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Decoding the Court: Legal Data Insights from the Supreme Court of Canada
This edited collection combines state-of-the-art legal data analytics with in-depth doctrinal analysis to study the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), Canada’s top court. A data analytics perspective adds new dimensions to the study of courts and their case law. It renders legal analysis scalable, making it possible to investigate thousands of judicial decisions, adding new breadth and depth. It also enables researchers to combine doctrinal questions about how the law evolves with institutional questions about how courts operate, shedding new light on how law works in practice. By applying a range of methods to study the content of SCC decisions, this work bridges the gap between qualitative and quantitative research. Demonstrating how new analytical perspectives can generate new insights about the Supreme Court, an institution which is closely studied by scholars both within and outside Canada, the book will be essential reading for legal scholars and political scientists, particularly those working in public law and in empirical legal studies.
Decolonising and Indigenising Music Education: First Peoples Leading Research and Practice (ISME Series in Music Education)
by Te Oti Rakena Clare Hall Anita Prest David JohnsonCentring the voices of Indigenous scholars at the intersection of music and education, this co-edited volume contributes to debates about current colonising music education research and practices, and offers alternative decolonising approaches that support music education imbued with Indigenous perspectives. This unique collection is far-ranging, with contributions from Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Kenya, and Finland. The authors interrogate and theorise research methodologies, curricula, and practices related to the learning and teaching of music. Providing a meeting place for Indigenous voices and viewpoints from around the globe, this book highlights the imperative that Indigenisation must be Indigenous-led.The book promotes Indigenous scholars’ reconceptualisations of how music education is researched and practised, with an emphasis on the application of decolonial ways of being. The authors provocatively demonstrate the value of power-sharing and eroding the gaze of non-Indigenous populations. Pushing far beyond the concepts of Western aesthetics and world music, this vital collection of scholarship presents music in education as a social and political action, and shows how to enact Indigenising and decolonising practices in a wide range of music education contexts.
Decolonising and Indigenising Music Education: First Peoples Leading Research and Practice (ISME Series in Music Education)
by Te Oti Rakena, Clare Hall, Anita Prest and David JohnsonCentring the voices of Indigenous scholars at the intersection of music and education, this co-edited volume contributes to debates about current colonising music education research and practices, and offers alternative decolonising approaches that support music education imbued with Indigenous perspectives. This unique collection is far-ranging, with contributions from Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Kenya, and Finland. The authors interrogate and theorise research methodologies, curricula, and practices related to the learning and teaching of music. Providing a meeting place for Indigenous voices and viewpoints from around the globe, this book highlights the imperative that Indigenisation must be Indigenous-led.The book promotes Indigenous scholars’ reconceptualisations of how music education is researched and practised, with an emphasis on the application of decolonial ways of being. The authors provocatively demonstrate the value of power-sharing and eroding the gaze of non-Indigenous populations. Pushing far beyond the concepts of Western aesthetics and world music, this vital collection of scholarship presents music in education as a social and political action, and shows how to enact Indigenising and decolonising practices in a wide range of music education contexts.
Decolonizing Freedom (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)
by Allison WeirFreedom is celebrated as the definitive ideal of modern western civilization. Yet in western thought and practice, the freedom of some has typically been defined through opposition to the unfreedom of others. These exclusions are not secondary to a prior concept of freedom but are constitutive exclusions that have shaped the ways in which western theorists define what freedom is. Allison Weir draws on Indigenous political philosophies and practices of decolonization grounded in conceptions of relationality and resurgence, in dialogue with western philosophies, to reconstruct a tradition of relational freedom as a distinctive political conception of freedom: a radically democratic mode of engagement and participation in social and political relations with an infinite range of strange and diverse beings perceived as free agents in interdependent relations in a shared world. Through the work of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, John Borrows, Glen Coulthard, Audra Simpson, Rauna Kuokkanen, Joanne Barker, Jodi Byrd, James Tully, and many others, this book traces a tradition of colonial unknowing in western conceptions of freedom from Hobbes through republican and critical theories, and explores a countertradition of relations between freedom and collective love, exemplified in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's love of land and Hannah Arendt's love of the world. It considers Indigenous modes of world-creation as performative, affective, embodied strategies of democratic life, skilled modes of addressing diversity and conflict, fear and hostility, in practices of freedom that embrace polycentric knowledges and rooted dynamisms, in contexts of complexity and constant change. Weir argues that Indigenous women's struggles to belong to communities and participate in governance have engendered new theories of relational rights that combine politics of rights and resurgence, and calls for a coalitional politics guided by queer and feminist Indigenous models of transformative resurgence. Finally, Weir proposes an approach to critical theory as a practice of self-transformation through openness to the other, oriented toward relational freedom.
