BackgroundInformed consent is an important factor in a child’s moral structure from which different types of doctor–patient relationships arise. Children’s autonomy is currently under discussion in terms of their decent treatment, beyond what doctors and researchers perceive. To describe the influential practices that exist among clinicians and researchers toward children with chronic diseases during the process of obtaining informed consent.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional, qualitative study via a subjective and interpretivist approach. The study was performed by conducting semi-structured interviews of 21 (...) clinicians and researchers. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS version 21® and Atlas Ti version 7.0® programs.ResultsThe deliberative and paternalistic models were influential practices in the physician–patient relationship. In the deliberative model, the child is expected to have a moral awareness of their care. The paternalistic model determined that submission was a way of structuring the child because he or she is considered to be a subject of extreme care.ConclusionsThe differentiated objectification [educational] process recognizes the internal and external elements of the child. Informed consent proved to be an appropriate means for strengthening moral and structuring the child. (shrink)

Abordar el tema del hombre es de suyo arriesgado, teniendo en cuenta que su dinámica de búsqueda constante limita la reflexión filosófica al campo de los hechos históricos; cabe afirmar también que toda acción humana, tratada con cierto rigor y sistematicidad requiere acudir a la filosofía para indagar, entre otras cosas, por sus fundamentos. Este es el caso del proceso educativo, una realidad que involucra al hombre en sociedad y le ofrece las bases para tomar conciencia de su “ser persona”; (...) así, la antropología filosófica se postula como la reflexión sobre el hombre desde su realidad dinámica e interpersonal de relación consigo mismo y con el entorno que le rodea. Es necesario, pues, buscar el marco argumentativo del hecho y del discurso que constituyen el proceso educativo, labor propia de la filosofía de la educación, y caracterizada como “el saber racional y crítico de las condiciones de posibilidad de la realidad experimental educativa en su conjunto” (Fullat, 1992, pp. 89-90). Desde esta doble perspectiva, se considerarán los fundamentos del proceso educativo. (shrink)

Abstract[I] want to single out one phenomenon that could be called the ‘politics of sources’. It points to the extent to which the histories that both scientists and historians can write are artifacts of the available sources. The Rockefeller Foundation not only opened its archives very early on for historical work but also invested a lot in making the archives readily available for historical exploration. During the 1980s, many young historians took advantage of this opportunity. Thus, in a relatively early (...) phase of the professional historiography of molecular biology, one could have gained the impression that the development of the new biology as a whole was a bio‐politically directed enterprise of the Rockefeller Foundation sustained by the vision that social processes could ultimately be controlled by biological processes. (shrink)

In this commentary, we point to guidelines for performing human neuroimaging studies and their reporting in microbiota-gut-brain articles. Moreover, we provide a view on interpretational issues in MGB studies, with a specific focus on gut microbiota–derived metabolites. Thus, extending the target article, we provide recommendations to the field to increase reproducibility and relevance of this type of MGB study.

This is the first critical edition and study of a unique and important Muslim polemic against Christians and Jews. The Book of Disputation was written in Arabic by a Mudejar (subject Muslim living under Christian rule in late medieval Iberia) and offers new insight into the cultural and intellectual life of this Muslim minority. The text advances arguments drawn from natural philosophy-largely from Aristotle and Averroes-along with more traditional revealed sources such as the Qur'an and the Bible. Mudejar communities suffered (...) a diminution of religious and political intelligentsia over time. This text, however, highlights the author's particular conception of the world as the creation of God in his defense of Islam, demonstrates the vitality of intellectual life among Muslims in medieval Christian Iberia, and documents the continued cultivation of natural philosophy within these Muslim communities. (shrink)

