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The use of rationalized risk assessment to identify the costs and benefits of protecting Aboriginal sacred sites is ubiquitous in Canadian law. Like other contemporary critics of cost-benefit analysis, I voice concerns with its use to adjudicate moral claims and recognize that it can misidentify the depth of loss experienced by Aboriginal peoples when sacred sites are destroyed. Nonetheless, in this article, I question in what ways technocratic approaches to risk could be helpful in protecting sacred sites. The article draws on two recent environmental assessments, the Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine Project in British Columbia and the Screech Lake Uranium Exploration Project in the Northwest Territories, to argue that innovative approaches to characterizing loss illustrate the potential of rationalized methods to identify harm better than it has in the past. The panels’ recommendations to reject the projects, based on the risk that the communities would suffer mental and psychological harm, reflect a genuine effort to provide decision makers with the real cost of approving these two projects. While I do not suggest that cost-benefit analysis can represent the loss of absolute values, I argue that, if done with cultural context in mind, assessment may help to extract the type of information needed to find the depth of empathy from which legal solutions may be constructed.

In this article, I draw on in-depth qualitative interviews with 23 women, conducted in 2019/2020, focusing on their involvement in decision-making during pregnancy and birth. The study is located in Ireland, where comparably progressive national policies regarding informed choice in labour and birth clash with the day-to-day reality of a heavily medicalised, paternalistic maternity care system. I represent the subjective experiences of a diverse group of women through in-depth interview excerpts. In my analysis, I move beyond describing what is happening in the Irish maternity system to discussing why this is happening – relating the findings of the research to the international literature on authoritative knowledge, technocratic hospital cultures and risk-based discourses around birth. In the last section of the article, I offer concrete, empirically grounded and innovative recommendations how to enhance women’s involvement in decision-making.

Current and past pandemics have several aspects in common. It is expected that all members of society contribute to beat it. But it is also clear that the risks associated with the pandemic are different for different groups. This makes that appeals to solidarity based on technocratic risk calculations are only partially successful. Objective ‘risks of transmission’ may, for example, be trumped by risks of letting down people in need of help or by missing out certain opportunities in life. In this paper we argue that a rapprochement of the insights of standpoint epistemology with pandemic science and pandemic policy making may be an important step toward making pandemic science more accurate and pandemic calls for solidarity more effective.

PurposePower, policy and politics set the landscape for technocratic approaches in the educational system. Efficiency and money-saving initiatives that adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach drive the response to complex and multifaceted challenges within education. This has been made apparent through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. This paper aims to explore one of the most pronounced and gaping realities that became evident during this crisis in how the system dehumanizes those in the margins. By not centralizing the biographies of families served in the schools, particularly culturally and linguistically diverse families, the system has failed to capitalize on the assets and affirm their wisdom.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper juxtaposes the technocratic and humanistic approaches of family engagement and provides alternative narratives rooted in authentic cariño (Bartolomé, 2008; Herreraet al., 2020; Valenzuela, 1999) and radical kinship (Boyle, 2017).FindingsCurrently, the educational system has sought to address complex issues by attending to the structures (i.e. plexiglass) and instructions (i.e. technology) as a way of responding to life-altering events that are in need of humanistic approaches.Originality/valueThe authors ask educators to reflect on the ways that power, policy and politics often stifle opportunities to move outside what is known to transform educational contexts. The authors conclude with critical questions to create new pathways guided by empathy and hope.

For hypergrowing Singapore, noise is an issue of everyday life. As a public problem, noise can be very relative because it deeply relates to the level of tolerance, while tolerance to noise is socially conditioned. But in a city where virtually every public issue is subject to technocratic handling, sound and noise are considered techno-environmental problems that require technocratic remedies. Drawing on the growing literature on soundscape and sound studies, this research note seeks to examine how sound and noise are being problematized in the urban spaces of Singapore. Our research note will examine a case of how cross-cutting issues of sound/noise, technology, and livability manifest at the neighborhood-level. In particular, we will draw upon our ethnographic study to explore noise issues in a high density neighborhood in Singapore. Focusing on one high density neighborhood, our study provides interesting insights into the challenges of devising policies/plans for postcolonial modern cities in a state of perpetual flux. It also shows how technocratic handling faces limitations in dealing with urban noise and public responses in the context of changing soundscapes. Ministry of National Development (MND) This paper is based on research supported by the Land and Liveability National Innovation Challenge under L2NIC award Number L2NICCFP1-2013-1.

This paper argues that the rise of a global mainstream resilience narrative is advancing a strategically simplified concept of vulnerability that is being exploited to open up lucrative new opportunities for profit. In particular, it presents three ways in which mainstream narratives are currently masking--if not exacerbating--the vulnerability of residents in New York City and Copenhagen. First, it explores how a technocratic orientation to community engagement is affecting local perceptions of participatory processes such as planning consultations and visioning exercises. Next, it investigates how the pursuit of an ‘infrastructure-first’ approach to interventions and a reputation for eco-innovation is creating tensions between institutional and local experiences of resilience. Lastly, it discusses some of the ways in which simplistic understandings of vulnerability are leading to adverse outcomes--such as eco-gentrification and displacement--that are making local communities more, not less, vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It concludes by arguing that the meaningful integration of diverse perspectives and values is integral to the process of giving rise to more critical and expansive narratives of resilience.