Decolonizing Freedom (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)
by Allison WeirFreedom is celebrated as the definitive ideal of modern western civilization. Yet in western thought and practice, the freedom of some has typically been defined through opposition to the unfreedom of others. These exclusions are not secondary to a prior concept of freedom but are constitutive exclusions that have shaped the ways in which western theorists define what freedom is. Allison Weir draws on Indigenous political philosophies and practices of decolonization grounded in conceptions of relationality and resurgence, in dialogue with western philosophies, to reconstruct a tradition of relational freedom as a distinctive political conception of freedom: a radically democratic mode of engagement and participation in social and political relations with an infinite range of strange and diverse beings perceived as free agents in interdependent relations in a shared world. Through the work of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, John Borrows, Glen Coulthard, Audra Simpson, Rauna Kuokkanen, Joanne Barker, Jodi Byrd, James Tully, and many others, this book traces a tradition of colonial unknowing in western conceptions of freedom from Hobbes through republican and critical theories, and explores a countertradition of relations between freedom and collective love, exemplified in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's love of land and Hannah Arendt's love of the world. It considers Indigenous modes of world-creation as performative, affective, embodied strategies of democratic life, skilled modes of addressing diversity and conflict, fear and hostility, in practices of freedom that embrace polycentric knowledges and rooted dynamisms, in contexts of complexity and constant change. Weir argues that Indigenous women's struggles to belong to communities and participate in governance have engendered new theories of relational rights that combine politics of rights and resurgence, and calls for a coalitional politics guided by queer and feminist Indigenous models of transformative resurgence. Finally, Weir proposes an approach to critical theory as a practice of self-transformation through openness to the other, oriented toward relational freedom.
Decolonizing Journalistic Knowledge: Deliberative Communication in Central and Eastern EU Member States (Edition Medienwissenschaft #113)
by Martín Oller AlonsoIn the EU, the prevailing academic and scientific thought models, as well as communication processes and journalism, are deeply Eurocentric. Martín Oller Alonso critiques these structural issues, focusing on post-communist Central and Eastern Europe's recent EU members. He argues for a decolonization of knowledge and a journalistic-other approach, blending local sensibilities and collective imaginations. Emphasizing deliberative communication, his study offers fresh media and communication theory perspectives, relevant to professionals and researchers in various fields, addressing the challenges and opportunities in the European Union amidst globalization and cultural integration.
Decolonizing Linguistics
by Mary Bucholtz Christine Mallinson Anne H. Charity HudleyThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Decolonizing Linguistics, the companion volume to Inclusion in Linguistics, is designed to uncover and intervene in the history and ongoing legacy of colonization and colonial thinking in linguistics and related fields. Taken together, the two volumes are the first comprehensive, action-oriented, book-length discussions of how to advance social justice in all aspects of the discipline. The introduction to Decolonizing Linguistics theorizes decolonization as the process of centering Black, Native, and Indigenous perspectives, describes the extensive dialogic and collaborative process through which the volume was developed, and lays out key principles for decolonizing linguistic research and teaching. The twenty chapters cover a wide range of languages and linguistic contexts (e.g., Bantu languages, Creoles, Dominican Spanish, Francophone Africa, Zapotec) as well as various disciplines and subfields (applied linguistics, communication, historical linguistics, language documentation and revitalization/reclamation, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, syntax). Contributors address such topics as refusing settler-colonial practices and centering community goals in research on Indigenous languages; decolonizing research partnerships between the Global South and the Global North; and prioritizing Black Diasporic perspectives in linguistics. The volume's conclusion lays out specific actions that linguists can take through research, teaching, and institutional structures to refuse coloniality in linguistics and to move the field toward a decolonized future.
Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon's Couch
by Daniel José GaztambideBoth new and seasoned psychotherapists wrestle with the relationship between psychological distress and inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality. How does one address this organically in psychotherapy? What role does it play in therapeutic action? Who brings it up, the therapist or the patient? Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these questions by offering a rigorous decolonial approach that rethinks theory and technique from the ground up, providing an accessible, evidence-informed reintroduction to psychoanalytic practice. He re-examines foundational thinkers from three traditions—Freudian, relational-interpersonal, and Lacanian—through the lens of revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and offers a detailed analysis of Fanon’s psychoanalytic practice. Drawing on rich yet grounded discussions of theory and research, Gaztambide presents a clinical model that facilitates exploration of the social in the clinical space in a manner intimately related to the patient’s presenting problem. In doing so, this book demonstrates that clinicians no longer have to choose between attending to the personal, interpersonal, or sociopolitical. It is a guide to therapeutic action “on the couch,” which envisions political action “off the couch” and in the streets. Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique provides a comprehensive, practice-oriented and compelling guide for students, practitioners, and scholars of critical, multicultural and decolonial approaches to psychotherapy.
