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Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality warns that revenge’s reactiveness can jeopardize salutary change in shared values. I identify an overlooked revenge-mitigating praxis in the spatial movements of Nietzsche’s fictional prophet Zarathustra, who seeks collaborators to overcome Christian morality and create new world-affirming values. Zarathustra’s well-known response to revenge, specifically the revenge against time undergirding interpersonal revenge, is willing the eternal return of the same. But he also exemplifies a more available response. “Passing by” is a coming close to, followed by a veering away from, the most insistent embodiments of reigning values. Although Nietzsche inspires agonistic political theory, Zarathustra avoids direct contest in the usual late modern milieux, which he finds constitutively vulnerable to revenge. When revenge floods the communal passional reservoir, it forestalls recovery—essential to new-values creation—of passions effaced by reigning values. Zarathustra still approaches the usual milieux to know the present-past as the raw material of the future. But by then veering away he practices relaxing his value-creative will and not raging against the present-past. Repeated passing by helps him accept and thus better take up the raw material of the future and accept value change’s slow temporality. Since passing by’s concern is the value horizon, not the political sphere, and since it minimizes direct resistance, it may be less reactive to the political sphere than directly contestatory versions of “refusal.” Analysis of Gandhi’s value-praxis confirms passing by as a tactic for less reactive value-creation and as a lens on the reactiveness of different value-praxes.

In 2020, a group Khoisan activists began occupying state-owned land near Grabouw, South Africa. Knoflokskraal has since attracted thousands of residents against the backdrop of widespread disappointment with land reform, heritage policies, and various forms of socio-economic marginalisation. The common labelling of Knoflokskraal as a “land invasion” overlooks the unique features of this self-styled “reclaim”, not least the agency that its residents embody in asserting a sense of indigenous visual sovereignty. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2022 among residents and community representatives, we highlight instances of interlocutors refusing to go along with mainstream research practices and conforming to widely held expectations surrounding Khoisan representation, but instead imprinting their presence on the landscape in unique ways. Knoflokskraal offers a rare glimpse into self-representation through land reform beyond the purview of the government. Read through the lens of refusal, this case study also prompts researchers to grapple with broader issues relating to research practices, indigenous agency, and visual sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, first year teachers entered a school system that continued to emphasize policies, measures, and curriculum that support racism and social injustice. But first year teachers also entered at a time when there was renewed interest in openly pushing issues of race, oppression and violence into the forefront. I write about the lived experiences of four Latina teachers that were co-constructed as testimonios through dialogue and conversation. This work centers their voices as their tellings are fundamental to our understanding of the challenges in schools. For these teachers, blaring inconsistencies between their social justice endeavors and what they experienced were made clear and their classrooms became sites of contestation towards realizing teaching as it should be. Their work is situated in schools as focal places that reflect inequitable macro spaces and, at the same time, serve as places to resist subjugation and generate openings of alternate possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I interrogate Virginia Woolf’s depiction of grief in Jacob’s Room (1922). Read through Bonnie Honig’s notion of feminist refusal, I unpack the novel’s form, ultimately bringing Woolf’s revisionist history and critical elegy into the context of the planetary violence contingent to the climate crisis. Concluding with a reflection on the ‘childish’ refusal of figures like Greta Thunberg who infamously told world leaders in 2021 that she did not care for their ‘blah, blah, blah’ climate policy, the paper draws parallels between Woolf’s refusal of war and the violence that threatens to sacrifice the children of this century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study will mainly focus on the typology of the action requesting the delivery of a judgment in lieu of a contract, taking into account some doctrinal and jurisprudential „misunderstandings” regarding the admissibility of this action during the period of application of the Civil Code of 1864. The analysis will take into account, in addition to the theoretical aspects of the subject, the case law developed on the substantive conditions of the action for a judgment in lieu of a contract. The selected judgments are mainly handed down by the District 2 Court of Bucharest, but relevant practice has also been identified in the case law collections dedicated to this topic. The purpose of analyzing the judgments is both to exemplify the theoretical notions and, above all, to highlight the way in which the legal provisions have been applied by the courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refusal, rest, and joy--three words not typically associated with conversations on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yet, as this article demonstrates, they are essential concepts for equity-deserving groups. This article documents a conference presentation design in support of equity-deserving groups when speaking to predominantly white audiences. Acts of refusal embedded in the design included: offering our presentation through a storytelling method called narrative métissage; vetting questions prior to responding for Q & A; and encouraging audience members, especially racialised audience members, to prioritise and experience both rest and joy. Throughout the article, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of our decisions. We close with a call to organisational practitioners to respect acts of refusal and centre the joy, safety, and well-being of equity-deserving groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's autonomy includes, as far as possible, self-determination, bodily integrity and the right to influence outcomes. Limits to bodily integrity, which involves no touching without the child's consent or tacit agreement, are discussed. The clinical, legal and ethics literature tends to agree that children may give valid consent to major recommended treatment from around 12 years but may not refuse it until they are legal adults. Research shows that young children are more aware of their bodily integrity and autonomy, of morality and decision making, than was assumed in the past. Adults therefore need to inform children and respect their initially instinctive efforts to protect their bodily integrity. Unlike assent, consent involves patients being adequately informed and being able to accept or refuse proposed treatment. Reasons are given for adults' need to consult with children when determining their best interests. Beyond words, giving or withholding consent also involves emotions of fear, trust and courage, besides