The significance of signs

In Camera Lucida, Barthes makes a distinction between a semiological approach and a phenomenological approach to the sign. While semiotic theory has usually focused on signs that work through mediation and representation, in this article we investigate the possibility of a sign that is immediate, experienced as a presence. This is not a sign of, or even the impossibility of a sign of; rather, it is a sign that just is, without an elsewhere to refer or defer to. This form of sign means nothing and is gratuitous, yet it has significance ? or, more accurately, it is significance. We investigate these ideas through Buber's account of the religious sign.     

Evaluating academic technology transfer performance by how well access to knowledge is facilitated––defining an access metric

Why should research institutions engage in technology transfer? Some say it is about the money. Others say it is about public service and benefit. In the end, we measure what we value. If we only measure money, we confound the non-profit mission of the research institution. If we measure economic impact, the non-profit technology transfer office is often expected to become the economic developer, confusing real estate and business development with technology transfer, often without additional funding. These mission strains lead to overwhelm, fatigue, service shortcomings, and unhappy customers across all classes of stakeholders. This article suggests a return to center for academic technology transfer offices (TTOs) by focusing on a most important question for drivers of our present global knowledge economy––how well does a TTO facilitate access to knowledge protected by intellectual property of its faculty and institution? This article proposes that academic technology transfer performance should be evaluated by how well a TTO avails access to knowledge. Given that performance measures are also referred to as “metrics,” we call this preferred outcomes orientation an access metric.     

Queer Contestations and the Future of a Critical “Queer” Criminology

It is intuitive to include critical criminologists in early conversations about “queering” criminology given that the paradigms and methods of critical criminology can be employed to challenge subordination and inequality in its several dimensions. The first part (and main focus) of this article problematizes this intuition, which is easy to accept at face value, by reflecting backwards and explaining how early influential critical criminological views perpetuated damaging stereotypes and representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people as sexual deviants. The second part reflects forward, and discusses the difficulties of carving a space in the discipline for critical queer perspectives. Drawing on critical and critical race theories, this article advocates a relational, intersectional approach to conceptualize sexual orientation and gender identity in criminological theory and research. This approach considers the connections among sexual orientation or gender identity and other differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, gender, etc.) without assuming or attaching fixed meanings to those differences.     

“My forest, my kingdom”—Self-referentiality as a strategy in the case of small forest owners coping with government regulations

Social research that informs the implementation of natural resource policies is frequently driven by the logic of the policy system itself. A prevailing concern with achieving policy outcomes can lead, however, to lack of attention to equally important aspects, for example the challenges the policy instruments present to those they are targeting and the consequences this might have for government–citizen relationships. To help guide research into these issues we have developed a situational–interactional approach to interpretive policy analysis that seeks to examine the processes involved when people collectively make sense of government instruments. The theoretical basis is provided to a large extent by Luhmann’s theory of self-referential social systems. In addition, we operationalise the concepts of interactional framing and resemiotisation to capture the active work of the citizens in sense-making processes. We then apply our situational–interactional analysis to small-scale forest ownership in Flanders. Analysis of data from focus groups with forest owners reveals how interactions build on each other in the co-development of particular strategies to cope with government intervention. Finally, we discuss two future directions for research. First, the forest owners find themselves in an inescapable relationship with the government, and feel their autonomy is threatened. Government intervention, therefore, will almost necessarily lead to resistance. Second, forest groups enhance compatibility between the government system and the forest owners, but rather than narrowing the gap between the two worlds they tend to emphasise it.