•Considers how the capabilities’ approach can be reconciled with an ubuntu ethic.•Develops a new account of capabilities as inherently relational.•Show that this provides an intuitive and unified ...theoretical framework.•Examines implications for empirical work on poverty.•Shows how African intellectual traditions can enrich Anglo-American thought.
Over the last two decades, the capabilities’ approach has become an increasingly influential theory of development. It conceptualizes human wellbeing in terms of an individual’s ability to achieve functionings we have reason to value. In contrast, the ethic of ubuntu views human flourishing as the propensity to pursue relations of fellowship with others, such that relationships have fundamental value. These two theoretical perspectives seem to be in tension with each other. While the capabilities’ approach seems to focus on individuals as the locus of ethical value, an ubuntu ethic concentrates on the relations between individuals as the locus.
In this article, we ask, to what extent is the capabilities’ approach compatible with this African ethical theory? We argue that, on reflection, relations play a much stronger role in the capabilities’ approach than often assumed. There is good reason to believe that relationality is part of the concept of a capability itself, where such relationality has intrinsic ethical value. This understanding of the ethical centrality of relations grounds new normative perspectives on capabilities, and offers a more comprehensive grasp of the relevance of relationships to empirical enquiry.
We hope this provides an indication of the rich conversations that are possible when African and Anglo-American intellectual traditions engage one another, and whets the appetite of thinkers working in western traditions to engage with their colleagues in Africa and the global South more generally.
Autoethnography: An Overview Ellis, Carolyn; Adams, Tony E.; Bochner, Arthur P.
Historical social research (Köln),
01/2011, Volume:
36, Issue:
4 (138)
Journal Article
Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience. This approach challenges ...canonical ways of doing research and representing others and treats research as a political, socially-just and socially-conscious act. A researcher uses tenets of autobiography and ethnography to do and write autoethnography. Thus, as a method, autoethnography is both process and product.
Abstract This article explains the rationale for proposing an applied linguistics of ethical encounters. It does so by extending the current reach beyond the critical and ideological commentary of ...unjust linguistic practices and considers how applied linguistics research might play an active role in both theorising and enabling ethical encounters. By ethical encounters we mean those that enact the political vision of an inclusive and just society in face-to-face meetings with particular others, i.e. the Other. We ground our inquiry in a relational framework, which places the subject’s responsibility at the heart of ethical relationships and as a basis for a political achievement of just society in settings of trauma, social stigma and unequal power relationships. We argue that the subject’s ethical responsibility is not merely interactionally accomplished but also aesthetically experienced in particular moments of proximity to others. We examine opportunities for an engaged applied linguistics that arise when its inquiry is pursued through the ethical and aesthetic lens.
End of life care in England has recently been framed by two very different discourses. One (connected to advance care planning) promotes personal choice, the other promotes compassionate care; both ...are prominent in professional, policy and media settings. The article outlines the history of who promoted each discourse from 2008 to early 2015, when, why and how and this was done. Each discourse is then critically analysed from a standpoint that takes account of bodily decline, structural constraints, and human relationality. We focus on the biggest group of those nearing the end of their life, namely frail very old people suffering multiple conditions. In their care within contemporary healthcare organisations, choice becomes a tick box and compassion a commodity. Informed choice, whether at the end of life or in advance of it, does not guarantee the death the person wants, especially for those dying of conditions other than cancer and in the absence of universally available skilled and compassionate care. Enabling healthcare staff to provide compassionate, relational care, however, implies reversing the philosophical, political and financial direction of healthcare in the UK and most other Anglophone countries.
•The ‘choice’ agenda arises out of (cancer) palliative care.•The ‘compassion’ agenda arises out of elder care scandals.•Compassion signifies care as a relationship rather than a commodity.•Compassion can be undermined by an overemphasis on autonomous individuals.