embodied reactions of cooperating with treatment or resisting it, in which young children actively engage. Some clinicians work with the informed cooperation of young children who need lifesaving treatment, and at times accept their refusal. Reasons for differences between mainstream experts' views and clinical practices are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounding our work in shared commitments to community care, our collective of racially minoritized higher education scholars aims to resist the often overly competitive and isolating nature of research teams in graduate education. Our commitments to community care are also in opposition to a hyperfocus on productivity as a measure of success in the academy. In this collaborative autoethnography, we reflected upon and made meaning of our experiences as a research team of racially minoritized scholars at a predominantly white institution who are striving to enact our commitments to community care. Using socialization and the theory of refusal as guiding frameworks, we identified three concepts that were vital to our efforts as a team: (a) holding space for racialization and resistance, (b) deliberate centering of the collective learning process and co-construction of knowledge, and (c) acknowledging the tension between production pressures and maintaining relationships. Our findings highlight how research teams can serve as sites of connection, refusal, and resistance for racially minoritized scholars in higher education. By committing to mutuality and our humanity, we also illustrate how research teams can be used to imagine and create new futures in the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we apply a social exchange theoretical approach to the study of rejection. We investigate how the explicit refusal and acceptance of offered resources affect reciprocal exchanges. We distinguish contexts with explicit communication of refusal from contexts in which refusal is uncommunicated or concealed and investigate how context and the actual experience of refusal affect reciprocal social exchange behaviors and the emergence of social bonds. We also examine the effects of contexts and experiences of communicated acceptance. Results of a controlled laboratory experiment show that the contextual possibility of refusal increases giving but nevertheless weakens emerging social bonds. Experiencing refusal increases self-isolation but also, under certain conditions, greater investment in alternative relationships. The contextual possibility of acceptance, on the other hand, has little effect on giving behaviors or social bonds. The experience of acceptance, however, may reduce partner switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers Indigenous refusal to state-imposed US citizenship through a reading of Louise Erdrich's The Night Watchman (2020). The novel follows the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa's struggle to remain a federally recognized tribe during the US government's move toward tribal termination in the 1950s. While the characters' appeal to the US government could be construed simply as a plea for state recognition, the novel's insistence on Chippewa kinship structures as a simultaneous and legitimate expression of the characters' political identities suggests otherwise. Taking up conversations in Indigenous studies pertaining to the limits of state recognition and the possibilities of generative forms of refusal, the article expands upon Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson's (2014) model of refusal with an emphasis on irresolution. This irresolution is manifested in the novel's narrative form—which refuses closure. The article uses the term border positionalities to describe the unresolved and unsettled tension between the characters' Indigenous and settler political identities. It contends that the incommensurability of these social and political identities makes Erdrich's novel an important text for reading citizenship as an ongoing site of struggle for Indigenous people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Israel, most citizens are obligated to serve in the military for a mandatory period and subsequently in the reserve forces for about 21–45 days per year up to the age of 44. Many veterans continue to serve in the reserves for even longer periods. However, uncharacteristically, during 2023, reservists were linked to the social protest in Israel. The ever-widening public protest in Israel was unprecedented. Every Saturday night, from January 2023 until the War of October 7th began, 5–10% of the Israeli population headed out to demonstrate in the streets of various cities and regions against the anti-democratic legislation that was under consideration or had been passed. Among the protesters were many citizens serving in the reserve forces. These opponents of government policy voiced their protest, saying loud and clear that if the legislation continued, they would not serve, unless a war would erupt; indeed, many of them had already quit the reserves only to rejoin when the October War started. And thus, without intending to do so, the army has become a political player in the political struggle currently taking place in Israel. The wide-ranging protest in Israel and the massive number of reservists who had voiced a decision not to show up for reserve duty are indications of an unprecedented social phenomenon that is worthy of scholarly attention. How do we, as critical scholars, put an identity on the military? How do we interpret situations in which the military is more democratic than the government? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrence Malick’s 2019 film A Hidden Life explores the ethical and political problem of refusal as an act and utterance of “not doing” violence and injustice that is expected. The film offers a nuanced and poetic depiction of Austrian peasant Franz Jägerstätter (1907–1943), who refused to give an oath of loyalty to Hitler (Führereid), and was subsequently imprisoned and executed under the Nazi laws criminalizing conscientious objection as an “offence of sedition.” We argue that Malick complicates the question of what it means to rise in defiance against power by locating Jägerstätter’s refusal not in religious dogma or a position of righteousness, but depicting it as a lived experience infused with affect, hesitation and doubt. We analyze the ethics and politics of refusal in A Hidden Life, focusing on the ways in which Malick depicts the possibility of leading an ethical life in an authoritarian state. This possibility concerns, first, the question of what alternatives emerge from the negative gestures of noncompliance, withdrawal or refusal and the question of enduring and, second, undergoing suffering, rather than imposing it on others. Situating our reading of Malick’s film in a philosophical dialogue with Michel Foucault’s writings on revolt and with Hannah Arendt’s reflections on responsibility in a dictatorship, we argue that Malick’s philosophy of refusal encompasses both the negative registers of refusal and articulates its affirmative, relational and testimonial dimensions in relation to history. This is because Malick's Jägerstätter undertook a very specific act of refusal – that of refusing to “make others suffer” (and chose instead to suffer himself). We conclude by drawing attention to three key presences in the film; nature, children and the wife, Fani, who turn the negative power of refusal into an affirmative gesture of companionship, co-presence and witnessing.

