bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The maqāṣid-cum-maṣlaḥa Approach as Theological Basis for Islamic Social Work: A Critical Analysis and an Alternative Proposal
Authors: Kurnaz Serdar 
Published: May 2022

AbstractSince social work protects the interests and benefits of people, one of the first conceptual terms which might guarantee the theological foundation of Islamic social work is maṣlaḥa. In modern times, maṣlaḥa is used interchangeably with the overall objectives (maqāṣid) of Sharʿia. The use of maṣlaḥa in its broader sense of maqāṣid enables scholars to link their understanding of social work to the Islamic tradition of sciences, especially to Islamic legal thinking. However, if we look back at the Islamic tradition of legal thinking, we discover a totally different approach to maṣlaḥa and especially maqāṣid: it becomes a source of knowledge, whereas in the tradition of the classical ʾuṣūl, it was a tool for legal hermeneutics. Although the search for the theological foundation of Islamic social work in the realm of Islamic legal theory and Islamic law is comprehensible, the lack of critical reflection on the discrepancy of the modern understanding of maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid, in contrast to the classical understanding, leads to theological dead ends and contradictions. Some scholars have already drawn attention to this but have remained vague concerning a solution to this specific problem. This paper will highlight and compare the specifics of the classical approach of maṣlaḥa in classical Islamic legal thinking and the modern maqāṣid approach. Additionally, I will highlight the Qurʾanic concept of maʿrūf in the three-fold division of K. Reinhart, and reflect on it as a possible theological basis for modern Islamic social work attempts.
Islamic Practical Theology: waqf and zakāt as Theological Foundations
Authors: Badawia Tarek 
Published: May 2022

AbstractIslamic practical theology represents a conceptual framework for Islamic social work as well as other fields of practice, such as pastoral care. In these fields, it is necessary to meet professional standards but theological reflection is also required. Islamic faith is intrinsically linked to social justice, good deeds and helping mankind, while material greed is strongly criticised by the Qurʾan. This chapter focuses on two terms and concepts which can play a major role in such a reflection: the first is waqf (endowment) which, going back to the practice of the Prophet and the first caliphs, binds property to charitable intentions and to God, as a receiver and possessor of all things. Manifold examples from the history of social welfare in Islam express how waqf has been implemented in different contexts. The second concept is zakāt (compulsory alms) which, as a central religious duty of solidarity, is intended to guarantee social peace and the dignity of the poor and needy. According to the Qurʾan, there are eight groups of recipients of zakāt. Looking at parallels between the historical context and the current context of establishing Muslim welfare care in modern societies demonstrates how zakāt can potentially be put into practice. For this purpose, classical and modern positions are brought into conversation. Contrary to some interpretations, the Qurʾan’s open-minded hermeneutics do not address a particular religious affiliation, so zakāt in fact goes beyond religious categories and can be applied in multicultural and plural societies. Consequently, the aim should be to integrate Muslim activities and reflections into the framework of modern welfare states. Openly understood in this way, Muslim welfare can enrich society without dividing it.
Reconfiguring Education Through Data: How Data Practices Reconfigure Teacher Professionalism and Curriculum
Authors: Grant Lyndsay 
Published: May 2022

AbstractData practices are acknowledged as an important mode of governing education (Ozga, Trust in numbers? Digital Education Governance and the inspection process. European Educational Research Journal, 15(1), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904115616629, 2016) with education becoming increasingly ‘datafied and digitised’ (Jarke and Breiter, Datafying education: How digital assessment practices reconfigure the organisation of learning (Research Network “Communicative Figurations” No. 11). https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.2866.5686, 2016; Williamson, Big data in education: The digital future of learning, policy and practice. Sage, 2017). Within schools, there has been an intensification in practices of generating, analysing, visualising and intervening with educational data (Selwyn, “There’s so much data”: Exploring the realities of data-based school governance. European Educational Research Journal, 15(1), 54–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904115602909, 2016). There has, however, so far been less attention paid to exploring how data practices work ‘on the ground’. Drawing from an ethnographic study in an English secondary school, this paper shows how data practices—people, policies, discourses, digital and material tools—became part of a wide-ranging data apparatus that reconfigured the possibilities for education.This chapter considers how the curriculum was reconfigured through algorithmic triage devices that created unequal access to a broad curriculum for different groups of students. It also explores how teachers’ roles were orientated away from more ‘holistic’, personal or relational understandings of pupils’ learning, instead engaging with data as a more legitimate form of knowledge and professionalism.
Welfare Data Society? Critical Evaluation of the Possibilities of Developing Data Infrastructure Literacy from User Data Workshops to Public Service Media
Authors: Hokka Jenni 
Published: May 2022