Deep Blue: My Ocean Journeys
by Steve BackshallTake a deep breathSteve Backshall was nine years old the first time he saw a shark, while on holiday with his family in Malaysia. It was the beginning of a life-long fascination with these 'lords of the sea', and the oceanic life around them. His career as one of the world's most popular naturalists and explorers has taken him to countless underwater places, many never before seen by others. And he's also been witness to the startling decline in fortune of our oceans' wild inhabitants over the past fifty years.Deep Blue is a book a lifetime in the making: a remarkable blend of memoir, travel, and marine and environmental science that takes us on an unforgettable tour of the many worlds of aquatic life: from underwater deserts and rainforests to the evolution of ocean heroes like the sea turtle and the Great White, from the genesis of ocean life to the rapidly declining state of white polar seas and coral reefs. It's both a love letter to our precious oceans and rallying cry for what we must to do save them.
Deep Learning and Computational Physics
by Deep Ray Orazio Pinti Assad A. OberaiThe main objective of this book is to introduce a student who is familiar with elementary math concepts to select topics in deep learning. It exploits strong connections between deep learning algorithms and the techniques of computational physics to achieve two important goals. First, it uses concepts from computational physics to develop an understanding of deep learning algorithms. Second, it describes several novel deep learning algorithms for solving challenging problems in computational physics, thereby offering someone who is interested in modeling physical phenomena with a complementary set of tools. It is intended for senior undergraduate and graduate students in science and engineering programs. It is used as a textbook for a course (or a course sequence) for senior-level undergraduate or graduate-level students.
Deep Learning for Smart Healthcare: Trends, Challenges and Applications
by K. Murugeswari B. Sundaravadivazhagan S. Poonkuntran Thendral PuyalnithiDeep learning can provide more accurate results compared to machine learning. It uses layered algorithmic architecture to analyze data. It produces more accurate results since learning from previous results enhances its ability. The multi-layered nature of deep learning systems has the potential to classify subtle abnormalities in medical images, clustering patients with similar characteristics into risk-based cohorts, or highlighting relationships between symptoms and outcomes within vast quantities of unstructured data.Exploring this potential, Deep Learning for Smart Healthcare: Trends, Challenges and Applications is a reference work for researchers and academicians who are seeking new ways to apply deep learning algorithms in healthcare, including medical imaging and healthcare data analytics. It covers how deep learning can analyze a patient’s medical history efficiently to aid in recommending drugs and dosages. It discusses how deep learning can be applied to CT scans, MRI scans and ECGs to diagnose diseases. Other deep learning applications explored are extending the scope of patient record management, pain assessment, new drug design and managing the clinical trial process.Bringing together a wide range of research domains, this book can help to develop breakthrough applications for improving healthcare management and patient outcomes.
Deep Learning for Smart Healthcare: Trends, Challenges and Applications
Deep learning can provide more accurate results compared to machine learning. It uses layered algorithmic architecture to analyze data. It produces more accurate results since learning from previous results enhances its ability. The multi-layered nature of deep learning systems has the potential to classify subtle abnormalities in medical images, clustering patients with similar characteristics into risk-based cohorts, or highlighting relationships between symptoms and outcomes within vast quantities of unstructured data.Exploring this potential, Deep Learning for Smart Healthcare: Trends, Challenges and Applications is a reference work for researchers and academicians who are seeking new ways to apply deep learning algorithms in healthcare, including medical imaging and healthcare data analytics. It covers how deep learning can analyze a patient’s medical history efficiently to aid in recommending drugs and dosages. It discusses how deep learning can be applied to CT scans, MRI scans and ECGs to diagnose diseases. Other deep learning applications explored are extending the scope of patient record management, pain assessment, new drug design and managing the clinical trial process.Bringing together a wide range of research domains, this book can help to develop breakthrough applications for improving healthcare management and patient outcomes.
