The subject of discussion in this article are the processes of progressive emancipation of state public bodies(organs) in the agricultural economy. In particular, we show that it is necessary to make a partial contemporary observation, which should strive towards establishing a better research tools to study the functioning of government agencies in the agricultural sector. After a nearly 20-year period of the legal mechanisms for the management of state agricultural property there is a need to summarize the state policy in this sector.Choosing this theme, in light of recent amendments to the Law on Management of State Treasury agricultural property is not only necessary but urgent.
: The dual perspective model of agency and communion predicts that observers tend to interpret a target’s behavior more in terms of communion than agency, whereas actors interpret their behavior more in terms of agency. The present research for the first time tests this model in real interactions. Previously unacquainted participants had a short conversation and afterwards rated their own behavior (actor perspective) and their interaction partner’s behavior (observer perspective) in terms of agency(self-confident, assertive) and communion(trustworthy, empathic). Supporting the dual perspective model, observers rated the actor’s behavior higher on communion than on agency, and higher on communion than actors themselves did. Findings for actors were more complex: Actors rated their own behavior as more agentic than observers did. However, they also rated their behavior high on communion. We discuss implications for the dual perspective model as well as for (mis)understandings in social interactions.
The aim of this study was to verify the importance of reinforcing a sex stereotype onparticipants’ identification with this role. The results were analysed as a function of both biological sex (63 women and 65 men) and psychological gender (58 sex-typed individuals and 70 androgynous individuals). In the study the Psychological Gender Inventory was used, as well as a scale measuring Agency and Communion, a scale measuring Unmitigated Agency and Unmitigated Communion, lists of sentences containing stereotypes of the male sex and the female sex, and sentences that were neutral with regard to sex. The results showed that feminine women ascribed more female characteristics to themselves regardless of whether the role that was associated with their biological sex was reinforced or not. Men showing characteristics of both sexes ascribed a similar level of unmitigated communion and agency to themselves irrespective of whether the sex stereotype was reinforced or not
Feelings-as-information theory states that feelings inform us about the nature of our current situation and we rely on them to make our judgments. Beyond that, feelings tune our cognitive processes to meet situational requirements. Positive feelings result in relying on pre-existing knowledge structures and default strategies, whereas negative feelings hamper relying on routines and results in adapting systematic processing. Based on this premise, it was hypothesized that positive mood, elicited either by the perceived target or by the independent source, would lead to relying on accessible agentic or communal content in perceiving strangers, as well as familiar others, whereas negative mood would weaken these tendencies. Specifically, the three studies showed initial evidence that (a) positive mood leads to focusing on agencyrelated qualities in perception of unknown men to a greater extent than negative mood, (b) positive mood leads to focusing on communion-related qualities in perception of unknown women more than negative mood, and(c) positive mood leads to relying on communal content in perception of familiar others comparing to negative mood.
this paper sets out to discuss the situation of Romanian migrant women as represented in their stories. A major issue the paper broaches is the degree of agency and choice migrant women enjoy and the strategies they seek to expand them. Other topics discussed refer to the dominant migration ideology in the source country as well as the restrictions writers have in dealing with more problematic aspects.
In this article we analyse the central role that the body plays in John MacMurray’s account of learning to be human. As with Merleau-Ponty, MacMurray rejected mind-body dualisms and argued for the need to understand what it means to be a person. Through our analysis we highlight the key principles that characterize MacMurray’s philosophy in relation to personhood and the body, namely: 1) all human knowledge and action should be for the sake of friendship and 2) human persons exist first and foremost in their bodies as ‘knowing agents’ rather than in their minds as ‘knowing subjects’. We thereafter explain MacMurray’s views on education and how it must support people to live in personal rather than functional relation with each other by attending more to bodily experience and education of the emotions. Accordingly, MacMurray considered that persons can either ‘use’ their bodily senses as mere instruments for functional purposes or they can ‘live’ in their bodily senses by learning to love (not ‘using’ but rather apprehending the real value of) other persons. In conclusion, we suggest that MacMurray’s philosophy can open up a different way of thinking about the educational value of physical activity. For MacMurray shared physical pursuits are especially educational when carried out for their own sake and when all persons’ present experience moments of bodily joy and togetherness and a better understanding of each other.
