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    Restoring the Place of Imagination in Education: How to escape the trap of rationality-based realism
    Reuter, T (Index Copernicus, 2022-06-30)
    Henri Corbin accorded the imagination its own unique and important noetic or cognitive function, giving us access to an ontological sphere that without imagination remains closed and forbidden to us. Meanwhile, for rationalist science philosophy, as Corbin notes, the imagination has long been understood as nothing but the unreal, the mythic, the marvellous, the fictive and fanciful. In this paper I argue that rationalist modernism, along with mass education in keeping with this modernist ‘spirit of the times’ has led to a collective imprisonment within the real, the concrete, and robbed us of the capacity to reflect and transform ourselves and our relationship to the world. This state of affairs will ensure humanity’s rapid demise given the challenges we now face, that is, unless we can reinstate the faculty of imagination within scientific epistemology and in education, and thus escape our entrapment.
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    Vulnerable but Resilient: Indonesia in an Age of Democratic Decline
    Setiawan, KMP (Routledge, 2022-11-25)
    Recent years have seen a consensus emerging that Indonesian democracy is in regression. Nonetheless, there continue to be developments that point towards Indonesia’s democratic resilience. This article examines key events of the past year that support resilience, including the passing of the landmark Law on Sexual Violence, the rejection of rumoured plans to extend President Joko Widodo’s term in office and a moderation of polarisation. At the same time, Indonesian democracy remains vulnerable, illustrated by legal developments that undermine executive accountability, ongoing militarisation in Papua, as well as persistent pressure in areas of freedom of expression and minority rights. The article will conclude with an examination of Jokowi’s efforts to secure his presidential legacy, particularly through infrastructure development and foreign policy. The article identifies two sources for democratic resilience—public opinion and elite support—and argues that while democratic decline continues, the process of regression is more uneven than commonly emphasised in assessments of Indonesian politics.
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    Diaspora organizations, political settlements, and the migration-development nexus: the case of the Indonesian Diaspora Network
    Rosser, A (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022-09-08)
    This article examines the Indonesian Diaspora Network (IDN), an organization that seeks to ‘facilitate’ and ‘empower’ Indonesia’s diaspora and enhance its contribution to the country’s development. IDN portrays itself as an expression of the collective will of a unified and coherent Indonesian diaspora that is working to promote development-for-all, while critics suggest it is the instrument of elite and professional elements within the diaspora pursuing narrower interests and agendas. By contrast, this article suggests that IDN is a political settlement between these and other elements within the diaspora, each of which has distinct interests and agendas with regard to Indonesia’s development. Its impact on Indonesia’s development is consequently much less clear-cut than existing analyses suggest while also being contingent on processes of political and social struggle. In theoretical terms, the article encourages an understanding of diaspora organizations in terms of political settlements analysis.
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    Transnational linkages, political dynamics, and the migration-development nexus: Towards a political settlements approach
    Rosser, A (Elsevier, 2020-10-01)
    This paper examines how transnational researchers have incorporated political dynamics into their analyses of transnational linkages and their impacts. It argues that they have done so in ways that have focused on conflict and contestation between migrant/diasporic communities and homeland states/communities rather than within them. At the same time, in construing transnational linkages as instruments of particular actors, they have presented a narrow conception of how transnational linkages interact with political dynamics. As an alternative, the paper proposes a political settlements approach which views transnational linkages as institutions embedded in power relationships between competing groups defined in class, racial, ethnic, religious and gender terms. This approach, it is argued, overcomes these two problems by presenting a more disaggregated view of the actors, interests and agendas involved and construing transnational linkages as simultaneously instruments and arenas of contestation.
