bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Neurogenic bladder in children
Authors: Lobo Sara , Taghavi Kiarash , Mushtaq Imran
Published: January 2023

Neurogenic bladder–sphincter dysfunction constitutes the major cause for morbidity in children with myelomeningocele, and the management of this condition is challenging and requires a multidisciplinary team approach. A contemporary review of the literature is presented with expert commentaries, focusing on the definition of neurogenic bladder, the natural evolution, diagnostics (highlighting investigations and their interpretation), medical and surgical treatment, prognosis, and protocols for follow-up. These aspects are illustrated with a clinical case, describing the presentation, investigation, and subsequent management of this neurogenic bladder patient.
Vesicoureteral reflux in children
Authors: Figueroa-Díaz María S. , Cho Alexander , Mushtaq Imran
Published: January 2023

A male neonate with antenatal bilateral severe hydronephrosis presented with abnormal renal function postnatally despite urethral catheter insertion. Ultrasonography confirmed bilateral hydroureteronephrosis that was worse on the right and a micturating cystourethrogram showed grade 5 right vesicoureteric reflux. Clean intermittent catheterization was started due to incomplete bladder emptying that led to a deceased serum creatinine. A dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) scan showed 14% right kidney differential function. Cystoscopy confirmed a normal urethra. A right-sided refluxing loop ureterostomy and circumcision was performed with subsequent right dilatation decrease and resolution of the left hydronephrosis. A DMSA scan at 17 months showed 10% right kidney differential function and a right nephroureterectomy was undertaken. At follow-up, the child is urinary tract infection free and has complete spontaneous bladder emptying. The diagnosis and treatment options are discussed including controversies regarding bladder dysfunction associated with vesicoureteric reflux, the benefits of circumcision, the therapeutic options, and why it was finally decided to perform a refluxing loop ureterostomy and subsequent nephrectomy.
Improving Magnetic STEM-Differential Phase Contrast Imaging using Precession
Authors: Nordahl Gregory , Nord Magnus
Published: January 2023

Differential phase contrast in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM-DPC) is a technique used to image electromagnetic fields in materials. STEM-DPC is based on tracking the minute changes in the position of the bright-field disk, so any effects which cause inhomogeneities in the intensity or geometry of the disk can lead to the contrast from the electromagnetic fields to be obscured. Structural changes, like grain boundaries, thickness variations, or local crystallographic orientation, are a major cause of these inhomogeneities. In this paper, we present how precession of the STEM probe with the objective lens turned off, providing a near field-free environment for magnetic imaging, can average out nonsystematic inhomogeneities in the electron beam. The methodology was tested on a polycrystalline Fe60Al40 thin film with embedded ferromagnetic structures. The effect of precession was assessed on magnetic induction maps created by three different processing algorithms. Results demonstrate that precessed STEM-DPC with the objective lens turned off shows an improvement in the form of smoothing of the variations found in the DPC signal arising from the underlying polycrystalline background.
Parallel tracks of kHz QPOs: implication of the bimodal luminosity components in neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries
Authors: Wang De-Hua , Zhang Cheng-Min
Published: January 2023

We employ the bimodal luminosity components, i.e. the disc luminosity Ld and non-disc luminosity Lr, to interpret the parallel track phenomena in the relation between the kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillation (kHz QPO) frequency ν and X-ray luminosity LX observed in the neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries: For an individual source with a constant non-disc luminosity Lr, the increase of its disc accretion rate $\dot{M}_{\rm d}$ can arise the shrink of neutron star magnetosphere-disc radius that results in the increase of the kHz QPO frequency. Then, with the enhancements of both the kHz QPO frequency and total X-ray luminosity, LX = Ld + Lr, the source will trace out an oblique track in ν–LX relation. Furthermore, for the different sources with various constant non-disc luminosities, they trace out series of parallel tracks in ν–LX relation. Our model presents an approximate power-law relation between the upper kHz QPO frequency ν2 and LX (i.e. $\nu _2\sim L_{\rm X}^k$), where the power-law index k decreases with the ratio parameter of $\mathcal {R}\equiv L_{\rm d}/L_{\rm r}$. Moreover, the fittings of $\nu _2{\!-\!}L_{\rm X}^k$ relation with the observation data indicate a range of ∼0.1–2.7 for the k values, which is basically compatible with the model prediction. In addition, we discussed the physical factors that affect the validity of the model.
Cross-Cultural Interaction across the Arafura and Timor Seas
Authors: Urwin Chris , Russell Lynette , Yulianti Farid Lily
Published: January 2023