Poland has been becoming a migrant country over the past years, experiencing recently increased visibility of migrant children at schools. At the same time, the issue of their support and integration remains on the margin of educational policy and depends on the activity of local authorities and, above all, of school head-teachers and teachers. Drawing on the qualitative study carried out in 2020 within the project CHILD-UP Children Hybrid Integration: Learning Dialogue as a way of Upgrading Policies of Participation (Horizon 2020) in schools in Kraków and South-East Poland (where one of the centres for foreigners is located), this article comprises a discussion on the extent to which Polish schools are ready to accept migrant (including refugee) children, to enhance their agency and support integration processes. Therefore, it raises a question whether schools are able to effectively support migrant children linguistically as well as help them enter into peer groups in the course of their educational activities.
This paper discusses judicial duty of improving the law on epistemic grounds and claims in that regarding this obligation, it is possible to give a place to free speech from an epistemic point of view. As a requirement of having epistemic agency, judges like other human beings have epistemological responsibility. Different from the others’ responsibility, judges’ responsibility is connected to their duty of improving the law, which is required by their job as well as the idea of the rule of law and judicial professional principles. Judges should improve the law’s capacity to guide the conduct of its citizens, who are obligated to obey the law. Improving the law also improves the delivery of justice. The ways of legal interpretation and justification are important to improve it. While applying the law, judges can find the law unclear or they may encounter some norm conflicts. In these cases, they should resolve them to keep the law ‘legally in good shape’, which should meet epistemological requirements. When fulfilling this obligation, judicial free speech on epistemic grounds should not be limited.
This article considers the performative aspects of environmental narratives, based on the example of the cultural image of the plastic bag. In contemporary culture, disposable plastic bags have become a symbol of the collective guilt related to the role of plastics in the environmental catastrophe. Their perception is affected by various environmental narratives and social campaigns, in which the image of a plastic bag is to evoke fear, aversion, anger, or disgust, reinforcing the view of plastic as an unnatural material that pollutes the planet. The effectiveness of these narratives is limited, as the number of plastic bags in the environment continues to increase. The author explores the possibility of imagining other, less anthropocentric and potentially more effective modes of relating to single-use plastic. She uses performative methods to analyze the short film Plastic Bag (dir. Ramin Bahrani, 2009). Her interpretation draws mainly on Jane Bennett’s concept of vital materialism and Timothy Morton’s dark ecology to focus on the agency of plastic bags in various settings and offer a different perspective on their potential roles in more-than-human relationships.
The aim of this paper was to check whether there exists a relationship between volunteering involvement and the level of communion, agency and degree of support for ethical codes. The questions concerned whether persons involved in volunteering (compared to those not involved) are characterized, on the one hand, by a higher intensity of agency and communion, on the other, a higher level of declared support for ethical codes (ethics of autonomy, universal good, dignity and collectivism). In order to find the answer, a study was carried out in which participated 37 people involved in hospice volunteering (including 19 women) and 34 non-volunteers (including 18 women).The results of the study show the existence of an assumed relationship in the case of agency and communion. As for ethical codes, the results did not provide evidence of the relationship between the level of their support and volunteering. The results of the presented study lead to the conclusion that selfless action for the benefit of the other people is associated with a high level of agency and communion, and not only with a high ethical level. Hence the postulate for pedagogical practice to shape and develop a sense of agency and communion in children and youth.
