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The oxygen uptake efficiency slope in adults with CHD: group validity
- J. M. Redfern, S. Hawkes, A. Bryan, D. Cullington, R. Ashrafi
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- Cardiology in the Young , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 15 January 2024, pp. 1-10
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The maximal oxygen uptake (V02 max) is a well-validated measure of cardiorespiratory function that is calculated during a maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test. V02 max enables physicians to objectively assess cardiopulmonary function to aid in decision-making for patients with CHD. A significant proportion of these patients however are unable to achieve a maximal exercise test, and as such, there is a need for reliable submaximal predictors of cardiorespiratory reserve.
The oxygen uptake efficiency slope represents a measure of how effectively oxygen is extracted from the lungs and taken into the body and can be calculated from a submaximal exercise test. Its reliability as a predictor of cardiorespiratory reserve has been validated in various patient populations, but there is limited evidence for its validity in adult patients with CHD.
Retrospective analysis of cardiopulmonary exercise test data in 238 consecutive patients with CHD who completed a maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test at our tertiary cardiology centre demonstrated a strong correlation between peak V02 and the oxygen uptake efficiency slope (0.936). A strong correlation with peak V02 was also demonstrated when oxygen uptake efficiency slope was calculated at ventilatory anaerobic threshold (OUESVAT), 75% (OUES75), and 90% (OUES90) of the test (0.833, 0.905, 0.927 respectively).
In adult patients with CHD who are unable to complete a maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test, the oxygen uptake efficiency slope is a reliable indicator of cardiopulmonary fitness which correlates strongly with peak V02 at or beyond the ventilatory anaerobic threshold. Further research is required to validate the findings in patients with less common anatomies and to assess the relationship between the oxygen uptake efficiency slope and mortality.
Weathering of Almandine Garnet: Influence of Secondary Minerals on the Rate-Determining Step, and Implications for Regolith-Scale Al Mobilization
- Jason R. Price, Debra S. Bryan-Ricketts, Diane Anderson, Michael A. Velbel
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- Clays and Clay Minerals / Volume 61 / Issue 1 / February 2013
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 January 2024, pp. 34-56
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Secondary surface layers form by replacement of almandine garnet during chemical weathering. This study tested the hypothesis that the kinetic role of almandine’s weathering products, and the consequent relationships of primary-mineral surface texture and specific assemblages of secondary minerals, both vary with the solid-solution-controlled variations in Fe and Al contents of the specific almandine experiencing weathering.
Surface layers are protective (PSL) when the volume of the products formed by replacement is greater than or equal to the volume of the reactants replaced. Under such circumstances, reaction kinetics at the interface between the garnet and the replacing mineral are transport controlled and either transport of solvents or other reactants to, or products from, the dissolving mineral is rate limiting. Beneath PSLs, almandine garnet surfaces are smooth, rounded, and featureless. Surface layers are unprotective (USL) when the volume of the products formed by replacement is less than the volume of the reactants replaced. Under such circumstances, reaction kinetics at the interface between the garnet and the replacing mineral are interface controlled and the detachment of ions or molecules from the mineral surface is rate limiting. Almandine garnet surfaces beneath USLs exhibit crystallographically oriented etch pits. However, contrary to expectations, etch pits occur on almandine garnet grains beneath some layers consisting of mineral assemblages consistent with PSLs.
Based on the Pilling-Bedworth criterion, surface layers are more likely to be protective over a broad range of reactant-mineral compositions when they contain goethite, kaolinite, and pyrolusite. However, this combination requires specific ranges of Fe and Al content of the natural reacting almandine garnet. To form a PSL of goethite and kaolinite, an almandine garnet must have a minimum Al stoichiometric coefficient of ~3.75 a.p.f.u., and a minimum Fe stoichiometric coefficient of ~2.7 a.p.f.u.
Product minerals also influence the mobility of the least-mobile major rock-forming elements. A PSL consisting of goethite, gibbsite, and kaolinite yields excess Al for export during almandine garnet weathering. As the quantity of kaolinite present in the PSL decreases, the amounts of Al available for export increases.