Prior to sustained contact with Europeans, Aboriginal people in parts of northern Australia—coastal regions of the Kimberley, Arnhem Land, and the Gulf of Carpentaria—interacted with people from South Sulawesi and other parts of eastern Indonesia, especially Makassar. The visitors (often called ‘Macassans’) arrived on Australian shores annually in sailing ships (praus) to harvest trepang (also called sea cucumber, bêche-de-mer) and to exchange things and ideas with Aboriginal people. Within Australia, evidence for these interactions can be seen in Macassan trepang processing sites (often associated with introduced tamarind trees); the inclusion of Indonesian borrow words in local Aboriginal languages; paintings of praus in Aboriginal rock art sites; and Aboriginal archaeological deposits containing Asian pottery, metal, and glass. More broadly, the histories of these interactions are found within oral traditions from either side of the Arafura and Timor Seas. Archaeology has begun to show that Aboriginal people selectively engaged in exchange with Indonesian people, using traded items to sustain customary exchange and new maritime technology to transform how they engaged with coast and sea. Macassan trepanging visits to northern Australia date from the eighteenth century to c. CE 1907, though some archaeological and oral historical evidence suggests that initial encounters occurred before CE 1664. Yet key questions remain regarding the nature of Macassan-Aboriginal interactions, and, fundamentally, the chronology of cross-cultural contact in northern Australia.
Confucianism and Chinese Religion
Authors: Littlejohn Ronnie
Published: January 2023

This article provides an overview of Confucianism’s interactions with Chinese religion along the continuum from official state contexts to local and popular practices and beliefs. The study is organized into two broad categories: gods, ghosts, and ancestors; and rituals and ritual specialists. The many ways in which Confucian literati and officials moved within the civil and village contexts demonstrates how rigid attempts to study Confucianism’s engagement in either civil religion or so-called popular religion in isolation can be potentially misleading. Points of contact between Chinese religion and Confucianism include the identification and veneration of Confucian and local worthies, literati and ritual specialist interactions, and the role of Confucian intellectuals in controversies and tensions between recognized traditions such as Buddhism and Daoism, as well as conflicts between regional practitioners. The strategies for relating to Chinese religious beliefs and practices constructed by key Confucian thinkers such as Xunzi, Han Yu, and Zhu Xi are highlighted.
Confucius and the Zhou Dynasty
Authors: Cook Scott Bradley
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines Confucius’s relationship to the Zhou dynasty, both as the historical source of the cultural heritage that he transmitted and as the declining age in response to which his philosophy took shape. After first recounting the process by which the Zhou’s political consolidation broke down over time and the rise of ministerial families during the Chunqiu period, the chapter then explores how Confucius viewed the authentic reinstatement of ritual (li 禮) as a remedy to the disorder of his times, how he did so while managing the tricky political constraints which faced him, and, finally, how he transformed the notion of the Zhou’s “mandate” to rule into a kind of personal “mission” to preserve the greater, longstanding cultural tradition that the Zhou ultimately represented.
Confucianism in Mainland China
Authors: Bai Tongdong
Published: January 2023

Although Confucianism has been on the defensive for much of the past 150 years, it has experienced renewal and growth in the past 40 years in mainland China. This essay will contextualize the attacks of Confucianism in the early People’s Republic of China, the beginnings of a Confucian revival in the 1980s, and the factors that have led to new modes of Confucianism in the past several decades, including works by the older generations and their students, the influence of Overseas New Confucianism, and since the new millennium, a growing minority among mainland Confucian sympathizers, the so-called Mainland New Confucians. This essay looks in particular at the Mainland New Confucianism, arguing that it may be more promising than Overseas New Confucianism in offering critical and constructive ideas relevant not only to China, but to the wider world.
Images of Confucius Through the Ages
Authors: Sommer Deborah
Published: January 2023

Over the centuries, the body and face of Confucius have been envisioned in many different ways. His body is not only an imaginary construction: he is actually many different bodies, each one a corpus of signs that bears a complex range of religious, ethical, political, and cultural meanings. This essay surveys some of these imaginary constructions, from ancient to modern times: textual descriptions from the Analects and other early texts; cosmic visions from Han mantic apocrypha; stone carvings and cliff sculptures from the Han and Song; and images used in rituals. This essay also explores how visual representations of Confucius were deconstructed during Ming-era imperial iconoclastic reforms of the Confucian temple and in the Cultural Revolution.
Confucianism and Ritual
Authors: Sarkissian Hagop
Published: January 2023

Confucian writings on ritual from the classical period (c. eighth–third centuries BCE), including instruction manuals, codes of conduct, and treatises on the origins and function of ritual in human life, are impressive in scope and repay careful engagement. These texts maintain that ritual participation fosters social and emotional development, helps persons deal with significant life events such as marriages and deaths, and helps resolve political disagreements. These early sources are of interest not only to historians and Sinologists, but also to philosophers and social scientists; they contain enduring insights into the nature and status of rituals more generally. This chapter surveys classical Confucian theories of the origins and functions of ritual, and summarizes some strident critiques of them from contemporary thinkers in the Mohist, Daoist, and Legalist schools of thought. The aim is to indicate key issues as well as promising strategies for analyzing ritual in Confucian thought and action.
Re-forming Confucianism
Authors: Adler Joseph A.
Published: January 2023