Ten years after the 9/11 attacks CBS premiered Person of Interest. It introduced the inventor of a surveillance system commanded by the government trying to find a ―back door to his creation: devised to prevent terrorism, it was programmed to distinguish ―relevant from ―irrelevant threats, and he feels that many potential victims are being neglected. Focusing on the topicalization of gender violence, we read the show through: 1) Furedi‘s analyses of the post-9/11 culture of fear; 2) McNay‘s neo-Foucauldian discussion of gender and agency. We argue that Nolan transplants ideas about the War on Terror onto everyday threats including gender terrorism. We also approach agency, which fluctuates between presenting the (super)hero as the savior of the damsel in distress and portraying women as agents who can protect themselves and others. Although the former dominates, the weight of gender violence within a Greimasian dramaturgical model makes Person of Interest different from other post-9/11 series; the clearest one in the vindication of this problem as ―relevant within a media discourse dominated by allegedly more important, macro-level fears of our time.
The present experiment (N = 95) investigated the relations of narcissism with social value orientation under façade conditions of testing communal or agentic traits (or none - in a control condition). The results indicated that narcissism predicted less willingness to share resources with others and more competitive orientation in a façade communal condition compared to the remaining two conditions: control and agentic. The results confirm narcissistic disregard for communal domain and are consistent with the extended agency model of narcissism and the “success as a drawback” effect.
In the present paper we consider the specific relationship between communal and agentic functioning of narcissistic individuals. The study was aimed to test whether narcissist’s aggression is due to not only negative information about their agency but also positive information about their communion. Whereas the first effect is well- documented in empirical studies, the second effect has been revealed in our prior research. The results of the present study confirmed both effects: negative information about one’s agency increased aggressive tendencies (operationalized as a display of demeaning behavior) and decreased state self-esteem, while positive information about one’s communion resulted only in displaced aggression. The aggressive response to positive communal information is discussed as the success-as-aflaw effect, which we mean as inverse of the failure-as-an asset effect. According to the success-as-a-flaw effect, positive outcomes in the communal domain, considered by narcissists to be an evidence of low-status, are threatening for the grandiose self, based on the domain of agency. The social cognitive and clinical approach is employed to interpret these results.
Research shows that goal-relevant objects are rated positively, which results from their functionality towards the aim. In previous studies these objects were always external to the agent. However, relevant knowledge of self is also potentially accessible during goal pursuit, as self-esteem is an indicator of aim’s feasibility. In two experimental studies we tested whether goal activation affects temporal changes in automatic evaluations of personality traits related to the dimensions of agency and communion. We administered affect misattribution procedure where participants rated neutral Chinese hexagrams proceeded by words describing traits (75 ms masked presentation). The list of words comprised agentic (e.g. agile) and communal (e.g. trustworthy) traits. The rating took place twice - before and after introducing a manual task. In the first study, goal activation led to slightly more positive implicit evaluations of agentic and more negative evaluation of communal traits, which is consistent with empirical data on self-perception depending on agentic knowledge rather than communal one. In the second study we showed that goal activation led to changes only for promotion-, but not prevention-oriented individuals, which is explained by motivation strength. The results indicate that valuation of traits changes temporarily along with goal pursuit.
An interest in surrogacy has recently been increasing by astronomical progression. In some countries, there are agencies that offer the applicants for surrogacy both of the services, looking for surrogate mothers and their “matching” with the applicants. This article is focused on the possibility of setting up such an intermediating agency in the Czech Republic. The described possibilities are based on the current legislation. Our analysis has shown that in spite of the Czech legislation insisting on the donation of body parts as a purely altruistic act, and in spite of the Czech legislation refusing and strictly punishing human trafficking, it is now still possible (with courage and calculation) to operate an agency that will intermediate surrogate motherhood.