Increasing the equitability of data citation in paleontology: capacity building for the big data future
- Jansen A. Smith, Nussaïbah B. Raja, Thomas Clements, Danijela Dimitrijević, Elizabeth M. Dowding, Emma M. Dunne, Bryan M. Gee, Pedro L. Godoy, Elizabeth M. Lombardi, Laura P. A. Mulvey, Paulina S. Nätscher, Carl J. Reddin, Bryan Shirley, Rachel C. M. Warnock, Ádám T. Kocsis
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- Paleobiology , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 December 2023, pp. 1-12
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Data compilations expand the scope of research; however, data citation practice lags behind advances in data use. It remains uncommon for data users to credit data producers in professionally meaningful ways. In paleontology, databases like the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) enable assessment of patterns and processes spanning millions of years, up to global scale. The status quo for data citation creates an imbalance wherein publications drawing data from the PBDB receive significantly more citations (median: 4.3 ± 3.5 citations/year) than the publications producing the data (1.4 ± 1.3 citations/year). By accounting for data reuse where citations were neglected, the projected citation rate for data-provisioning publications approached parity (4.2 ± 2.2 citations/year) and the impact factor of paleontological journals (n = 55) increased by an average of 13.4% (maximum increase = 57.8%) in 2019. Without rebalancing the distribution of scientific credit, emerging “big data” research in paleontology—and science in general—is at risk of undercutting itself through a systematic devaluation of the work that is foundational to the discipline.
Distress, demoralization, and fulfillment among palliative care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Michael Tang, Sujin Ann-Yi, Donna S. Zhukovsky, Bryan Fellman, Eduardo Bruera
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- Palliative & Supportive Care , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 December 2023, pp. 1-5
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Objectives
Prolonged distress is a risk factor for burnout among health-care providers (HCP) and may contribute to demoralization. We examined sources of distress during the COVID-19 pandemic and associations with demoralization.
MethodsThis prospective cross-sectional survey of HCP was conducted among palliative care providers of an academic medical center. Participants completed a survey evaluating sources of distress and the Demoralization Scale-II (DS-II) to measure the intensity of demoralization.
ResultsOf 106 eligible participants, 74 (70%) completed the survey. DS-II median (range) score was 2 (0–19). There were no statistically significant associations with demographic characteristics. Participants reported high rates of distress for multiple reasons and high rates of sense of fulfillment (90%) and satisfaction (89%) with their profession.
Significance of resultsOur study identified high levels of distress but low demoralization rates. Further study to evaluate fulfillment and satisfaction as protective factors against demoralization and burnout is indicated.
Neurocognitive function and health-related quality of life in adolescents and young adults with CHD with pulmonary valve dysfunction
- Jeffrey D. Zampi, Kimberley P. Heinrich, Lisa Bergersen, Bryan H. Goldstein, Sarosh P. Batlivala, Stephanie Fuller, Andrew C. Glatz, Michael L. O’Byrne, Bradley Marino, Katherine Afton, Ray Lowery, Sunkyung Yu, Caren S. Goldberg
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- Cardiology in the Young , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 30 November 2023, pp. 1-8
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Background:
Neurocognitive impairment and quality of life are two important long-term challenges for patients with complex CHD. The impact of re-interventions during adolescence and young adulthood on neurocognition and quality of life is not well understood.
Methods:In this prospective longitudinal multi-institutional study, patients 13–30 years old with severe CHD referred for surgical or transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement were enrolled. Clinical characteristics were collected, and executive function and quality of life were assessed prior to the planned pulmonary re-intervention. These results were compared to normative data and were compared between treatment strategies.
Results:Among 68 patients enrolled from 2016 to 2020, a nearly equal proportion were referred for surgical and transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement (53% versus 47%). Tetralogy of Fallot was the most common diagnosis (59%) and pulmonary re-intervention indications included stenosis (25%), insufficiency (40%), and mixed disease (35%). There were no substantial differences between patients referred for surgical and transcatheter therapy. Executive functioning deficits were evident in 19–31% of patients and quality of life was universally lower compared to normative sample data. However, measures of executive function and quality of life did not differ between the surgical and transcatheter patients.