This paper offers a new reading of the political thought of the mid-Victorian jurist and intellectual James Fitzjames Stephen. Contrary to impressions of Stephen as a conservative or religious authoritarian, this article recognizes the liberal character of Stephen’s thought, and it argues that investigating Stephen’s liberalism holds lessons for us today about the structure of liberal theory. Stephen, the paper demonstrates, articulated robustly both technocratic and pluralistic visions of politics. Perhaps more stridently than any Victorian, he put forward an argument for the necessity and legitimacy of expert rule against claims for popular government. Yet he also insisted on the plurality of perspectives on public affairs and on the ineluctable conflict between them. Because both of these facets existed in his work, he fit within the liberal ranks, but he did not show how the two dimensions fit together. The tension that we discover from reading Stephen is, the article concludes, not peculiar to him, but a permanent feature of liberal theories, which always include both technocratic and pluralistic elements.

Work environment theory has always been straddled between various sciences and their sub-disciplines; to some extent there is a certain “nomadicity” in this field. Generally speaking, during his development man has been exposed to the pressure of the environment, not only natural but also the “artificial” one, in this case work evironment or “residential” issues (so-called housing issue). Furthermore, the entire historical situation was also influenced by industrial production with its factory halls. People (male and female workers) had to find their position in this surroundings. The presented sketch deals as well with the hygiene of work and the occupational diseases. The development of technocratic tendencies is also taken into account.

Susann Huschke discusses how communicating with birthing people in the current technocratic maternity systems in Ireland and elsewhere can inhibit the birthing person's meaningful involvement in decision-making

The phenomenon of medicalization in the United States is something that midwives must deal with on a daily basis, and it has far-reaching consequences for women’s health. This article examines the culture of birth in the U.S. and how medicalization has manifested itself as a social norm from the perspectives of working certified nurse midwives in hospitals and birth centers. It explores the philosophy of the medicalized birth, the impact of technology on the perpetuation of medicalization in United States’ culture, and the fear of this phenomenon that midwives are starting to see in practice, which adversely affects their work. This article argues that advances in and dependence on obstetrical technology have enabled medicalization to continue and created a response of fear from women who worry this phenomenon will negatively affect their birthing experience. My research demonstrates that midwives recognize that the dominance of technology in health care has shaped not only how birth has become medicalized, but also how women are responding to this “technocratic birth” and how navigating women’s fears about hyper-medicalization has become a central part of midwives’ practice. Through Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower and Robbie Davis-Floyd’s idea of the “technocratic birth,” this article explains how medicalization depends on technology and why midwives are seeing an adverse reaction from women who fear these trends.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the antagonistic coexistence of different tourism imaginaries in global post-viral social landscapes. Such antagonisms may be resolved at the expense of the ethics of tourism mobility, if not adjudicated by post-human reflexivity. Currently, unreflexive behaviours involve the refusal to conform to lifesaving “stay-at-home” policies, the tendency to book holidays and the public inspection of death zones. Design/methodology/approach Each of the consumption styles explored in this paper to discuss post-COVID-19 tourism recovery corresponds to at least one tourist imaginary, antagonistically placed against social imaginaries of moral betterment, solidarity, scientific advancement, national security and labour equality. A multi-modal collection of audio-visual and textual data, gathered through social media and the digital press, is categorised and analysed via critical discourse analysis. Findings Data in the public domain suggest a split between pessimistic and optimistic attitudes that forge different tourism futures. These attitudes inform different imaginaries with different temporal orientations and consumption styles. Social implications COVID-has exposed the limits of the capacity to efficiently address threats to both human and environmental ecosystems. As once popular tourist locales/destinations are turned by COVID-2019s spread into risk zones with morbid biographical records their identities alter and their imaginaries of suffering become anthropocentric. Originality/value Using Castoriadis’ differentiation between social and radical imaginaries, Foucault’s biopolitical analysis, Sorokin’s work on mentalities and Sorel’s reflections on violence, the author argue that this paper has entered a new phase in the governance and experience of tourism, which subsumes the idealistic basis of tourist imaginaries as cosmopolitan representational frameworks under the techno-cultural imperatives of risk, individualistic growth through the adventure (“edgework”) and heritage preservation. This paper also needs to reconsider the contribution of technology (not technocracy) to sustainable post-COVID-19 scenarios of tourism recovery.

Despite longstanding attempts to conceptualise and measure value in biomedicine and healthcare, there is no single agreed definition of what value is. Instead, and as such, value is often taken as given or constructed in economic terms. In this paper, we argue that taking the meaning of value as given, or reverting to technocratic or economic dimensions of value, obscures the non-technical and societal dimensions of value construction and operationalisation in healthcare and biomedical practices. Through a comparative study of five cases of biomedicine and healthcare, we aim to bring out the socioeconomic and political processes that make a thing valuable for society and its implications. Our contention is that a clearer understanding of what makes something valuable (or not) is the first step towards what socially reflexive and responsible valuing of biomedicine and healthcare ought to be.

Previous scholarship on the smart city has expressed concern at the top-down, technocratic nature of smart technologies and the lack of meaningful citizen participation in their development. In this paper, we utilize instrumentalization theory to trace the initiation, design and deployment of a specific smart city initiative: bikeshare in Hamilton, Ontario. Smart bikeshare is increasingly seen as complicit in processes of social stratification, serving a predominately white, middle-class demographic and particular locales. Our case study reveals the potential of reflexive design praxes to reconfigure bikeshare as a platform for both instrumental and social value. In particular, we highlight how collaborative, open and inclusive forms of urban governance can enroll a broad range of civic actors to create a scheme that embodies diverse but complimentary goals and ideologies. We conclude that instrumentalization theory provides a conceptual means to open up the “black box” of urban design to critical interrogation, and to identify how to enact participatory design and citizen-centric smart urbanism.