El corpus de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes de los territorios cristianos de la península ibérica medieval y temprano-moderna (mudéjares y moriscos) ha sido generalmente estudiado en menor medida que sus escritos en romance en caracteres latinos o árabes (aljamiado). Este artículo discute los nuevos datos en el códice misceláneo Árabe 1668 (El Escorial), copiado en 928 (=1522) probablemente por musulmanes en los territorios cristianos. MS Escorial Árabe 1668 no es totalmente desconocido por los estudiosos, pero han sido pocos los (...) intentos por investigar sus extraordinarios contenidos, que hasta ahora han permanecido en gran medida sin identificar. Destacable es la copia en árabe de la historia universal de ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (s. IX), el Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh [La historia], considerada como el ejemplar más antiguo de literatura árabe en al-Andalus y que se preserva solamente en un único manuscrito árabe en Oxford. Además, MS Escorial Árabe 1668 contiene un número importante de narrativas adaptadas en aljamiado que ya se conocían, pero de las cuales aún no se habían identificado los originales árabes en circulación entre los musulmanes peninsulares. Estos materiales amplían los datos ya existentes de la producción tardía de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes peninsulares y la preservación dentro de sus comunidades de originales provenientes de al-Andalus, el norte de África y el oriente islámico, algunos de los cuales contienen miniaturas. En el MS Escorial Árabe 1668 también encontramos un sermón árabe-Aljamiado (waʿẓ) que arroja luz sobre las reuniones de musulmanes que a veces se celebraron de forma clandestina debido a las crecientes restricciones impuestas a sus comunidades por los cristianos. (shrink)

En el presente artículo nos proponemos reconocer y analizar el uso de la técnica de la ring-composition o estructura anular en los cantos corales de Antígona de Sófocles en relación con los elementos de los cultos eleusino y dionisíaco que atraviesan la obra. Nuestra hipótesis consiste en que, lejos de ser un factor de mera articulación formal, la ring-composition cumple con una función dramática pues cohesiona, con su juego de paralelismos, las alusiones a los misterios con el fin de presentar (...) la acción como un ritual iniciático fallido. En esta primera parte trataremos el marco general de análisis y el canto de entrada del coro. (shrink)

Digital transformation has allowed to offer additional services - which complement the main product - both in terms of use, emotional and relationship terms. Focused on a traditionally rational insurance customer offering a value that explores the customer's emotions, from co-creating with the user, allows brand differentiation. Given this idea, this document has three purposes. First, identify the role of expectations and the perceived quality of the customer's digital experience. Secondly, to identify the relationship between experience and satisfaction gained in (...) private insurance web areas. Third, identify the most valued digital attributes by the user. A sample of 4,178 customers registered was analyzed using the partial least squares technique. The model is highly predictive to customer experience and evidence the important relationship between the WOW effect and satisfaction, as well as the weak but doble role that expectations play on insurance digital self-service. The model demonstrates that expectations are only relevant before web consumption, because during the process it is the perceived digital quality, in particular the usefulness, information and technology, that offer a true customer experience. This article offers high academic value because it more accurately defines the determinants of the digital insurance customer experience and its effect on customer satisfaction in digital services. While expectations influence attitude before service, this research reveals that perceived digital quality is what delivers a true customer experience. Strategically, the implications are immediate in the field of business as it shows the importance of co-creation in digital design, not only because of the significant savings in implementation costs but also because it guarantees a greater experience, essential in the loyalty of its customers. This ensures the sustainable growth of the company. (shrink)

¿Hay requisitos epistemológicos para la posesión de conceptos? Aunque nuestra intuición apunta claramente a una relación muy estrecha entre condiciones de posesión de conceptos y ciertos tipos de conocimiento, posiciones naturalistas en filosofía —como la defendida por Jerry Fodor— traen consigo una visión según la cual los conceptos que un sujeto posee son independientes metafísica y conceptualmente de las capacidades epistémicas de dicho sujeto. En este artículo argumentaré que, tal y como el análisis del dogmatismo de Pryor puede mostrar, las (...) teorías de la justificación epistémica proporcionan, desde un punto de vista general, apoyo independiente a la idea intuitiva de requisitos epistemológicos para la posesión de conceptos. Por este motivo, las aproximaciones naturalistas a los conceptos harían bien en evitar condiciones de posesión que carezcan de compromisos epistemológicos. (shrink)

In a recent article, Wilkinson puts forward the notion of identity-relative paternalism. According to Wilkinson’s final formulation of this principle, ‘[i]ndividuals should be prevented from doing to future selves (where there are weakened prudential unity relations between the current and future self) what it would be justified to prevent them from doing to others’.1 In medical ethics, it is usually assumed that hard paternalism, that is, acting against a competent person’s wishes for their own benefit, is not justified. According to (...) Mill’s harm principle, we may only limit people’s freedom if they cause harm to others.2 Harm to self is not a sufficient reason for overriding competent persons’ decisions. Wilkinson, however, draws on Parfit’s reductionist view of personal identity to argue that sometimes, patients’ future selves are sufficiently disconnected from their present selves to treat future selves like different persons. If a competent person’s medical decision negatively affects a future self, this should be treated like a case of harm to others. Thus, overriding competent persons’ decisions in such cases—and treating them against their will—could be justified. In this commentary, I point out two problems with this approach. First, I demonstrate that the cases Wilkinson’s argument is based on are not examples of harm to others but rather cases of surrogate decision making gone wrong, …. (shrink)

