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Purpose – This chapter contributes to comparative biopolitics and reviews primatological literature, especially about our nearest relatives, the Great Apes.

Design/methodology/approach – Biopolitics in this chapter means evolutionarily informed political science, with emphasis on power relations. I review the literature on intrasexual and intersexual dominance interactions among individuals and competitive and/or agonistic interactions among groups in the Great Apes (Hominidae, formerly Pongidae): orangutan (Pongo with two species and three subspecies), gorilla (Gorilla with four subspecies), bonobo (Pan paniscus), and common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes with four subspecies). In the final section I present some (speculative) thoughts on Pan prior or the modern human ancestor.

Findings – Not only Man is a political animal.

Originality/value – Impartial, objective, and as complete as possible review of the literature for the students of (comparative) politics, ethology, and psychology.

The paper introduces the concept of not‐yet‐embodied or self‐transcending knowledge. The concept of self‐transcending knowledge proposes a distinction between two types of tacit knowledge: tacit‐embodied knowledge on the one hand and not‐yet‐embodied knowledge on the other hand. The distinction is relevant because each of the three forms of knowledge – explicit, tacit‐embodied, and self‐transcending – is based on different epistemological assumptions and requires a different type of knowledge environment and learning infrastructure. Moreover, the differentiation among markets with decreasing, steady, and increasing returns suggests that, in order to successfully compete for increasing return markets, leaders need a new type of knowledge that allows them to sense, tune into and actualize emerging business opportunities – that is, to tap into the sources of not‐yet‐embodied knowledge.

Dynamic knowledge interaction is interaction that brings about mutual understanding and knowledge evolution in a community. Proposes a communication medium called conversational medium that provides the user with a means for interacting with the content in a conversational fashion, and presents a traveling conversation model in which the community knowledge process is modeled as circulation of conversational contents that represent small talks in a community. Shows several pilot systems based on these ideas, including the public opinion channel which is an interactive broadcasting system that collects small talks and broadcasts stories reorganized from the archive of small talks; EgoChat which is a system based on a talking‐virtualized‐egos metaphor; Voice Café which is a system consisting of a physical object and a conversational agent that allows artifacts to make conversation with people or other artifacts; and embodiment communication for communicating more vivid information by introducing non‐verbal communication facilities.

This paper aims to introduce Seikatsu Rinsho, a values-based approach to supporting recovery based on identifying service user values and aspirations that have been developed since 1958 in Japan where mental health services are still hospital-based and user involvement is not well-developed. This paper believes this will be of great implications for future practices around the world.

Hope is essential to recovery and that hope is dependent on identifying what service users really want for themselves (aspirations) and then ensuring that these are communicated to – and supported by – professionals and carers. This is achieved through examining the life events, which are likely to trigger relapse for a specific individual, the important choices that the person has made throughout his/her life course and the reasons behind them. Through a process of “co-production”, an attempt is made to understand the values expressed in these choices in the context of family history over several generations.

The attempt to examine both life events throughout the life course and family history over generations was found to be an effective way to understand a service user and his/her family and then support recovery. The cases where even people with severe and persistent mental health problems have successfully achieved full recovery have been accumulated.

The limitations of the approach in the context of Japanese mental health services, and the necessity of additional evidence are acknowledged and some thoughts shall be given to future development.

Seikatsu Rinsho approach can provide a new angle to understand service users and family and a new way to support recovery.

In this chapter, I use the term “biopolitics” to mean evolutionarily informed political science. Politics has been characterized as “Who gets what, when, and how” (Lasswell, 1936), but rather than about material possessions, politics is understood to be about power, more specifically about collective power, especially differential group power competition, hierarchy and stratification in power distribution, and the universal struggle to enhance power, and to maintain or challenge/destroy this status quo. Politics “should be found in any system of nature in which conflicts of interest exist among cooperating organic units” (Johnson, 1995, p. 279). My main focus will be competitive intergroup relations in monkeys and apes, or as I (van der Dennen, 1995) called it “intergroup agonistic behavior” (IAB). I also briefly treat interindividual and intercoalitionary agonistic behavior when relevant.

In light of the shift in focus from information communication technology (ICT) access (access divide) and skills (skills divide) to the tangible impacts of ICT use (impact divide), a growing number of scholars have called for further investigation into the inter-territorial and multi-dimensional aspects of the digital divide in China. This study aims to address these gaps by examining the disparities across 31 provinces, particularly emphasizing the transition from the traditional access and skills divides to the impact divide.

Multivariate regression analysis extensively investigates the transition from the access and skills divides to the impact divide across 31 provinces. Additionally, ArcGIS software is used to analyze spatial agglomeration and the auto-correlation (Moran-i) and predict mapping patterns in the data corresponding to all three levels of the digital divide.

According to the study's findings, poverty is a significant factor in the digital divide between different regions in China. The research shows that provinces with advanced administrative systems, such as Guangdong, Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu, Shandon and Zhejiang, have high scores on the digital development index (DDI). However, regions with poverty-ridden and rural areas, primarily located in southwest, central and western China, tend to have lower DDI scores.

This study offers a novel contribution to the literature by presenting an innovative conceptual framework that explores the impact divide within China's provinces. The authors also address this lacuna in the literature by developing and testing two dimensions to examine the relationships statistically under a wide range of socioeconomic and ICT indicators.