Conclusion:In this patient group, impairments in neurocognitive function and quality of life are common and can be significant. Given similar baseline characteristics, comparing changes in neurocognitive outcomes and quality of life after surgical versus transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement will offer unique insights into how treatment approaches impact these important long-term patient outcomes.
Autistic Regression and Exposure to Industrial Chemicals: Preliminary Observations – ERRATUM
- Helly Goez, Charlene C. Nielsen, Sean Bryan, Brenda Clark, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, Shelby S. Yamamoto, Alvaro R. Osornio-Vargas
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- Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 19 October 2023, p. 1
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Radiofrequency ice dielectric measurements at Summit Station, Greenland
- Juan Antonio Aguilar, Patrick Allison, Dave Besson, Abby Bishop, Olga Botner, Sjoerd Bouma, Stijn Buitink, Maddalena Cataldo, Brian A. Clark, Kenny Couberly, Zach Curtis-Ginsberg, Paramita Dasgupta, Simon de Kockere, Krijn D. de Vries, Cosmin Deaconu, Michael A. DuVernois, Anna Eimer, Christian Glaser, Allan Hallgren, Steffen Hallmann, Jordan Christian Hanson, Bryan Hendricks, Jakob Henrichs, Nils Heyer, Christian Hornhuber, Kaeli Hughes, Timo Karg, Albrecht Karle, John L. Kelley, Michael Korntheuer, Marek Kowalski, Ilya Kravchenko, Ryan Krebs, Robert Lahmann, Uzair Latif, Joseph Mammo, Matthew J. Marsee, Zachary S. Meyers, Kelli Michaels, Katharine Mulrey, Marco Muzio, Anna Nelles, Alexander Novikov, Alisa Nozdrina, Eric Oberla, Bob Oeyen, Ilse Plaisier, Noppadol Punsuebsay, Lilly Pyras, Dirk Ryckbosch, Olaf Scholten, David Seckel, Mohammad Ful Hossain Seikh, Daniel Smith, Jethro Stoffels, Daniel Southall, Karen Terveer, Simona Toscano, Delia Tosi, Dieder J. Van Den Broeck, Nick van Eijndhoven, Abigail G. Vieregg, Janna Z. Vischer, Christoph Welling, Dawn R. Williams, Stephanie Wissel, Robert Young, Adrian Zink
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- Journal:
- Journal of Glaciology , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 09 October 2023, pp. 1-12
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We recently reported on the radio-frequency attenuation length of cold polar ice at Summit Station, Greenland, based on bi-static radar measurements of radio-frequency bedrock echo strengths taken during the summer of 2021. Those data also allow studies of (a) the relative contributions of coherent (such as discrete internal conducting layers with sub-centimeter transverse scale) vs incoherent (e.g. bulk volumetric) scattering, (b) the magnitude of internal layer reflection coefficients, (c) limits on signal propagation velocity asymmetries (‘birefringence’) and (d) limits on signal dispersion in-ice over a bandwidth of ~100 MHz. We find that (1) attenuation lengths approach 1 km in our band, (2) after averaging 10 000 echo triggers, reflected signals observable over the thermal floor (to depths of ~1500 m) are consistent with being entirely coherent, (3) internal layer reflectivities are ≈–60$\to$–70 dB, (4) birefringent effects for vertically propagating signals are smaller by an order of magnitude relative to South Pole and (5) within our experimental limits, glacial ice is non-dispersive over the frequency band relevant for neutrino detection experiments.
