Editorial Introduction

Abstract

There has always been a tension between a critique of ‘real existing conditions’ and meta-theoretical paradigms through which the tasks of critique can both be anchored and images of humankind explored.     

Movement-space: The changing domain of thinking resulting from the development of new kinds of spatial awareness

This paper is an attempt to describe the nature of a new calculative background that is currently coming into existence, a background that will both guide and constitute what counts as ‘thinking’. It begins by providing a capsule history of how this background has become a more and more pervasive quality of Euro-American cultures as a result of the rise of ‘qualculation’. It then moves on to consider how this qualculative background is producing new apprehensions of space and time before ending by considering how new kinds of sensorium may now be becoming possible. In this final section, I illustrate my argument by considering the changing presence of the hand, co-ordinate systems and language, thereby attempting to conjure up the lineaments of a new kind of movement-space.     

Denigrating the local,glorifying the foreign: Malawian language policies in the era of African Renaissance

ABSTRACT

Malawi's Vision 2020 document, a national document that serves as a vehicle to project a future for a more developed, secure and democratically mature nation, laments the tendency of Malawians to denigrade local products and glorify all things foreign. Yet, paradoxically, the document does not address the important issue of promoting Malawi's indigenous languages. This silence can be interpreted as reflective of the population's inclination to ascribe greater value to foreign culture. In Malawi, as in many other African countries, indigenous languages are not considered worthy as media of education, subjects of advanced study or critical vehicles for national development. They are still victim to a discrimination rooted in Africa's 500 plus years of European enslavement and colonisation. Against the backdrop of the pursuit of an African Renaissance, this article looks at Malawi's language policies since independence in 1964, and at how, ten years short of an idyllic national vision, Malawi measures up on the important issue of language.     

The language that unites and the language that divides us: Why was Arabic kept and Serbo-Croatian abolished?

This article explores why the Arabs chose to keep a common language, while the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins chose not to. The study argues that the main reason for this can be found in the ideological constrains resulting out of the salience and interaction between different religious and ethnic group building projects in former Yugoslavia and the Arab states. Political elites in both regions favored the ethnic and religious category to different extents. Language planning reflected and implemented the respective ideological imperatives resulting out of these processes. This led to different approaches in defining the common language and its subsequent standardization.     

Testing for linguistic injustice: territoriality and pluralism

This article develops a linguistic injustice test. Language policy measures passing the test conflict with the normative ideal of equal language recognition. The first part of the test checks for external restrictions – language policies that grant more recognition to one language group than to another. The second part of the test checks for internal restrictions – language policies that grant more recognition to some members of a language group than to other members of the same group. The article then applies the linguistic injustice test to two models of linguistic justice: linguistic territoriality and linguistic pluralism. It is argued that real-life cases of linguistic territoriality tend to pass the test. It is argued that instantiations of linguistic pluralism tend to fail the test.     

Open-source intelligence and privacy by design

As demonstrated by other papers on this issue, open-source intelligence (OSINT) by state authorities poses challenges for privacy protection and intellectual-property enforcement. A possible strategy to address these challenges is to adapt the design of OSINT tools to embed normative requirements, in particular legal requirements. The experience of the VIRTUOSO platform will be used to illustrate this strategy. Ideally, the technical development process of OSINT tools is combined with legal and ethical safeguards in such a way that the resulting products have a legally compliant design, are acceptable within society (social embedding), and at the same time meet in a sufficiently flexible way the varying requirements of different end-user groups. This paper uses the analytic framework of privacy design strategies (minimise, separate, aggregate, hide, inform, control, enforce, and demonstrate), arguing that two approaches for embedding legal compliance seem promising to explore in particular. One approach is the concept of revocable privacy with spread responsibility. The other approach uses a policy mark-up language to define Enterprise Privacy Policies, which determine appropriate data handling.     

Capturing ethnicity: the case of Ukraine

Abstract

Building on past survey-based studies of ethnic identity, we employ the case of Ukraine to demonstrate the importance of taking seriously the multidimensionality of ethnicity, even in a country that is regarded as deeply divided. Drawing on relational theory, we identify four dimensions of ethnicity that are each important in distinctive ways in Ukraine: individual language preference, language embeddedness, ethnolinguistic identity, and nationality. Using original survey data collected in May 2014, we show that the choice of one over the other can be highly consequential for the conclusions one draws about ethnicity’s role in shaping attitudes (e.g. to NATO membership), actions (e.g. participation in the Euromaidan protests), and the anticipation of outgroups’ behavior (e.g. expectations of a Russian invasion). Moreover, we call attention to the importance of including the right control variables for precisely interpreting any posited effects of ethnicity, making specific recommendations for future survey research on ethnic identity in Ukraine.     

贵州苗族芦笙文化初探

芦笙文化是苗族世代沿袭下来的一种具有典型意义的古老文化.在贵州苗族地区的社会生活中,芦笙是一种多功能的文化复合体.在祭祀活动中,它是祭器也是法师;在社会教育中,它是件具有语义性的教化工具,在文化生活中,是一件不可或缺的乐器,它以历史赋予的特殊身份和多种功能,作用于苗族社会生活中的各个领域,并为当今贵州苗族地区的文化、旅游服务.     

公共政策执行中的委托代理关系分析

将经济学中的委托代理理论适用于公共政策执行分析,不难发现公共政策执行中存在委托代理关系。就我国而言,由于公共政策执行体制的特殊性,其委托代理关系也呈现出不同特点。委托代理关系及其所产生的代理问题成为公共政策执行偏差的重要原因。     

法律语言风格演变的规律及制约因素

法律语言风格的演变是一个循序渐进的过程,代代相习,逐步形成了法律语言自身的格调。在演变过程中,遣词造句越来越准确、简明、平实,法律语言文本越来越程式化、多样化,法律语言风格必须同社会发展相适应,因为法律语言风格演变不仅受语言文字自身发展水平制约,更主要受法律文化语境的制约,文学也是一个不容忽视的因素。法律语言风格演变的研究有助于了解法律语言背后的法文化状态及其对法律语言风格的影响,对当前法律语言优化具有一定的现实意义。