Ethics education in the professions has become close to compulsory with continuing education following suit. What is the de facto as opposed to the de jure function of an ethics education program? Have they increased compliance with laws and codes of conduct? Is that the goal? What would an ethics education program look like that was not primarily concerned with compliance with relevant laws or professional codes and not merely an exercise in good public relations? I argue that, ultimately, ethics (...) education is about happiness… not happiness as we generally think of it today, but in the Aristotelian sense of “fulfillment” and the collateral good that is generated for clients and the profession. As a result of this point of view I argue that ethics is not a subject in the normal sense of the term but a meta-subject which implies that teaching ethics as a class or stand alone module in a law, policy or practice management course is usually ineffective. Another implication is that the richest source for moral reflection within a profession are case studies generated by students in clinical assignments, despite the inherent risks associated with making these cases prominent. (shrink)

Mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) usually aim to prevent the genetic transmission of maternally inherited mitochondrial diseases. Until now, only the UK and Australia have implemented specific legal regulations of MRTs. In both countries, clinical trials on these techniques are only permissible for cases with a high risk of severe mitochondrial disease in the offspring. However, these techniques can also be applied to treat infertility, especially for older women with impaired oocyte quality. In some countries without legal regulation of these techniques, (...) MRTs are already offered for this purpose. Yet, this application of MRTs has received insufficient attention in the bioethical literature so far.In this paper, I examine whether there are ethical reasons to prohibit trials on MRTs in the context of infertility when they are permitted for preventing mitochondrial disease. Allowing MRTs in one context but not the other might be justified either because their application in the context of mitochondrial disease (1) is supported by a more convincing evidence base, (2) has a higher potential benefit or (3) has a lower risk. I compare both applications of MRTs with respect to these three factors. I conclude that there is no convincing reason to prohibit clinical trials on MRTs for infertility when they are permitted in the context of mitochondrial disease. (shrink)

While we often talk about time using spatial terms, experimental investigation of space-time associations has focused primarily on the space in front of the participant. This has had two consequences: the disregard of the space behind the participant and the creation of potential task demands produced by spatialized manual button-presses. We introduce and test a new paradigm that uses auditory stimuli and vocal responses to address these issues. Participants made temporal judgments about deictic or sequential relationships presented auditorily along a (...) body-centered sagittal or transversal axis. Results involving the transversal axis replicated previous work while sagittal axis results were surprising. Deictic judgments did not use the sagittal axis but sequential judgments did, in a previously undocumented way. Participants associated earlier judgments with the space in front of them and later judgments with the space behind them. These findings, using a new approach, p.. (shrink)

This commentary comprises three different responses to Counted and Zock’s article: “Place Spirituality: An Attachment Perspective.” The first response is from Esther Sternberg, MD, who gives a psychophysiological and neuroscience critique. The second is from Altaf Engineer, PhD, from the perspective of architecture and environmental psychology, and the last response is from Hester Oberman, PhD, who gives a psychology of religion rebuttal.

International business organizations are regularly addressed on their corporate social responsibility (CSR). As illustrated in this paper, it is not yet clear exactly what CSR means to organizations and how to deal with it. In this paper, the authors explore how a sensemaking approach helps to understand the business challenges of CSR within an organizational context. The theories of Karl Weick are applied to the experiences of CSR in Royal Dutch Shell. The authors argue that the key to CSR in (...) international business organizations is to engage stakeholders and start a process of joint sensemaking. Three main competencies are crucial in this: the competency to engage stakeholders through listening and understanding; the creation of an organizational language so that CSR makes sense to members of the organization; and recognizing the momentum of taking action. (shrink)