The article deals with the problems of philosophy of management as a science and art. The concept of “inspirational management” is introduced. The inspira­tional concept of management is an alternative to the bureaucratic, technocratic approach to managing an organization. Inspirational management is carried out as inspiration, incentive, morally oriented communication. Inspirational manage­ment is studied on the basis of methods of dialectics and synergy. In order to identify the features of the interaction of sensual and rational, artificial and natural in management, the concepts of F. Taylor, E. Mayo, A.A. Bogdanov, G.P. Shchedrovitsky, A.V. Tikhonov, I. Nonaka and others are considered. The author draws a conclusion about the thought-sensual, socio-aesthetic nature of management as communication. The necessity of a morally oriented populariza­tion of scientific knowledge is substantiated. The main properties of inspirational management are highlighted. The author comes to the conclusion that the meta­system of scientific management is a social idealized project, an ideal type of so­ciety, which combines the properties and elements of science, philosophy, reli­gion, utopia, ideology and art.

Based on an analysis of selected definitions of the terms used for society and culture, the author creates the sociological theoretical framework for the article. In conjunction with the characterized phenomenon of digital transformation, extensive and far-reaching conclusions are formulated on the impact of new technology for postmodernity. In relation to the scientific achievements of Buber and Tischner, the author deeply analyzes the assumptions of philosophy of dialogue. This allows the observation of a wide dimension in the relationship between the relational nature of social relations, the condition of the individual, the durability of the systems humans create, the technocratic direction of civilizational development and the consumerist attitude to reality in contemporary society of the 21st century. The author describes technological worship and presents the negative consequences of digital transformation processes. On the example of the service sector, the transition is presented as symbolic culture based on the relations and dialogue with technical and functional culture. The research method used in the article is a review of the scientific literature. In the study, the author set the goal of determining the impact of digital transformation on humans in the context of the definition of culture and society. As a result of the research, the author states that technological insight (i.e. looking at technology as a way of resolving all contemporary problems) has the danger of successively weakening man, and could lead to a deepening of social inequalities. The author also emphasizes the need to deepen research on the consequences of the digital transformation on society and culture and to develop models that can reduce the negative consequences of the change process.

The article analyses the historical and philosophical views of Patriarch Kirill and his evaluation of modern Western philosophy, formed in the era of postmodernism. A distinctive feature of that time is the blurring of the criteria that define the border between good and evil. According to the Patriarch, this approach is caused by the absolutization of a person’s freedom, considered beyond the context of one’s responsibility for the actions performed. As a result, the philosophy of liberalism justifies the rejection of the Christian commandments, since they are claimed to suppress one’s personal freedom. Thus, the Patriarch emphasizes the importance of preserving the “Christian dimension” of a person’s behavior. The present work pays special attention to the Patriarch’s conceptualization of the Russian philosophical tradition, which is views as an important means to preserve national identity. Representatives of the Russian religious renaissance (S. N. Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyaev, V. V. Zenkovsky and others), reflecting on the understanding of the Church, society, personality, were able to meet the challenges of the time and satisfy questioning believers. The article focuses on the Patriarch’s ideas related to educational issues and reforms. It is posited that educational innovations should be based on Russian traditions, namely on the fundamentality of education. In this respect, it is essential to realize that when introducing the unified state examination procedure as a universal system of students’ assessment, pedagogues need to amend educational plans in order to include the development of learners’ fundamental skills and knowledge. The Patriarch is opposed to the technocratic approach to education because the goal of education is reduced only to the formation of the skills necessary for work. He agrees that school graduates should possess certain competences related to their career, but they should know Russian history, literature, and culture at a sufficient level. The Patriarch’s aspiration to preserve the unity of education and upbringing as a unique feature of the Russian educational process is accentuated.

The article is a review of the book by J. Urry Kak vyglyadit budushchee? [What is the Future?] (Trans. by A. Matvienko; ed. by S. Shchukina. Moscow: Delo; 2018. 320 pp.] which describes multiple discourses of the social future and methods for its research. Its author, the co-director of the Lancaster’s Institute for Social Futures, believes that futurologists focus on new technologies but the key element of crucial innovations is social phenomena. The book presents the following main aspects of the contemporary research of the future: the social future is multiple, and its various images are supported by different actors and compete; all stakeholders should take part in discussions of the future - states, markets, civil society institutions, individuals; as a rule, three methods are used to study the future - individualistic, structural and based on the theory of complex systems; the future needs not to be planned but rather coordinated. The book proves the necessity to study the future to correct the present by creating and transforming social norms, practices and value orientations.