AbstractDatafication is a social and political process that has mainly been led by powerful commercial interests leaving the citizens of datafied societies as mere bystanders. How could a datafied society become a welfare data society—a society that takes care of all citizens’ rights and wellbeing by providing them sufficient means to cope with a datafied everyday life? In this chapter, I claim that in a data society the rights and wellbeing of citizens are strengthened through education: by increasing the level of digital and data infrastructure literacy. While regulations such as the GDPR are much needed, they are only effective if citizens understand how to use the rights they grant them. Our workshops with users showed that on average, people are capable of forming a considered opinion on fair data-gathering practices. Furthermore, they were able to discuss and even develop new ideas based on how they would like data gathering to be organised and regulated after being introduced to data collection in practice. Basic education in European countries has already made efforts to improve digital literacy, but education on digital literacy and especially data infrastructure literacy should also reach older generations. In this chapter, I propose that public service media should also play a significant role in strengthening citizenship through education in a datafied society as demonstrated by the Finnish public broadcasting company YLE who has already taken on that role. The results from our cooperation with YLE Learning show that public service media (PSM) already possesses inventive means through which different kinds of users can be reached. Still, more controlled cooperation is needed among different public institutions and European PSM to increase the general level of data infrastructure literacy.
(Not) Safe to Use: Insecurities in Everyday Data Practices with Period-Tracking Apps
Authors: Amelang Katrin 
Published: May 2022

AbstractThe chapter uses the self-monitoring of menstrual cycles via an app as an example for an exploration of the ways in which people engage with data and its ambivalences in their daily lives. Period-tracking apps allow for the tracking and visualising of all kinds of personal data and offer a digitised, ‘smart’ version of the well-known menstruation calendar. In addition to insecurities emerging from ‘taming’ the uncertainties of (menstruating) bodies via quantification and algorithms, the unanticipated collection of user data by private companies and the potential surveillance raise issues of privacy and data security. This chapter will address these two forms of insecurity by drawing on material from an ongoing empirical study into the everyday use and discussion of period-tracking apps in Germany. For those interviewed, the negotiation of data insecurities can encompass an increased body competence, idiosyncratic interpretations of data or ignoring predictive deficiencies just as attempts of sidestepping dubious data collection or impositions of an algorithmic understanding of menstrual normalcy. Hence, the chapter gives insight into the multi-faceted ways people live with datafication and contributes to everyday perspectives in critical data studies.
Community Rankings and Affective Discipline: The Case of Fandometrics
Authors: Maris Elena , Baym Nancy 
Published: May 2022

AbstractTumblr’s Fandometrics is a metrics project that posts weekly fandom rankings for TV shows, movies, music, video games, ‘ships,’ and more. Tumblr describes the rankings as representing “each fandom’s influence across Tumblr.” This influence is determined with a measurement that does not account for sentiment and yet provides prominence and voice to the ‘loudest’ fandoms. Building on work on audience measurement, we argue Fandometrics encourages social jostling by online communities for relevance on the Tumblr platform, and within fandom and wider culture. By equating the strength of communities with their status as influencers or markets, these rankings usher fans towards subjectivities that put data and quantitative rankings at the centre of societal value and inter-community relationships. We argue that as metrics become more visible to users, some communities respond with a kind of affective discipline, at times exaggerating, restraining, cloaking, or reconfiguring positive and negative affect in their online engagement in line with algorithmic requirements for measurement. We identify and discuss the major affective and social implications for the communities ranked by Tumblr’s Fandometrics. Finally, we discuss efforts by some users to resist or withdraw from Fandometrics and/or the communities that value its rankings, and efforts by fans to (re)claim their own data through self-measurement. We argue that with platforms’ increasing concentration of data power, critical data studies must attend to such community-driven alternative models of data and metrics. The fandom metrics phenomenon reflects larger anxieties about value, relevance, and power in increasingly metrified online spaces.
Researching Public Trust in Datafication: Reflections on the Deliberative Citizen Jury as Method
Authors: Kennedy Helen , Steedman Robin , Jones Rhianne 
Published: May 2022

AbstractHow can we engage the public in issues relating to data, when these matters are often complex, opaque and difficult to understand? Answers to this question are urgently needed, given mounting concern about the potential negative consequences of data power and desire for data justice. The citizen jury offers one solution. Citizen juries bring diverse citizens together to debate a complex issue of social importance and make a policy recommendation. In this chapter, we reflect on a citizen jury experiment where participants discussed their criteria for the design of ethical, just and trustworthy data-driven systems. We argue that the synthesis of participants’ opinions resulting from the deliberative approach is a unique strength of the citizen jury as a method for researching public perceptions of data power. However, we also argue that experts, brought in to citizen juries to share their expertise and inform deliberation, shape the process and the conclusions that citizen jurors draw. In the social sciences, it is widely acknowledged that methods shape empirical research findings, yet this is rarely discussed in data studies, in research into public perceptions of datafication or in relation to citizen juries. We call for greater critical thinking about methods in the field of critical data studies, and in so doing, we contribute to the advancement of the field.
The Power of Data Science Ontogeny: Thick Data Studies on the Indian IT Skill Tutoring Microcosm
Authors: Rangaswamy Nimmi , Narasimhan Haripriya 
Published: May 2022