In recent years, reports on youth sports excesses and abuses of minors underscore the need for a safer sport environment. However, the way in which parents guide their children in dealing with winning and losing in sports is less understood. A care ethical inquiry into sport parenting might contribute to a better understanding of the role parents play in creating a safe sport environment for their children. This study applies theoretical perspectives from care ethics into practical context focusing on the (...) relationship between parents and their sporting children through the lens of relational identity. An interpretative phenomenological study was conducted into the meaning of competitiveness amongst Dutch parents of children aged eleven and twelve, who play hockey and are in the midst of transitioning from sport as a game to competitive sport. This article concludes that the meaning of competitiveness for these parents is twofold. On the one hand there is a desire to be proud of your child’s success, fuelled by meritocratic ideals. On the other hand, parents desire their child’s ongoing commitment to sport, which they consider a return investment for the sacrifices they make to support their child’s sport participation. From a care ethical stance of relational responsibility, parents should not solely view sport as a quid pro quo concept in which desires are fulfilled or battles settled, but rather as a game that is enjoyed by both parents and children. Mature sport parenting can only emerge once the tensions resulting from parental sacrifices on the one hand and the child’s loyalty to meet parental expectations on the other are overcome through dialogue and reflection, aimed at elucidating responsibilities within the relationship. More research is needed to gain insight into the significance of this relational connection for the youth sports climate. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the use of humorous stickers within a WhatsApp chat group. With the rapid growth of digital communication, particularly on mobile devices, WhatsApp has become a popular platform for various forms of interaction, including voice and video calls, as well as text and voice messaging. In this context, humour is a prevalent phenomenon, especially in groups where participants have established familiarity and trust. The prevalence of humour in digital communication is largely attributed to the use (...) of multimodal resources, such as stickers – digital images that can include text and are used to convey emotions, feelings, and humour. The study’s initial hypothesis posits that stickers serve as a means of humour contextualization, helping to emphasize and enhance the intended humour in messages. Additionally, stickers are believed to aid in reducing misunderstandings during communication and mitigating potential threats to the participants’ social image. For this case study, the researchers employed a qualitative approach to analyse conversations within a Spanish WhatsApp group comprising numerous participants, resulting in a corpus comprising 44,362 words and 273 stickers. From this data, they selected 8 humorous conversational sequences that exemplify the primary uses and functions of stickers in this digital context. (shrink)

El modelo de cultura sirvió para mostrar cómo el hombre podría simultáneamente ser un individuo, único en el orden biológico y psicológico y ser, al mismo tiempo, fundamentalmente social, viviendo y pensando en función de su grupo de acuerdo con concepciones compartidas gracias a su capacidad de comunicación simbólica. Los conceptos de contacto cultural, de resistencia cultural, de choque cultural, de aculturación, de cambio social y cultural, y más tarde de cambio social aparecen en el campo de la Antropología en (...) la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, en el marco de la expansión capitalista mundial. (shrink)

Pessimism over a democracy’s ability to produce good outcomes is as longstanding as democracy itself. On one hand, democratic theorists consider democracy to be the only legitimate form of government on the basis that it alone promotes or safeguards intrinsic values like freedom, equality, and justice. On the other, skepticism toward the ordinary citizen’s cognitive capacities remains a perennial concern. Qualms about the epistemic value of democracy have only been made more pertinent by a fundamental problem of deep epistemic disagreement (...) which underlies the post-truth phenomenon. I argue that the democratic theorists who have sought to defend democracy on epistemic grounds have thus far neglected such deep and intractable disagreements. Without addressing this oversight, the epistemic democrat will find that collective decision-making processes quickly become paralyzed and will not be able to yield the epistemic benefits they promise. Hence, the work for epistemic democrats is to recognize and take into account the ramifications of epistemic disagreements so as to make a stronger case for epistemic democracy. (shrink)

This article echoes those voices that demand new approaches and ‹senses’ for management education and business programs. Much of the article is focused on showing that the polemic about the educative model of business schools has moral and epistemological foundations and opens up the debate over the type of knowledge that practitioners need to possess in order to manage organizations, and how this knowledge can be taught in management programs. The article attempts to highlight the moral dimension of management through (...) a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian concept of practical wisdom. I defend the ideas that management is never morally neutral and that Aristotelian practical wisdom allows the recovery of moral considerations in management practice. I analyze the impact and implications that the introduction of practical wisdom in business schools entails for the conception and objectives of management education. This view reconfigures management education in terms of attention to values, virtues and context. Therefore, management programmes should prepare students to critically evaluate what they hear and to make decisions coherent with their values and virtues. In the final section, I reflect on the pedagogical implications of this approach. I point out that an integrated model of ethics and practical wisdom promotes education of cognition and education of affect as well. I provide an example to illustrate my perspective and to support my conclusions. (shrink)

The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects (...) or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span. Key Words: cognitive development; dynamical systems theory; embodied cognition; infant development; motor control; motor planning; perception and action. (shrink)

