METHODOLOGICAL INVENTION AS A CONSTRUCTIVE PROJECT: Exploring the Production of Ethical Knowledge through the Interaction of Discursive Logics

This article reflects one scholar's attempt to locate herself within emerging ethical methodologies given a specific concern with cross-cultural women's moral praxis. The field of comparative ethics's debt to past debates over methodology is considered through a typology of three waves of methodological invention. The article goes on to describe a specific research focus on U.S. Catholic and Iranian Shii women that initiated a search for a distinct method. This method of comparative ethics, which focuses on the production of ethical knowledge through the interaction of discursive logics of various moral agents, is described. The conclusion turns to how methodological invention can itself become a constructive project through the way it (1) locates the scholar in relation to her subject of study and (2) allows for isolation of tactics within specific moral discourses.     

浅议伊斯兰教拜主行善的基本价值观

拜主行善是伊斯兰文明基本价值观之一。拜主行善观在思想观念与行为实践上为穆斯林确立了评价事物、抉择行为的基本准则,不仅彰显出伊斯兰教信仰与现实交融的务实精神,也诠释了史上穆斯林以包容胸襟汲取、承继、整合、创新出人类伟大文明的内在因素与有效机制。     

伊斯兰教对当代伊斯兰国家外交政策的影响

伊斯兰教是世界三大宗教之一。通常认为,以穆斯林人口为居民主体的国家或历史上受伊斯兰教影响较深的国家即为伊斯兰国家。本文从伊斯兰教与国家政权之间的紧密联系、泛伊斯兰主义与原教旨主义的双重影响以及激进宗教组织的现实干预等三个方面切入,深入分析了伊斯兰教对当代伊斯兰国家外交政策的深远影响。     

Commitment to Connection in a Culture of Fear

SUMMARY

This article was originally presented at the May 2004 Learning from Women Conference sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute. It examines the ways in which cultural and personal denial of fear and vulnerability contribute to a sense of isolation. Fear is manipulated in hierarchical settings to ensure the preservation of existing power arrangements. In a culture built on exploitation of fear, people do not experience the safety necessary to let their inevitable vulnerabilities show. Unmitigated chronic fear is an unsafe context that leads to a traumatic sense of disempowerment and personal immobilization, whether it is in war, childhood sexual abuse, living with a battering partner, or, perhaps in a more subtle way, in being immersed in massages of un-safety, danger, and having no influence in the larger public domain. Through mutual empathy we can heal these places of fear and disconnection. Mutual empathy arises in a context of profound respect, authentic responsiveness, humility, non-defensiveness, an attitude of curiosity, mindfulness (staying with the “not knowing”), and an appreciation of the power of learning. Movement out of isolation helps us pass through fear to hope and ultimately leads to growth and more connection.     

Advancing Shūrā: A Social Agent for Democratization

ABSTRACT

This study is an analytical comparison between Islamic articulations of shūrā (consultation) and notions of representative democracy. It emphasizes various epistemic understandings of shūrā in light of qur’anic exegesis and historical precedents of consultative rule in Islam. In particular, it identifies shūrā as an agent for democratization in contrast to its more familiar manifestation as a top-down consultative system. This is examined together with the works of influential Muslim scholars from modernist, Islamist and pro-democratic backgrounds to elucidate what aspects of democracy they accept and/or reject. The article does not exhaustively analyze each scholar’s interpretation of democracy. Rather, it selects scholars from different historical epochs with distinctive theoretical positions on shūrā. Overall, the study finds shūrā remains largely under-utilized as a result of post-colonial discourses on Islam and authoritarian political systems in Muslim-majority countries. The article finally examines how shūrā can be better facilitated as a social agent to renew civil society and combat authoritarian rule.     