Abstract Not all patients on dialysis want to be registered on the kidney transplantation (KT) waiting list and undergo transplantation. The aim of this convergent mixed methods study was to determine the features of patients refusing to be registered on the KT waiting list and the reasons. Quantitative data on all 2017–2019 incident 18–85-year-old dialysis patients, eligible for KT, were extracted from the REIN registry in France. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with patients on dialysis and nephrologists from the Bretagne, Île-de-France and Normandie French regions. The binary logistic regression method was used to identify factors/reasons associated with registration refusal and an inductive thematic analysis was performed on qualitative data. The quantitative analysis included data of 10,512 patients (mean age = 57.5 years). Among them, 860 (8.18%) refused to be registered on the KT waiting list. The multivariate analysis showed that women were 83% more likely to refuse registration compared with men. The qualitative analysis included 21 patients and 11 nephrologists. The integration of the results from the quantitative and qualitative analyses allowed identifying some factors associated with the registration refusal. Most of these factors converged across analyses. These included age, sex/gender, autonomy on dialysis and comorbidities. The integration of the results highlighted some divergence concerning sex/gender and autonomy and an area of expansion related to comorbidities. In conclusion, the patient age, sex/gender and comorbidities appear to play an important role in the refusal to be registered on the waiting list. Interventions focused on these factors might help to improve KT accessibility in France.

This paper is a site of despair, anger, and weariness, in a time of incomprehensible violence. In staying with discomfort and frustration, it is a refusal of the attempted erasures of violence or complying with the need to place it in neat theoretical frameworks. It speaks to an exhaustion in having to theoretically engage with the coherence of dominant epistemologies of meaning-making of violence, in a time when everyday is marked by spectacular violence in Palestine and what that does to thinking of Kashmir, another site of military occupation. I build on my lived experiences as a Muslim Kashmiri woman from the world’s highest militarized zone, the violence of erasure, as well as thinking with/from distance, detachment and dissonances. It is an attempt at reflecting on my ‘ragged, fragmented and often incoherent’ thoughts and experiences around violence, dissonances and feelings of being uprooted. I write this piece ‘pivoted on refusals’. I refuse to make this an exercise of providing easy answers or addressing gaps in the violence literature or of disrupting ways of knowledge production. Who does this writing need to become legible to and what does such legibility attain? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not all patients on dialysis want to be registered on the kidney transplantation (KT) waiting list and undergo transplantation. The aim of this convergent mixed methods study was to determine the features of patients refusing to be registered on the KT waiting list and the reasons. Quantitative data on all 2017–2019 incident 18–85-year-old dialysis patients, eligible for KT, were extracted from the REIN registry in France. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with patients on dialysis and nephrologists from the Bretagne, Île-de-France and Normandie French regions. The binary logistic regression method was used to identify factors/reasons associated with registration refusal and an inductive thematic analysis was performed on qualitative data. The quantitative analysis included data of 10,512 patients (mean age = 57.5 years). Among them, 860 (8.18%) refused to be registered on the KT waiting list. The multivariate analysis showed that women were 83% more likely to refuse registration compared with men. The qualitative analysis included 21 patients and 11 nephrologists. The integration of the results from the quantitative and qualitative analyses allowed identifying some factors associated with the registration refusal. Most of these factors converged across analyses. These included age, sex/gender, autonomy on dialysis and comorbidities. The integration of the results highlighted some divergence concerning sex/gender and autonomy and an area of expansion related to comorbidities. In conclusion, the patient age, sex/gender and comorbidities appear to play an important role in the refusal to be registered on the waiting list. Interventions focused on these factors might help to improve KT accessibility in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, low-income rural black youth are assumed to exhibit endurance in their higher education agency while yet not really being agentic, because they accommodate an oppressive university and settle for less ambitious aspirational horizons. Drawing on illustrative empirical data from a longitudinal study of black youth without hot knowledge of higher education to deploy from their families' biographies, the project explored students' accessing, participating in and moving on from their studies at five South African universities. In exploring youth aspirations and agency, the concept of repair is employed to position aspirations as reparative and temporal where past injustices, present and future intersect in shaping agency and in projecting imagined futures for youth. The cultural lens of aspiration offers a space to interrogate and dismantle past exclusions and unsettle norms of the "disadvantaged student" to avoid reinscribing past injustice in ways which are globally relevant to marginalised university students from poor backgrounds compared to better off students. It shows how day to day negotiated conditions of living in universities by these students are agentic; enduring poverty and exclusion is an active aspirational struggle for dignity and recognition, even if these students are not able to undo relations of power. Ubuntu is mobilised as an ontological means to further deepen how we understand aspirations and agency as interdependent and interacted between person and community and as refusal of the neoliberal university. Finally, features of universities as potential spaces of aspirations and repair for transformative change and transformative futures are sketched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of children of Muslim Filipinos in Sabah provides an intriguing case study for understanding "refugeeness" and children's identities in protracted situations of displacement. For complex historical, political and social reasons, these children both are and are not Filipino. Their families assert a cultural citizenship across political borders, while Sabahans stigmatize Filipino and refugee identities. The children themselves foreground their identity as Muslim, allowing them to assert a form of place-belonging that is not recognized by many Sabahans. The