Les atlas linguistiques sont-ils des corpus? Nous voudrions ici montrer pourquoi certains atlas ne sont pas des corpus et comment leur informatisation pourrait, néanmoins, permettre de les exploiter comme tels. Le questionnement auquel font écho ces lignes est celui de la possibilité d’une informatisation de l’Atlas linguistique de la Wallonie (ALW), envisagée dans un premier temps comme l’intégration d’échantillons des publications dans des bases de données, exploitables via une interface de consultation en ligne. Ce travail consisterait à réduire la matière (...) de l’enquête qui avait été enrichie lors de l’édition des matériaux. Cependant, nous voudrions montrer la part d’analyse qu’il est souhaitable de conserver lors de cette réduction. (shrink)

Resumen El presente trabajo tiene por objeto el análisis de partículas intensificadoras en el discurso humorístico planificado. Partimos de la hipótesis de que el uso de expresiones que intensifican la verdad de lo dicho, como en serio, de verdad o lo juro, es una de las estrategias argumentativas que emplean las cómicas españolas para que su discurso resulte más verosímil. En aras de verificar dicha conjetura, esta investigación recoge un corpus de 15 monólogos humorísticos en español, representados por cómicas de (...) la actualidad, en diversas salas y teatros del territorio español durante los años 2017 y 2018. La transcripción y segmentación de dichas muestras nos ha permitido extraer la frecuencia de uso de los distintos procedimientos de intensificación empleados en este tipo de discurso, así como analizar qué funciones cumple la intensificación como estrategia argumentativa y pragmática. Los resultados obtenidos certifican que las humoristas españolas analizadas recurren a la intensificación durante sus actuaciones para fomentar el efecto humorístico, hacer que su discurso sea más creíble y, por tanto, lograr la adhesión del público. (shrink)

Rebbetzin Esther Greenberg was famous throughout Israel as a mentor to countless women, including some of the best-known teachers and counselors.

The aim of this paper is to explore the identity of the teacher as a dialectical being that is in permanent construction, to identify some obstacles teachers might find in this process while operating in an institutional framework, and the effects these could have upon the teacher and the goals she pursues with her students. By ruling out the idea of identity as an autonomous self that can be constructed with no ties with its context, we propose that identity is (...) dialogical and is built through the relationships we establish with others. This fact situates the relationship between the student and the teacher at the center of pedagogical practices and allows us to establish the ideas of teacher presence and integrity as central elements for the moral development of students. In this context, we identify the excessive institutionalization of the role of the teacher as a cause for the reduction of identity and a defensive retreat to the possible outcomes of being judged by strictly formal criteria, wh... (shrink)

En contexte de protection de la jeunesse, dans plusieurs situations, il arrive que le développement d’un lien d’attachement ne puisse s’établir suite à du rejet, de l’abandon ou par l’incapacité des parents à reconnaître ou répondre aux besoins de l’enfant. Dans de telles situations, au Québec, on envisage de plus en plus une approche « projet de vie » pour l’enfant avec l’objectif de mettre fin à l’ambivalence et au vide affectif, ceci dans des délais qui ne compromettent pas sa (...) capacité de se développer harmonieusement. Dans cette perspective, nous présentons ici les résultats d’une étude exploratoire qui a pour objectif de dresser un premier portrait des jeunes pour qui un « projet de vie » fut élaboré dans sept centres jeunesse du Québec. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how changes in K-12 educational delivery methods in the USA impacts students as 1:1 device programs become a required tool for learning. This change produces gaps in knowledge and understanding of the digital environment and exposes minors to risk. Mandatory technology integration by school districts places the ethical responsibility on school districts to prepare students to use the digital environment to mitigate risk. Design/methodology/approach The author’s literature review focused on the impact (...) of personal device integration in education on students. The author surveyed teachers in the district on what they perceived as risk to students accessing the digital environment and what they believe creates value in digital citizenship instructional content. The author also gathered information while serving on the school district technology steering committee and digital citizenship working group. Findings Mandatory 1:1 device programs used for learning provide unlimited access to the digital environment. This technology integration creates digital knowledge gaps in understanding among students and exposes them to risk or dangers such as loss of privacy, psychological harms and engaging in or being a victim of illegal online activities. School districts are responsible for providing a remedy to close this gap and mitigate risk by developing learning content resources for teachers. Social implications As 1:1 device programs continue to grow in school districts in the USA, it is essential for students to learn to apply protocols and understand norms of the digital world. Providing a digital citizenship curriculum in a format such as a Google Site will offer educators access to instructional content that teaches students to apply protocols, understand norms of the internet and social media and foster critical thinking to analyze power structures, biases and recognize manipulation online. Student must learn how to apply rules that challenge assumptions behind the digital content they see, and they must be able to identify and resolve digital practices and behaviors that are problematic, so they are prepared to participate in a digital society. Originality/value This perspective may be relevant to school districts contemplating personal device integration, providing insight into how 1:1 device use impacts students and develops an ethical position for creating digital citizenship resources for teachers. (shrink)