Autistic Regression and Exposure to Industrial Chemicals: Preliminary Observations
- Helly Goez, Charlene C. Nielsen, Sean Bryan, Brenda Clark, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, Shelby S. Yamamoto, Alvaro R. Osornio-Vargas
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- Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences / Volume 51 / Issue 2 / March 2024
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 31 July 2023, pp. 289-292
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Exposure to industrial pollutants is a potential risk factor not fully explored in ASD with regression (ASD+R). We studied geographical collocation patterns of industrial air chemical emissions and the location of homes of children with ASD+R at different exposure times, compared with ASD cases without regression (ASD−R). Fifteen of 111 emitted chemicals collocated with ASD+R, and 65 with ASD−R. ASD+R collocated more strongly with different neurotoxicants/immunotoxicants a year before diagnosis, whereas ASD−R were moderately collocated with chemicals across all exposure periods. This preliminary exploratory analysis of differences in exposure patterns raises a question regarding potential pathophysiological differences between the conditions.
Longitudinal wall motion during peristalsis and its effect on reflux
- Kourosh Kalayeh, Haotian Xie, J. Brian Fowlkes, Bryan S. Sack, William W. Schultz
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- Journal of Fluid Mechanics / Volume 964 / 10 June 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 June 2023, A30
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In this study, for the first time, we consider longitudinal motion of the walls during peristalsis in a distensible tube and how this affects backward (or retrograde) flow, i.e. peristaltic reflux. Building on the analytical model developed by Shapiro et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 37, no. 4, 1969, pp. 799–825) based on lubrication theory, we model peristalsis as a two-dimensional infinite sinusoidal wavetrain. We develop an objective function with high mechanical pumping efficiency and low reflux to find optimal peristalsis conditions. We show that optimal wall longitudinal motion contributes substantially to limiting reflux during peristalsis. The results suggest that the optimal form of wall longitudinal velocity is a linear function of the wall transverse coordinate, moving forward with the wave when the tube is distended and retracting when contracted. Our results are in general agreement with clinical observations of ureteral peristalsis.
Co-developed implementation guidelines to maximize acceptability, feasibility, and usability of mobile phone supervision in Kenya
- Noah S. Triplett, Anne Mbwayo, Sharon Kiche, Lucy Liu, Jacinto Silva, Rashed AlRasheed, Clara Johnson, Cyrilla Amanya, Sean Munson, Bryan J. Weiner, Pamela Y. Collins, Shannon Dorsey
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- Journal:
- Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health / Volume 10 / 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 23 May 2023, e31
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Opportunities exist to leverage mobile phones to replace or supplement in-person supervision of lay counselors. However, contextual variables, such as network connectivity and provider preferences, must be considered. Using an iterative and mixed methods approach, we co-developed implementation guidelines to support the implementation of mobile phone supervision with lay counselors and supervisors delivering a culturally adapted trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy in Western Kenya. Guidelines were shared and discussed with lay counselors in educational outreach visits led by supervisors. We evaluated the impact of guidelines and outreach on the acceptability, feasibility, and usability of mobile phone supervision. Guidelines were associated with significant improvements in acceptability and usability of mobile phone supervision. There was no evidence of a significant difference in feasibility. Qualitative interviews with lay counselors and supervisors contextualized how guidelines impacted acceptability and feasibility – by setting expectations for mobile phone supervision, emphasizing importance, increasing comfort, and sharing strategies to improve mobile phone supervision. Introducing and discussing co-developed implementation guidelines significantly improved the acceptability and usability of mobile phone supervision. This approach may provide a flexible and scalable model to address challenges with implementing evidence-based practices and implementation strategies in lower-resourced areas.
