Project acronym ALTERUMMA
Project Creating an Alternative umma: Clerical Authority and Religio-political Mobilisation in Transnational Shii Islam
Researcher (PI) Oliver Paul SCHARBRODT
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Summary
This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Max ERC Funding
1 952 374 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym ARCTIC CULT
Project ARCTIC CULTURES: SITES OF COLLECTION IN THE FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN NORTHLANDS
Researcher (PI) Richard Charles POWELL
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The Arctic has risen to global attention in recent years, as it has been reconfigured through debates about global environmental change, resource extraction and disputes over sovereign rights. Within these discourses, little attention has been paid to the cultures of the Arctic. Indeed, it often seems as if the Circumpolar Arctic in global public understanding remains framed as a 'natural region' - that is, a place where the environment dominates the creation of culture. This framing has consequences for the region, because through this the Arctic becomes constructed as a space where people are absent. This proposal aims to discover how and why this might be so.
The proposal argues that this construction of the Arctic emerged from the exploration of the region by Europeans and North Americans and their contacts with indigenous people from the middle of the eighteenth century. Particular texts, cartographic representations and objects were collected and returned to sites like London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Philadelphia. The construction of the Arctic thereby became entwined within the growth of colonial museum cultures and, indeed, western modernity. This project aims to delineate the networks and collecting cultures involved in this creation of Arctic Cultures. It will bring repositories in colonial metropoles into dialogue with sites of collection in the Arctic by tracing the contexts of discovery and memorialisation. In doing so, it aspires to a new understanding of the consequences of certain forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today.
The project involves research by the Principal Investigator and four Post Doctoral Researchers at museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. A Project Assistant based in Oxford will help facilitate the completion of the research.
Summary
The Arctic has risen to global attention in recent years, as it has been reconfigured through debates about global environmental change, resource extraction and disputes over sovereign rights. Within these discourses, little attention has been paid to the cultures of the Arctic. Indeed, it often seems as if the Circumpolar Arctic in global public understanding remains framed as a 'natural region' - that is, a place where the environment dominates the creation of culture. This framing has consequences for the region, because through this the Arctic becomes constructed as a space where people are absent. This proposal aims to discover how and why this might be so.
The proposal argues that this construction of the Arctic emerged from the exploration of the region by Europeans and North Americans and their contacts with indigenous people from the middle of the eighteenth century. Particular texts, cartographic representations and objects were collected and returned to sites like London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Philadelphia. The construction of the Arctic thereby became entwined within the growth of colonial museum cultures and, indeed, western modernity. This project aims to delineate the networks and collecting cultures involved in this creation of Arctic Cultures. It will bring repositories in colonial metropoles into dialogue with sites of collection in the Arctic by tracing the contexts of discovery and memorialisation. In doing so, it aspires to a new understanding of the consequences of certain forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today.
The project involves research by the Principal Investigator and four Post Doctoral Researchers at museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. A Project Assistant based in Oxford will help facilitate the completion of the research.
Max ERC Funding
1 996 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym AUTOCOMPLEMENT
Project The role of complement in the induction of autoimmunity against post-translationally modified proteins
Researcher (PI) Leendert TROUW
Host Institution (HI) ACADEMISCH ZIEKENHUIS LEIDEN
Country Netherlands
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), LS7, ERC-2016-COG
Summary In many prevalent autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) autoantibodies are used as diagnostic and prognostic tools. Several of these autoantibodies target proteins that have been post-translationally modified (PTM). Examples of such modifications are citrullination and carbamylation. The success of B cell-targeted therapies in many auto-antibody positive diseases suggests that B cell mediated auto-immunity is playing a direct pathogenic role. Despite the wealth of information on the clinical associations of these anti-PTM protein antibodies as biomarkers we have currently no insight into why these antibodies are formed.
Immunization studies reveal that PTM proteins can induce antibody responses even in the absence of exogenous adjuvant. The reason why these PTM proteins have ‘autoadjuvant’ properties that lead to a breach of tolerance is currently unknown. In this proposal, I hypothesise that the breach of tolerance towards PTM proteins is mediated by complement factors that bind directly to these PTM. Our preliminary data indeed reveal that several complement factors bind specifically to PTM proteins. Complement could be involved in the autoadjuvant property of PTM proteins as next to killing pathogens complement can also boost adaptive immune responses. I plan to unravel the importance of the complement–PTM protein interaction by answering these questions:
1) What is the physiological function of complement binding to PTM proteins?