This review critically examines the current state of the science on the concept of family caregiver–care receiver mutuality, summarizes accomplishments and gaps and identifies directions for future theory development and research. Mutuality between family caregivers and care receivers is of increasing interest to researchers. However, no analysis of the current state of the science of this important concept has been published. Our literature search revealed 34 research articles that met inclusion criteria. The studies were assessed in terms of conceptualization of (...) mutuality, instrument development, populations studied, research designs and methods and findings. Significant scientific progress during the past 30 years includes the development of clear definitions and new instruments, expansion of research beyond the clinical populations in which mutuality was first studied, the use of a variety of research designs, and increasingly sophisticated methods of data analysis. Growing evidence suggests that mutuality is associated with caregiver emotional health outcomes and may decrease over time in the context of chronic illness. Directions for future research include development of new theoretical frameworks grounded in relational theory, development of theory on the dynamics of mutuality over time, exploration of mutuality in diverse cultures and populations, and intervention studies aimed at enhancing mutuality. (shrink)

The philosophy of empowerment, which is based on the premises that clients must be active, equal and collaborative participants, who are aware and commited to change, has guided research in empowerment interventions. This article reports on a small part of a research study that sought to understand Chinese cancer patients’ conceptualization of empowerment. Qualitative delineation of the concept of empowerment by means of in-depth interviews was carried out with 12 Chinese patients with cancer. The findings showed that empowerment is a (...) process whereby patients develop a sense of inner strength through connection with others, including families, friends and health care professionals. It is also a process of transformation through which they actively develop new perspectives by reframing and reinterpreting their illness. Acceptance of illness was shown to result from a realization of a lack of control in the situation, which is then enhanced by the beliefs of Confucianism and Taoism. In the cancer context, personal control comprises both primary and secondary processes. Active involvement, awareness of the situation, partnership, self-determination and self-reliance are important values in empowerment. The concept and therapeutic foundations of empowerment provide ample legitimacy for its vigorous pursuit in nursing. (shrink)

Biomedicine in recent decades has been defined by an increasing tendency to turn social problems into biomedical questions. Precision or personalized health initiatives have gained attention due to...

NoViolet Bulawayo’s recently published novel titled, Glory, fictionalises the tragic fall of Robert Mugabe from the helm of power. The removal of Mugabe from power through the 2017 “military coup” engendered a problematic narrative that depicted the former first lady, Grace Mugabe as the biblical Eve’s doppelganger. The purported resemblance of Eve, a character from sacrosanct text, and Grace of contemporary Zimbabwe is often based on mythical and misogynist (mis)interpretations of the former as an epitome of sin and the latter (...) as instrumental to Mugabe’s demise. Arguably, the construct of Eve in Zimbabwe and the personified allegory in the fictive society of Bulawayo is profoundly laden with semantics and tropes of power together interwoven with innuendoes that denigrate women. This article reflected upon the ‘blame Eve myth’ with interlocking discourses of toxic politics and religion that reinforce phallocentric attitudes and practices that denigrate the female gender in Zimbabwe. Ecofeminism enriches the discussions of the novel Glory as a satire that provides imperative fictional sites to chart these intricate discourses. Ecofeminist framework offers insights that enrich the discussions of Eve’s myth and other representations which disparage women in the novel, Glory. The study concludes that blaming Grace Mugabe in her fictional doppelganger Marvelous, symbolically illuminates how women and the feminised nature are both insulted and held accountable for woes that befall humanity in both the fictive nation of Jidada and its referent Zimbabwe. Contribution: Ecofeminist conceptual framework has rarely been used to examine the complex connection between gender, politics, religion and nature in Zimbabwean fictional writing. Thus, this study offered fresh insights that are significant in understanding these subjects from a multidisciplinary perspective because the analyses and readings of the novel were based on literary criticism, political discourse and theology. (shrink)