article theorizes these assertions and denials through the concept of refusal, arguing that in this context refusal takes multiple, competing forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon recent developments in international LGBTIQ rights law and activism to show how time and temporality are central to the growing international recognition of (and backlash to) sexual orientation and gender identity rights claims. Focusing on the manifestation of these temporal debates within the international backlash to the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014, the paper asks how we might think queer futures differently. It engages with Deleuzian temporal multiplicities to argue that simply countering linear narratives of LGBTIQ progress will not escape the logics of the present or account for injustices of the past. Instead, it is necessary to escape from those logics and conceive of the present as a dimension of the future even if we do not know what that future will be. This position of openness to the future makes clear how international institutions assume their own atemporality and shows how we might 'affirmatively refuse' structures of the present that are limiting, unjust or absurd. Using this framework, the paper identifies what elements might be required to think futures of LGBTIQ justice in a non-linear fashion, where the future is not tethered to the present or reliant upon a single path of progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the state of contingent laborers, Ph.D. holders, lovers of robust scholarship, and hopeful academics who toil away in the neoliberal university in the search for the academic good life. The author argues that the academic good life is a fantasy and agrees that the fantasy is cruel, i.e. not attainable or livable, but does suggest the practices of teaching and conducting research, the practices that make up a scholarly life, are sustainable activities of a good life that can and should inform how we use the university. After drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre and Chris Higgins to picture the academic good life, Deane turns to theories of refusal articulated by Sandy Grande and Bonnie Honig to suggest refusal practices for reimagining lives that are academic and good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article posits self-care as a powerful analytic in contemporary anthropology, one that provides insight into both long-standing anthropological concerns about the person, power, and inequality and more contemporary questions about relationality, futurity, and anthropology itself. The cascade of crises that defines the now results in a collective preoccupation with care, the self, and self-care. In this moment, the work of scholars who have long theorized systemic abandonment and the unequal distribution of care is crucial not just to understanding the present but to imagining a new way forward. Proposing what an anthropology of self-care might look like, we start with the term's emergence in Black feminist thought and Foucault's late writing. We then explore how it moves through anthropology and how it has been defined by Indigenous, disability, queer, and Black feminist epistemologies. We end with sections on what we term literatures of refusal and self-care's relation to these. We thus argue that self-care provides a unique angle through which to grapple with the discipline's legacy and to imagine a new anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the concept of refusal, particularly as it has been developed within critical Black studies and critical Indigenous studies within anthropology and beyond. It argues that while both Foucauldian and Gramscian frames have generated often exquisite analyses of the animations and counter-animations of power, they have not, in a general sense, sufficiently attended to the foundational processes that charted the possibilities of modern personhood and political life not only in the West but globally. Nor did they tend to acknowledge the genealogies of Black and Indigenous radical thought that were informing approaches to political life within these communities, locally and transnationally. I contend that any significant reformulation of the discipline of anthropology must deliberate anew about the logics and mechanisms of political struggle in a way that recognizes and foregrounds—in nuanced and dynamic ways—the ongoing coloniality and racism that constitute the afterlives (and still lives) of conquest. Refusal provides inroads to this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractNGOs are perceived as organisations that are always seeking funding. However, there are many instances where donations are refused by NGOs. This counter-intuitive decision, given the often grave humanitarian needs, is not well documented beyond brief references or individual cases. Refusal is an expression of values and principles, important for actors that are often portrayed as having little to no agency or power in relation to donors. We developed a database of 32 examples of funding refusals by NGOs detailing the reasons for refusal. To classify and compare the refusals, we developed a preliminary typology of NGO motivations for donor refusal, which contains four types (independence, impartiality, neutrality, and humanity) that align with humanitarian principles. Each category and type are defined and examples of each are provided. Given the focal nature of NGOs in development activity, the lack of attention to funding refusal is notable. We address this lacuna by creating a database and developing a preliminary typology to provide a foundation for future research. This study contributes a novel typology to an under-studied topic. In so doing, this paper provides a foundation for studies of refusal to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the cancellation of a public lecture by Palestinian scholar, Walaa Alqaisiya, during a curatorial program at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in May 2022 due to false accusations of antisemitism in the context of anti-Palestinian racism in Austria. We speak of an 'architecture' because we analyze the questions of power, (in)visibility and erasure from the point of view of the public and institutional spaces, asking who can speak, about what and for whom, when? As a collective of former participants, we write from an implicated positionality that we call 'participatory witnesses:' the program ceased to be an abstract exploration of decolonial and queer/feminist perspectives, and transformed us affectively and politically, forcing us to critically respond to the censorship. We start by summarizing the unfolding of events and introducing the figure of the participatory witness and the concept of architecture. Then, we turn to Austrian academia's climate of censorship of Palestinian perspectives. From this context, we analyze Alqaisiya's cancellation through the prism of Euromodern Orientalist tropes, disciplinary strategies and civilizational discourses employed to continue the