Search results

I propose a theoretical framework that specifies dynamic principles involving the generalized and ubiquitous everyday interaction of society and state actors alternately in upholding and undermining the rules that spell the unequal distribution of power and resources. The framework proposed brings together a historically specific micro-process – contention – with a general macro-principle of permanence and change in the distributive rules – the creation, renegotiation, and occasional destruction of a generally durable yet continuously contested “pact of domination.” Inequality represents simultaneously a central organizing principle of social life and a recurring source of conflict over rights and rules, the latter being the practical rules that govern interaction in specific cases of contention, giving governing agencies the necessary flexibility to act casuistically, giving in here, and throwing its weight there, with new formal rules sometimes following that process, or old ones falling in disuse.

In this scheme, the state is a historically created organizational and coercive agent embodying and enforcing the currently valid pact, mostly through legal/coercive, but also ideological power over its territory of jurisdiction. State forms are specific to each historically constructed pact of domination, so that there is no such thing as a state in general, but a series of historically constructed states, each with its rules of “who should get what” and peculiar ways of maintaining inequality between dominant and dominated.

This essay argues for a a radical interactionist framework using autoethnographic tools as well as critical feminist perspectives. Not all “masculine” systems are necessarily all “evil” and “feminist” systems are not unambiguously good, devoid of context. The vantage point from which I engage Lonnie Athens’ work on radical interactionism is rooted personally and professionally: as a woman of color who was formerly a tenured Associate Professor of English and Humanities turned joint Juris Doctor in Law and Women’s Studies Graduate and Teaching Fellow in Women’s Studies.

An autoethnographic exploration of critical pedagogies, as practiced by law professors, concretely shows that a radical interactionist framework more accurately describes the fluctuating borders of power in the classroom. In addition, feminist critiques against Athens’ work, as evidenced, for example, by Deegan’s critique of the “patriarchal” type of “Chicago pragmatism” practiced by Mead, suffer from similar simplistic binaries as Noddings’ “ethic of care” – which reduces gender to sex, and unconditionally idealizes the “feminine” as “feminist.” Most importantly, this biologically determinist perspective does not take into the account the lived realities of lesbians and women of color, for whom the principle of domination is always, already a part of the worlds into which they are flung.

This chapter closes with an examination of how an acceptance of the radical interactionist principle of domination combined with an intersectional approach, rather than a binary of gender, could yield fruitful results in new areas of application, such as international human rights, and critical race theory and criminal law.

Because, for George Herbert Mead, the “social act” is the basic unit of analysis for understanding human social existence, and thereby, his entire body of thought, it demands much more critical attention than it thus far has received from sociologists. Here, his notion of the social act will be critically examined – in terms of his definition of social action, the underlying organizing principle he uses to explain it, the different fundamental forms of social action he identifies, and the basic operating elements that he contends comprise these forms – for the purpose of developing a better conception of social action than he provided. Mead sees social action as organized on the basis of “sociality,” expressing itself in two fundamental forms – “cooperative” and “conflictive.” He also views the cooperative form as comprised of five basic elements – attitudes, roles, significant symbols, attitudinal assumption, and common social objects – while the conflictive form is comprised of only the first four elements. After a critical examination of Mead’s social act is completed, an alternative and improved conception of social action, with domination as its organizing principle, is proffered. More importantly, it is argued that this new notion of social action, termed the “collective act,” provides the grounds for the development of a novel interactionist perspective, dubbed here “radical interactionism,” which is based on the principle of domination rather sociality. Thus, this new interactionist perspective, is dramatically different from the traditional interactionist perspective Mead and Blumer developed.

Discrete highly constrained optimization of induction machine taking into consideration two objective functions: efficiency and total costs of production. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Interactive and semi-interactive interval-based optimization methods were used. Two concepts of multi-objective discrete optimization were proposed.

Proposed methodology and algorithms allow decision maker (DM) participate in the process of optimal design and therefore decrease the total time of optimization process. The search procedure is straightforward and it does not require special skills of DM. Presented methods were successfully versified for the problem of optimal design with discrete variables.

Three interval algorithms suitable for inverse problems are researched and verified. It generally can be used for multi-objective problems. The dominance principles for interval boxes are showed in the paper. Proposed algorithms are based on the idea of hybridization of exact and evolutionary methods.

Proposed approaches were successfully implemented within computer-aided application which is used by manufacturer of high power induction machine.

The concept of pareto-domination using the interval boxes can be treated as original. The paper researched several elimination rules and discusses the difference between different approaches.

Expanding on the findings of the SOPIFF research project, this paper aims to identify eight futures schools of thought, which are analyzed and critiqued through an integral framework. As “Part II” of a previous publication, it seeks to focus on the lower (plural) quadrants.

The paper adapts Ken Wilber's integral theory to clarify various philosophical orientations to the future. It also adapts Fredrich Polak's approach to futures as a matter of “social critique and reconstruction”; however, the approach is global, civilizational, and integral, so it proposes civilizational critique and integral reconstruction as a method for evaluating futures schools of thought.

The IF framework is found to be a valuable theoretical and analytical tool for clarifying images of the future; it shows lines of development within each quadrant and interactions between quadrants, illustrating the effectiveness of the four‐quadrant approach.

It further illuminates the “global problematique” expressed in the SOPIFF project and proposes the IF framework as a way to interpret those research findings.

This approach to futures/foresight studies broadens the range and offers more depth to conceptions of the future, so it should help to develop/improve futures methodologies/practices in general.

Civilizational critique and integral reconstruction of images of the future imply unprecedented social change.

The paper should help futurists to see and interpret the “bigger picture” of civilizational futures through revealing the “crack” of the modern image of the future, how it relates to the current world crisis, and what is needed to heal the crack, so a new vision of a preferred future can emerge.

In this paper, the authors explore racialisation through human-centric counter-accounts (counter-stories) to bring together critical race theory (CRT) and counter-accounting.

The authors utilise CRT to demonstrate the emancipatory role of counter-stories in (re)telling racialized narratives, specifically the narrative of asylum seekers who arrive by sea and are subjected to the inhumane and oppressive nature of the Australian government's policy of offshore immigration detention.

Counter-stories, as tools of accountability, can make visible oppressive forces and the hidden practices of racialized social practices and norms.

This paper emphasises that we are not in a post-racial world, and racialisation remains a fundamental challenge. We must continue to refute race as an ontological truth and strive to provide a platform for counter-stories that can spark or drive social change. This requires allies, including academics, to give that platform, support their plight, and offer avenues for change.

The authors introduce CRT as a theoretical tool for examining racialisation, opening space for a more critical confluence of accounting and race with potentially wide-reaching implications for our discipline. The paper also contributes to the limited accounting literature concerning asylum seekers, particularly in the use of counter-stories that offer a way of refuting, or challenging, the majoritarian/dominant narratives around asylum-seeking.

Signs of a new period of theoretical and methodological ferment – consequent real growth – are finally appearing on the horizon. Old theoretical and methodological issues that have merely been papered over in the past, stymieing progress for decades, are now undergoing long-awaited resolution. New burning issues necessary to stimulate theoretical and methodological growth are now being raised for resolution in the future. Perhaps, no better evidence of this potential renewal of interactional thought can be provided than in the seven chapters published in this edition of the “Blue-Ribbon Papers.” The first three of these chapters aim to resolve, or – at least – reframe long-standing theoretical and methodological controversies.