metaphysical fundamental beliefs and/or worldviews. My method hinges on three concepts, interconnected, conventional centric, and ultimate reality. In the process of explaining these concepts important Zen Buddhist ideas are explored. By exploring which of these three categories a view or argument engages with you will be able to avoid deep disagreements because the types of beliefs that cause deep disagreements are made transparent. In the second chapter, I first analyze an argument against theism and for naturalism and show that there is a deep disagreement at play in that argument. In using my method you can see that the conflict is not a conflict. I then analyze animism and show that animism does not need to be in opposition to naturalism and that both can coexist. In the third chapter, a meta-analysis is made. The main advantage of my method is that it tries to understand and place all types of views into a bigger picture. This makes my method unifying. I also show that there is a wide range of areas in which this method could be used. It could be used in many situation of disagreement.

本文從對環境危機的關懷切入，討論人類中心論如何造成人類對大自然的恣意剝削與破壞，包括基督教義、理性主義、機械世界觀等等，使人類將自然界當作實現個人利益的工具。隨之而起的是「生態中心的轉向」，人類逐漸把自己看做是更大尺度主體的一份子，大自然本身應該是一個具備自我組織與生發能力的有機體，其中每一個組成份子都有其價值與意義。 生態中心論包括大地倫理學、深層生態學及蓋婭理論，其對於大自然與人類的觀點，以及環境倫理的看法，與中國的道家哲學十分相近。於是本文接著從道家思想中，闡明其與生態中心論共通之處。最終得出三個要點，堪做為環境教育的啟示： 1.人應領悟到自身與大自然之間密不可分的關係，並且尋回其間的連結。 2.人應有充分的機會體驗這種連結，並致力回復大自然運作的規律。 3.人應努力實踐自身與大自然的共生；達到逍遙無為的和諧自由之境。 從這三點出發，筆者認為一切的環境教育與環保作為，在知其然之外，更重要的是知其所以然。人既然與自然性本一體，就應該從這一點出發建構環境教育的核心基礎。於是提出召喚、共鳴與覺醒的三個步驟。 召喚原則對應的是人是否具備真誠面對自身生命狀態的品質；而在教育原理中，必須重視啟發性的原則，透過故事、感動的經驗、美好的圖像、與大自然親密的互動等等，喚起個體內在與大自然的本來連結。 第二步驟，是讓個體盡可能地經驗大自然與人類之間密不可分的關係，以及大自然如何以極度的包容性與豐富性，含納萬物。其中對應到的人性品質是「愛」，一種一體感與連結感的體驗。體驗性是其中必要的教育原則。 最後，在了悟天人合一、物我和諧的真相之後，個體便可以達到充分認識自己與自然、以及界限所在的「覺醒」狀態，其中隱含的人性品質為「自由」。儘管自由是不易達到的，但個體在覺醒的狀況下實踐自身最大的利益，亦是充滿意義的奮鬥過程；也因此，到了這一步，環境教育可以真正讓一個置身大自然中的人類，清楚而堅定地為保護環境獻身。 整體而言，本文嘗試建構一個環境教育的進路，使自然中的小生命，回歸到生命與自然的真實面貌，並從此一更深廣的本質出發，以達到最終生命意義的實現。而第五章討論之華德福教育中的環境教育觀，亦為本文之結論提供旁證。 / To look for a proper approach of environmental education, through concerning recent worldly crisis, the study take three aspects of seeing the relation between human beings and the nature, as the source of homo-centrism. They are Christian, Rationalism and mechanical paradigm of science. Composite to the points of human-centrism, eco-centrism, including “land ethics”, “deep ecology” and “Gaia theory”, arose as a reflection to see the nature as more holistic and lively system. The ancient Chinese philosophy, Daoism, corresponds eco-centrism on a higher and more self-realizing level. These two theories, eco-centrism and Daoism, both dedicate an approach of environmental education to the common nature of human and the nature itself. Only through define selfness as part of nature, human beings will take responsibility for environment. The task of education is to recall the same essence of the nature and human beings, and experience it plenty, then to reach a clear conscious of being in nature. The approach of teaching and curriculum of Waldorf Steiner school is taken as an example to reflect three concepts held by the author. These three concepts raised, initiating, experiencing and practicing, are the conclusion of this study.