The article considers definitions of the contemporary technology and its social and moral assessment. In the information society, humanitarization of engineering and technical education in general becomes extremely important together with the social-humanitarian knowledge in the interdisciplinary assessment of the scientific-technological development. Technology Assessment (TA) is a new scientific discipline, a theory of assessing and forecasting the development of technology, and a practice of consulting. Based on the TA, algorithms are developed to identify negative effects of technology and to make scientifically sound decisions. An interdisciplinary dialogue on the social assessment of technology should focus not only on technocratic tasks but also on the social-humanitarian methodological and epistemological foundations of the TA. In recent years, this component of the social assessment of technology has influenced the Western-European academic discourse on Responsible Research and Innovation, which reflects the scientific understanding of the importance of ethical reflection of technical activity. Thus, there is an obvious need for the combination of the social-humanitarian expertise of innovative technological projects with technical, mathematical and applied methods in the information age. Contemporary radical changes determined by the scientific-technological revolution require new approaches, methods and forms of interaction between people and communities, while their global nature determines universal ethical principles of these relationships. The post-modern information development of Russia will be accompanied not only by implementation of information technologies in all spheres of life, but also by the social-moral assessment of technology, humanization and humanitarization of engineering, strengthening personal professionalism and creative abilities.

The article is devoted to the study of basic strategies for the development of humanities education in the technocratic and global world. It is stated that total pragmatism and technocratism of our lives causes a deep crisis of study of humanities and leads to the destruction of those human virtues that form the culture. The current state of humanities education and its prospects are assessed in terms of the need to shape the spiritual world of man, his intellectual and spiritual needs. The humanities are creating a socio-cultural space where a human is of the highest value, and culture itself is the embodiment of all the important meanings of human existence. The general tendency of development of the modern Ukrainian education is reduction of the general volume of the humanities taught in schools, colleges and universities. In the context of economic and pragmatic expediency in education, the impact of the humanities on society and public consciousness is distinctly diminished. The need for new strategies for the development of humanities education is justified by the need to enhance its role in society. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the purpose of the study of humanities is in the development of human potential and critical thinking, orientation to dialogue and free development of the individual, formation of the ability to outline the current moral and value imperatives, raising of the individual with an active civic position. By these qualities, the new model of humanitarian education differs from the old one, based on the acquisition of knowledge and the successful completion of standard tasks. It is also important to create an independent, non-conformist community of humanity scholars, which should show examples of high intellectual and spiritual culture, civic position and patriotism.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an expanded introduction of Jasanoff’s (2003, 2007) work on “technologies of humility” to the accounting literature and to show how it can be useful in developing critical dialogic accountings for non-financial matters. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Jasanoff’s (2003, 2007) distinction between “technologies of hubris” and “technologies of humility”, this study extends prior research on critical dialogic accounting and accountability (CDAA) that seeks to “take pluralism seriously” (Brown, 2009; Dillard and Vinnari, 2019). This study shows how Jasanoff’s work facilitates constructing critical, reflexive approaches to accounting for non-financial matters consistent with agonistics-based CDAA. Findings Jasanoff’s four proposed focal points for developing new analytical tools for accounting for non-financial matters and promoting participatory governance – framing, vulnerability, distribution and learning – are argued to be useful in conceptualising possible CDAA technologies. These aspects are all currently ignored or downplayed in conventional approaches to accounting for non-financial matters, limiting accounting’s ability to promote more socially just and ecologically sustainable societies. Originality/value The authors introduce Jasanoff’s work on technologies of humility to show how CDAA, informed by Jasanoff’s proposed focal points, can help to expose controversial issues that powerful interests prefer to obscure, to surface the normative foundations of technocratic analytic methods, to address the need for plural perspectives and social learning and to bring all these aspects “into the dynamics of democratic debate” (Jasanoff, 2003, p. 240). As such, they provide criteria for constructing accounting technology consistent with agonistics-based CDAA.

O ensino em Administração é tecnocrático e cúmplice de imposições capitalistas que alienam os indivíduos conforme desígnios do mercado. O esquivo a uma formação humanista, reflexiva e crítica prejudica a constituição de uma compreensão em relação a uma realidade que é socialmente construída a partir de uma capacidade de agência silenciada. O objetivo deste estudo teórico é abordar o conhecimento como meio de microemancipação perante as formas de alienação que permeiam a sociedade e a formação dos administradores. Propõe-se que o conceito de microemancipação, por intermédio da razão crítica, ilumine a consciência do administrador quanto à s consequências de suas intervenções socioeconômicas.

Este artigo trata da inteligência artificial, com ênfase na computação cognitiva, como uma problemática contemporânea no contexto da cibercultura. Teve como objetivo investigar na literatura científica os principais aspectos da computação cognitiva em unidades de informação. Procurou levantar as perspectivas da computação cognitiva em unidades de informação e mapear como essas unidades têm utilizado (ou podem utilizar) a inteligência artificial em suas atividades e interação com o usuário. A metodologia utilizada se inscreve como pesquisa bibliográfica. Reflete com ênfase, principalmente, em outras leituras a partir do levantamento bibliográfico realizado na base de dados Ebsco e na Brapci, com recorte de 2009 a 2019. Foi realizada uma análise do discurso simples e a categorização dos assuntos dos artigos a partir das abordagens teóricas do ponto de vista da cibercultura. Destaca como resultado as principais definições encontradas na literatura, um case empírico que está sendo desenvolvido pela autoria deste artigo, a abordagem teórica com base na cibercultura, as perspectivas e aplicações dos artigos investigados. Finalmente se considera que a literatura sobre computação cognitiva trata da biblioteca e do bibliotecário no contexto contemporâneo. Os artigos são predominantes estrangeiros, na sua maioria são populistas tecnocráticos, possuem abordagens qualitativas e se referem a computação cognitiva como inteligência artificial.

