The Convention on Biodiversity has developed the concept of ‘ecosystem services’ and ‘natural resources’ in order to describe ways in which humans benefit from healthy ecosystems. Biodiversity, conceived through the economic approach, was recognized to be of great social and economic value to both present and future populations. According to its critics, the economic capture approach might be inadequate in addressing rapid biodiversity loss, since many non-human species do not have an economic value and there may thus be limited grounds for prohibiting or even restricting their destruction. This article aims to examine the concept of biodiversity through competing discourses of sustainability and to discuss the implications for education for sustainable development (ESD). https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408213495606 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how resistance to change might be a consequence of differences in professional discourse of professional groups working together in a change program.
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Presentation given at the online conference Talking the Cyprus Issue Togehter : Maritime Disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean - Session 2
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There are approximately 250,000 Orthodox Reformed Christians (ORC) in the Netherlands, who live according to a strict adherence to the Bible. The ORC dissociate themselves from the mainstream sport discourse in the Netherlands that regards sport as a societal good. We draw on post-structural perspectives to explore how governmentality enables Dutch ORC youths to resist dominant societal discourses about sport. We used four dimensions to examine how governmentality acts on individuals in: rationality, history, culture and technology. We analysed publications that concern themselves specifically with sport within the denomination of the ORC church and also conducted a combination of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 32 ORC youths. The results show the power of governmentality and also how ambiguity enables moments of resistance to emerge.
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Stefan Bengtsson's commentary about policy hegemony discusses the alternative discourses of socialism, nationalism, and globalism. However, Stefan does not adequately demonstrate how these discourses can overcome the Dominant Western Worldview (DWW), which is imbued with anthropocentrism. It will be argued here that most policy choices promoting sustainability, and education for it, are made within a predetermined system in which the already limiting notion of environmental protection is highly contingent on human welfare. What would really contest the dominant assumptions of Vietnamese policy and, more specifically, education for sustainable development (ESD) is an alternative discourse that challenges the DWW. That alternative discourse embraces philosophical ecocentrism and practices of ecological justice between all species, and deep ecology theory - all perspectives fundamentally committed to environmental protection. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2015.1048502 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This article describes the process of organizational change due to technological evolutions, suggesting that community-specific differences in discourse may have a considerable influence on its success. The questions for this study focus on: 1) how do we define a technically oriented employee who has to cope with organizational change? 2) Which factors determine the reaction to organizational change projects in which these technically oriented employees are involved? And 3) what are the consequences of these specific characters of technically oriented employees for implementing change programs in the most effective manner? First, while the present studies on professional communication do not pay any attention to change management, the current models of change management also barely pay attention to (professional) discourse. Second, we examine culture, which can be divided into national culture (NC), organizational culture (OC), and professional culture (PC). In this case study, we focus on the professional cultures of specific (change) managers and technicians and their discourse in the utilities sector. After this, we describe the case study, which exemplifies how change results can be influenced. It seems that in a technical environment, the change process and interventions need to be specific, concrete, and to the point. However, there also seems to be a dilemma between universal (e.g. mechanistic and formal) and contingency (e.g. organic, informal and emergent) approaches to the change process. The results of this study show the need to analyze cultures through discourse and through PC as a way to differentiate discourse between technical and non-technical employees. We suggest further research on three aspects that interfere and influence the change effort: context, discourse, and professional cultures of (change) managers and technicians.
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With a lack of a clear definition, though a normalized use, the discursive weight of the concept of integration is felt throughout policy and civic integration programmes. In wider societal discourse the term integration is used in a taken-for-granted way, with an assumed understanding of its meaning and the actions which one takes to display its attainment. Studies which aim to explore or measure integration, further reproduce these taken-for-granted realities, a fact which has contributed to the recent debates on the discursive power of ‘integration’ in migration studies. While the debate on integration unfolds within the academic sphere, it’s implementation and discursive power continue in practices which take place in everyday life. Practices which construct the ‘doing’ of integration and which shape the lived experiences of those who encounter them. Practices which contribute to the reproduction of Othering and racialized categories which accompany the concept of integration and its current discursive frame. This paper will thus explore how integration as a concept is shaped and promoted in practices, practices such as texts which migrants encounter in civic integration programmes as well as activities which are promoted during the integration pathway. This analysis allows us for an understanding of integration as it lives and is operationalized at the level of practice and enacted through daily activities one undertakes. This critical discourse analysis will shine light on how these practices contribute to strengthening of hierarchical divisions based on colonialist categories of modernity and Eurocentric depictions of a ‘successful’ everyday life.
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This presentation explores various transformations that inform Deaf Studies research, ranging from transformations in deaf networks to larger sign language networks and transformations in applied linguistics, society, and language ideologies, and the related potential impact on sign language policy and revitalisation. After discussing some new research lenses in Deaf Studies, such as visual methods, the presentation suggests some ways forward for Deaf Studies in terms of research priorities and rights discourses.
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This article analyses four of the most prominent city discourses and introduces the lens of urban vitalism as an overarching interdisciplinary concept of cities as places of transformation and change. We demonstrate the value of using urban vitalism as a lens to conceptualize and critically discuss different notions on smart, inclusive, resilient and sustainable just cities. Urban vitalism offers a process-based lens which enables us to understand cities as places of transformation and change, with people and other living beings at its core. The aim of the article is to explore how the lens of vitalism can help us understand and connect ongoing interdisciplinary academic debates about urban development and vice versa, and how these ongoing debates inform our understanding of urban vitalism.
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