2) Is the breach of tolerance towards PTM proteins influenced by complement?
3) Can the adjuvant function of PTM be used to increase vaccine efficacy and/or decrease autoreactivity?
With AUTOCOMPLEMENT I will elucidate how PTM-reactive B cells receive ‘autoadjuvant’ signals. This insight will impact on patient care as we can now design strategies to either block unwanted ‘autoadjuvant’ signals to inhibit autoimmunity or to utilize ‘autoadjuvant’ signals to potentiate vaccination.
Summary
In many prevalent autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) autoantibodies are used as diagnostic and prognostic tools. Several of these autoantibodies target proteins that have been post-translationally modified (PTM). Examples of such modifications are citrullination and carbamylation. The success of B cell-targeted therapies in many auto-antibody positive diseases suggests that B cell mediated auto-immunity is playing a direct pathogenic role. Despite the wealth of information on the clinical associations of these anti-PTM protein antibodies as biomarkers we have currently no insight into why these antibodies are formed.
Immunization studies reveal that PTM proteins can induce antibody responses even in the absence of exogenous adjuvant. The reason why these PTM proteins have ‘autoadjuvant’ properties that lead to a breach of tolerance is currently unknown. In this proposal, I hypothesise that the breach of tolerance towards PTM proteins is mediated by complement factors that bind directly to these PTM. Our preliminary data indeed reveal that several complement factors bind specifically to PTM proteins. Complement could be involved in the autoadjuvant property of PTM proteins as next to killing pathogens complement can also boost adaptive immune responses. I plan to unravel the importance of the complement–PTM protein interaction by answering these questions:
1) What is the physiological function of complement binding to PTM proteins?
2) Is the breach of tolerance towards PTM proteins influenced by complement?
3) Can the adjuvant function of PTM be used to increase vaccine efficacy and/or decrease autoreactivity?
With AUTOCOMPLEMENT I will elucidate how PTM-reactive B cells receive ‘autoadjuvant’ signals. This insight will impact on patient care as we can now design strategies to either block unwanted ‘autoadjuvant’ signals to inhibit autoimmunity or to utilize ‘autoadjuvant’ signals to potentiate vaccination.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 803 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym AveTransRisk
Project Average - Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)
Researcher (PI) Maria FUSARO
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This project focuses on the historical analysis of institutions and their impact on economic development through the investigation of a legal instrument – general average (GA) – which underpins maritime trade by redistributing damages’ costs across all interested parties. This will be pursued through the comparative investigation of GA in those European countries where substantial data exists: Italy, Spain, England, France and the Low Countries (1500-1800). Average and insurance were both created in the Middle Ages to facilitate trade through the redistribution of risk. Insurance has been widely studied, average – the expenses which can befall ships and cargoes from the time of their loading aboard until their unloading (due to accidents, jettison, and unexpected costs) – has been neglected. GA still plays an essential role in the redistribution of transaction costs, and being a form of strictly mutual self-protection, never evolved into a speculative financial instrument as insurance did; it therefore represents an excellent case of long-term effectiveness of a non-market economic phenomenon. Although the principle behind GA was very similar across Europe, in practice there were substantial differences in declaring and adjudicating claims. GA reports provide unparalleled evidence on maritime trade which, analysed quantitatively and quantitatively through a novel interdisciplinary approach, will contribute to the reassessment of the role played by the maritime sector in fostering economic growth during the early modern first globalization, when GA was the object of fierce debates on state jurisdiction and standardization of practice. Today they are regulated by the York-Antwerp Rules (YAR), currently under revision. This timely conjuncture provides plenty of opportunities for active engagement with practitioners, thereby fostering a creative dialogue on GA historical study and its future development to better face the challenges of mature globalization.