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    Genome-wide meta-analyses reveal novel loci for verbal short-term memory and learning
    Lahti, J ; Tuominen, S ; Yang, Q ; Pergola, G ; Ahmad, S ; Amin, N ; Armstrong, NJ ; Beiser, A ; Bey, K ; Bis, JC ; Boerwinkle, E ; Bressler, J ; Campbell, A ; Campbell, H ; Chen, Q ; Corley, J ; Cox, SR ; Davies, G ; De Jager, PL ; Derks, EM ; Faul, JD ; Fitzpatrick, AL ; Fohner, AE ; Ford, I ; Fornage, M ; Gerring, Z ; Grabe, HJ ; Grodstein, F ; Gudnason, V ; Simonsick, E ; Holliday, EG ; Joshi, PK ; Kajantie, E ; Kaprio, J ; Karell, P ; Kleineidam, L ; Knol, MJ ; Kochan, NA ; Kwok, JB ; Leber, M ; Lam, M ; Lee, T ; Li, S ; Loukola, A ; Luck, T ; Marioni, RE ; Mather, KA ; Medland, S ; Mirza, SS ; Nalls, MA ; Nho, K ; O'Donnell, A ; Oldmeadow, C ; Painter, J ; Pattie, A ; Reppermund, S ; Risacher, SL ; Rose, RJ ; Sadashivaiah, V ; Scholz, M ; Satizabal, CL ; Schofield, PW ; Schraut, KE ; Scott, RJ ; Simino, J ; Smith, AV ; Smith, JA ; Stott, DJ ; Surakka, I ; Teumer, A ; Thalamuthu, A ; Trompet, S ; Turner, ST ; van der Lee, SJ ; Villringer, A ; Voelker, U ; Wilson, RS ; Wittfeld, K ; Vuoksimaa, E ; Xia, R ; Yaffe, K ; Yu, L ; Zare, H ; Zhao, W ; Ames, D ; Attia, J ; Bennett, DA ; Brodaty, H ; Chasman, DI ; Goldman, AL ; Hayward, C ; Ikram, MA ; Jukema, JW ; Kardia, SLR ; Lencz, T ; Loeffler, M ; Mattay, VS ; Palotie, A ; Psaty, BM ; Ramirez, A ; Ridker, PM ; Riedel-Heller, SG ; Sachdev, PS ; Saykin, AJ ; Scherer, M ; Schofield, PR ; Sidney, S ; Starr, JM ; Trollor, J ; Ulrich, W ; Wagner, M ; Weir, DR ; Wilson, JF ; Wright, MJ ; Weinberger, DR ; Debette, S ; Eriksson, JG ; Mosley, TH ; Launer, LJ ; van Duijn, CM ; Deary, IJ ; Seshadri, S ; Raikkonen, K (SPRINGERNATURE, 2022-11)
    Understanding the genomic basis of memory processes may help in combating neurodegenerative disorders. Hence, we examined the associations of common genetic variants with verbal short-term memory and verbal learning in adults without dementia or stroke (N = 53,637). We identified novel loci in the intronic region of CDH18, and at 13q21 and 3p21.1, as well as an expected signal in the APOE/APOC1/TOMM40 region. These results replicated in an independent sample. Functional and bioinformatic analyses supported many of these loci and further implicated POC1. We showed that polygenic score for verbal learning associated with brain activation in right parieto-occipital region during working memory task. Finally, we showed genetic correlations of these memory traits with several neurocognitive and health outcomes. Our findings suggest a role of several genomic loci in verbal memory processes.