AbstractNew employment demands of a burgeoning Indian software service industry are spawning neo-educational structures, especially in the domain of data sciences through vibrant market mechanisms offering a scalable and industry-focused learning system. Since the 1990s, Indian software firms have developed expertise in carrying out outsourced back-office tasks and mid-level IT services like data entry, managing call centres, and performing software quality testing for foreign companies taking advantage of a technically trained local workforce. The trend of automating manual work practices in the IT industry has generated a different kind of demand for data sciences directed at upskilling and job readiness. India is witnessing a market-oriented groundswell of data science and IT skill tutoring ‘shops’, resituating science and engineering education. In this chapter we report from ethnographic research conducted in two IT skill training parks to underpin arguments about emerging neo-educational learning structures suited to a data science education for new livelihood opportunities in an IT-accredited India. Our chapter makes a case for looking at ‘data studies’ from an ethnographic perspective uncovering a ‘program’ of upward mobility through IT skilling and employment. What directions might data studies about tutoring data science skills in the Indian context lead to? Excerpts presented here from field research imagine new livelihoods, aspirations, and technology skills that are more often than not a reflection of the power of data science education.
Mapping Data Justice as a Multidimensional Concept Through Feminist and Legal Perspectives
Authors: Draude Claude , Hornung Gerrit , Klumbytė Goda 
Published: May 2022

AbstractThis chapter interrogates “data justice” through the lenses of feminist and legal studies to reconfigure data justice as a multidimensional, interdisciplinary practice in IT-design. First, we look at how data justice is framed in feminist research and feminist-informed critical data and design perspectives, as well as how it is conceptualised in law, particularly in the context of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and legal debates around privacy in Europe. Second, we recommend conceptual shifts, design approaches, and legal measures towards data justice. Our chapter contributes to new perspectives in critical data studies by showing that data justice can provide a conceptual ground that serves both the needs of legal formalisation as well as feminist imperatives of contextualisation and specificity.
Participation and Influence in Urban Development: Does City E-Participation Strategy Matter?
Authors: Hovik Sissel , Legard Sveinung , McShane Ian , Middha Bhavna , Reichborn-Kjennerud Kristin , Ruano José M. 
Published: May 2022

AbstractMost cities have introduced digital participatory tools. They, however, introduce these tools in different ways and for different reasons. This chapter investigates the impact of the e-participating strategies of Madrid, Melbourne, and Oslo upon local activist participation and influence in urban development. Data gathered from a survey of local activists in the three cities, shows that they often combine different participatory channels: formal and informal and digital and analogue. The data also unveils differences in the ways these actors participate, a variation that cannot be understood in the light of city e-participation strategy. The authors argue that institutionalized practices and a culture of citizen participation are more important. The data furthermore indicates that activists that combine many different participatory channels believe they have more impact on urban development than those using few channels. The study therefore reveals that the introduction of many participatory channels tends to create super participants, which is further accentuated by the introduction of digital participation tools.
Displacement and Citizen Participation: A Comparison of the Enactment of E-Participation Platforms in Oslo and Madrid
Authors: Legard Sveinung 
Published: May 2022

AbstractThe growing digitization of citizen participation has been accompanied by the concern that e-participation technologies will displace traditional forms of participation and representation. This chapter contributes to the discussions on ‘hybrid’ and ‘multichannel’ participation, by arguing that the relationship between e-participation and traditional, analogue forms of citizen participation is uneasy. The level of conflict and displacement caused by the introduction of e-participation technologies depends on how they are enacted. This chapter compares the introduction of e-participation platforms in Madrid and Oslo, and finds that the new technologies in Madrid deprived traditional channels of citizen participation or their role, but in Oslo were used to complement existing forms of analogue participation. This chapter uses technology enactment theory and an inductive case-study approach, to develop the hypothesis that e-participation technologies can both be enacted in ways that add something to an institutional environment, but also to achieve drastic change and that this is the outcome of agency.
The Impact of Digital Participation on Democratic Urban Governance
Authors: Legard Sveinung , Hovik Sissel 
Published: May 2022