Summary
This project focuses on the historical analysis of institutions and their impact on economic development through the investigation of a legal instrument – general average (GA) – which underpins maritime trade by redistributing damages’ costs across all interested parties. This will be pursued through the comparative investigation of GA in those European countries where substantial data exists: Italy, Spain, England, France and the Low Countries (1500-1800). Average and insurance were both created in the Middle Ages to facilitate trade through the redistribution of risk. Insurance has been widely studied, average – the expenses which can befall ships and cargoes from the time of their loading aboard until their unloading (due to accidents, jettison, and unexpected costs) – has been neglected. GA still plays an essential role in the redistribution of transaction costs, and being a form of strictly mutual self-protection, never evolved into a speculative financial instrument as insurance did; it therefore represents an excellent case of long-term effectiveness of a non-market economic phenomenon. Although the principle behind GA was very similar across Europe, in practice there were substantial differences in declaring and adjudicating claims. GA reports provide unparalleled evidence on maritime trade which, analysed quantitatively and quantitatively through a novel interdisciplinary approach, will contribute to the reassessment of the role played by the maritime sector in fostering economic growth during the early modern first globalization, when GA was the object of fierce debates on state jurisdiction and standardization of practice. Today they are regulated by the York-Antwerp Rules (YAR), currently under revision. This timely conjuncture provides plenty of opportunities for active engagement with practitioners, thereby fostering a creative dialogue on GA historical study and its future development to better face the challenges of mature globalization.
Max ERC Funding
1 854 256 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-07-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym Connections
Project Oligopoly Markets and Networks
Researcher (PI) Andrea Galeotti
Host Institution (HI) LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH1, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Via our connections we learn about new ideas, quality of products, new investment opportunities and job opportunities. We influence and are influenced by our circle of friends. Firms are interconnected in complex processes of production and distribution. A firm’s decisions in a supply chain depends on other firms’ choices in the same supply chain, as well as on firms' behaviour in competing chains. Research on networks in the last 20 years has provided a series of tolls to study a system of interconnected economic agents. This project will advance the state of the art by further developing new applications of networks to better understand modern oligopoly markets.
The project is organised into two sub-projects. In sub-project 1 networks will be used to model diffusion and adoption of network goods. Different consumers' network locations will summarise different consumers' level of influence. The objectives are to understand how firms incorporate information about consumers' influence in their marketing strategies—pricing strategy and product design. It will provide a rigorous framework to evaluate how the increasing ability of firms to gather information on consumers’ influence affects outcomes of markets with network effects. In sub-project 2 networks will be used to model how inputs—e.g., intermediary goods and patents—are combined to deliver final goods. Possible applications are supply chains, communication networks and networks of patents. The objectives are to study firms' strategic behaviour, like pricing and R&D investments, in a complex process of production and distribution, and to understand the basic network metrics that are useful to describe market power. This is particularly important to provide a guide to competition authorities and alike when they evaluate mergers in complex interconnected markets.
Summary
Via our connections we learn about new ideas, quality of products, new investment opportunities and job opportunities. We influence and are influenced by our circle of friends. Firms are interconnected in complex processes of production and distribution. A firm’s decisions in a supply chain depends on other firms’ choices in the same supply chain, as well as on firms' behaviour in competing chains. Research on networks in the last 20 years has provided a series of tolls to study a system of interconnected economic agents. This project will advance the state of the art by further developing new applications of networks to better understand modern oligopoly markets.
The project is organised into two sub-projects. In sub-project 1 networks will be used to model diffusion and adoption of network goods. Different consumers' network locations will summarise different consumers' level of influence. The objectives are to understand how firms incorporate information about consumers' influence in their marketing strategies—pricing strategy and product design. It will provide a rigorous framework to evaluate how the increasing ability of firms to gather information on consumers’ influence affects outcomes of markets with network effects. In sub-project 2 networks will be used to model how inputs—e.g., intermediary goods and patents—are combined to deliver final goods. Possible applications are supply chains, communication networks and networks of patents. The objectives are to study firms' strategic behaviour, like pricing and R&D investments, in a complex process of production and distribution, and to understand the basic network metrics that are useful to describe market power. This is particularly important to provide a guide to competition authorities and alike when they evaluate mergers in complex interconnected markets.