marginalization and exclusion of Palestinian perspectives. We pay particular attention to the significance of silencing queer Palestinian voices in the context of Israeli pinkwashing. Finally, we mnemonically map our attempts at navigating the architecture, negotiating between reclaiming public visibility for queer Palestinian perspectives and collective acts of refusal and delinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Turkey's Kurdish borderlands, smugglers occasionally entered insurgent corridors, the guerrilla-controlled mountainous passages, to bypass state control. This article takes insurgent corridors to frame sovereignty as monopolization of space-making and proposes space-making as a key analytic to examine the forms of sovereignty that facilitate or undermine specific extractive practices. As a spatial form, corridors are central to the claiming and exercising sovereignty and extraction without having complete territorial control across a bounded space or the whole population in that space, the territoriality identified with nation-states. By controlling corridor space and monopolizing the traffic in them, colonial empires, nation-states, corporations, and rebel movements exercised sovereignty and extracted value that is carried or generated by corridor traffic. The insurgent corridors further complicate corridor sovereignty as the Kurdish guerillas monopolized corridor-making without monopolizing and extracting the corridor traffic under a post-nation-state political vision that favors grassroots democratized organization of mobilities and livelihoods rather than centralized exclusive authority and biopolitical governance on them. The insurgent corridors constituted what I call countersovereignty, a practice contesting not only the existing state sovereignty but also political models of nation-state sovereignty and territoriality. While anthropologists understand refusal as disengagement from actors claiming sovereign superiority, the insurgent corridor countersovereignty entailed a distinct form of political refusal that rejects mimicking state sovereignty and associated forms of biopolitical governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper relies on the widely accepted concept that the speech act of refusal, which is intrinsically face-threatening and sometimes subtle to understand, requires pragmatic competence and cultural understanding. In light of this, the present study investigates the speech act of refusal in both natural and constructed languages, proposing that the speech act of refusal in constructed languages is a much more complex phenomenon, influenced by factors beyond language itself. This paper then demonstrates that the refusal strategies in two constructed languages, Esperanto and Unish, are similar to those in natural languages in accordance with linguistic typology; indirect refusals are more frequently used than direct ones. However, it is found that Esperanto interlocutors employ more direct strategies than Unish interlocutors, reflecting the low-context nature of Esperanto culture and the common values shared by Esperanto speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries have benefitted from the extraction of Indigenous Knowledges and cultural materials through which they have sought to complete collections. This has led Indigenous communities to distrust of research and research institutions, recognizing the deep harms and exploitation of these research practices. This article undertakes a case study of the book The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway to reveal the ways in which extractive research, publishing, and collections practices are known to Indigenous communities and are refused by them. This discussion pursues the publication and collections history of this book through the framework of refusal, an Indigenous feminist practice that asserts Indigenous Sovereignty and care practices over Knowledge. Refusal should be viewed as a generative space (Tuck and Yang 2014a) and should be taken as an invitation for libraries to question and critically evaluate the very foundational principles of our profession and practices. This article challenges three deeply held library assumptions that are revealed through refusal: (1) that extraction is inevitable, (2) that the library is the only appropriate place to steward materials, and (3) that communities should be invested in the future of the library. The call to reconceptualize extraction through refusal is essential: libraries that do not strive to be reciprocal and transformational in their relationships with Indigenous peoples will only serve as a barrier to Indigenous resurgence. Instead, we must reconceptualize librarianship practices toward a liberatory practice.

The rapidly expanding field of artificial intelligence (AI) is often accompanied by calls for parallel research on its societal implications. For research about AI in healthcare, this translates to some form of patient engagement. In this article, we question whether patient engagement and participation really contribute to responsible AI. We first summarise existing critiques of patient participation. We review the critiques of the critiques, themselves motivated by the wish to contribute, and not to leave the field solely to computer- and data scientists. In the final section, we express our doubts about the possibilities for developing positive, generative interventions, and explore ‘refusal’ and ‘hesitation’ as forms of critique and engagement. The conclusion presents a checklist for refusing patient participation, an addition to the growing repertoire of tools for patient participation and responsible innovation. The article draws on and contributes to the STS tradition of creative and speculative writing.

REFUSAL is undoubtedly a conflictual speech act, as it threatens the recipient’s face and is directed against their expectations. For this reason, speech acts aimed at issuing a refusal are accompanied by other speech acts that are intended to prepare the recipient for receiving a refusal and to mitigate the effects of the refusal. The aim of the article is to analyze the patterns of action of refusing in German refusal letters for job applications. On the basis of the analysis, an attempt is made to create a typology of the linguistic action patterns that occur when this act is performed. This involves various combinations of other speech acts (THANKING, EXCUSE, CONDEMN, REQUEST, CONFIRMATION, SUGGESTION, REASONING, etc.), which are realized before the refusal is issued, directly afterward or both before and after this speech act. Authentic refusal letters from the period 2001-2012 form the basis for the analysis. Using the collected empirical material, the frequency of occurrence of certain speech acts accompanying the REFUSAL speech act is also examined and their function is diagnosed on this basis. Finally, an attempt is made to create a hierarchy of the speech acts occurring with the REFUSAL speech act with the aim of contributing to the creation of the rejection letters.