Zhu Xi is often called the “great synthesizer” of the Song dynasty revival of Confucianism, known in the West as “Neo-Confucianism.” Sometimes, however, “synthesis” in this context is used in a weak sense, meaning simply “combining into a harmonious whole.” This chapter examines four areas in which Zhu Xi was a synthesizer in the sense of producing something new. They are (1) a new version of the “succession of the Way” (daotong 道統), (2) a new significance of the term “Supreme Polarity” (taiji 太極), (3) a new synthesis of active (dong 動) and quietistic (jing 靜) methods of self-cultivation, and (4) a new emphasis on the non-duality of cosmology and ethics.
Confucianism in Taiwan
Authors: Huang Chun-chieh
Published: January 2023

The development of Confucianism in postwar Taiwan comprises three major aspects: “state Confucianism” as the political ideology of the Chinese Nationalist Party; Confucianism as academic discourse; and Confucianism as a way of life. The first version of Confucianism is a kind of “official” Confucianism, whereas the other two are forms of “civil” Confucianism. Confucianism as articulated by the New Confucians in Taiwan is elite Confucianism, which contrasts sharply with the Confucianism developed by Buddhist sects as popular Confucianism. The central concern of New Confucians in postwar Taiwan lies in the development of “Confucian democracy.” Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan are the two major theorists who articulated “Confucian democracy.” The chapter concludes by indicating that the pristine Confucian values, predominantly humanness, human dignity, and ecological mutuality, may not only serve as a bridge of mutual thriving for Chinese people on the mainland and Taiwan island, but may also become the universal values of humankind in the 21st century and beyond.
Procurement Systems and Industry Dynamics
Authors: Tanaka Akira , Wang Yue
Published: January 2023

This chapter explores the development of procurement systems for the mass production of steel in the United States, Japan, and China over the past 120 years. It shows that the evolution of global procurement systems in the steel industry is the result of the creative adaptations of the industries of the three countries based on the historical conditions in each of them. Thus, in the first half of the 20th century, US steel mills established the captive mine system and extended their vertical integration into iron mines; in the second half of the 20th century, Japanese steel producers adopted a long-term contract system with overseas iron ore suppliers. The rapid growth of China’s steel industry in the early 21st century created a spot market for iron ore. Facing the decline of the long-term contract system, Chinese steel companies adopted a pluralistic strategy that combined all three procurement systems.
The Ethics of Public Policy Experiments
Authors: MacKay Douglas
Published: January 2023

Social scientists and research ethicists have begun, somewhat belatedly, to confront and address the ethical challenges raised by public policy experiments. In doing so, however, they have not fully availed themselves of the large and sophisticated literature on the ethics of clinical research which has developed since the 1970s. While clinical research and public policy research are different, the author argues that the clinical research ethics literature yields valuable insights for discussions of the ethics of policy experiments. Focusing on seven ethical issues which have received a good deal of attention in public and scholarly discussions of the ethics of policy experiments, the author makes use of the history of reflection on the ethics of clinical research to provide guidance to researchers planning and conducting policy experiments.
Fiscal Policy Effectiveness through the Lenses Useful of Government Consumption
Authors: Nana Francois John , Mata Andrea
Published: January 2023

The fiscal policy literature on sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) has predominantly focused on the direction and size of the impact of a specific fiscal policy instrument— i.e., government consumption, investment and/or taxes— on output. Moreover, the literature has disproportionately given attention to understanding the degree of productivity of public investment spending and its impact on real GDP through the crowding-in of private investment. In contrast, less attention has been given to the usefulness of government consumption and how it impacts output via the crowding-in or crowding-out of private consumption in SSA countries. In this chapter, we review the logic of useful public consumption in the context of Edgeworth substitutability/complementarity between public and private consumption and why it matters for fiscal policy effectiveness in Cameroon. We then present some empirical evidence of Edgeworth substitutability of government consumption based on a permanent income theory of consumption. This naturally leads to the examination of the implication of this empirical evidence of useful government consumption and its implication for fiscal policy design and effectiveness in Cameroon.
The Cameroon Economy
Authors: Mukum Mbaku John
Published: January 2023