3 - The Rise of the Sociology of Islam
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
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- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 52-75
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Summary
Introduction: In the Beginning
There are good reasons for recognising Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) as the founding father of sociology. The Muqaddimah (Prolegomenon) of 1377 is the famous introduction to the history of the known world. The work, which can be read as a theory of the state and religious change, was, among other things, a study of the contrasted forms of social cohesion (asabiyyah) in the city and the desert. The Muqaddimah is the Introduction, but it also means the first premise of an argument. In this respect it indicates the rational basis of his historical analysis and the continuity of his work with Aristotle (Dale 2015; Mahdi 1957). His work anticipated Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), the great French sociologist who, probably adopting Ibn Khaldun, developed a contrast between organic and mechanical solidarity to grasp, in particular, the transformation of France in the nineteenth century from a predominantly rural to an urban society (Durkheim 1984). Whereas solidarity in traditional societies rested on sameness, locality and common practices, the solidarity of an industrial urban society depended on the division of labour in which there is functional interdependence between members of the society. Ibn Khaldun’s study of urban and tribal solidarity was also adopted by Ernest Gellner (1969) in his study of the Atlas Mountains. He recognised the obvious parallel between Ibn Khaldun and Durkheim (Gellner 1975, 1981, 1985). Gellner is probably more famous for his publications on nationalism than his work on Islam, although the two issues are closely related. For Gellner, the social solidarity of modern societies will depend more on an integrated national system of education (and thereby a common language) and nationalism as the dominant political idea. The relationship between nationalism and Islam has played an important role in political sociology as a framework for understanding state formation.
While recognising Ibn Khaldun as a legitimate sociologist avant la lettre, I am more concerned with Western rather than Muslim attitudes and approaches to understanding Islam. More specifically in approaching this topic as a sociologist, I am concerned to understand how (primarily Western) sociologists have approached Islam in the recent history of sociology.
Understanding Islam
- Positions of Knowledge
- Bryan S. Turner
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- Edinburgh University Press
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- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023
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Can we understand a religion without believing and practicing it? Can we have knowledge about faith? Can people understand those different from themselves? Can outsiders ever understand the world of insiders? Examining insider and outsider positions of knowledge Bryan S. Turner explores what understanding Islam entails. He argues that understanding Islam has in recent years been dominated by political events - the Iran Hostage crisis, the fall of the Iranian Shah, 9/11, Afghanistan and the foreign policy of Donald Trump - leading to western intellectuals and public figures, many of whom know nothing about Islam, suddenly becoming experts. Turner asks how they, or how anyone, can have the authority to speak on this subject. He brilliantly elucidates the questions and problems involved in the challenge of understanding religion.
6 - Islamophobia
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 110-131
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Summary
Introduction: The Origins of Islamophobia
One central topic in the growth of the sociology of Islam has been the ubiquitous critical research agenda on Islamophobia. The value and meaning of the concept has generated an extensive academic and public debate (Cesari 2006). Academic responses to this public fear have been defined as an ‘industry’ (Lean 2012). Apart from its domestic manifestations, it has also been seen as fundamental to American foreign policy (Jacobs 2006). Islam is viewed as a crucial component in the ‘clash of civilizations’ that was first announced by Samuel Huntington in Foreign Affairs in 1993. Violence against the Muslim world is also a global problem from the attack against a mosque in New Zealand to random attacks on Muslims in the United States and to constitutional attempts to change the legal status of Muslims in India (Kumar 2012). The attack on the Twin Towers and its aftermath were defining moments in the spread of Islamophobia (Cesari 2010). While not denying violence against Islam, much discussion in the media and the academy often exaggerates the extent and level of confrontation with Islam (Halliday 1996). Despite US military conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, Muslims are a long-standing and relatively successful community in the United Sates with a substantial and influential middle class in such cities as New York, Detroit and Newark (Alba and Nee 2003; Bilici 2012; Bleich 2011).
One cannot deny the widespread presence of Islamophobia in Europe and North American. In Why the West fears Islam, Jocelyne Cesari (2013) assembled an exhaustive list of reports from sociological surveys conducted between 1990 and 2012 showing, among other issues, that respondents believed that Islam was incompatible with Western societies. Respondents typically expressed fear of Muslims in their midst. Sociology can usefully undermine false and damaging claims about Islam such as the idea that radical Islam had infiltrated British schools (Holmwood and O’Toole 2017). For political movements in defence of Islam, the concept of Islamophobia functions legitimately and effectively, but it often obscures the complexity of the issues and the historical transformations of Muslim relationships with the West. Muslims do not constitute an ethnic group and their communities are diverse, geographically dispersed and often internally fragmented along religious lines.