Visual and written accounts of rage in popular media tend to associate rage with violent masculinities.1 Filicide brings women’s rage into sharp relief. By reading South African women in relation to their ancestral peer, Sila van den Kaap and through a ‘black deformative’ analysis of media accounts and an interview of filicide in South Africa, this paper asserts that black women have ample cause for rage. Filicide brings the purportedly personal into public light and compels a response. Although the response tends to pathologise filicidal women, it calls attention to the conditions of impoverishment that black women live under. The paper suggests that filicidal women’s refusal of the conditions of mothering, may also be an enactment of a strike against gendered scripts of care. Their own subsequent suicide might simultaneously be read as an opting out and as reaching for freedom beyond the interdiction of impoverishment. The findings suggest that rage is a crucial action-oriented affect in the expression and striving for black freedoms of which women are always core protagonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The present study investigated school absence among 1,076 5–15 year-old children with neurodevelopmental conditions (intellectual disability and/or autism) approximately one year following the start of COVID-19 in the UK. Methods: Parents completed an online survey indicating whether their child was absent from school during May 2021 and the reason for each absence. Multi-variable regression models investigated child, family and school variables associated with absenteeism and types of absenteeism. Qualitative data were collected on barriers and facilitators of school attendance. Results: During May 2021, 32% of children presented with persistent absence (missing ≥ 10% of school). School refusal and absence due to ill-health were the most frequent types of absence, accounting for 37% and 22% of days missed, respectively. COVID-19 related absence accounted for just 11% of days missed. Child anxiety was associated with overall absenteeism and with days missed because of school refusal. Parent pandemic anxiety and child conduct problems were not associated with school absenteeism. Hyperactivity was associated with lower levels of absenteeism and school refusal but higher levels of school exclusion. A positive parent-teacher relationship was associated with lower levels of absenteeism, school refusal and exclusion. Child unmet need in school was the most frequently reported barrier to attendance while COVID-19 was one of the least frequently reported barriers. Conclusion: COVID-19 had a limited impact on school attendance problems during this period. Findings highlighted the role of child mental health in different types of absence and the likely protective role of a positive parent-teacher relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While noncompliance is a concerning challenging behavior and commonly reported by educators, its measurement is likely to be invalid and inaccurate given the subjectivity of the operational definition. Engagement is offered as a more valid, accurate measurement that may provide data regarding the amount of instruction accessed by the student. In this article, we outline limitations of noncompliance measurement and provide resources for educators to measure and support varying forms of engagement to improve student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents reflections on our pre-Covid-19 exhibition Care and Control, and our interdisciplinary collaboration between artist Alice Tatton Brown and social scientists Maud Perrier and Junko Yamashita. The reflections expand current feminist debates about self-care and collective care by centring the importance of public space, refusals and contracts. Care and Control was designed as both an exhibition and a meeting place, created through our ongoing collaboration. It took place in a shopping centre in Bristol (UK) in June 2019. The exhibition was a collage of feminist archival objects and print, contemporary installation and community engagement. Care and Control began broadly as an experiment to seek out alternatives to an individualist approach to self-care, by researching how Women's Liberation Activists practised self-care and collective care beyond the household, and within protest, friendship and public space. In this article, we make a methodological contribution to feminist discussions of collective care by showing how our strategy of a) making a public exhibition and b) writing a Contract of Care is a significant technique for enacting some of the promise of Audre Lorde's 'self-care as warfare'. We show how Care and Control, drawing from the legacy of the Women's Liberation Movement, generated resources for countering definitions of self-care that predominate. Reflecting on how the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated classed, racialised and gendered divisions in reproductive labour, our article suggests that self-care and collective care need to be conceptualised drawing on social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the contemporary relationship between design and decolonization, with a focus on reevaluating our expectations of design as a profession and exploring potential pathways forward. The discussion centers on the stagnant state of design discourse, and the intricate power dynamics within design practices. It underscores the significance of recognizing that designers do not uniformly occupy identical positions, highlighting the asymmetrical power dynamics inherent in design nearshoring and the prioritization of Northern interests. Furthermore, it questions the reliance on exclusive designerly methods for systemic change, the pursuit of the common good, and the realization of the pluriverse. We claim that design, in its current form, often reinforces capitalist and colonial structures rather than dismantling them. The paper criticizes design’s complicity in perpetuating colonial differences while claiming to address them, recognizing the fundamental role of design for the realization of the modern project and as a key enabler of capitalist modes of production and consumption. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this paper scrutinizes the dissonance between design’s self-professed ethical values and the pursuit of capitalistic gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency general surgeons often provide care to severely ill patients requiring surgical interventions and intensive support. One of the primary drivers of morbidity and mortality is perioperative bleeding. In general, when addressing life threatening haemorrhage, blood transfusion can become an essential part of overall resuscitation. However, under all circumstances, indications for blood transfusion must be accurately evaluated. When patients decline blood transfusions, regardless of the reason, surgeons should aim to provide optimal care and respect and accommodate each patient's values and target the best outcome possible given the patient's desires and his/her clinical condition. The aim of this position paper was to perform a review of the existing literature and to provide comprehensive recommendations on organizational, surgical, anaesthetic, and haemostatic strategies that can be used to provide optimal peri-operative blood management, reduce, or avoid blood transfusions and ultimately