Based on an ethnographic account of a transitory space of an aircraft under lockdown, this article reflects on quarantine as the product of expert technocratic knowledge, which blurs fine-grained social moments and relationships to create a homogenous functional space. It argues that space under lockdown is a form of a functional alienated space produced and conditioned by non-transparent management mechanisms that are legitimized by seemingly routinized protocols and abstract representations. While this argument is not optimistic as regards capacity building for political or social change, it identifies current spatial configurations as a unique opportunity for experiencing how representations of space prevail over (struggles in) everyday life.

It is generally recognized that in the 21 st cmentury, transfer to the postcontemporary civilization embraces every industry of public production and social communication. The nihilistic concept of postcontemporaneity embodied in digital economy and artificial intellect that does not need classical book culture and traditional library practice (biblionihilis) presents a technocratic delusion. The author characterizes in brief the human socio-cultural evolution from the pre-literate Paleolithic arts to global digital communication of today. This evolution evidences that the book culture is an essential anthropogenic resource of the deepest genetic and sociocultural origins. Every type of library, no less than the artificial intellect, supports education of moral, responsible, independently thinking, creative generation of Russian citizens. The library profession is the profession of the future even to a greater extent than of the present. The author concludes that integration of book and digital cultures will take the Russians to postcontemporaneity. The library intellectuals are responsible for preserving the book culture. The digital culture is an instrument of laying the way to postcontemporaneity.

A political epistemology that enables us to determine if political actors are likely to know what they need to know must be rooted in an ontology of the actors and of the human objects of their kno...

James M. Buchanan was a towering figure in 20th century economics. He did not single handedly resurrect classical political economy in the second half of the 20th century and rescue it from the Marxist interpretation or the technocrats’ disregard, but any account of modern political economy would be woefully incomplete without giving Buchanan primary of place in the narrative. His main insights are basic: (1) one cannot engage in public economic analysis without postulating a theory of the st...

Introduction. The paper compares two approaches to the formation of the internet-sphere. The technocratic approach strengthens itself in the cybernetic-system methodology, it is based on the technocratic governance of society and implies the total governance of the internet-sphere in the interests of the government, the suppression of the individual personality by “programming” its consciousness. This approach is evidenced by “the system of social credit” in China.The deliberative-democratic approach emerges from phenomenology and substantiates an egalitarian model of democracy which implies a universal discussion and importance of the meanings sent by each person in the internet-sphere. The case of online-deliberative forums is analyzed. These forums serve to reveal the opinions of the citizens themselves and to define the genuine public opinion. The advantages of the second approach are identified.Materials and methods. This article uses logical methods of analysis: analysis, synthesis, comparative analysis.The results of the study. This study shows how the cybernetic-systemic methodology holistically analyzing society and assuming its programming “from top to bottom” leads to technocratic governance of society and the Internet. It also shows how the phenomenological approach aimed at perceiving the personal meanings of each citizen becomes the basis of deliberative democracy and online deliberative discussions.Discussion and conclusions. The paper arrives at the following conclusions. Serious risks produced by the use of the cybernetic-systemic principles in governing the Internet sphere are shown: programming the personality consciousness, emasculating the senses experienced by it, and regulating the entire social life. In contrast with the cybernetic approach, the advantages of the phenomenological approach are analytically shown, because it perceives the personal meanings of each individual and leads to their revealing in the Internet sphere, which creates the foundation for maintaining a democratic regime.

Researchers have not studied the human side of project managers thoroughly. Decision-making mechanisms lie not only in technocratic knowledge but also in practitioners’ inner cultures and personal lifestyles. Highlighting the human (f)actor behind the strategic decisions made in projects reveals a new path for analyzing project managers. This article applies Bourdieu’s practice theory within the field of project management through a qualitative study into 17 successful and experienced Greek project managers. The results exhibit the common social characteristics of successful project managers and suggest that project managers must be viewed from a sociological perspective as well.

Resumen Este artículo indaga sobre la construcción del saber y la práctica médica en ginecobstetricia. Se centra específicamente en las transformaciones de los significados sociales y médicos sobre el cuerpo gestante y parturiente que se dieron desde finales del siglo XIX y en el transcurso del siglo XX, y que posibilitan el proceso de medicalización, patologización y hospitalización del parto. Así mismo, se exploran los efectos que tiene el modelo médico tecnocrático de atención al binomio embarazo/parto, en cuanto a la experiencia de dichos procesos en las mujeres. El artículo concluye en la necesidad de profundizar en los elementos del paradigma médico, la formación de los profesionales y las condiciones laborales del sector de la salud, que intervienen en la problemática de la deshumanización de la atención del parto.

Polycentricity is promoted as an ideal urban form to achieve sustainable and balanced development, and it has been widely adopted by planners in China, especially in large cities. However, the rhetoric about polycentricity has rarely been interrogated in planning research in terms of scales, contextuality, power and rationality. To fill this gap, we carried out a Foucauldian discourse analysis in our research to interpret the nature of polycentric practice in City Master Plans, using Tianjin as a case study. Through an analysis of how the discourse of polycentricity is being deployed in planning documents, we develop two principal arguments in this article. First, the conceptual substance of polycentricity evolved alongside the urban transition process in China, and its discursive practice involved multiple scales and spatial elements. Secondly, rather than being mere technocratic practice, the production and legitimation of distinct discourses of polycentricity is an articulation of multi-scalar power involving various stakeholders, which is disguised and justified by the planning profession.