5 - Orientalism and Islam
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
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- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 92-109
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Summary
Introduction: Imperalism and Edward Said’s Orientalism
Unlike the study of other ‘world religions’, the understanding of Islam has been controversial insofar as it has been continuosly and heavily influenced by political events in both the West and the Middle East, such as 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and the enduring conflicts between Palestine and Israel. In 2021 attacks by ISIS, Al-Qaeda and their affiliates opened up a new front as they spread through the Sahel in Mali, Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso. The underlying causes include drought, poverty, unemployment and ineffectual governments. As with Afganistan, international military action often results in high civilian casualties through ‘collateral damage’, thereby widening the gap between Western forces and local populations.
Understanding Islam has also to be concerned with ancient divisions and contemporary political struggles within the Islamic world itself. As with other world religions, Islam has significant theological and political divisions, primarily between Sunni and Shia traditions. However, so-called Islamic ‘sects’ include Ahmadiyya, Ibadiyya, Ismailis and Kharijites. Sufi mysticism is widespread across the Muslim world, but is not routinely regarded as a sect. The Sunni tradition has been historically dominant and shaped by the idea of Ash’arism – the conservative branch of Sunni Islam that has been promoted by Saudi Arabia. Its original doctrines were the work of al-Ash’ari (873–936).Over time this tradition became the basis of authoritarian rule in Sunni Islam in emphasising the importance of scriptural and clerical authority. While the unintended consequence of these uprisings, in which young people dominated opposition to ruling elites, was to re-inforce authoritarian rule especially in Egypt and Turkey, the protests and the sense of alienation with the legacy of powerful elites and their political dominance continue. Hence these regimes continue to be challenged by younger generations who want greater personal freedom and more democratic (or at least competent) rule. In Turkey, the new mood of reform is expressed by writers such as Mustafa Akyol who made the case for greater personal liberty in his Islam without Extremes (2011). Following a lecture he gave in Malaysia, the book was banned on the grounds that it would result in civil unrest.
7 - Feminism, Fertility and Piety
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 132-150
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Summary
Introduction: Unsettled Controversies
Despite decades of research and debate regarding the status of women in Islam generally and the specific position of Muslim women in Western liberal democracies, there is no settled or commanding interpretation about these issues. Given the development of feminism in the West over the last century or more, there is a clear feminist view that Islam is patriarchal and that Muslim women are subordinated and imprisoned in religious traditions. Then there is a liberal argument that the practice of compulsory veiling offends Western notions of freedom of choice. There is yet another argument regarding the behaviour of citizens who must not have their faces covered in the public domain. The face of the citizen should be visible to all citizens in public places. Furthermore, there are religious and constitutional arguments that the state and religion should remain separate, and hence there must be no legislation to control religious buildings, attire or practices. In this argument, we can include state interference in such matters as circumcision where many liberals are critical of both Jewish and Islamic practice. The return of the hijab with the return of the Taliban to Kabul may only confirm the worst fears of liberal feminists in the West. But Afghanistan is not Indonesia, where Sufism has been a dominant factor in the spread of Islam. Indonesia is the largest Muslim community in the world and its diverse character is perhaps best represented by the progressive Nahdlatu Ulama with a membership of between 60 and 90 million followers, providing religious services, health care, poverty relief and education. Founded in 1926, it preaches inclusion and recognises the religious and cultural diversity of Indonesia. The Indonesian educational system from the 1920s has promoted the inclusion and promotion of girls who often outnumber boys in schools (Hefner 2009). However, there is evidence that modern-day Indonesia is becoming more conservative.
Despite decades of research, the actual relationships between gender, patriarchy, religion and level of economic development remain under-researched and theoretically unclear (Lussier and Fish 2016). Many of these dilemmas have been perfectly captured in Martha Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’.