improve patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of zines and zine-making is becoming increasingly popular in academic spaces from teaching to research. While this uptake has been widely celebrated, in this article I reflect on some of the risks associated with the mainstreaming of zine culture. In particular the paper explores the risks associated with zines becoming reduced to mere "outputs" within the context of an intensifying neoliberal university landscape. In this context there is a danger that future work will focus on the product of the zine, neglecting to consider the values of addressing the more processual dimensions of zines. Reflecting on my own zine-practice as geographer, I call for a shift to the focus on zineing as process and politics of refusal that explicitly challenges neoliberal, capitalist agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES Unlike the initial plan, some patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma cannot or do not receive surgery after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT). This study aimed to report the epidemiology of patients not receiving surgery after nCRT and to evaluate the potential risk of refusing surgery. METHODS We analysed patients with clinical stage T3-T4aN0M0 or T1-T4aN1-N3M0 oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma who underwent nCRT as an initial treatment intent between January 2005 and March 2020. Patients not receiving surgery were categorized using predefined criteria. To evaluate the risk of refusing surgery, a propensity-matched comparison with those who received surgery was performed. Recurrence-free (RFS) and overall survival (OS) was compared between groups, according to clinical response to nCRT. RESULTS Among the study population (n  = 715), 105 patients (14.7%) eventually failed to reach surgery. There were three major patterns of not receiving surgery: disease progression before surgery (n  = 25), functional deterioration at reassessment (n  = 47), and patient's refusal without contraindications (n  = 33). After propensity-score matching, the RFS curves of the surgery group and the refusal group were significantly different (P  <   0.001), while OS curves were not significantly different (P  =   0.069). In patients who achieved clinical complete response on re-evaluation, no significant difference in the RFS curves (P  =   0.382) and in the OS curves (P  =   0.290) was observed between the surgery group and the refusal group. However, among patients who showed partial response or stable disease on re-evaluation, the RFS and OS curves of the refusal group were overall significantly inferior compared to those of the surgery group (both P  <   0.001). The 5-year RFS rates were 10.3% for the refusal group and 48.2% for the surgery group, and the 5-year OS rates were 8.2% for the refusal group and 46.1% for the surgery group. CONCLUSIONS Patient's refusal remains one of the major obstacles in completing the trimodality therapy for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Refusing surgery when offered may jeopardize oncological outcome, particularly in those with residual disease on re-evaluation after nCRT. These results provide significant implications for consulting patients who are reluctant to oesophagectomy after nCRT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To meet all energy requirements by renewable energy (RE) sources, hydrogen is an effective energy transport and storage instrument. Because of being a highly innovative field in developing countries, there are high uncertainties with different subcomponents in the hydrogen energy (HE) field. In the literature, fuzzy set extensions are heavily preferred to model different types of uncertainties when making decisions in the energy field. As one of the most comprehensive ones, spherical fuzzy set (SFS) is used to model the uncertainties caused by refusal and inconsistency within some theoretical limitations. In this study, a novel fuzzy set (FS) extension called neutrosophic picture fuzzy set has been developed to obtain a more flexible and reliable modeling approach usable with the information having higher inconsistency, and suitable with the problems requiring precise calculations. As a popular decision-making (DM) techniques, TOPSIS methodology has been redesigned based on neutrosophic picture fuzzy set. By using the developed methodology, the available hydrogen production (HP) alternatives of Türkiye have been evaluated. Biomass gasification (BG) has been decided as the best hydrogen energy production method under the current conditions. The results have been compared with the results obtained by spherical fuzzy TOPSIS and it has been proved that more reliable results are obtained by the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

raumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant global health concern, particularly affecting young individuals, and is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Despite improvements in treatment infrastructure, many TBI patients choose discharge against medical advice (DAMA), often declining necessary surgical interventions. We aimed to investigate the factors that can be associated with DAMA in TBI patients that were recommended to have surgical treatment. This study was conducted at single tertiary university center (2008–2018), by retrospectively reviewing 1510 TBI patients whom visited the emergency room. We analyzed 219 TBI surgical candidates, including 50 declining surgery (refused group) and the others whom agreed and underwent decompressive surgery. Retrospective analysis covered demographic characteristics, medical history, insurance types, laboratory results, CT scan findings, and GCS scores. Statistical analyses identified factors influencing DAMA. Among surgical candidates, 169 underwent surgery, while 50 declined. Age (60.8 ± 17.5 vs. 70.5 ± 13.8 years; p < 0.001), use of anticoagulating medication (p = 0.015), and initial GCS scores (9.0 ± 4.3 vs. 5.3 ± 3.2; p < 0.001) appeared to be associated with refusal of decompressive surgery. Based on our analysis, factors influencing DAMA for decompressive surgery included age, anticoagulant use, and initial GCS scores. Contrary to general expectations and some previous studies, our analysis revealed that the patients' medical conditions had a larger impact than socioeconomic status under the Korean insurance system, which fully covers treatment for TBI. This finding provides new insights into the factors affecting DAMA and could be valuable for future administrative plans involving national insurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Significant proportions of patients either refuse or discontinue radiotherapy, even in the curative setting, leading to poor clinical outcomes. This study explores patient perceptions that underlie decisions to refuse/discontinue radiotherapy at a cancer care facility in northern Sri Lanka. Methods: An exploratory descriptive qualitative study was carried out among 14 purposively selected patients with cancer who refused/discontinued radiotherapy. In-depth semi-structured interviews were transcribed in Tamil, translated into English, coded, and thematically analyzed. Results: All participants referred to radiotherapy as “current” with several understanding the procedure to involve electricity, heat, or hot vapour. Many pointed to gaps in information provided by healthcare