Deep Learning Models: A Practical Approach for Hands-On Professionals (Transactions on Computer Systems and Networks)
by Jonah GambaThis book focuses on and prioritizes a practical approach, minimizing theoretical concepts to deliver algorithms effectively. With deep learning emerging as a vibrant field of research and development in numerous industrial applications, there is a pressing need for accessible resources that provide comprehensive examples and quick guidance. Unfortunately, many existing books on the market tend to emphasize theoretical aspects, leaving newcomers scrambling for practical guidance. This book takes a different approach by focusing on practicality while keeping theoretical concepts to a necessary minimum. The book begins by laying a foundation of basic information on deep learning, gradually delving into the subject matter to explain and illustrate the limitations of existing algorithms. A dedicated chapter is allocated to evaluating the performance of multiple algorithms on specific datasets, highlighting techniques and strategies that can address real-world challenges when deep learning is employed. By consolidating all necessary information into a single resource, readers can bypass the hassle of scouring scattered online sources, gaining a one-stop solution to dive into deep learning for object detection and classification. To facilitate understanding, the book employs a rich array of illustrations, figures, tables, and code snippets. Comprehensive code examples are provided, empowering readers to grasp concepts quickly and develop practical solutions. The book covers essential methods and tools, ensuring a complete and comprehensive coverage that enables professionals to implement deep learning algorithms swiftly and effectively.This book is designed to equip professionals with the necessary skills to thrive in the active field of deep learning, where it has the potential to revolutionize traditional problem-solving approaches. This book serves as a practical companion, enabling readers to grasp concepts swiftly and embark on building practical solutions.
Deep Learning Techniques for Automation and Industrial Applications
by Abhishek Kumar Pramod Singh Rathore Sachin Ahuja Anupam Baliyan Srinivasa Rao Burri Ajay KhuntetaDive into this 15-chapter book on ‘Deep Learning Techniques’ and how its solutions allow computers to learn from experience and understand hierarchy concepts. It provides approaches to deep learning in areas of detection, prediction, and future framework development. This book presents a concise introduction to recent advances in the field of AI, discussing reinforcement learning and applying deep learning techniques to various domains. Topics discussed in this book: The penetration of social media in society and how women living in India are deprived of mobile services. The study generates research on how gender characterizes individuals Discusses agriculture’s role and the detection of diseases in plants Basic deep learning techniques and how dataset images are compared among model performances Talks about image processing fields like surveillance, detection, and recognition. Digital properties have developed dehazing techniques to enhance images and obtain information Explains the modification of networking services and how it affects the way of cyberspace communication Extensive research on how deep learning is used and challenged by academics, students, and researchers in pointing out accurate metrics and how to increase green AI by reducing its environmental impact
Deep Neural Networks-Enabled Intelligent Fault Diagnosis of Mechanical Systems
by Ruqiang Yan Zhibin ZhaoThe book aims to highlight the potential of deep learning (DL)-enabled methods in intelligent fault diagnosis (IFD), along with their benefits and contributions.The authors first introduce basic applications of DL-enabled IFD, including auto-encoders, deep belief networks, and convolutional neural networks. Advanced topics of DL-enabled IFD are also explored, such as data augmentation, multi-sensor fusion, unsupervised deep transfer learning, neural architecture search, self-supervised learning, and reinforcement learning. Aiming to revolutionize the nature of IFD, Deep Neural Networks-Enabled Intelligent Fault Diangosis of Mechanical Systems contributes to improved efficiency, safety, and reliability of mechanical systems in various industrial domains.The book will appeal to academic researchers, practitioners, and students in the fields of intelligent fault diagnosis, prognostics and health management, and deep learning.
Deep Neural Networks-Enabled Intelligent Fault Diagnosis of Mechanical Systems
by Ruqiang Yan Zhibin ZhaoThe book aims to highlight the potential of deep learning (DL)-enabled methods in intelligent fault diagnosis (IFD), along with their benefits and contributions.The authors first introduce basic applications of DL-enabled IFD, including auto-encoders, deep belief networks, and convolutional neural networks. Advanced topics of DL-enabled IFD are also explored, such as data augmentation, multi-sensor fusion, unsupervised deep transfer learning, neural architecture search, self-supervised learning, and reinforcement learning. Aiming to revolutionize the nature of IFD, Deep Neural Networks-Enabled Intelligent Fault Diangosis of Mechanical Systems contributes to improved efficiency, safety, and reliability of mechanical systems in various industrial domains.The book will appeal to academic researchers, practitioners, and students in the fields of intelligent fault diagnosis, prognostics and health management, and deep learning.
