Lawrence B. Breitborde, Speaking and social identity: English in the lives of urban Africans. (Studies in anthropological linguistics, 11.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998. Pp. xii, 227. Hb DM 198.00.

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-138
Author(s):  
Jan Bernsten
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Anthropological Linguistics ◽  
Language Choices ◽  
Good Morning ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

In the introduction to this book, the reader follows Wilson Nyanforth, a 35-year-old Kru civil servant, through his morning in New Krutown, Monrovia, Liberia. As Nyanforth travels to work, he uses Kru and English separately and in combination, his language choices varying with the setting and the participants in the encounter. His greeting to his boss is an example: “Good morning Honorable Tarpeh, na kl[backwards c]ba (my chief)!” Breitborde's monograph on language choices of Kru-speaking inhabitants of New Krutown has many such specific case studies of language in use: these illustrate his claims and make the book accessible to readers. But his goal is to do more than provide descriptive case studies. He writes: “I ask how the choices urban Kru persons make to speak English embody certain aspects of contemporary social relations and cultural values, not simply within the community of speakers but also linking them to the Liberian national polity. In this sense, then, I attempt to integrate both the (societal) macrolevel and the (individual) microlevel in the exploration of the social meaning of English”.

‘It ain’t nothing like America with the Bloods and the Crips’: Gang narratives inside two English prisons

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coretta Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Male Prisoners

This article explores recent concerns about the emergence of gangs in prisons in England and Wales. Using narrative interviews with male prisoners as part of an ethnographic study of ethnicity and social relations, the social meaning of ‘the gang’ inside prison is interrogated. A formally organized gang presence was categorically denied by prisoners. However, the term ‘gang’ was sometimes elided with loose collectives of prisoners who find mutual support in prison based on a neighbourhood territorial identification. Gangs were also discussed as racialized groups, most often symbolized in the motif of the ‘Muslim gang’. This racializing discourse hinted at an envy of prisoner solidarity and cohesion which upsets the idea of a universal prisoner identity. The broader conceptual, empirical and political implications of these findings are considered.

The Politics of Debt and Europe's Relations with the 'South'

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
The South ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Past Injustice ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Individual ◽  
North And South

While debt has the capacity to sustain social relations by joining together the two parties of a debt relation, it also contains the risk of deteriorating into domination and bargaining. Throughout history, different understandings of debt have therefore gravitated between reciprocity and domination, making it a key concept for understanding the dynamics of both social cohesion and fragmentation. The book considers the social, spatial and temporal meanings of this ambiguity and relates them to contemporary debates over debts between North and South in Europe, which in turn are embedded in a longer global history of North-South relations. The individual chapters discuss how debts incurred in the past are mobilised in political debates in the present. This dynamic is highlighted with regard to regional and global North-South relations. An essential feature in debates on this topic is the difficult question of retribution and possible ways of “paying” – a term that is etymologically connected to “pacification” – for past injustice. Against this backdrop, the book combines a discussion of the multi-layered European and global North-South divide with an effort to retrieve alternatives to the dominant and divisive uses of debt for staking out claims against someone or something. Discovering new and forgotten ways of thinking about debt and North-South relations, the chapters are divided into four sections that focus on 1) debt and social theory, 2) Greece and Germany as Europe’s South and North, 3) the ‘South’ between the local, the regional and the global, and 4) debt and the politics of history.

Reflections on the social epidemiologic dimension of health technology assessment

2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arminée Kazanjian
Keyword(s):  
Health Technology Assessment ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Technology Assessment ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Health Technology ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Published Evidence ◽  
The Social

Certain key parameters such as safety, efficacy, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness have long been established as key in HTA analysis. Equally important, however, are sociolegal and epidemiologic perspectives. A comprehensive analytic framework will consider the implications of using a technology in the context of societal norms, cultural values, and social institutions and relations. The methodology in which this expanded framework has been developed is termed ‘Strategic HTA’ to denote its power for the decision-making process. In addition to systematic reviews of published evidence, it incorporates analyses of the influence of dominant social relations on technological development and diffusion. This essay discusses the social epidemiologic aspects of health technology assessment, which includes factors such as sex and gender. It seeks to show how it is possible to bring data from wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives within the parameters of a single scientific inquiry; to draw from them scientifically defensible conclusions; and thereby to realize a deeper understanding of technology impact within a health care system. Armed with such an understanding, policy officials will be better prepared to resolve the competitive clamor of stakeholder voices, and to make the most “equitable” use of the available resources.

The Individual's Perceived Environment as an Antecedent of Academic Entrepreneurship: Multiple Case Studies of Thai University Researchers

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (01) ◽  
pp. 57-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sutti Sooampon ◽  
Barbara Igel
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Academic Entrepreneurship ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Perceived Environment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University ◽  
Depth Interviews

This study investigates the individual researcher's perceived environment as a pre-condition of entrepreneurship within the university. Our objective is to identify the micro-level antecedents that shape a university researcher's decision about whether to embark on an entrepreneurial venture. We conducted a series of both entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial case studies through in-depth interviews with six university researchers. The comparative case data generated inclusive descriptions of the social conditions surrounding the researchers and their individual characteristics as criteria for explaining their decisions on whether to become entrepreneurs. Our findings add to the macro-perspectives typically discussed, and advance knowledge of the entrepreneurial university by incorporating the individual's perceived environment as a micro-level condition for academic entrepreneurship. Drawing on the context of Thailand's emerging economy, in which social inequality exists alongside growth, our findings shed light on the university researcher's entrepreneurial role as a leader for social change through the commercialisation of science and technology research.

