Catching Reality or Bowing Disciplines: How to Move the Study of Citizenship

In his contribution, Joppke justifies his selection of foundational scholars by linking each to what he sees as the three key facets of citizenship: status, rights and identity. Maarten Vink explicitly links his research agenda to the first, status, and outlines why it is so important. In identifying three facets of citizenship, Joppke acknowledges that some academics would include political participation, but he ultimately decides against it. But here we can, and should, broaden citizenship studies by bringing in insights from the behavioral politics tradition in domestic politics - when and why people engage in political acts - and from the social movements literature in sociology. I believe that the American debate on immigration reform, admittedly stalled, would not have advanced as far as it has without the social movement activism of DREAMers - unauthorized young people pushing for a path to citizenship - and the belief that Barack Obama won re-election in part because of the Latino vote. Importantly, one type of political activism demands formal citizenship, the other does not. As many contributors note, the “national models” approach has had a significant impact on citizenship studies. Whether one views such models through a cultural, institutional or historical lens, this tends to be a top-down, macro-level framework. What about immigrants’ agency? In Canada, although the ruling Conservative government is shifting citizenship discourse to a more traditional language - as Winter points out - it has not reduced immigration, ended dual citizenship, or eliminated multiculturalism, all goals of the Reform Party that the current prime minister once helped build. “Lock-in” effects (or policy feedback loops) based on high immigrant naturalization and the coming of age of a second-generation with citizenship also d emands study, in North America and elsewhere. Much of the research thus far suggests that political decisions over citizenship status and rights do not seem linked to immigrants’ political activism. State-centered decision-making may have characterized policy in the early post-World War II period in Europe (and East Asia?), but does it continue to hold today? Majority publics and immigrant-origin residents are increasingly politicized around citizenship and immigration. Does immigrant agency extend citizenship status, rights and identity to those born outside the polity? Is electoral power key, or is protest necessary? How is citizenship practiced, and contested, irrespective of formal status? These are important and understudied empirical questions, ones that demand theoretical creativity - across sub-fields and disciplines - in conceptualizing and understanding citizenship in contemporary times.

Religion as Social Reality. A Take on the Emic–Etic Debate in Light of John Searle’s Philosophy of Society

In this article I argue that the shift from a private to a public–social understanding of religion raises new ontological and epistemological questions for the scientific study of religion\s. These questions are deeply related to three central features of the emic– etic debate, namely the problems of intentionality, objectivity, and comparison. Focusing on these interrelated issues, I discuss the potential of John Searle’s philoso- phy of society for the scientific study of religion\s. Considering the role of intentional- ity at the social level, I present Searle’s concept of “social ontology” and discuss its epistemological implications. To clarify Searle’s position regarding the objectivity of the social sciences, I propose a heuristic model contrasting different stances within the scientific study of religion\s. Finally, I explore some problematic aspects of Searle’s views for a comparative study of religion\s, and sketch a solution within his frame- work. I shall argue that a distinction between the epistemological and ontological dimensions of religious affairs would help clarify the issues at stake in the past and future of the emic–etic debate.

Design and Implementation of a Laparoscope Calibration Method for Augmented Reality Navigation

Intraoperative laparoscopic calibration remains a challenging task. In this work we present a new method and instrumentation for intraoperative camera calibration. Contrary to conventional calibration methods, the proposed technique allows intraoperative laparoscope calibration from single perspective observations, resulting in a standardized scheme for calibrating in a clinical scenario. Results show an average displacement error of 0.52 ± 0.19 mm, indicating sufficient accuracy for clinical use. Additionally, the proposed method is validated clinically by performing a calibration during the surgery.

Alexander’s Dictum and the Reality of Familiar Objects

Alexander's Dictum--"to be is to have causal powers"--appears to furnish an argument against the reality of familiar medium-sized objects. For every time a familiar object appears to cause a familiar macro-event, it sets up a rival claim by its component microparticles to have caused the complex swarm of microphysical events that composes into that macro-event. But this argument, argues this paper, wrongly assumes that even after familiar objects are removed from the picture, there is a phenomenon of joint causation which unites all and only the microparticles within each familiar object.

Should differences be included? On a wrongly framed problem and an unbearable reality

Este texto se plantea una relectura ética acerca del derecho a la educación de las personas con discapacidades, con un énfasis prioritario de la situación en América Latina. A partir de considerar los sistemas jurídicos, los modos de financiamiento políticos, los porcentajes de inclusión y los programas de seguimiento de la población con discapacidad en edad escolar, se deriva toda una serie de discusiones sobre la idea de formación educativa, el estar junto a otros y las responsabilidades éticas en la tarea de educar.

Should differences be included? On a wrongly framed problem and an unbearable reality

Este texto se plantea una relectura ética acerca del derecho a la educación de las personas con discapacidades, con un énfasis prioritario de la situación en América Latina. A partir de considerar los sistemas jurídicos, los modos de financiamiento políticos, los porcentajes de inclusión y los programas de seguimiento de la población con discapacidad en edad escolar, se deriva toda una serie de discusiones sobre la idea de formación educativa, el estar junto a otros y las responsabilidades éticas en la tarea de educar.

Should differences be included? On a wrongly framed problem and an unbearable reality

Este texto se plantea una relectura ética acerca del derecho a la educación de las personas con discapacidades, con un énfasis prioritario de la situación en América Latina. A partir de considerar los sistemas jurídicos, los modos de financiamiento políticos, los porcentajes de inclusión y los programas de seguimiento de la población con discapacidad en edad escolar, se deriva toda una serie de discusiones sobre la idea de formación educativa, el estar junto a otros y las responsabilidades éticas en la tarea de educar.

Mobile Indoor Augmented Reality. Exploring applications in hospitality environments.

Augmented reality (AR) is been increasingly used in mobile devices. Most of the available applications are set to work outdoors, mainly due to the availability of a reliable positioning system. Nevertheless, indoor (smart) spaces offer a lot of opportunities of creating new service concepts. In particular, in this paper we explore the applicability of mobile AR to hospitality environments (hotels and similar establishments). From the state-of-the-art of technologies and applications, a portfolio of services has been identified and a prototype using off-the-shelf technologies has been designed. Our objective is to identify the next technological challenges to overcome in order to have suitable underlying infrastructures and innovative services which enhance the traveller?s experience.

Analyzing Business Models for Mobile Augmented Reality

Nowadays, a wide offer of mobile augmented reality (mAR) applications is available at the market, and the user base of mobile AR-capable devices -smartphones- is rapidly increasing. Nevertheless, likewise to what happens in other mobile segments, business models to put mAR in value are not clearly defined yet. In this paper, we focus on sketching the big picture of the commercial offer of mAR applications, in order to inspire a posterior analysis of business models that may successfully support the evolution of mAR. We have gathered more than 400 mAR applications from Android Market, and analyzed the offer as a whole, taking into account some technology aspects, pricing schemes and user adoption factors. Results show, for example, that application providers are not expecting to generate revenues per direct download, although they are producing high-quality applications, well rated by the users.