Deep-Time Images in the Age of Globalization: Rock Art in the 21st Century (Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology)
by Oscar Moro Abadía Margaret W. Conkey Josephine McDonaldThis open access volume explores the impact of globalization on the contemporary study of deep-time art. The volume explores how early rock art research’s Eurocentric biases have shifted with broadened global horizons to facilitate new conversations and discourses in new post-colonial realities. The book uses seven main themes to explore theoretical, methodological, ethical, and practical developments that are orienting the study of Pleistocene and Holocene arts in the age of globalization. Compiling studies as diverse as genetics, visualization, with the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated archaeological techniques, means that vast quantities of materials and techniques are now incorporated into the analysis of the world’s visual cultures. Deep-Time Images in the Age of Globalization aims to promote critical reflection on the multitude of positive – and negative – impacts that globalization has wrought in rock art research. The volume brings new theoretical frameworks as well as engagement with indigenous knowledge and perspectives from art history. It highlights technical, methodological and interpretive developments, and showcases rock art characteristics from previously unknown (in the global north) geographic areas. This book provides comparative approaches on rock art globally and scrutinises the impacts of globalization on research, preservation, and management of deep-time art. This book will appeal to archaeologists, social scientists and art historians working in the field as well as lovers of rock art.
Deep transformations: A theory of degrowth (Progress in Political Economy)
by Hubert Buch-Hansen Max Koch Iana NesterovaAs a research field, social movement and political project, degrowth is a multi-faceted phenomenon. It brings together a range of practices including alternative forms of living and initiatives of various kinds in civil society, business and the state. Yet no comprehensive theory of degrowth transformations has so far been developed. Deep transformations fills this gap. It develops a theory of degrowth transformations drawing on insights from multiple fields of knowledge, such as political economy, sociology and philosophy. The book offers a holistic perspective that brings into focus transformation processes on various scales and points to various mechanisms that can facilitate degrowth. These for instance include ecosocial policies, transformative initiatives in business and civil society, and alternative modes of being in and relating to the world.
Deep transformations: A theory of degrowth (Progress in Political Economy)
by Hubert Buch-Hansen Max Koch Iana NesterovaAs a research field, social movement and political project, degrowth is a multi-faceted phenomenon. It brings together a range of practices including alternative forms of living and initiatives of various kinds in civil society, business and the state. Yet no comprehensive theory of degrowth transformations has so far been developed. Deep transformations fills this gap. It develops a theory of degrowth transformations drawing on insights from multiple fields of knowledge, such as political economy, sociology and philosophy. The book offers a holistic perspective that brings into focus transformation processes on various scales and points to various mechanisms that can facilitate degrowth. These for instance include ecosocial policies, transformative initiatives in business and civil society, and alternative modes of being in and relating to the world.
Deepwater Geohazards in the South China Sea
by Shiguo Wu Yunbao Sun Qingping Li Jiliang Wang Dawei Wang Qiliang Sun Chuanxu Chen Yangbing XieThis book comprehensively analyzes and summarizes the types, characteristics and prevention of deep-sea geological disasters in the South China Sea based on the research progress of global background. It also brings attention to the general public and stakeholders the risks of deep-sea geological disasters.
Defeating the Evil-God Challenge: In Defence of God’s Goodness
by Jack SymesThe evil-god challenge is one of the most popular topics in contemporary philosophy of religion. In this landmark text, Jack Symes offers the most detailed examination of the challenge to date. Exploring the nature of god through the leading schools of philosophical theology, Symes argues that it is significantly more reasonable to attribute goodness to god than evil. Drawing from a breadth of ground-breaking material – in metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and epistemology – Symes claims to defeat the evil-god challenge on behalf of traditional theism.Is it any more reasonable to believe in a good god than an evil god? Not according to proponents of the evil-god challenge. After all, the world contains a significant amount of good and evil for which either god could be held responsible. However, if belief in both gods is equally as reasonable, then religious believers are unjustified in favouring one hypothesis over the other. Therefore, in order to defend their faith, theists must respond to the evil-god challenge: the question of what justifies belief in good god over evil god.