Cameroon, which is often referred to as Africa in miniature, has a political economy that has been influenced significantly by various groups and institutions. Cameroon is a bilingual country, with English and French as its official languages, as well as a mixed common-law and civil-law system, all remnants of British and French colonialism. Christianity has also affected the worldview of Cameroon’s various ethnolinguistic groups and the way they have interacted with one another over the years. Missionaries helped create written forms of many indigenous languages (e.g., Duala and Mungaka) and facilitated the creation of knowledge in these languages. Migrants from neighboring countries enriched the country’s cultural mix and contributed significantly to economic development. Internal migrations, occasioned by population pressures and the search for opportunities for self-actualization and economic advancement, contributed to the growth of Cameroon’s urban centers. In addition to Christianity, Islam and Cameroon’s various traditional religions inculcated in the people values, such as probity and morality, which have been critical to the development of economic and financial institutions in the country. Many of Cameroon’s traditional religious require that their adherents to be devout, honest, faithful and spiritual, values that augur well for the development of a fully functioning and sustainable economy.
Fiscal Decentralization, Entrepreneurship, and Firm Productivity in Cameroon
Authors: Bougna Théophile , Nguimkeu Pierre
Published: January 2023

This chapter investigates the impact of fiscal decentralization on entrepreneurship and firm productivity in Cameroon. Drawing on Bougna & Nguimkeu (2020)’s model, we simulate counterfactual changes in taxation policy on the regional distribution of firm outcomes. Our results show the potential of optimal and adapted tax reforms in fostering business creation, increased formalization and aggregate income gains across and within regions in Cameroon. Our findings suggest that a well-targeted regionally decentralized taxation policy has the potential to improve the overall socio-economic ecosystem by attracting an optimal size of entrepreneurship in each region and hence favoring a more efficient cross-regional distribution of income. Policy recommendations include the need to empower regional authorities to design and implement tailored based fiscal policies that account for regional heterogeneity, cities’ specialization and comparative advantages.
Public Debt
Authors: Monga Célestin
Published: January 2023

Recent reports about Cameroon’s public debt start from the position that high debt is necessarily bad. They often offer generic accounting frameworks and static “prudential” ratios for deciding whether the debt is sustainable, without discussing the economics of debt and its underlying dynamics. Public debt carries costs and potential benefits, to be carefully analyzed in a balanced manner, taking into account each country’s specific context and prospects, and the specific debt conditions. This chapter argues that both assessments lack strong analytical and empirical basis, and that Cameroon’s public debt situation should be examined with a criterion that reflects its unique economic situation. It sets the context, discusses fears and facts about the historical origins of Africa’s and Cameroon’s public debt. It then examines the missing elements of traditional debt sustainability analyses. Finally, it provides a roadmap and policy guidelines for managing public debt in Cameroon.
The Political Economy of Reform Consensus (or Lack thereof) in Cameroon
Authors: Lonkeng Constant
Published: January 2023

This chapter proposes a rationale for the apparent lack of economic reform consensus in Cameroon. Drawing on the political economy literature, we provide a model-based evidence that the quasi status quo may have resulted from a systematic strategy by the rent-seeking elite to buy off constituencies to counter reform proposal by any reform-minded group. The chapter focuses on the interaction between different interest groups and not on specific reforms, many of which are explored throughout the handbook
Economic Diversification in Cameroon
Authors: Kilolo Jean-Marc M. , Cameron Martin , Pedro Antonio , Mastaki Jean-Luc N.
Published: January 2023

Despite its rich endowments of natural resources, the Cameroonian economy remains undiversified and vulnerable to exogenous shocks as an exporter of unprocessed primary products. With the ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the Cameroonian government intends to follow an export-led industrialization strategy. The country ambitions, through its PDI (industrial masterplan), to become the “factory of the new industrial Africa”, starting with the “ECCAS + Nigeria” zone. Examining this industrial ambition through the TRADE-DSM approach, we find that Cameroon has the largest export potential for Food related products and products not prioritized in the PDI, while Cotton –Textile – Manufacturing and Hydrocarbons and Petrochemicals shows the least potential. Besides, within the “ECCAS + Nigeria” zone, the Nigerian market has the largest potential for Cameroonian products, while DRC has the lowest, despite its large population of over 80 million people. In other words, due to lack of infrastructures and logistics, small countries such as Congo, Gabon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe appear to be better market for Cameroon than DRC. This suggests that due to poor infrastructures, some geographically close markets, such as DRC, are, in real terms, distant from a commercial point of view.
Cameroon
Authors: Sorgho Zakaria
Published: January 2023

During the three past decades, Cameroon has implemented structural reforms to streamline public finance, improve the business environment, economic competitiveness, growth and development. The country counts among the top 10 in sub-Saharan Africa, and aims to be an emerging economy by 2035. Cameroon has great potential. However, there are unresolved challenges related to the governance issues and trade costs, which hinder its development and ability to attract investment and promote trade. This chapter focuses on trade-related issues, in particular the trade facilitation and Central Africa’s regional integration. It begins with a historical review of trade in Cameroon as well as policy reforms achieved by the country’s government. It then analyzes through different statistics the state of the regional integration in Central Africa. Finally, it discusses the trade costs in Cameroon (as well as trade costs within the regional economic groups to which the country belongs) before assessing the impact of implementing the Trade Facilitation Agreement on country trade costs. Results show that Cameroon can substantially reduce its trade costs by reducing time-waiting for customs procedures at its borders and play a stronger leadership role in Central Africa.
Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics in Cameroon
Authors: Fosso Wamba Samuel , Queiroz Maciel M.
Published: January 2023