AbstractThis concluding chapter examines the effect on democracy of different approaches to the digitalization of citizen participation. We investigate how well different e-participation models perform on the dimensions of inclusiveness, deliberation and popular control, the models examined being the online direct democracy model in Madrid, the digital crowdsourcing model in Melbourne and the e-bricolage model in Oslo. Digital technologies can, compared with analogue participation, enable cities to reach out to a larger number of people and strengthen the role of citizens in decision-making. The limitations of digital participation are revealed or confirmed by this study. Digital technologies can mobilize more citizens, but at the same time reinforce existing inequalities. High-quality deliberation is also difficult to achieve through online platforms. This study shows that the approach applied by cities to digitalization impacts the level of democracy achieved. This should be useful to practitioners designing systems of citizen participation in other cities.
Preliminary Design of a Flexible Haptic Surface
Authors: Le Magueresse Romain , Giraud Frédéric , Casset Fabrice , Kaci Anis , Desloges Brigitte , Colin Mikael 
Published: May 2022

AbstractThis paper presents the preliminary development of a flexible haptic surface in order to produce texture rendering on a large conformable area. For this purpose, Haptic Pixels vibrating at ultrasonic frequencies are actuated by piezoelectric elements and implanted on a flexible matrix. The design leads to square glass plates of 10 $$\times $$
×
10 mm$$^2$$

2

with a thickness of 500 $$\upmu $$
μ
m, actuated by PZT ceramics with a thickness of 200 $$\upmu $$
μ
m and a radius of 2.5 mm bonded on a 100 $$\upmu $$
μ
m thick PEEK film. Electromechanical characterizations validate the design. The PEEK film between two pixels is exploited to separate them, to obtain the flexibility of the surface and to create an area of friction reduction with a stationary wave. Haptic evaluations are carried out to confirm the performances of the approach on a Haptic Pixel.
Human Self-touch vs Other-Touch Resolved by Machine Learning
Authors: Ramasamy Aruna , Faux Damien , Hayward Vincent , Auvray Malika , Job Xavier , Kirsch Louise 
Published: May 2022

AbstractUsing a database of vibratory signals captured from the index finger of participants performing self-touch or touching another person, we wondered whether these signals contained information that enabled the automatic classification into categories of self-touch and other-touch. The database included signals where the tactile pressure was varied systematically, where the sliding speed was varied systematically, and also where the touching posture were varied systematically. We found that using standard sound feature-extraction, a random forest classifier was able to predict with an accuracy greater than 90% that a signal came from self-touch or from other-touch regardless of the variation of the other factors. This result demonstrates that tactile signals produced during active touch contain latent cues that could play a role in the distinction between touching and being touched and which could have important applications in the creation of artificial worlds, in the study of social interactions, of sensory deficits, or cognitive conditions.
Investigating Movement-Related Tactile Suppression Using Commercial VR Controllers
Authors: Schuetz Immo , McManus Meaghan , Fiehler Katja , Voudouris Dimitris 
Published: May 2022

AbstractWhen we perform a goal-directed movement, tactile sensitivity on the moving limb is reduced compared to during rest. This well established finding of movement-related tactile suppression is often investigated with psychophysical paradigms, using custom haptic actuators and highly constrained movement tasks. However, studying more naturalistic movement scenarios is becoming more accessible due to increased availability of affordable, off-the-shelf virtual reality (VR) hardware. Here, we present a first evaluation of consumer VR controllers (HTC Vive and Valve Index) for psychophysical testing using the built-in vibrotactile actuators. We show that participants’ tactile perceptual thresholds can generally be estimated through manipulation of controller vibration amplitude and frequency. When participants performed a goal-directed movement using the controller, vibrotactile perceptual thresholds increased compared to rest, in agreement with previous work and confirming the suitability of unmodified VR controllers for tactile suppression research. Our findings will facilitate investigations of tactile perception in dynamic virtual scenarios.
Wearable Haptics in a Modern VR Rehabilitation System: Design Comparison for Usability and Engagement
Authors: Camardella Cristian , Gabardi Massimiliano , Frisoli Antonio , Leonardis Daniele 
Published: May 2022

AbstractModern immersive virtual reality (VR) systems include embedded hand tracking, stand-alone and wireless operation, fast donning and calibration: these features are precious for usability of rehabilitation serious games in the clinical practice, envisaging also home-care applications. Can wearable haptics well integrate with the above features? Different designs result in a trade-off between wearability and richness of feedback. Yet, engagement of the user is also one of the key-features for rehabilitation serious games. We developed two novel fingertip devices aiming the first at lightweight and wearability, the second at rich and powerful cutaneous feedback. We compared the two designs in terms of usability and users’ engagement within a modern rehabilitation system in immersive VR.