Islamic practice and state policies towards religion in post-Soviet Russia

ABSTRACT

What has the Russian state policy towards Islam been in the first two decades after the Soviet collapse, and how has it affected Islamic practice in the country? This study explores Russian state policies towards religion from 1990 to 2017 and discusses their impact on Islamic practice in the country. In the 1990s, relations between the Russian state and Islam (state-Islam relations) were accommodationist: the state granted unrestricted access in the Russian public sphere for all Muslim communities and allowed a wide range of Islamic religious practices. State-Islam relations in the 2000s became increasingly regulatory: the state assumed a more active interventionist role in the affairs of the domestic Islamic community in order to control religious practices of certain Muslim factions and to ensure privileged access in the Russian public sphere for state-approved ‘traditional’ religious organisations. This contribution reveals the dynamics of the Russian state’s attitudes towards the largest minority religion in the country in the first two decades after the collapse of the Soviet state. It also offers analytical insights on the dynamic nature of state-religion relations in other secular states with religiously diverse populations.     

The sacred and the profane: social media and temporal patterns of religiosity in the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT

Large datasets associated with internet search engines and social media platforms are increasingly used to study psychological variables. Over the past decade, ‘big data’, as they have become known, have become central to the exploration of a diverse range of topics. Few studies, however, have examined religiosity (religious belief, commitment, and devotion), particularly Islamic religiosity in the Arab world. This study looked at religiosity in the United Arab Emirates through data extracted from Twitter, a popular social media platform. The data comprised 152 million Twitter messages, spanning the period 1 April–30 September 2016. Bilingual search algorithms were employed to investigate the temporal patterns of religiosity expressed within the dataset. The study also explored patterns in the expression of obscenity (offensive language), hypothesising a negative relationship with religious sentiment. Religiosity followed hypothesised temporal patterns and was also inversely correlated with obscenity. There were differences observed between languages (Arabic vs English) and gender, with males, surprisingly, expressing greater religiosity than females. This research contributes to the nascent study of religiosity through social media.     

Wish You Were Queer: Exploring the Potential of Queer Play Parties to Arouse Social Change

Abstract

This article explores how the practice of BDSM sex parties within the queer community can inspire social structure alternatives conducive to sustainability. Drawing from the notion that the dominant social order of neoliberal hetero-patriarchy undermines our ability to address sustainability challenges as a collective, I demonstrate how the same culture disproportionately alienates the queer community. Taking from the theory of subaltern counterpublics, I highlight how social structures created at BDSM queer sex parties challenge dominant cultures and create spaces of inclusivity and radical participation, specifically through communication. These are key criteria called for in commons management, relevant for sustainable futures.     

Pacifying Muslims in Germany’s ‘City of Peace’: interreligious dialogue as a tool of governance in Osnabrück

ABSTRACT

Addressing Muslims as a target group in municipal politics is a relatively new development in German cities. Interreligious dialogue, often initiated by established Christian actors, provides a format for doing so. In our local West German case study, the politics of dialogue link up with a historical narrative of Osnabrück as ‘City of Peace’, creating a semantic framework which is hard to resist, yet not undisputed. As a governance tool, interreligious dialogue has the potential to pacify and to structure social relations. It tends to prefer and support certain subject positions, while neglecting others. In this contribution we focus both on actors who are involved in local interreligious dialogue as well as those who – for diverse reasons – do not participate, and who question or oppose it. Thus, we analyse the effects of interreligious dialogue on local subjectivation processes, including alternative reactions that might challenge the dominant paradigm.     

义符启动范式下义符的语义和语法激活的时间进程

采用义符启动范式,探讨义符的语义、语法信息的激活进程。结果表明,就义符总体而言,义符的语义激活从启动早期一直持续到启动晚期,义符的语法信息未见有激活。然而,对不成字义符和成字义符分析发现,不成字义符和成字义符的语义、语法激活存在着差异。不成字义符的语义激活只在启动中期出现,语法信息则未见有激活;成字义符的语义信息一直处于激活状态,并且在启动晚期,语法信息也得到了激活。义符的语义、语法信息的激活进程和顺序是由义符的功能决定的。