Max ERC Funding
829 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-06-01, End date: 2022-05-31
Project acronym DIVERSE-EXPECON
Project Discriminative preferences and fairness ideals in diverse societies: An ‘experimental economics’ approach
Researcher (PI) Sigrid SUETENS
Host Institution (HI) STICHTING KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT BRABANT
Country Netherlands
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH1, ERC-2016-COG
Summary In economics, a distinction is made between statistical and taste-based discrimination (henceforth, TBD). Statistical discrimination refers to discrimination in a context with strategic uncertainty. Someone who is uncertain about the future behaviour of a person with a different ethnicity may rely on information about the different ethnic group to which this person belongs to form beliefs about the behaviour of that person. This may lead to discrimination. TBD refers to discrimination in a context without strategic uncertainty. It implies suffering a disutility when interacting with ‘different’ others. This project systematically studies TBD in ethnically diverse societies.
Identifying TBD is important because overcoming it requires different policies than overcoming statistical discrimination: they should deal with changing preferences of people rather than providing information about specific interaction partners. But identifying TBD is tricky. First, it is impossible to identify using uncontrolled empirical data because these data are characterised by strategic uncertainty. Second, people are generally reluctant to identify themselves as a discriminator. In the project, I study TBS using novel economic experiments that circumvent these problems.
The project consists of three main objectives. First, I investigate whether and how preferences of European natives in social interactions depend on others’ ethnicity. Are natives as altruistic, reciprocal, envious to immigrants as compared to other natives? Second, I study whether natives have different fairness ideals—what constitutes a fair distribution of resources from the perspective of an impartial spectator—when it comes to natives than when it comes to non-natives. Third, I analyse whether preferences and fairness ideals depend on exposure to diversity: do preferences and fairness ideals of natives change as contact with non-natives increases, and, if so, how?
Summary
In economics, a distinction is made between statistical and taste-based discrimination (henceforth, TBD). Statistical discrimination refers to discrimination in a context with strategic uncertainty. Someone who is uncertain about the future behaviour of a person with a different ethnicity may rely on information about the different ethnic group to which this person belongs to form beliefs about the behaviour of that person. This may lead to discrimination. TBD refers to discrimination in a context without strategic uncertainty. It implies suffering a disutility when interacting with ‘different’ others. This project systematically studies TBD in ethnically diverse societies.
Identifying TBD is important because overcoming it requires different policies than overcoming statistical discrimination: they should deal with changing preferences of people rather than providing information about specific interaction partners. But identifying TBD is tricky. First, it is impossible to identify using uncontrolled empirical data because these data are characterised by strategic uncertainty. Second, people are generally reluctant to identify themselves as a discriminator. In the project, I study TBS using novel economic experiments that circumvent these problems.
The project consists of three main objectives. First, I investigate whether and how preferences of European natives in social interactions depend on others’ ethnicity. Are natives as altruistic, reciprocal, envious to immigrants as compared to other natives? Second, I study whether natives have different fairness ideals—what constitutes a fair distribution of resources from the perspective of an impartial spectator—when it comes to natives than when it comes to non-natives. Third, I analyse whether preferences and fairness ideals depend on exposure to diversity: do preferences and fairness ideals of natives change as contact with non-natives increases, and, if so, how?
Max ERC Funding
1 499 046 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym EVICARE
Project Extracellular Vesicle-Inspired CArdiac Repair
Researcher (PI) Joseph Petrus Gerardus SLUIJTER
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM UTRECHT
Country Netherlands
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), LS7, ERC-2016-COG
Summary More than 3.5 million people are newly diagnosed with heart failure every year in Europe with a long-term prognosis of 50% mortality within 4 years. There is a major need for more innovative, regenerative therapies that have the potential to change the course of disease. My hypothesis is that we can recondition heart failure by stimulating cardiac repair with extracellular vesicles that are derived from progenitor cells. In my laboratory, extracellular released vesicles containing a cocktail of stimulating factors, are amongst the most potent vectors for cardiac repair.