With the emergence and unprecedented development of information and communication technologies in recent years, organizations and countries started a race to adopt and benefit from operating as a digitalized economy. Two of the main technologies capturing the attention of decision-makers worldwide are artificial intelligence and big data analytics. Governments, organizations, and universities are challenged to adopt these key technologies. However, there are huge differences between developed, emerging, and lower-middle-income countries towards digital transformation strategies. Thus, in this chapter, we explore the dynamics, drivers, and enablers of Cameroon digitalization, considering AI and BDA's protagonism. Also, we present interesting insights for decision-makers and all interested in this topic for looking forward.
The Political Economy of Contemporary Youth in Cameroon
Authors: Eloundou-Enyegue Parfait , Giroux Sarah C. , Tenikue Michel
Published: January 2023

This paper is a conjecture on Cameroon's socioeconomic prospects and trajectory between now (2020) and the mid-point of this century. Gazing into the future is a necessary chore. Any scientist venturing outside the Ivory tower will invariably be invited to join policy efforts to plan the future or, at least, to debate possible scenarios and steer societies away from the least desirable outcomes. While these policy efforts initially sought to plan national growth, they have expanded in scale and scope with new international compacts to advance sustainable development worldwide. Today, African nations must prepare their national development alongside a panoply of goals from the United Nations' SDG and the Africa Union's 2063 agendas. This paper is at once a case study of Cameroon's political economy, a substantive hypothesis, and a methodological tool for forecasting the future of African societies in a context of educational expansion, demographic transition, and economic divergence. Its central thesis is that Cameroon has a real opportunity to turn its current generation of youth into its greatest. Seizing this potential depends on strategic efforts to cultivate and empower this generation along economic, demographic, social, and political spheres.
Cameroon’s Informal Labor Market
Authors: Lemven Wirba Ebenezer , Annif’ Akem Fiennasah , Menjo Baye Francis
Published: January 2023

Cameroon’s informal labour market largely harbours female workers, engaged mainly in low-productivity and low-paying jobs. We investigate the sticky-floor - a wider earnings-gap at the top end of the earnings-distribution and glass-ceiling phenomena - a wider earnings-gap at the bottom in the informal labour market as a whole and across its segments. We use the 2010 Cameroon labour market survey and a framework that enables us to account for selectivity bias, resolve the index number problem of the standard decomposition, and examine earnings differentials across the unconditional earnings distribution. We find compelling evidence of a sticky-floor phenomenon in the informal labour market manifested essentially among wage earners. Returns to experience mitigate the gender earnings gap at the mean, and 10th and 50th percentiles of the unconditional earnings distribution. Female workers have an unambiguous human-capital-based advantage over their male counterparts at the mean, lower tail, and median of the distribution.
Cameroon as Part of Central Africa’s Political Economy
Authors: Mehler Andreas
Published: January 2023

Cameroon’s violent history had an impact on its neighbors just as those neighbors had a generally overlooked impact on Cameroon. Contagion via transnational networks and their dynamics is highly relevant. This contribution also looks into the sub-regional status of dysfunctional institutions, the absence of checks and balances in overly presidential, personalised and undemocratic political systems. Autocratic regimes and coup-makers clearly learned from each other. In fact, the wave of democratization of the 1990s all over the continent did not produce tangible results in Central Africa, despite intense (but short-lived) street mobilization to achieve political rights and civil liberties. Both the impact of a former colonizer (France) and the relative dysfunctionality of sub-regional organizations (above all CEMAC) were additional factors slowing down necessary political and economic reforms: Ordinary Cameroonian citizens (just as citizens of the entire sub-region) saw their objective interests relegated behind selfish interests of ruling families. This contribution serves as a sketch of a joint history of political developments since independence from a subregional perspective
Phenomenology and the Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt
Authors: Chartouny Lucie
Published: January 2023

In this chapter, it is argued that it is because Arendt’s political philosophy is phenomenological that it is so relevant to us: her phenomenological description is more effective than any explanation to make us want to be free again. The author details key aspects of her political philosophy. First, the chapter describes how phenomenological revelation gives the individual gives his/her humanity, and introduces the need to protect both private and public realms. Then, it explains how political experience is the experience of a plurality of beginnings – individual and collective, through the emergence of a political community. This vision of beginnings as an absolute can be seen as an invitation to promote meaningful beginnings at work. Last, it studies how Arendt creates a method for dealing collectively with events through storytelling and the role of truth teller, so that we can continue to begin. This is a way to reunite what happened during a crisis with a truth that can be told; the person of action needs the poet or the historian to transform and complete his/her beginning.
Extending and Discontinuing Phenomenology with Michel Henry
Authors: Faÿ Eric , Deslandes Ghislain
Published: January 2023