This article builds on the emerging tradition of transnationalism in migration research, which considers both migrants’ ‘making a home’ in their host societies and their continued attachments to their places of origin as parallel processes. It examines the factors that influence migrants’ simultaneous negotiation of ‘belonging’ in the home and host societies. This question is particularly significant in the ‘liquid’ context of free intra-EU mobility. The analysis is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in 2014–2016 with 41 Czech migrants who had moved to the United Kingdom in 1990–2015. Building on existing research of Central and Eastern European migration, the article shows that despite their diverse trajectories, most interviewees strive for ‘grounded’ lives with a family and a predictable future. Their sense of ‘belonging’ is affected by their reasons for coming to and staying in the UK, but especially by the presence or absence of agency; whether the migrant’s decision to stay was voluntary or dependent. Aspects of the individual’s migration situation and personal characteristics are also shown to structure migrant belonging. The concept of a ‘leap of faith’ is introduced to capture the role of a conscious commitment to settling in the host country, both physically and mentally, and thus re-gaining ‘control’ over one’s migration trajectory in cases when the decision to stay was not made independently.
The article discusses the possibility of a symmetrical approach in the anthropological study of the materiality of home. After an overview of the development in material culture studies and anthropological research of home, the author discusses two examples of anthropological writing about home: a description of home from Margaret Mead´s autobiography and Inge Daniels´ contemporary anthropological study from Japan.
Estonian Song and Dance Celebrations take place every five years, involve thousands of participants and great audiences in venues or via the media. In Estonia the tradition of dance celebrations as well as (stage) folk dance in hobby groups dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century. In the learning processes and programmes of dance celebrations traditional folk dance is used in the format of some single elements or features only. In a situation like this it is important to ask what role dance celebrations play in preserving and passing on the knowledge and skills connected with traditional dancing in contemporary Estonia. Which concepts and realisations of a dance may be compatible with the process of dance celebrations, and which of them are left aside and why? The article is based on the author’s dance ethnography (2008–2105) in two dance worlds, which partially overlap each other: it is the traditional folk dancing on the one hand, and the (stage) folk dance as a hobby, including participation in dance celebrations, on the other. The study shows that it is ourselves who create those institutional truth regimes that promote certain ideas while overshadowing alternative knowledge, although important for the preservation and sustainable development of our national culture. The main conclusions of the study are as follows: Dance celebrations do not support the propagation of the plural and diverse nature of traditional culture (on the example of traditional dancing) because their principal output, the massive productions, are not designed for that purpose, have other strengths and also other requirements in connection with its specialty to address large crowds at rather long distances. The format of dance celebration suits well for highlighting the positive, unified, and common values of national culture, while social criticism is not an attitude readily adopted, either by participant dancers or by the audience, even if such an approach is proposed by a creative team. Although the agency of the lived body as a source of knowledge can generally be well utilised in increasing one’s self-awareness in dancing, the dance celebration processes do not enhance the personal agency of participant dancers – most choices are made by the artistic teams and group leaders while the dancers’ main task is to obey the rules. This could be seen as a point of concern because low agency, meaning here unwillingness and poor ability to make intended decisions, may easily lead to alienation from the values important for the tradition of dance celebration itself and Estonian national culture as a whole.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The paper proposes a methodology to study individuals and their institutions by the study of their lifestyles. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Following Wojtyla’s methodology of studying the person on the basis of his or her actions and conduct, I decided to use similar methodology to answer the question: Are the 19th century Co‑operative Values and Principles still pertinent in the complex economy of the 21st century, and, if so, how can we operationalise them to become vibrant guidelines not only in contemporary business, but also in improving our everyday lives? THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The overview of the research on lifestyle in ethnography, marketing, lifestyle and occupational medicine, and finally criminology shows that unlike values, lifestyle can more easily be operationalized and measured. We both expose our lifestyle and are exposed to the lifestyles of others. Some status‑based lifestyles spread like viruses creating a pandemic of consumerism. These product‑based lifestyles are in complete opposition to the person‑oriented co‑operative lifestyle. RESEARCH RESULTS: An Exposure Model of Lifestyle allows new conceptualization of the isomorphism research. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The agency based model of lifestyle may be used for constructing diagnostic tools and investigating the very essence of personal motives both in private and work life. This model is supposed to help to investigate to what degree an individual’s lifestyle impacts the functioning of a participative company and whether it is reflected in the company’s success.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.