The atmospheric turn can be understood as a departure from the occidental dominant thing and event ontologies and opens the way to a situation ontology, in which subjective-bodily felt being-in is at the centre. The focus shifts from objective things or events to subjectively experienceable facts of being within situations and atmospheres. Atmospheres have an affective content, a peculiar non-dimensional spatiality and a hybrid status beyond the typical occidental dualisms, such as subject and object or inner and outer world. If the philosophical potential of the atmospheric turn is highlighted and taken seriously, then fundamental new perspectives in thought and action can reveal themselves.

Purpose: This chapter problematizes the philosophical origins of direct funding models in a normative conception of independence that ignores and obscures the fundamentally relational nature of care work.

Approach: The study adopts a reflexive ethnographic methodological approach. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 participants variously involved with direct-funded attendant services (disabled “self-managers,” “attendant” employees, other members of self-managers’ support networks, and program staff). Additional data sources included the author's reflexive journaling and publicly available policy and program materials. The present analysis interrogated the impact of systemic constraints (i.e., limited funding) on the organization and management of attendant services.

Findings: The data illuminate how systemic constraints draw the interests of self-managers and attendants into tension, despite the affective relationality of the work they do together. The findings present four strategies self-managers adopt to maximize support hours, including: splitting shifts, strategic hiring, dynamic resource management, and supplementing remuneration. These findings suggest it is not vulnerability to each other that represents an ongoing concern for self-managers and attendants, so much as exploitation by a system that capitalizes on the oppression of both groups.

Implication/ Value: Disabled people and care workers have been and continue to be constructed as opposing interest groups. However, there is great potential in disabled people and care workers joining a united front to lobby for their common, often interrelated interests. Direct funding models are an important evolution of support services, but where they fail to attend to the relational nature of care work, we must continue to pursue more inclusive solutions.

A survey of Japan's new religions (1) shows “ancestor worship” (2) to have played an important part in various religious bodies (3), as a means for attaining happiness for the living. Generally speaking, new religions advocate that the adequate veneration of ancestors leads them to enter a “blissful state”, as a result of which they can bring happiness to their living descendants (4). At the same time, the new religions also teach that lack of proper consolation for ancestors results in misfortune for the living (5). This tendency to put importance on ancestor worship is a particular feature of the Reiyu‐kai group of new religions which denotes those religious bodies which were established by schism within Reiyu‐kai (lit. the Spirit Friends' Society) and by the subsequent re‐splitting of those bodies (6) which resulted. The parent organization, Reiyu‐kai, is a large‐scale new religion of lay Nichiren origin (7), which was founded by Kakutaro Kubo and Kimi Kotani in 1925, and its doctrine of memorial rites for ancestors, concentrating on the combination of ancestor worship and faith as found in the Lotus Sutra, draws upon that of the Bussho Gonen movement founded by Toshizo Nishida (8).

The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflections on “making distinctions”, which in contrast to “separating”, the author views as unifying rather than dividing. The author remarks follow the theme of the conference, “Acting-Learning-Understanding”, and characterise making distinctions as inherently cybernetic both conceptually and in practice. The classic cybernetic principle of error detection and correction, for example, typically has a lopsided focus on “error”. The author treats it as the on-going single act of distinguishing between “error” and “correct”, where to determine the degree to which a system is in error is simultaneously to determine the degree to which it is correct.

This paper presents a viewpoint though conceptual analysis, reflection, and critique, drawing on examples form the research (employing ethnography, case studies, observation, and participant observation) and consulting.

In practice we detect “correct” no less than “error”. Learning entails both “error” and “correct”. Although commonly held that we learn best (or only) from error, the author argues sometimes we can best (or only) learn from what goes right. Acting entails knowing. This calls for distinguishing between knowledge, as a storable, transferable “thing”, and knowing as part of shared practice. Understanding entails evaluating. Distinguishing between morally acceptable and unacceptable, for example, can set, confirm, or change norms for distinguishing “error” and “correct”. Accordingly, evaluating needs to be a deliberate part of cybernetic and systems thinking and practice.

Presents four areas where further research could fruitfully be pursued: assessing the distinct function of “correct” within various kinds of systems; designing and testing educational and organizational activities for learning from what goes right; designing and testing organizational and technological infrastructures that support “knowing” as coordinated designed activity; and, designing and testing means for the deliberate incorporation of evaluating as part of systems thinking and practice.

Suggests that educational and organizational activities could be more productive by fostering learning from what goes right. Suggests there is value in the development of organizational and technological infrastructures that support “knowing” as coordinated designed activity (vs “knowledge” seen as a storable, transferable “thing”). Suggests that the deliberate inclusion of evaluating in social and organizational systems could further more responsive and responsible action.

Contributes to a call for publicly viable forms of cybernetic and systemic thinking and practice, including the systemic inclusion of evaluation in public affairs.

Contributes to the conceptual development and constructive critique of key concepts in cybernetic and systems thinking and practice, especially understanding making distinctions as unifying rather than separating, and as inherently cybernetic as such. Offers a critique of the common focus on “error” in error detection and correction. Argues for the importance of learning from what goes right. Identifies the need for a better understanding of “knowing” as part of practice (as distinct from “knowledge” as a storable, sharable “thing”). Argues for the need to treat evaluation as an inherent, necessary, and productive part of systems thinking and practice.