To achieve a sustainable and long-term therapeutic effect of these vesicles and enhance cardiac function by stimulating myocardial repair, we will 1) improve local cardiac delivery of progenitor cell-derived extracellular vesicles, 2) understand the mechanism of action of extracellular vesicles, and 3) stimulate extracellular vesicles release and/or production by progenitor cells.
These questions form the rationale for the current proposal in which we will co-inject extracellular vesicles and slow-release biomaterials into the damaged myocardium. By subsequent genetic tracing, we will determine fate mapping of injected vesicles in vivo, and perform further mechanistic understanding in in vitro culture models of targeted and identified myocardial cell types. Moreover, we will upscale the vesicles production by progenitor cells further via bioreactor culturing and medium-throughput screening on factors that stimulate vesicles release.
The use of stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles to stimulate cardiac repair will potentially allow for an off-the shelf approach, including mechanistic understanding and future clinical use. Additionally, since these vesicles act as a natural carrier system outperforming current artificial drug delivery, we might understand and mimic their characteristics to enhance local (RNA-based) drug delivery systems for cardiovascular application.
Summary
More than 3.5 million people are newly diagnosed with heart failure every year in Europe with a long-term prognosis of 50% mortality within 4 years. There is a major need for more innovative, regenerative therapies that have the potential to change the course of disease. My hypothesis is that we can recondition heart failure by stimulating cardiac repair with extracellular vesicles that are derived from progenitor cells. In my laboratory, extracellular released vesicles containing a cocktail of stimulating factors, are amongst the most potent vectors for cardiac repair.
To achieve a sustainable and long-term therapeutic effect of these vesicles and enhance cardiac function by stimulating myocardial repair, we will 1) improve local cardiac delivery of progenitor cell-derived extracellular vesicles, 2) understand the mechanism of action of extracellular vesicles, and 3) stimulate extracellular vesicles release and/or production by progenitor cells.
These questions form the rationale for the current proposal in which we will co-inject extracellular vesicles and slow-release biomaterials into the damaged myocardium. By subsequent genetic tracing, we will determine fate mapping of injected vesicles in vivo, and perform further mechanistic understanding in in vitro culture models of targeted and identified myocardial cell types. Moreover, we will upscale the vesicles production by progenitor cells further via bioreactor culturing and medium-throughput screening on factors that stimulate vesicles release.
The use of stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles to stimulate cardiac repair will potentially allow for an off-the shelf approach, including mechanistic understanding and future clinical use. Additionally, since these vesicles act as a natural carrier system outperforming current artificial drug delivery, we might understand and mimic their characteristics to enhance local (RNA-based) drug delivery systems for cardiovascular application.
Max ERC Funding
1 997 298 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym FAIR LIMITS
Project Can Limitarianism Be Justified? A Philosophical Analysis of Limits on the Distribution of Economic and Ecological Resources
Researcher (PI) Ingrid Alfonsine M. ROBEYNS
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Country Netherlands
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary In contemporary normative political philosophy, questions of distributive justice have focused on meeting minimal needs of persons, prioritizing the worst-off and reducing inequalities. In philosophy, these views are called ‘sufficientarianism’, ‘prioritarianism’ and ‘egalitarianism’. The proposed project —Fair Limits— shifts the focus to ‘limitarianism’, the view that there should be upper limits on the distribution of valuable goods, and will investigate the plausibility of limitarianism in the area of economic and ecological resources. We will analyse whether such a view can be justified, that is, supported by robust philosophical argumentation, and what limitarian institutions could look like.
Fair Limits will confront basic assumptions commonly used in liberal political philosophy, including claims about what account of the quality of life our social institutions should protect, which goods are scarce, the insatiability of human wants, the status of ecosystem resources, and the nature of the economic system and its distributive consequences. An important way in which the project examines these assumptions is to study the relevant arguments of non-liberal philosophers. The critiques of non-liberal philosophers on the liberal paradigm, in which Fair Limits is situated, will be actively solicited and will become an integral part of this project.
Methodologically, Fair Limits will advance the state of the field by developing methods for applied or non-ideal political philosophy. This emerging paradigm asks not merely what the right normative principles are, but rather (1) what moral duties imply for political duties, (2) questions of transition (how we move to a less unjust world, and what role political philosophy should play in this process) and (3) who, in an unjust world, the agents of justice should be.