providers, who were perceived to focus on side effects without explaining the procedure. In the absence of these crucial details, patients relied on family members and acquaintances for information, often based on second or third-hand accounts of experiences with radiotherapy. Many felt pressured by family to refuse radiation, feared radiation, or felt ashamed to ask questions, while for others COVID-19 was an impediment. All but three participants regretted their decision, claiming they would recommend radiation to patients with cancer, especially when it is offered with curative intent. Conclusion: Patients with cancer who refused/discontinued radiation therapy have significant information needs. While human resource deficits need to be addressed in low-resource settings like northern Sri Lanka, providing better supportive cancer care could improve clinical outcomes and save healthcare resources that would otherwise be wasted on patient preparation for radiotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon the famous sculpture of the Dying Gaul, situated in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, in order to read and to rethink discourses of resilience in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene poses fundamental questions to understandings of 'bouncing back' or imaginaries of 'sustainable futures'. There can be no affirmative futural imaginaries if saving the world requires the destruction and sacrifice of innumerable others. Thinking with Byron's reflections upon the Dying Gaul enables us to approach resilience from a radically different perspective, one that (read in conjunction with the work of Claire Colebrook, Karen Barad, Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand and Saidiya Hartman amongst other contemporary theorists) we call a 'posthumous' approach. 'Posthumous resilience' refuses the lure of affirmation, of imaginaries of salvage and salvation, and instead seeks to generate an ethic of 'active withdrawal' that points beyond the temporal and spatial constraints of the colonial, imperial, imagination. We conclude with a reflection on how posthumous discourses of 'active withdrawal' can be the basis of generative politics of refusal which hold open conceptions of justice and seek to break from cycles of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the dynamic landscape of the neoliberal university, conversations between emerging scholars serve as vital spaces for critical reflection and transformative action. This collaborative autoethnographic study engaged with the complexities of navigating academia as two black clinical psychologists within a South African university. Drawing on decoloniality, we interrogated the pervasive ‘carrying on’ culture and its impact on early-career academics. Our lived experiences underscored the intersections of identity, power and resistance, as we grappled with the commodification of higher education and the pressures to ascend the ranks hastily. Through a reflexive thematic analysis of our recorded discussions, we uncovered mechanisms for disrupting normative structures and redefining the purpose of scholarly pursuits. Central to our inquiry was the notion of refusal as a generative force, challenging the status quo and advocating for a more conducive, supportive environment where teaching and learning activities are genuine expressions of growth. We envisioned a university that fosters meaningful intellectual engagement and societal transformation, calling for collective dialogue and action to reimagine the neoliberal higher education landscape. Contribution: Our study contributes to the ongoing conversation on decolonising academia, offering insights into the struggles and aspirations of emerging scholars in the Global South, and advocating for a transformative praxis that nurtures authentic intellectual pursuits and collective well-being within academia.

This paper critically examines the contemporary relationship between design and decolonization, with a focus on reevaluating our expectations of design as a profession and exploring potential pathways forward. The discussion centers on the stagnant state of design discourse, and the intricate power dynamics within design practices. It underscores the significance of recognizing that designers do not uniformly occupy identical positions, highlighting the asymmetrical power dynamics inherent in design nearshoring and the prioritization of Northern interests. Furthermore, it questions the reliance on exclusive designerly methods for systemic change, the pursuit of the common good, and the realization of the pluriverse. We claim that design, in its current form, often reinforces capitalist and colonial structures rather than dismantling them. The paper criticizes design’s complicity in perpetuating colonial differences while claiming to address them, recognizing the fundamental role of design for the realization of the modern project and as a key enabler of capitalist modes of production and consumption. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this paper scrutinizes the dissonance between design’s self-professed ethical values and the pursuit of capitalistic gains.

The ultimate goal of the commercial registration is to serve the interests of private individuals and entities, so that they could take full advantage of the legal effects of the commercial register entries. To achieve this aim, sufficient control mechanisms should be in place to ensure that registry official rulings meet all legal requirements. The law therefore establishes a court procedure for contesting such refusals by the applicants. This procedure, although focused at the appealed refusal, calls for the protection of a broader range of civil rights, among which the compensation of the procedural costs incurred as a result of the faulty refusal and its contesting. The present paper explores the obstacles hindering the rightful course of the registry refusal litigation proceedings, with focus on awarding the appellant’s expenses within the said court procedure. Despite the fact that these hindrances followed the legal amendments to the Law on the Commercial Register at the end of 2020, the shortcomings in the legal practice are not the result of imperfect lawmaking, but of the way the law is interpreted in recent case-law. The latter is analysed in detail further in this report, in order to identify the key misinterpretations which led to malpractice. This report also suggests ways forward to address the subject and to find solutions to the mentioned shortcomings.

Abstract Objective The importance of research cannot be overemphasized. Research findings serve as a guide for the enactment of development policies and legislation. However, not all members of the target population willingly participate in a study. The current study explored the reasons why some individuals refused to partake in inclusive education research in a developing country, Ghana. The journaling helped to capture the voices of 87 participants who refused to take part in a larger inclusive education survey study. Results The study found that the participants did not take part in the research because of reasons such as lack of financial gain, bad experience with previous research, lack of direct benefit, and lack of time. The findings of the study and its implication for policymaking in Ghana and research studies in sub-Saharan Africa are discussed.