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    How coalitions of multiple actors advance policy in China: ecological agriculture at Danjiangkou
    Zhen, N ; Zhao, Y ; Jiang, H ; Webber, M ; Wang, M ; Lamb, V ; Jiang, M (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-11-02)
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    Varying orientations to sharing life stories: A diachronic study of Japanese women's discourse
    Nakane, I ; Okano, K ; Maree, C ; Takagi, C ; Tanaka, L ; Iwasaki, S (Cambridge University Press, 2022-09-06)
    Language change across the lifespan is relatively underexplored in sociolinguistics. While studies of individuals' language across life stages are often considered to complement large scale studies of community-level language change, this study aims to explore how changes to family environment and social mobility interact with individual speakers' stylistic practice across life stages. It examines ethnographic interviews of five women, originally from the same area in western Japan, the same high school, and similar socio-economic background, conducted by a single researcher eleven years apart. The chronological and inter-participant comparisons reveal a complex pattern of stylistic practice and stance taking as the women share stories about career, family and relationships with the researcher. The study also discusses audience design in language variation and explores how the participants utilise their discursive repertoires in their interaction with the researcher, whose background is significantly divergent from theirs. (Language across the lifespan, stylistic practice, Japanese)
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    Why did Australia lose international students to Canada?: Trends in Chinese students explained by numbers and their real voices
    Ohashi, J (Society for Oceanian Education Studies, 2022-11-01)
    This paper attends to the voices of individual students, not the numerical "Chinese students" spoken of in statistics and other media, i.e., not the main source of income for the Australian higher education export industry, but as voices of students as individuals with their own personalities. While there are many studies and reports that quantify the impact of the pandemic on Australia's education export industry, few focus on the voices of actual international students. This paper presents the actual voices of Chinese international students, including what they have experienced, the choices they have had to make, and the emotions they have felt as a result of the pandemic. While the number of international students in countries such as Canada and the UK has been on the rise since late 2020, the number of students coming to Australia remains stagnant. The paper explores the reasons for this through the voices of Chinese students, which reveal a fundamental problem that Australia needs to face. It revisits what international students mean to Australia and re-examines the role of higher education institutions.
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    Measuring economic transformation: what to make of constant price sectoral GDP: evidence from Vietnam
    Fforde, A (World Economics Association, 2021)
    The paper discusses the analysis of economic growth and transformation and the concept of constant price sectoral GDP, usually understood to measure real factor rewards, linked to actual factor inputs. It reviews criticisms of such statistics and statistical conventions underlying GDP data, their focus upon current price factor incomes and implications of the practice of constructing constant price sectoral GDP from revalued net output (gross output less non-factor inputs). Innovatively, it shows how recalculations at constant prices of actual sectoral factor inputs at a year away from the base-year will not necessarily equal revalued gross output less non-factor inputs, the usual basis for such data. The accounting identity that requires their equality only holds for current prices. Therefore, constant price sectoral GDP data does not measure actual factor inputs. Despite this, the analytical frameworks of economists analysing structural transformation often assumes that they have, in constant price sectoral GDP, a measure of actual factor inputs (when they do not). This inhibits analyses from engaging properly with incentives, often disregarding the possibility of disequilibria by adopting a production function approach that, encouraged by the belief that constant price sectoral data measures changes in actual factor inputs, expects technical conditions to determine incentives (factor rewards). The paper shows this risk of confirmation bias by examining work on Vietnam.1
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    Japanese Diaspora and the Narratives of Migrants:The Case of Australia and Diasporic Literature
    Oishi, N (Global Institute for Japanese Studies, Korea University, 2022-12-01)
    The overseas emigration of Japanese citizens has been on the rise in the last three decades, reaching at the level of 1.34 million in 2021 (MOFA 2022). While the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in its downturn, the number of Japanese citizens who obtained permanent residence overseas continued to increase, hitting a record high of 537,662 in 2021 (MOFA 2022). This article examines the factors behind this growing overseas emigration of Japanese citizens, particularly looking at its flows to Australia, which is now the second most popular destination for Japanese permanent residents. Based on the narratives of 62 research participants, this article will present the basic ideal types of Japanese emigrants and examine the themes that appeared prominently in their emigration decision-making, including the acquisition of global experience, work-life balance, gender inequality, aversion of disaster/environmental and long-term economic risks, and political concerns. It will also discuss the ways in which Japanese emigration and the diversifying experiences of Japanese citizens have impacted Japanese literature so far and how the growing presence of ‘global nomads’ moving across multiple borders is likely to enrich the Japanese literature in the future by challenging the existing understanding of “Japaneseness” and the meaning of migration.