This chapter is an invitation to discover how Michel Henry’s phenomenology of life, by extending and discontinuing phenomenology of the world, offers new avenues for research in Management and Organization Studies (MOS). The authors begin by exploring the epistemological and ontological implications of Henry’s distinction between phenomena appearing to us in the light of the world and another undisclosed phenomenality: phenomena appearing to us in our affective flesh, in the light of life. Henry therefore suggests not reducing action to behaviours understood by their determinism, but understanding it as one’s possible consent (or refusal) to praxis: freeing one’s power of life, seizing, deploying, and growing one’s abilities with and for others. From there the chapter goes on to illustrate how scholars have begun to introduce Henry’s phenomenology into MOS. Three main intertwined topics emerge from this: his critical reading of contemporary political economy; the question of intersubjectivity in collaborative processes between ‘subjective bodies’ fulfilling social roles and the conditions of the possibility of ethical practice in organizations thanks to affectio societatis; and lastly, the way in which Henryian phenomenology contributes in its own way to the affective turn of MOS. Some directions for future research such as the necessary eco-ontology of life are also outlined.
Foucault and Phenomenology, a Tense and Complex Relationship
Authors: Leclercq-Vandelannoitte Aurélie
Published: January 2023

In line with observers that have recently reconsidered the relationship between Foucault and phenomenology, this chapter argues that Foucault’s philosophy inevitably falls within the scope of phenomenology, by rediscovering and extending its potentialities (Legrand, 2008). To do justice to the real nature of the relationship between Foucault and phenomenology, this chapter aims to highlight the possible affiliation and peculiar significance that phenomenology has taken in Foucault’s approach, and to show how Foucault extended the potentialities and richness of phenomenology towards a new approach of phenomenology, known as ‘post-phenomenology’. To that end, we consider Foucault’s three main theses (Burrell, 1988) through the prism of phenomenology: we first consider the relationship between the young Foucault and the phenomenology developed by Husserl, in terms of historicity and archaeology; we then analyse Foucault’s relationship with phenomenology through the prism of the historicization of the transcendental, expressed in Foucault’s genealogy of the subject, revealing unexpected resemblances between Foucault’s and Merleau-Ponty’s views; last, we explore Foucault’s reconsideration of the subject, through his developments of the hermeneutics and ethics of the self, revealing an active mode of experimentation largely influenced by Heidegger’s approach, and further inscribing his work in the wake of Ricoeur and Merleau-Ponty.
Between Being and Becoming
Authors: de Vaujany François-Xavier , Aroles Jeremy , Pérezts Mar
Published: January 2023

As a conclusion for this edited book, this chapter comes back to three issues: appearances in and beyond organizing, subjectivity and subjectivation, and the future of phenomenologies in Management and Organization Studies (MOS). Potentials for expanding and decentering MOS concepts with and through phenomenological perspectives are discussed in regard to process philosophy, pragmatism, and critical theory. We argue that managerial and organizational phenomenologies and post-phenomenologies could go beyond a unilateral relationship with philosophy as a field. They could become the new ontological or metaphysical ground of organizing. The chapter is an opportunity both to summarize what are seen as key lessons of the experience of this book and to direct our gaze towards such potential avenues for discussion.
Gaston Bachelard and the Phenomenology of the Imagination
Authors: Charbonneau Michèle
Published: January 2023

Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology of the imagination proposes to explore the human values of poetic images. After summarizing Bachelard’s background and work, this chapter presents his conception of the imagination and the phenomenological method he developed to study poetic images. This method proposes to meditate on literary images that deal with the materiality of the world (houses, trees, caves, volcanoes, lakes, etc.), and to explore these images through poetic reveries by activating a formal, material, and dynamic imagination. The chapter then explores the avenues of renewal that Bachelard’s phenomenology of the imagination has brought or could bring to Management and Organizational Studies (MOS) with respect to the themes of creativity, organizational poetics, issues related to the transformation of the material environment of organizations (including ecological issues), methods for exploring the imagination within organizations and research activities, and management education.
“Grey Zones” Between Official and Unofficial Cultures
Authors: Kukulin Ilya
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines “grey zones” existing in the post-Stalinist USSR—special forms of being public that were situated in the gap between sanctioned publication and practices of secret dissemination of texts or underground displays of artworks. Such “grey zones” were most often sanctioned “from above” at the initiative of the authorities or the security services; they could be the secret publication of “anti-Soviet” books or “youth cafes” where it was permitted to read poetry or exhibit pictures without the stern control of the censor. This chapter examines the history of Klub-81—a unique organization of unsanctioned writers created in 1981 in Leningrad under the direct control of the KGB—in some detail. Klub-81’s situation was ambiguous. Not all unsanctioned Leningrad authors joined it. A few writers and artists accused Klub-81 leader Boris Ivanov of collaborationism. At the same time, Ivanov and his like-minded associates (Boris Ostanin, Eduard Shneiderman, and others) insisted on the need to implement their own cultural agenda, primarily concerned with nonconformist art, within the framework of the club. This chapter analyzes the complex combination of cultural and political conditions that allowed this subversive task to be carried out successfully; participation in Klub-81 required ethical compromise, but taken as a whole, the club turned out to be not so much a trap as an “umbrella” for a large group of poets and prose writers in late-Soviet Leningrad.
Raising a Brow
Authors: Gooley Dana
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines Stephen Sondheim’s writings, interviews, and creative output in order to profile his perspective upon the cultural hierarchies within which he worked. Although the Broadway musical, to quote theater historian David Savran, “has for almost a century epitomized the culture called middlebrow,” Sondheim has resisted the stylistic middle from both above and below. His emphasis on dramatic integration and his avoidance of standard song phraseology both suggest a desire to “elevate” the genre, while his embrace of the revue ethos and lower-class subject matter indicate nourishing influences from popular theater. Sondheim’s shows nonetheless belong, institutionally and sociologically, to a middle cultural bandwidth distinct from “high” and “popular” cultures. My analysis of Sondheim’s articulated views highlights the rhetorical strategies by which he maintains some of the genre’s traditional values—sophisticated pleasure, communicative efficacy—while also casting suspicion on those values, thus positioning himself outside them. Sondheim’s oeuvre reflects this balancing act in the way it gauges the level of “difficulty” of the music, in its handling of middle-class characters, and in its treatment of the key affective motif of the Rogers-Hammerstein tradition: “aspiration.” Although Sondheim is often viewed as an author who strove to “elevate” the theater tradition he inherited, thus creating the “upper-middlebrow” musical, this chapter argues that he resisted all such gestures of “elevation” and ultimately approached his work from a highbrow perspective.
Sperm Competition
Authors: Starratt Valerie G. , Shackelford Todd K.
Published: January 2023

Sperm competition is a form of intrasexual competition in which the sperm of two or more males concurrently occupy the reproductive tract of a single female and compete to fertilize an available ovum. As a nonmonogamous species, humans have been subject to selection pressures associated with sperm competition. Consequently, human males have evolved a variety of anatomical, physiological, and psychological adaptations to address associated adaptive problems. Some of these adaptations motivate avoidance of sperm competition by engaging in precopulatory intrasexual competition, which may limit the risk of exposure to sperm competition. Other adaptations promote engagement in sperm competition during copulation or postcopulation and function not by avoiding sperm competition but by increasing the likelihood of winning the competition and siring offspring. For example, men facing a perceived increase in risk of sperm competition are more likely to demonstrate an increased interest in sex with their long-term partner. We summarize previous research on adaptations to sperm competition in humans, and highlight several directions for future research.
Mating in the Digital Age
Authors: Fisher Helen E. , Garcia Justin R.
Published: January 2023

Charles Darwin identified two basic forms of sexual selection: intrasexual selection, in which members of the same sex of a species evolved biobehavioral mechanisms to compete with one another to win mating opportunities with the opposite sex—male–male competition and female–female competition—and intersexual selection in which members of each sex of a species evolved biobehavioral mechanisms to attract members of the opposite sex for the purpose of mating—mate choice. Miller proposed that two aspects of mate choice have evolved in tandem: (1) traits of the display producer that evolved to attract mating partners and (2) traits of the display chooser that evolved to discriminate between specific courtship displays and prefer those of specific display producers. Fisher has proposed that a third mechanism evolved in tandem with hominin mate choice: the brain system for romantic love. Regardless of whom the display chooser chooses, this corresponding neural mechanism provides the focus, motivation, optimism, and energy to pursue this preferred mating partner. This chapter first reviews current data on this mechanism of mate choice, romantic love. Then, using a sample of 39,913 single adult Americans, the chapter discusses four broad temperament dimensions that play a role in mate choice today; and using a sample of 28,128 single Americans, it discusses three biologically based patterns of mate choice associated with these four neural systems. Last, using a national representative sample of 55,000 single adult Americans, the chapter discusses contemporary patterns of mate choice that most likely evolved during hominin evolution.
Beyond Sex
Authors: Schacht Ryan , Uggla Caroline
Published: January 2023