This forum paper responds to the article summarising the similarities between science, technology, societies, and the environment; socio-scientific inquiry; and socially acute questions. Collectively called science in context (SinC), the authors propose that philosophers, borrowing Marx, should also change the world, and not merely interpret it. In this forum paper, I take the opportunity to make problematic this intention to change the world. We in the English speaking world live in contexts that are intensely being overwhelmed by technocratic, reductionistic, accountability schemes that limit the imagination of what schools can do. It needs remembering that these conditions have come about with more than a little help from the natural sciences (and technology) that we seek to teach our students. Yet, the solution is not one of abandoning science and technology; students need science, but they need a vision of science that can lead them to think differently about what is possible. While it is important that they understand the problems that they will inherit, preparation for the future by merely understanding the past is like trying to shoot a moving target by aiming at where it once was. We need to educate for a certain openness of ambition, which may require that we as educators to come into the educational interaction with no desire for mechanistic processes guaranteeing outcomes. Yes, the world needs change, but only that which is desired by those who will inherit our problems. We educators occupy a unique position, and we should not abuse it, no matter how well intentioned these attempts at change may be.

Drawing on a strongly grassroots and expertise-supported development in the field of adult basic education in Austria, this paper traces the current shift to politically motivated_x000D_ interventions. The article is based on a methodologically triangulated case study based on interviews (part 1), review of theory (part 2), and document analysis (part 3). It unveils_x000D_ a unique spirit of empowerment and emancipation in Austrian adult basic education. This spirit currently seems to be at risk. The authors identified five signposts of a changing_x000D_ landscape showing a strong tendency towards impact orientation in terms of employability and upskilling: (1) Standardisation and one of its unintended consequences (2) Technocracy over expertise (3) Narrowing the curriculum (4) Teaching supersedes facilitating (5) Research and development – disliked. In order to preserve the tradition within the framework of adult basic education, the authors emphasise the importance of raising informed and critical voices.

This article situates the emergence of cybernetic concepts in postwar French thought within a longer history of struggles surrounding the technocratic reform of French universities, including Marcel Mauss’s failed efforts to establish a large-scale centre for social-scientific research with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the intellectual and administrative endeavours of Claude Lévi-Strauss during the 1940s and 1950s, and the rise of communications research in connection with the Centre d’Études des Communications de Masse (CECMAS). Although semioticians and poststructuralists used cybernetic discourse critically and ironically, I argue that their embrace of a ‘textocratic’ perspective – that is, a theory of power and epistemology as tied to technical inscription – sustained elements of the technocratic reasoning dating back to these 1920s efforts to reform French universities.

The essay provides arguments and the disclosure of principles which are at the base of the modern Western understanding of the world and the human role in it. The principles are ontological, i.e., the conception of nature as a sum of material, atomic parts, and metaphysical, i.e., mathematics as a basis of scientific theories and methods. The conjunction of these principles constitutes what is known as “instrumental reason,” resulting in the universal technological globalization and nomadic civilization. The latter is composed of detached, technical experts, capable of residing anywhere without any cultural or ethnic commitments. The results of their activities are a global network of technical means both for global nomadic tourism and anonymous associations without personal involvement.

Many problems we face today, including sustainability issues, are complex and encompass intertwined systems. As such, they are difficult to understand and define due to the pluralism of values within society, which also makes it hard to reach agreement on these issues. Technocratic solutions then may be perceived as improper by stakeholders, detaching citizens from urgent issues. Inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to science have recently been strongly advocated as activities that can bring science closer to society to co-produce knowledge suited to deal with such complex problems. Here, we present a heuristic model on how scholars working in discipline-oriented universities can either reinforce disciplinarity or foster transition to inter- and transdisciplinarity. We then describe strategies we implemented to promote this transition. Our model represents interactions scholars establish to perform academic activities and factors influencing how they develop such activities. According to the model, scholars’ interactions overcome disciplinarity when they are diversified and bidirectional, requiring that they work beyond the mainstream scientific practices, crossing the boundaries of traditional training, and using their expertise to influence academic policy and culture. Our strategies to foster inter- and transdisciplinarity encompassed learning-by-doing and influencing academic policies and culture by engaging in policy processes. The main challenges were associated with advancing our academic training while simultaneously navigating the discipline-oriented system of scholar evaluation. We hope our model and initiatives stimulate other scholars to confront discipline-oriented policies and culture, helping to close the gap between academic rigor and social relevance, and to integrate sciences contributing to sustainability, practice, and policy.

Sociedade pós-moderna, pós-industrial, sociedade líquida, pós-humano, hiperesfera, inteligência artificial, Web 3.0, indústria 4.0, sociedade do cansaço, ambientação em Marte. Em meio a esta convulsão social, urge refletir sobre o papel da instituição escola na atualidade. Será que ela cumpre sua função primeira, a saber, preparar os jovens para inserção no mundo do trabalho e desenvolver uma consciência social? Como auxiliar as futuras gerações a enfrentar os enormes desafios que se apresentarão em um modelo social que ainda não conhecemos, num mundo no qual a única certeza é a incerteza, onde tudo que era sólido se liquefez? Será suficiente a integração das Tecnologias Digitais da Informação e Comunicação - TDIC nos currículos para que a escola possa resolver os incomensuráveis problemas que enfrenta? Morin afirma que “os homens sempre elaboram falsas concepções de si próprios, do que fazem, do que devem fazer, do mundo onde vivem”. Desta maneira, caberia à escola desvendar a ilusão e ter a coragem de praticar a parresía dos gregos que significa ter a coragem de dizer a verdade sobre si mesmo. A escola deverá ter a coragem de enxergar a si mesma, percebendo suas fragilidades. O modelo árvore, sequencial, linear, imposto ao longo dos tempos já não contempla uma sociedade rizomática, na qual há a multiplicidade dos múltiplos. O mundo jamais será igual após o advento das TDIC. A inteligência artificial e a simbiótica relação entre homem e máquina mudarão radicalmente a maneira de o humano ser, estar e perceber o mundo. Não haverá como o homem competir com a máquina. Desta maneira, não caberá à escola formar tecnocratas para o mundo do trabalho, mas resgatar aquilo que o humano tem de melhor, que é sua subjetividade, sua capacidade de sentir, sua singularidade, sua unicidade em meio à multiplicidade.