Defeating the Evil-God Challenge: In Defence of God’s Goodness
by Jack SymesThe evil-god challenge is one of the most popular topics in contemporary philosophy of religion. In this landmark text, Jack Symes offers the most detailed examination of the challenge to date. Exploring the nature of god through the leading schools of philosophical theology, Symes argues that it is significantly more reasonable to attribute goodness to god than evil. Drawing from a breadth of ground-breaking material – in metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and epistemology – Symes claims to defeat the evil-god challenge on behalf of traditional theism.Is it any more reasonable to believe in a good god than an evil god? Not according to proponents of the evil-god challenge. After all, the world contains a significant amount of good and evil for which either god could be held responsible. However, if belief in both gods is equally as reasonable, then religious believers are unjustified in favouring one hypothesis over the other. Therefore, in order to defend their faith, theists must respond to the evil-god challenge: the question of what justifies belief in good god over evil god.
Defending and Defining the Faith: An Introduction to Early Christian Apologetic Literature
by D.H. WilliamsIn Early Christian Apologetics, D.H. Williams offers a comprehensive presentation of Christian apologetic literature from the second to the fifth century, considering each writer within the intellectual context of the day. Williams argues that most apologies were not directed at a pagan readership. In most cases, he says, ancient apologetics had a double object: to instruct the Christian and to persuade weak Christians or non-Christians who were sympathetic to Christian claims. Traditionally, scholars of apologetics have focused on the context of persecution in the pre-Constantinian period. By following the links in the intellectual trajectory up though the early fifth century, Williams prompts deeper reflection on the process of Christian self-definition in late antiquity. Taken cumulatively, he finds, apologetic literature was in fact integral to the formation of the Christian identity in the Roman world.
Defining Corruption in the Ottoman Empire: Morality, Legality, and Abuse of Power in Premodern Governance
by Bo?a? A. ErgeneHow did the premodern Ottomans understand public office corruption? To answer this question, Defining Corruption in the Ottoman Empire explores how Ottoman jurists, statesmen, political commentators, and others characterized this notion and what specific transgressions they associated with it before the nineteenth century. The book is based on extensive research and a wide variety of sources, including jurisprudential texts, imperial orders and communications, chronicles, and travel and diplomatic accounts. It identifies articulations of self-interested abuses of power by official and communal actors in these sources and illustrates how they resonate in some ways with modern perspectives. These premodern formulations, however, are shown to have collectively constituted a conceptual space that was contentious and temporally unstable, and no single overarching term was able to encapsulate all the specific misdeeds frequently linked to modern depictions of corruption. The book's genre-specific discursive survey is complemented by discussions that highlight, in the Ottoman context, the shifty boundaries that separated legitimate and illegitimate forms of revenue extraction; that examine the state's efforts to monitor and punish abuses by government officials; and that explore the context-dependent and often contested moralities of many acts, such as gift giving as bribery, office selling, and favoritism. It also considers the ways in which "corrupt" state actors might have rationalized their offenses. Defining Corruption is a conceptually driven work that is both comparative and interdisciplinary, engaging seriously with non-Ottoman historiographies, including broader Middle Eastern, European, and Chinese, and multiple disciplines besides history, in particular anthropology and economics, to provide a comprehensive analysis of premodern Ottoman perceptions of administrative abuse.
Defining Corruption in the Ottoman Empire: Morality, Legality, and Abuse of Power in Premodern Governance
by Bo?a? A. ErgeneHow did the premodern Ottomans understand public office corruption? To answer this question, Defining Corruption in the Ottoman Empire explores how Ottoman jurists, statesmen, political commentators, and others characterized this notion and what specific transgressions they associated with it before the nineteenth century. The book is based on extensive research and a wide variety of sources, including jurisprudential texts, imperial orders and communications, chronicles, and travel and diplomatic accounts. It identifies articulations of self-interested abuses of power by official and communal actors in these sources and illustrates how they resonate in some ways with modern perspectives. These premodern formulations, however, are shown to have collectively constituted a conceptual space that was contentious and temporally unstable, and no single overarching term was able to encapsulate all the specific misdeeds frequently linked to modern depictions of corruption. The book's genre-specific discursive survey is complemented by discussions that highlight, in the Ottoman context, the shifty boundaries that separated legitimate and illegitimate forms of revenue extraction; that examine the state's efforts to monitor and punish abuses by government officials; and that explore the context-dependent and often contested moralities of many acts, such as gift giving as bribery, office selling, and favoritism. It also considers the ways in which "corrupt" state actors might have rationalized their offenses. Defining Corruption is a conceptually driven work that is both comparative and interdisciplinary, engaging seriously with non-Ottoman historiographies, including broader Middle Eastern, European, and Chinese, and multiple disciplines besides history, in particular anthropology and economics, to provide a comprehensive analysis of premodern Ottoman perceptions of administrative abuse.