Darwin was the first to offer an evolutionary explanation for widespread sex differences in mating strategies across animal taxa. However, initial applications of evolutionary approaches to the study of human behavior were met with resistance. In response, social scientists began systematically applying rigorous evaluations of evolutionarily informed hypotheses by way of testable predictions. Mate choice research was a key area for this early work, focused on demonstrating sex differences in mating behavior. Subsequent research has tempered some earlier conclusions, increasingly relating mating strategies to aspects of socioecology. In particular, the adult sex ratio has emerged as an essential demographic variable contributing to behavioral variability within and between the sexes, leading to frequency-dependent rethinking for the patterning of mating competition and parental investment. Empirical examination of the association between adult sex ratio and aggression, family formation, partnership stability, and risk-taking is a growing field of research cross-cutting various literatures. In this chapter, we first describe early theory motivating research on sex differentiated behavior, followed by recent frequency-dependent reexaminations of sexual selection. Second, we introduce the adult sex ratio as a central determinant of fitness payoffs to differing reproductive strategies. Third, we review empirical studies on the consequences of sex ratio variation, highlighting outcomes related to sociosexuality, family formation, and violence. Fourth, we detail the maturation of the field, and where theoretical and empirical work has unveiled complexities regarding reproductive strategies. Finally, we reflect on future directions, where theoretical refinement is under way or needed, and highlight promising and novel research approaches.
Deception in Human Mating
Authors: Brewer Gayle
Published: January 2023

Romantic and sexual relationships form an important part of the social landscape. These relationships are, however, vulnerable to deception with a range of evolutionary relevant consequences for each member of the relationship dyad (e.g., cuckoldry) and relationship (e.g., dissolution). The current chapter details the use of deception at each stage of romantic and sexual relationships. First is the use of deception to attract a partner and assist relationship formation, with particular emphasis on the falsification of sexual history. Reflecting recent mating trends, the chapter also considers the use of deception during online dating. Second, the chapter outlines deception within established relationships, including deceptive affection, pretending orgasm, and infidelity. Throughout, the chapter highlights important differences between men and women.
The Dark Triad Traits and Mating Psychology
Authors: Jonason Peter K. , Burtăverde Vlad
Published: January 2023

A common misconception among researchers and laypeople is that socially undesirable traits (e.g., aggressiveness) cannot be evolutionarily important and instead must be pathologies. The assumption is that if we—as a society—disapprove of certain behaviors, attitudes, and cognitions, these “pathologies” are then likely to be discouraged, minimized, and eradicated. Further, it is assumed that these undesirable features cannot simultaneously have some desirable or evolutionarily important functions. One potential example of this is found in the research on the Dark Triad traits of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. These traits have a history of research and social perceptions that label them undesirable in etiology, function, and sequelae. In this chapter, we review the evidence and logic of how these traits might be pseudopathologies, or adaptations (i.e., historically increased reproductive fitness of their bearers), while still recognizing that having these traits may come with associated costs to the individual and those around them. We present the argument for these traits as “fast” life history strategies and then detail the mating psychology linked to them. We close with a consideration of conceptual and methodological limitations and suggestions for future research to guide and encourage researchers.
Understanding Women’s Estrus and Extended Sexuality
Authors: Gangestad Steven W. , Dinh Tran , Lesko Lauren , Haselton Martie G.
Published: January 2023

Women are sexually active throughout their ovarian cycles and yet sex can lead to conception only a modest proportion of the cycle. Hence, whereas some of the time, women’s sex is conceptive, at other timepoints, it is nonconceptive. Most mammalian females, by contrast, are sexually active only when sex can lead to conception. Women’s nonconceptive sexual proceptivity and receptivity evolved for functions other than conception itself. Form follows function. The dual sexuality framework, then, proposes that women’s sexuality during phases of the cycle when conception is possible differs from their sexuality during phases when conception is not possible. This perspective puts theoretical constraints on the ways that conceptive and nonconceptive sexuality can be understood. Within these constraints, multiple, contrasting psychological designs are possible. Research that assesses alternative possible psychological designs promises to enhance our understanding of human mating in ways that extend far beyond the domain of women’s phase-specific sexuality.
Value Formations through Digital Gaming
Authors: Grieve Gregory Price , Radde-Antweiler Kerstin , Zeiler Xenia
Published: January 2023

Gaming is filled with good, evil, and other moral issues that many studies assume are interpreted by players as religious. It generates curiosity as in all the studies about video gaming and religion, for most players, in-game religious imagery and narratives usually do not seem to matter. If not as religion, how should scholars of digital media theorize these elements? The authors argue that a more accurate concept is value formations. Using the performance of music in Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) as a case study, the authors define value as a second-order category that theorizes what actors find worthy or unworthy, and value formations as the collections and systematization of interdependent and entangled values. The authors approach value formations as contextualized social constructions and are not arguing for any type of normative preexisting good, beautiful, or typical (or bad, ugly, or deviant).