Is authoritarianism a universal psychological phenomenon? Does the concept of authoritarianism in its current form effectively explain anti-democratic tendencies across societies? From a cultural ...perspective and using data of Chinese citizens in the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey, this article identifies an authoritarian variant of an ethical and relational origin. This article argues that the received view of authoritarianism, which is conceptually bounded to prejudice, represents but one brand that arises as a function of threat. In paternalistic cultures such as Confucianism, people may develop hierarchical orientations through the learning of certain relational ethics. Called Confucian Authoritarian Orientation (CAO), this authoritarian variant encodes the following three attitudinal aspects: (1) authority reverence, (2) authority worship, and (3) authority dependence. Empirical results show that CAO stands as an entirely different construct from prejudice-bounded concepts such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Furthermore, CAO also serves as a powerful predictor of political docility in individuals; it is correlated with stronger political trust and weaker political efficacy.
Ethics in Linguistics D'Arcy, Alexandra; Bender, Emily M
Annual review of linguistics,
01/2023, Volume:
9, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In linguistics, ethics has long encompassed matters typically covered under regulatory oversight, but it is increasingly understood as relational and reciprocal, conferring responsibilities and ...obligations that extend beyond the work produced for other researchers. Those who study language are also coming to interrogate their professional responsibilities not only in how research is done but also in how research is conceived, framed, reported, discussed, and taught, as part of larger discussions around decolonization, intersectionality, and social justice. In this article, we review existing literature on ethics in linguistics, both as it relates to research and as it relates to broader practices, which we then situate within ongoing conversations across subfields. The overarching frame for our discussion is that ethical practice and scientific validity are aligned, and that dismantling dominant discourses and normative practices will serve to advance the work linguists do in meaningful ways.
This study examines a moderated/mediated model of ethical leadership on follower job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. We proposed that managers have the potential to be agents of ...virtue or vice within organizations. Specifically, through ethical leadership behavior we argued that managers can virtuously influence perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn will positively impact organizational members' flourishing as measured by job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization. We also hypothesized that perceptions of interactional justice would moderate the ethical leadership-to-climate relationship. Our results indicate that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect influence on follower job satisfaction and affective commitment. The indirect effect of ethical leadership involves shaping perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn, engender greater job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, when interactional justice is perceived to be high, this strengthens the ethical leadership-to-climate relationship.
In this article, we propose a distinctive critical, reflexive approach to relational ethics in ‘collaborative, democratic and transformative’ research. Underpinning the approach is the view that the ...buzzwords of ‘collaboration’ and ‘co-creation/co-production’ may signify equitable, symmetrical power relations and, as a result, romanticise collaborative research as straightforward processes of inclusion. The approach integrates critical, reflexive analysis of the play of power in the ‘with’ in ‘research with, not on, people’ and the ‘co’ in ‘co-creating knowledge’ into the ongoing collaborative research process. As a main method for critical, reflexive analysis, the approach uses ‘thinking with’ autoethnography. In the article, we illustrate the approach by showing how we ‘think with’ autoethnographic texts to respond to discomfort and analyse the tensions in the co-constitution of knowledge and subjectivities in the preliminary phase of a collaborative, participatory research project on dance for people with Parkinson’s disease and their spouses.
Purpose Peer mentoring programs in higher education settings support incoming students in their transition and adaptation to college life. Mentoring program evaluation research primarily focuses on ...student outcomes and documents mentoring relationship quality (MRQ) as an important component of programs that facilitate change. The current study examines MRQ in a college peer mentoring program and explores its association with mentors’ and mentees’ perceptions of family relationships. Design/methodology/approach The sample included 629 first-year students (Mage = 18.4 and 54.2% female) and 88 mentors (Mage = 20.6 and 65.9% female). Each mentor was matched with eight to 10 incoming students in the same department. Dyadic data were collected prior to the program (pre-test) and at the end of the fall semester (mid-program) and spring semester (post-test). At pre-test assessment, mentors and mentees rated their family relationships, perceived trust, loyalty, and fairness in their families. At follow-up assessments, mentees reported their MRQ, mentoring duration, and mentoring activities. Findings A multilevel modeling analysis revealed that mentees’ and mentors’ perceptions of loyalty in their families predicted higher levels of MRQ at the end of the program. However, mentors’ perceived trust in their families was negatively associated with MRQ. Originality/value This study adds to the youth mentoring literature by focusing on family-of-origin experiences of both mentors and mentees from a dyadic and relational perspective. These findings have implications for future research and the practice of formal mentoring programs in college settings.
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