4 - Postmodernism, Globalisation and Religion
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 76-91
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Summary
Introduction: Globalisation and Knowledge
In this chapter I treat both pragmatism and postmodernism as movements that challenge the authority of traditional religious institutions and their claims to knowledge. They are intellectual movements that are therefore intimately connected to questions about ‘positions of knowledge’. Indeed, they raise fundamental issues about science and objectivity. While these intellectual movements were often constructed to question the secular idea of rationality as the legacy of the Enlightenment and the development of positivism in the social sciences, they inevitably challenge the universal knowledge claims of all authorities, including religious authorities. These movements had their origin in the West, but they have global implications for religious life in general. We need therefore to situate these cultural developments within the broader context of globalisation.
While I have described these movements as intellectual developments, postmodernism can also be regarded as a social and cultural movement that had widespread effects on architecture, film, literature, fashion and design. In cultural terms, post-modernism was expressed in conceptual art, pop art, happenings, and Theatre of the Absurd. However, the impact of postmodernism was most amply seen in architecture with the publication of Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi and Brown 1972). This publication was an attack on modernism in architecture in which Las Vegas was seen to be a ‘non-city’ that had been created out of a ‘strip’. Postmodernism has influenced all forms of communication. Television, film and popular music have transformed youth cultures including Muslim youth cultures (Rakmani 2016).
Postmodernism has been a disruptive movement with respect to religion. It has been analysed by Akbar Ahmed (1992) in Postmodernism and Islam and by Ernest Gellner (1992) in Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. Gellner claimed that we face three ideological options – religion, postmodernism and reason. He regarded postmodernism as simply a repeat of relativism. In contemporary anthropology, postmodernism was a conflation of subjectivism and liberal guilt over the legacy of imperialism. In criticising white Western anthropologists as outsiders, as either direct or indirect representatives of Western colonialism, these critiques overlooked the experience of many anthropologists who defended aboriginal cultures and rights against predatory colonial settlement. Gellner feared that the obsession with the position of the ethnographer would make fieldwork impossible, leaving anthropology as the study of texts.
1 - The Changing World of Islam
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 15-37
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Summary
Introduction: Afghanistan
Understanding Islam today inevitably takes place in a politically charged and fragile world environment. This volume was written as the Taliban swept through Afghanistan with disastrous consequences for its citizens who were caught in the fighting. The Afghan government collapsed, and President Ashraf Ghani fled to a safe haven in the United Arab Emirates. There was a terrible bomb attack by ISIS-K militants on Kabul airport in August 2021 with a significant loss of life. The new government contained men who were identified by the UN and the United States as terrorists. However, unlike Al Qaeda, the Taliban are basically an Islamist nationalist movement who are at odds with the radical Islamic State Khorasan group.
To understand these events, we need, as a minimum condition, to pay attention to history. Alexander the Great (356–323 bc), in his struggle to free the Greeks from Persian control, invaded Asia and fought various disastrous battles in Bactria, now Afghanistan, in 330–327 along the Khyber Pass. The British invaded Afghanistan twice in the nineteenth century with their own version of ‘regime change’. In the first Anglo-Afghan War in 1839–42, designed to block Russian influence, the British lost over 16,000 troops in a retreat from Kabul. The second campaign in 1878–80 was equally problematic (Dupree 1980: 377–413).
Russian involvement in Central Asia has a long history especially after the October Revolution in 1917. The Soviet period had devastating consequences for Islam as ‘patterns of the transmission of Islamic knowledge were damaged, if not destroyed; Islam was driven from the public realm; the physical markings of Islam, such as mosques and seminaries, disappeared’(Khalid 2007: 2). Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to support a communist state following a coup in 1978 (Roy 1986: 84–109), to stabilise the internal political situation, and to counter American influence. In response the United States supplied arms to the Mujahideen to undermine the Russian presence. The Russian army prepared to withdraw in 1988 having suffered around 18,000 casualties in ‘a long goodbye’ (Kalinovsky 2011). The United States became involved after 9/11 and twenty years later President Biden decided to withdraw American troops to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11 as the Taliban took over many regional cities with mounting civilian casualties.