© 2020, © 2020 ETH–Eidenössiche Technische Hochschule Zürich. To direct analysing, monitoring, planning, and administrating the city, a new ‘lifeworld’ system has divided Berlin into spatial units, while an overarching strategy of ‘social space’ has become a new paradigm for the city. The paper critically examines these two concepts, with a reference to two urban programmes: ‘Neighbourhood Management’ and ‘District Centres’, as different institutional arrangements which aim at socio-spatial improvements within designated areas. It asks if the application of these philosophical and sociological concepts in Berlin indicate an alternative, more democratic approach, going beyond the common hierarchical, functionalist and bureaucratic methods of spatial subdivision. It shows a realignment of the spatial, social and institutional dimensions of the city, as a new basis for a more integrated system of urban information and governance, in a move from engineering approaches towards a heightened sensitivity to the social context. However, it argues, there are theoretical tensions between the phenomenological roots of these concepts and the delimitation of space into managed units. It asks whether the administrative and technocratic logics remain, recalibrating the map of governance around a new spatial framework, while increasing pressures on deprived neighbourhoods for self-reliance.

While the interest in AI ethics has overwhelmingly intensified over the last decade, and while various initiatives seek its institutionalization, the literature on algorithmic ethics tends to examine the subject through philosophical, legal, or technocratic perspectives, largely neglecting the empirical, socio-cultural ones. Moreover, this literature tends to focus on the United States, and to overlook other tech centers around the world. This paper aims to fill these gaps by focusing on how Israeli data scientists understand, interpret, and depict algorithmic ethics. Based on a pragmatist social analysis, and on 60 semi-structured interviews with Israeli data scientists, we ask: which ideologies, discourses and world views construct algorithmic ethics? And what cultural processes affect their creation and implementation? Our findings highlight three interrelated moral logics: A) ethics as a personal endeavor; B) ethics as hindering progress; and C) ethics as a commodity. We show that while data science is a nascent profession, these moral logics originate from the techno-libertarian culture of its parent-profession – engineering – and that they accordingly prevent the institutionalization of a wider, agreed-upon moral regime. We further show that these data scientists’ avoidance from institutionalized algorithmic ethics also stems from specific cultural and national determinants. Thus, this paper offers to see algorithmic ethics in a contextualized, culture-specific perspective, one that focuses on how data scientists practically see and construct their ethics, while considering their professional, organizational, and national contexts.

Catholic education has a long tradition of engagement with the liberal arts and especially the humanities. The place of the humanities today in the curriculum is under threat for several reasons, one being the predominance of the technocratic mentality. This paper revisits (in three steps) the contested issue of the role of the humanities in education. First, I review arguments about the role of the humanities within education. Second, some of the defects of the technocratic mentality are pointed out. Third, a Christian lens for viewing the humanities is deployed. Here I propose that the humanities play a valuable role in nurturing the imagination, thereby contributing both to a capacity to transcend the technocratic outlook and to the development of the holistic and humanising education that is central to a Catholic worldview.

The ideas of Friedrich Schleiermacher contributes hugely to the understanding of the concept of religion. Many scholars have published on the significance of Schleiermacher for theology, philosophy and hermeneutics. In response to the Enlightenment thought, Schleiermacher constructed a reappraisal of what religion is. His emphasis on intuition and feeling, steered away from the rational interpretation of religion which placed human cognition at the centre of religion. For Schleiermacher religion should indicate a self-transcendence and a feeling of dependence. In the current era of technocracy, human knowledge and experience is reduced to that which is accessible via technology. Whether technology becomes the medium or object of veneration, surely vary from context to context. Schleiermacher provides direction under the current paradigm, to search for meaning where the human spirit connects with a meaningful other. In order to address this endeavour, this research makes use of a literature study. The goal of this article is to identify the border between superstition and religion by attempting to illuminate the boundaries of religion. It is, according to David Chidester, precisely at the boundaries where religion is best understood. Contribution: The article highlights the importance of the theories created by Schleiermacher and how it applies within a current context where a distinction between religion and superstition is necessary. The research addresses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, numbers 10 (reducing inequalities), 11 (sustainable communities) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions).