Summary
In contemporary normative political philosophy, questions of distributive justice have focused on meeting minimal needs of persons, prioritizing the worst-off and reducing inequalities. In philosophy, these views are called ‘sufficientarianism’, ‘prioritarianism’ and ‘egalitarianism’. The proposed project —Fair Limits— shifts the focus to ‘limitarianism’, the view that there should be upper limits on the distribution of valuable goods, and will investigate the plausibility of limitarianism in the area of economic and ecological resources. We will analyse whether such a view can be justified, that is, supported by robust philosophical argumentation, and what limitarian institutions could look like.
Fair Limits will confront basic assumptions commonly used in liberal political philosophy, including claims about what account of the quality of life our social institutions should protect, which goods are scarce, the insatiability of human wants, the status of ecosystem resources, and the nature of the economic system and its distributive consequences. An important way in which the project examines these assumptions is to study the relevant arguments of non-liberal philosophers. The critiques of non-liberal philosophers on the liberal paradigm, in which Fair Limits is situated, will be actively solicited and will become an integral part of this project.
Methodologically, Fair Limits will advance the state of the field by developing methods for applied or non-ideal political philosophy. This emerging paradigm asks not merely what the right normative principles are, but rather (1) what moral duties imply for political duties, (2) questions of transition (how we move to a less unjust world, and what role political philosophy should play in this process) and (3) who, in an unjust world, the agents of justice should be.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-07-01, End date: 2022-06-30
Project acronym FluCoMa
Project Fluid Corpus Manipulation: Creative Research in Musical Mining of Large Sound/Gesture Datasets through Foundational Access to the Latest Advances of Signal Decomposition.
Researcher (PI) Pierre Alexandre Tremblay
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The FluCoMA project instigates new musical ways of exploiting ever-growing banks of sound and gestures within the digital composition process by bringing breakthroughs of signal decomposition DSP to the toolset of techno-fluent computer composers for the first time.
Cutting-edge musical composition has always been dependent on, critical and subversive of the latest advances of technology. Unfortunately, there is a contemporary challenge inherent to aesthetic research in computer composition: an ever-expanding gap between DSP advances and their availability to musical investigators.
One such advance is signal decomposition: a sound can now be separated into its transient, pitched, and residual constituents. These potent algorithms are partially available in closed software, or in laboratories, but not at a suitable level of modularity within the coding environments used by the creative researchers (Max and SuperCollider) to allow groundbreaking sonic research into a rich unexploited area: the manipulation of large sound corpora. Indeed, with access to, genesis of, and storage of large sound banks now commonplace, novel ways of abstracting and manipulating them are needed to mine their inherent potential.
FluCoMa proposes to tackle this issue by bridging this gap, empowering techno-fluent aesthetic researchers with a toolset for signal decomposition within their mastered software environments, in order to experiment with new sound and gesture design untapped in large corpora. The three degrees of manipulations to be explored are (1) expressive browsing and descriptor-based taxonomy, (2) remixing, component replacement, and hybridisation by concatenation, and (3) pattern recognition at component level, with interpolating and variation making potential. These novel manipulations will yield new sounds, new musical ideas, and new approaches to large corpora. At present, no library exists allowing such cutting-edge research on creative fluid corpus manipulations to be done
Summary
The FluCoMA project instigates new musical ways of exploiting ever-growing banks of sound and gestures within the digital composition process by bringing breakthroughs of signal decomposition DSP to the toolset of techno-fluent computer composers for the first time.
Cutting-edge musical composition has always been dependent on, critical and subversive of the latest advances of technology. Unfortunately, there is a contemporary challenge inherent to aesthetic research in computer composition: an ever-expanding gap between DSP advances and their availability to musical investigators.
One such advance is signal decomposition: a sound can now be separated into its transient, pitched, and residual constituents. These potent algorithms are partially available in closed software, or in laboratories, but not at a suitable level of modularity within the coding environments used by the creative researchers (Max and SuperCollider) to allow groundbreaking sonic research into a rich unexploited area: the manipulation of large sound corpora. Indeed, with access to, genesis of, and storage of large sound banks now commonplace, novel ways of abstracting and manipulating them are needed to mine their inherent potential.