9 - The Possibility of Dialogue
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
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- 31 January 2023, pp 172-180
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Summary
Introduction: Dilemmas of Diversity
The underlying theme of this discussion of positions of knowledge and the capacity to understand other cultures and other religions is that conflicts of positions can only emerge in a world that is in a context of what we might called ‘contested diversity’. The question of a person’s position would not hypothetically emerge in a stale monocultural environment. If issues of position did emerge, they could in all probability be easily resolved. That modern societies are diverse is a pointless truism, but the consequences are real. The position of classical sociology, from Comte to Simmel, is now challenged from the perspective of post-colonialism (Bhambra and Holmwood 2021) and post-modernism (Susen 2015). Because of an expanding social and cultural diversity that is related to globalisation, positionality has become a political issue, and not just in the academy but among the wider public. We are also living in an environment of ‘fake news’ and cyber attacks. Liberal secular societies in the West officially celebrate diversity and multiculturalism, including religious difference, but typically encounter a limit when confronted by the veil, female genital mutilation or underage brides. How can we resolve these conflicts in the public domain? In the absence of shared values, finding agreement over basic ethical issues is deeply problematic (MacIntyre 2007). The liberal quest for ‘an overlapping consensus’ (Rawls 1987) in the civil sphere appears to be remote. Ironically, the overlapping beliefs between Muslims and Christians – their family resemblances – may render achieving a broad basis for a productive harmony more, rather than less, difficult.
Susan Buck-Morss (2006), whose politics are no doubt very different from Hans-Georg Gadamer’s political outlook, writing soon after 9/11 in Thinking Past Terror, pleaded with the American public to go beyond the futile conflict of terror and counter-terror. She believed that a conversation could take place in a public sphere in what she called the ‘cosmopolitanism of the world of letters’. In the preface to the paperback edition, she argued that her central proposal is that we consider Islamism as a political discourse along with critical theory as critiques of modernity. Her work contains the hope for a productive conversation and presupposes a cosmopolitan context, namely a cosmopolitan world of letters.
Acknowledgements
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
- Print publication:
- 31 January 2023, pp vi-viii
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8 - The Problems of Positionality
- Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University, City University of New York, Universität Potsdam, Germany and University of Birmingham
-
- Book:
- Understanding Islam
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 13 April 2023
- Print publication:
- 31 January 2023, pp 151-171
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Introduction: Who Has Authority to Speak?
Many of the issues about positionality were explored in Chapter 2 through Robert Merton’s discussion of the insider– outsider problem in American sociology with special reference to research on black American communities. However, the arguments in this volume about the history of Western responses to Islam are now rehearsed in contemporary debates, not under the insider–outsider distinction, but under the notion of ‘positionality’. The driving issues behind this notion include gender and race, namely that scientific knowledge has been dominated historically by privileged white males. It is argued that sociologists have overlooked the consequences of colonialism on social theory (Bhambra and Holmwood 2021). This idea about positions of knowledge has gained currency especially in ethnographic and qualitative research, where the researcher’s own position is seen to be crucial in his response to the world in which he is positioned. For now, I shall continue to refer to ‘he’ rather than ‘she’, because most of the criticism has been focused on male researchers and to some extent more so for anthropologists than for sociologists for reasons that will become obvious shortly. The whole issue of positionality, and indeed the various arguments presented in this volume, ask the ultimate question: who has authority to speak? Has this obvious fact ever been seriously disputed in the social sciences? The unfinished debate about verstehen can be seen as the entrée into questions about positionality. However, we might date the contemporary approaches to the subject with the emergence of subaltern studies that was specifically connected with the article by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988) titled ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ in which she examined the subordination of voices at the periphery. The whole issue of positionality, and indeed the various arguments presented in this volume, hinges on power and authority. While accepting the challenges presented by positionality, I argue that sociology has to defend the search for objectivity in its research, and ‘objectivity’ implies also ‘universality’.
The notion of positionality in anthropology first emerged as a critique of research on aboriginal cultures, where the ‘subjects’ were either objects of research without a voice of their own or they were research assistants to anthropologists whose role was to translate and explain.