Education policy is always at risk of working at cross-purposes toward education goals. Using a meta-ethnographic methodology and Massey’s geometry of space theory, the present article addresses this in relation to a particular policy realisation problem of teaching for sustainability in schools in depopulated rural areas with identified population challenges. Specific attention has gone to research addressing the enacted curriculum and teachers’ experiences of working with sustainability goals. The results highlight features for goal realisation such as the presence of and attention to rural natural and cultural environmental heritage, having local access and giving curriculum attention to local employment and sustainable vocations and professions, and having community support from the local community and engagement of the school in the community. Working against sustainability were global epistemic rural marginalisation, performative curriculum relations, market competition and competitive exclusions from market participation, tepid community involvement in schools, and socially isolated schools insulated from the local community.

While research on oppression has focused on the various ways in which oppressed or marginalized individuals are disadvantaged, standpoint epistemologists have long been arguing that the standpoints achieved from oppressed social locations can provide the marginalized with an epistemic advantage. While in themselves laudable, we venture, discussions of the advantage thesis tend to continue a tradition in mainstream epistemology that undermines the crucial role affectivity plays in disclosing facts about the world by framing the debate in purely epistemic terms. Bringing standpoint theory into conversation with contemporary philosophy of emotions, we argue, allows us to recognize the epistemic value of emotions and to see that some knowledge the marginalized can gain about the workings of oppression while cultivating their standpoint is at root fundamentally and irreducibly affective. This lends not only more credibility to the advantage thesis in general, but it also allows to arbitrate between two different readings of this thesis that are currently a matter of controversy: marginalized standpoints afford knowledge that is, due to its fundamentally affective nature, not just easier for the marginalized than the dominant to obtain, but in principle inaccessible to the dominant.

Rural Americans constitute a politically consequential yet theoretically understudied identity group. This study reconceptualizes descriptive representation to include place-based identities and demonstrates its influence on policy support and political trust. Using a preregistered, original survey experiment of rural respondents, we assess whether rural Americans exhibit greater support for laws and perceive it as more beneficial to rural communities when proposed by state representatives who share their rural identity. Our findings strongly support this hypothesis: rural Americans express higher levels of support for laws that were introduced by descriptively representative lawmakers and are more likely to believe such policies benefit rural areas. Moreover, respondents demonstrate higher levels of trust in rural lawmakers even in the absence of additional information about them. These results illustrate that, for rural Americans, place-based identity is deeply influential in shaping their political perceptions.

How do ordinary Chinese people circumvent unpopular state policies? The existing literature primarily focuses on resistance against local bureaucrats. Drawing on ethnographic research on the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River Basin, this article finds that fishermen (clients) continue to fish by maintaining patron–client relationships with the enforcers of the fishing ban (patrons). Ordinary fishermen seek the protection of enforcers through bribery. Enhanced state monitoring under the fishing ban facilitates bribery-based clientelism by weakening the fishermen’s everyday resistance, but it also constrains the power of enforcers by increasing the risk that their corruption will be discovered by upper-level authorities. For extremely poor fishermen, who are barely able to afford to pay bribes, their daily acts of resistance are morally justified by the need for subsistence safety, presenting enforcers with a dilemma: they must fulfil their law enforcement duties while also ensuring the survival of these individuals to maintain social stability. Therefore, cultivating a clientelist relationship with impoverished fishermen enables enforcers to manage their noncompliance, thereby balancing these conflicting goals. While clientelism protects people from unpopular policies to some extent, it more fundamentally strengthens the power of local bureaucrats, creating the potential for greater exploitation and larger-scale popular grievances in the long run.

In this introduction to the Special Issue “Religion and Democratic Theory,” we sketch how political theory can contribute to understanding contemporary political challenges in the context of religion and democracy. We outline the contributions to this Special Issue in terms of their main claims.