FluCoMa proposes to tackle this issue by bridging this gap, empowering techno-fluent aesthetic researchers with a toolset for signal decomposition within their mastered software environments, in order to experiment with new sound and gesture design untapped in large corpora. The three degrees of manipulations to be explored are (1) expressive browsing and descriptor-based taxonomy, (2) remixing, component replacement, and hybridisation by concatenation, and (3) pattern recognition at component level, with interpolating and variation making potential. These novel manipulations will yield new sounds, new musical ideas, and new approaches to large corpora. At present, no library exists allowing such cutting-edge research on creative fluid corpus manipulations to be done
Max ERC Funding
1 997 431 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym FOOD CITIZENS
Project Food citizens? Collective food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale
Researcher (PI) Cristina GRASSENI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Country Netherlands
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Considerable attention goes to ‘smart’ urban food procurement, with little notice of the cultural diversity within Europe. For a growing urban population (80% by 2050), food is a mediator of relations within social networks, not only a commodity or nutrient. Eaters are not just consumers but social actors whose meaning-making depend on faith, gender, age, income, or kinship. How we procure and share food is thus central to cultural understandings of citizenship: the project studies in-depth nine cases of collective food procurement across three European cities, asking if collective food procurement networks indicate emerging forms of ‘food citizenship’, or if they concomitantly co-produce hegemonic notions of participation and belonging – and either way, how.
Challenging stereotypical imaginaries of European urbanites, multilevel comparison in Rotterdam, Turin and Gdańsk will investigate three types of collective food procurement networks (a. urban foraging; b. short food chains; c. local food governance) in post-industrial cities, considering the dimensions of solidarity, diversity, skill and scale of action.
Ethnographically, we investigate how collective food procurement networks engage with and through food: how do they interpret and articulate solidarity? Which skills do they acquire or lack? How do they operate across and within diverse communities? Do they scale ‘up’ or ‘out’, and how?
Conceptually, we deliver a critical theory of food citizenship, adding a ‘meso’ level of sociocultural analysis to food scenarios, which mostly focus on the ‘macro’ (food systems) or ‘micro’ (individual deliberations and habituated reflexes) scale.
Methodologically, we match in-depth fieldwork observation with participants’ narratives, using pioneering digital visual media to deliver collaborative and immersive ‘thick descriptions’ of their experiences and trajectories.
Societal and local government stakeholders have granted access and will benefit from comparative insights.
Summary
Considerable attention goes to ‘smart’ urban food procurement, with little notice of the cultural diversity within Europe. For a growing urban population (80% by 2050), food is a mediator of relations within social networks, not only a commodity or nutrient. Eaters are not just consumers but social actors whose meaning-making depend on faith, gender, age, income, or kinship. How we procure and share food is thus central to cultural understandings of citizenship: the project studies in-depth nine cases of collective food procurement across three European cities, asking if collective food procurement networks indicate emerging forms of ‘food citizenship’, or if they concomitantly co-produce hegemonic notions of participation and belonging – and either way, how.
Challenging stereotypical imaginaries of European urbanites, multilevel comparison in Rotterdam, Turin and Gdańsk will investigate three types of collective food procurement networks (a. urban foraging; b. short food chains; c. local food governance) in post-industrial cities, considering the dimensions of solidarity, diversity, skill and scale of action.
Ethnographically, we investigate how collective food procurement networks engage with and through food: how do they interpret and articulate solidarity? Which skills do they acquire or lack? How do they operate across and within diverse communities? Do they scale ‘up’ or ‘out’, and how?
Conceptually, we deliver a critical theory of food citizenship, adding a ‘meso’ level of sociocultural analysis to food scenarios, which mostly focus on the ‘macro’ (food systems) or ‘micro’ (individual deliberations and habituated reflexes) scale.
Methodologically, we match in-depth fieldwork observation with participants’ narratives, using pioneering digital visual media to deliver collaborative and immersive ‘thick descriptions’ of their experiences and trajectories.
Societal and local government stakeholders have granted access and will benefit from comparative insights.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 761 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
