Popper’s (1967) ’piecemeal social change’ is an approach manifesting itself in science as critical and emancipatory (C&E) research. It is concerned with incrementally removing manifested inequalities to achieve a ’better’ world. Although design science research in information systems seems to be a prime candidate for such endeavors, respective projects are clearly underrepresented. This positio...

Rom Harré criticizes critical realism for ascribing causal powers to social structures, arguing that it is human individuals, and not social structures, that possess causal powers, and that a false conception of structural causation undermines the emancipatory potential of critical realism. I argue that an interpretation of the category of process as the spatio-temporalization of the category o...

In this paper, we want to address how the educative growth of children’s spirituality within religious education can be better understood through Dewey’s theory valuation. We would like draw attention link between an for authentic and pursuit a genuine democratic life, because education, even is always political. doing so, point urgency importance fostering spiritual children in face current ri...

This article addresses contemporary art as a means to investigate how, and to what extent, financial logic impacts upon the socio-cultural sphere. Its contribution is twofold: on the one hand, the article shows that contemporary art’s valuation practices increasingly reflect the logic of capitalization; on the other hand, it assesses the emancipatory potential of blockchain technology for the c...

This paper seeks to heighten awareness about the need to include indigenous knowledge in the design and implementation of research, particularly disability research, in Africa. It affirms the suitability of the Afrocentric paradigm in African research and argues the necessity for an emancipatory and participatory type of research which values and includes indigenous knowledge and peoples. In th...

Contrary to some predictions, it appears religion is coming back. We are constantly being reminded that religion is becoming more important again in late modernity. Despite this, religion is still “banished to the sidelines in the contemporary field of theoretical struggle” (Beckford 2003: 12). Moreover, when religion is studied, it is often a concept of ‘religion’ so reified and generalised as...

Fuelled by the Arab spring, the question of how the rise of internet-mediated communication affects authoritarian regimes has received unprecedented attention within the discipline of communications. However, in this debate, scholars have not yet turned to the concept of literacy and addressed the role of citizens’ knowledge about political media in any greater depth. This is surprising since t...

This study examines the relationship between gendered family roles and divorce in the Netherlands. Cultural and economic aspects of this relationship are distinguished. Economic hypotheses argue that the likelihood of divorce is increased if women work for pay and have attractive labor market resources. Cultural hypotheses argue that divorce chances are increased if women adhere to emancipatory...

Copyright: © 2014. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. This African Journal of Disability supplement focuses on papers presented at the third AfriNEAD Symposium in 2011. In this closing editorial, we want to give an overview of the rationale and major modes of operation of the African Network for Evidence-to-Action on ...

The notion of systemic thinking for social and ecological responsibility is deconstructed and its holistic potential examined from a critical systemic perspective informed by the ideas of the systems philosopher, C. West-Churchman. Systemic thinking involves being critically aware of the boundaries in which we work and the boundaries to which we apply our expertise. It involves making boundary ...