To effectively prioritize the management of invasive plants, it is necessary to reduce the risks posed by trade. This is particularly critical for the ornamental plant sector, which acts as a primary pathway for the introduction and distribution of non-native plant species. In this context, it is necessary to understand the perceptions of ornamental plant producers, who are the primary actors in the ornamental plant trade, about non-native plants, their impacts and risks. Using the Altınova district of Yalova province, Türkiye, we conducted a survey to explore the perceptions of 20 ornamental plant producers regarding non-native and invasive ornamental plant taxa. We also generated a list of ornamental plant taxa produced in the study area by using local sources referencing ornamental plants (such as producers’ catalogues). We found that of the 121 plants produced, 92 taxa were non-native, 23 were native and six were non-native hybrids, of which 31 taxa (11 taxa native and 20 taxa non-native to Türkiye) were found to be invasive elsewhere. Most of the plants produced were perennials (103 taxa). The vast majority of producers (70%) had heard the term “invasive plant” before. However, the concept of invasive plants is considered in the context of “plants other than for production purposes, i.e. weeds”. There is a lack of awareness among producers about the possible impacts caused by non-native taxa and their management status. We conclude that appropriate regulations should be made for the sale and use of non-native plants and awareness activities should be organized for all stakeholders and the public. Further research is required to identify, prioritize, and manage non-native ornamental plants and their potential impacts across all countries engaged in the ornamental plant trade to prevent future ornamental plant invasions.

Arguably, recent and prospective developments within artificial intelligence are a fascination within contemporary technoculture. The dawning of a new era that is characterised by the various impacts of these technological and scientific advances leads to questions about the type of subject that will inherit and inhabit the consequences of these developments. This paper will examine the role that speculative fiction plays as a site of critical engagement in investigating some of the more urgent questions posed by the intersection between humans and technology, such as the social consequences of projected technologies and the possibilities of changing embodiment, and particularly how these issues prove to be of immense importance for the gendered subject. The essays contained within Jeanette Winderson’s non-fictional publication 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next (2021) provide a perceptive insight into both the promises and the pitfalls of AI technology for the future female and embodied experience. Winterson’s thought-provoking contemplations will be read alongside her fictional novels, The Stone Gods (2007) and Frankissstein (2019), to consider how she utilises the genre of speculative fiction to explore existing representations of gender whilst working to define new transhuman subjects. A recurring theme throughout these novels is the way in which AI, despite its liberating and transcendent potential, is imagined as the inevitable perpetuation of female subjugation.

Kim’s book is rich with thought-provoking ideas that are relevant to contemporary societies. I focus on its discussion of the “pluralism dilemma” and Kim’s appeal to “public reason Confucianism” as a response. The pluralism dilemma is the dilemma that a Confucian democratic theory has to meet both “the pluralist demand” and “the Confucian demand” (70). While the “Confucian” part of the theory is supposed to prefer Confucian doctrines over other doctrines, the “democratic” part is supposed to “accommodate as many reasonable conceptions of the good and comprehensive doctrines as possible” (70). What is original about Kim’s theory is that it seeks to accommodate both.

In this article we present a methodological framework for integrating nondigital legacy excavation data with modern stratigraphic datasets in a 3D-GIS environment. Using a case study from the Late Bronze Age site of Hala Sultan Tekke (Cyprus), we demonstrate how georeferenced photogrammetric models can be combined with digitized legacy documentation to overcome inconsistencies in archival records. The approach enables the correction of elevation data, the reconstruction of stratigraphic layers that are no longer preserved, and the interpolation of missing contexts. By aligning old section drawings with high-resolution 3D models of recent sondages, we created a coherent spatial and chronological framework that facilitates new archaeological interpretations. This integrated model also supports cross-disciplinary collaboration and long-term digital preservation. The study contributes to wider discussions on the sustainable use of unpublished or fragmentary excavation records, offering a practical, step-by-step guide for researchers working with similar datasets. Ultimately, this approach underscores the potential of 3D modeling to revitalize underused archaeological archives and transform them into dynamic analytical tools, in line with current best practices in digital archaeology and open data sharing.