Current acceleration in digital practices, unexpected challenges in our social and spatial interactions, and sudden limitations in our physical spaces, mark unpredictable changes in our old normal. A different normal—as generated nowadays from the global pandemic 2020—is setting out, indeed, a mixed physical/virtual framework of the modification humanity is undertaking in being pushed into a new “digital age”, or better, as many scholars are saying, into the New Normal. A new normal in which the balance between physical and virtual interactions became in vantage of the second one in just one year, by increasing, at the same time, both the quantity and the quality of exchanging digital data. It is drafted a bi-dimensional enlarging that re-calls and stresses moreover the value of certain qualitative multi-data-based analyses aimed in reading the people’s common-sense to extrapolate wishes and needs within their daily lives, as the sentiment analysis applied to the urban planning processes wants to do. In synthesis, the bigger number of qualitative data coming from the web (from Socials mainly) became more affordable and more reliable (due to the new larger number of digital flows) in shaping new ways for a more effective public participation within the conventional planning process. In the pages of this article authors, through different but shared viewpoints, propose a possible answer to the topic of a new “Governance 3.0” addressing the attempt of a change of those consolidated paradigms within which the spatial dimension—in which we live and we act day by day—is shaped through planning processes consolidate over the years. Analyzing the relationship between Technocracy and Democracy, as defined by Khanna, it is argued that it is possible to realize new forecasts and to acquire a more democratic and participatory (inclusive) dimension of Governance, thanks to new digital technologies by exploring the general unconscious “feeling” of people, through anonymous data collection from Socials and similar platforms and without any direct or indirect interference with it. The Sentiment Analysis can “define automatic tools able to extract subjective information from texts in natural languages, such as opinions and sentiments, in order to create structured and actionable knowledge to be used by either a decision-support system or a decision-maker.

This review article discusses the recent publications Studying Arctic Fields by Richard C Powell and The Technocratic Antarctic by Jessica O’Reilly. Both books are ethnographic accounts of scientists working in the Polar Regions that analyse interactions at the science–policy interface. Studying Arctic Fields is a detailed story of Canada’s Resolute research station, based on immersive ethnographic observation and communicated through an engaging narrative of colourful stories from Powell’s two summers among the scientists and support staff there. The Technocratic Antarctic treads new ground in its examination of Antarctic social science, presenting the findings of a wide-ranging and thorough research project that engages with the themes of territory, security, processes, practice, problems and science communication. Both publications make valuable contributions to Polar social science and will also appeal to many beyond this.

The objective of the present article is to propose a theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of socio-technical knowledge as a factor in environmental assessment processes. This is done in the context of the evaluation procedures typically employed as part of infrastructure, energy and mining megaprojects. In particular, we will explore a theoretical approach that addresses the social construction of socio-environmental and socio-technical knowledge, as well as the asymmetries of the social actors involved and the risk of the formation of a technocracy that inhibits participation. We propose a methodological framework for the study and analysis of the discursive and semiotic expressions of the discourses within which negotiated knowledge may be found during environmental assessment processes. The framework is proposed as a means of identifying and managing asymmetries in socio-technical knowledge. It is an issue which has been addressed by few studies to date, despite its relevance to the emergence, development and outcome of socio-environmental conflicts.

There has been considerable recent discussion of the social effects of “liberalism,” which are said to include a growth in out-of-wedlock childbirth, repudiation of traditions (religious and otherwise), a rise in populism, increased reliance on technocracy, inequality, environmental degradation, sexual promiscuity, deterioration of civic associations, a diminution of civic virtue, political correctness on university campuses, and a general sense of alienation. There is good reason for skepticism about these claims. Liberalism is not a person, and it is not an agent in history. Claims about the supposedly adverse social effects of liberalism are best taken not as causal claims at all, but as normative objections that should be defended on their merits. These propositions are elaborated with reference to three subordinate propositions: (1) liberalism, as such, does not lack the resources to defend traditions; (2) liberalism, as such, hardly rejects the idea of “constraint,” though the domains in which liberals accept constraints differ from those of antiliberals, and vary over time; (3) liberalism, as such, does not dishonor the idea of “honor.” There is a general point here about the difficulty of demonstrating, and the potential recklessness of claiming, that one or another “ism” is causally associated with concrete social developments.

Over the past decade there has been an explosion of social science research on smart cities, with focuses ranging from governance and activism to surveillance and place-based discrimination. As a result theories of digital appropriation, empowerment, and politics overrepresent urban experiences, producing a gap in our understanding of rural digital politics. Not only is rural information and communication technology (ICT) literature sparse, but it is also overly focused on technical issues of digital divides. This restrictive framing of rural ICT use reinforces the normalization of highly technocratic approaches to development in rural areas, thereby reinforcing neoliberal market forces and obscuring the innovative ways in which rural communities are appropriating digital technologies to build alternate social and economic practices. In response to this gap, this paper offers a case study of how the rural, indigenous community of Igloolik, Canada is using digital platforms to shape their resilience.

The aim of this investigation was twofold: to explore how policy texts are discursively involved in the formation of subject positions and to help lay bare the part dominant hegemonic discourses play in this process. To this end, a policy document on the Iranian higher education quality supervision, assessment, and assurance system was analyzed using the theoretical lens of poststructuralism and the analytical resources of critical discourse analysis to see how language is implicated in the asymmetrical representation of actors/actions in that domain of social life, and might channel our views of reality in specific ways. The findings revealed that whereas the assessees, i.e., Iranian university teachers, are depicted as faceless entities who are at the receiving end of the quality assurance process, the assessors are foregrounded and come to life through the workings of the policy text. In addition, being a mix of especially legal and technocratic genres, the document discursively legitimizes the closely intertwined processes of higher education quality supervision, assessment, and assurance in ways that seem to leave little room, if any, for the potential assessees to challenge them. Implications for policy and research are finally given.