scholarly journals Marxist psychology: a research paradigm whose time has come

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Elhammoumi
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Creative Force ◽  
Psychological Functions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

This paper seeks to retrieve Marx's ideas about the development of psychology. It offers historical perspectives on different attempts to create a Marxist psychology that shed light on its scope and trajectory. According to Marx, concrete social and material real life play a key role in the development of human psychological functions. Later, Vygotsky, Wallon, Politzer, Leontiev, Luria, Sève among others built on Marx's ideas. These psychologists suggested that individual psychological functions are formed and shaped in concrete, cultural, social, historical circumstances, and pictured an organizing, creative force driving individual activity (instead of behavior). Marxist psychology is the study of the social individual within social relations of production. In a Marxist sense, the emphasis is placed on production, both material and social as the essence of social relations. Hence, psychology cannot be dealt with in an abstract, private and individual manner as the capitalist mode of production would want, but must be seen in terms of the social individual that is formed, structured, and shaped within the social relations of a production framework. In this context, the social production of the individual (as developed in Marx's Die Grundrisse) signifies social relations between people connected with concrete common real social conditions and material production. Production, both social and material, is the totality of social relations. In the process of production, social individuals act not only upon nature but also upon one another, they enter into a definite rich web of connections and relations to one another. Marx's writings encompassed the fields of psychology and made a substantial contribution to the stock of knowledge about human nature processes. Marx never wrote a full-length treatise on psychology, though his own work is the outstanding example of psychological conceptualizations. This paper stresses the decisive relevance of Marx's psychological conceptions for a paradigm shift whose time has come.

The Social History of confession in the Age of the Reformation

1975 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bossy
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual

When I offered to read a paper on this subject, I had a particular hypothesis in mind. I thought—perhaps it would be more honest to say, I hoped—it would be possible to show that, during a period roughly contemporaneous with the Reformation, the practice of the sacrament of penance in the traditional church had undergone a change which was important in itself and of general historical interest. The change, I thought, could roughly be described as a shift from the social to the personal. To be more precise, I thought it possible that, for the average layman, and notably for the average rural layman in the pre-reformation church, the emphasis of the sacrament lay in its providing part of a machinery for the regulation and resolution of offences and conflicts otherwise likely to disturb the peace of a community. The effect of the Counter-Reformation (or whatever one calls it) was, I suspected, to shift the emphasis away from the field of objective social relations and into a field of interiorized discipline for the individual. The hypothesis may be thought an arbitrary one: we can but see. I think it will be admitted that, supposing it turned out to be correct, we should have learnt something worth knowing about the difference between the medieval and the counter-reformation church, and something about the difference between pre- and post-reformation European society. If if did not turn out to be correct, we might nevertheless expect to pick up some useful knowledge about something which is scarcely a staple of current historical discourse, though it threatens to become so.

scholarly journals Standardized Methods of Assessment of Individual’s Social Network in Social Work and Psychological Practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Basic Information ◽  
Psychological Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Function ◽  
Theoretical Overview

This article is a theoretical overview of the main standardized techniques for assessment of the social relations of the individual. The study of these techniques allows professionals to get the basic information about the microsocial environment of people. Theoretical analysis shows that the study of the social network of an individual involves the analysis of its structure, composition and function of its components. Described and analyzed the most common techniques for assessment of human social networks - "Name generator", "Drawing a social network", "Inventory of Social Network" (K. Bartholomew), "Social Networks Inventory " (Treadwell T. and co.), "Social Network Index "( L. Berkman, S. Syme), "Social Network List" (B. Hirsch, J. Stokes). Separately, the method of drawing up clients structured diary and method network card are shown.

scholarly journals UNDERSTANDING STIGMA – THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL APPROACHES

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1529-1535
Author(s):  
Rumiana Budjeva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
People Living With Hiv ◽  
Stigma And Discrimination ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Living With Hiv ◽  
Hiv Aids

Stigma is a powerful tool for social control. It can be used to differentiate, exclude or exert pressure on certain individuals or groups of people who have certain characteristics. Stigma does great harm to both the individual and society as a whole. The main objective of stigma is to maintain visible the negative qualities of the individual in order to place them in a disadvantaged position and lasting social and psychological isolation. However, stigma goes beyond the level of the individual and becomes a social problem when it affects wider categories of people. The main purpose of the report is to seek adequate scientific approaches and methods to understanding and study of the phenomenon social stigma. Stigmatized people are often subject to rejection and social exclusion. In its extreme forms stigma turns into discrimination which directly violates their civil and human rights. Stigma and discrimination, seen as violations of fundamental human rights, can occur at different levels: political, economic, social, psychological and institutional. As social processes through which social control is created and maintained, generating, legitimizing and reproducing social inequality, stigma and discrimination are at the heart of the vicious circle in which some groups of people are underestimated and others feel superior and untouchable. To illustrate the process of stigmatization, we will use the example of people living with HIV / AIDS. Theory of stigmatization plays an important explanatory role in the experience of a comprehensive understanding of the social relations of phenomena such as HIV / AIDS. The deep understanding of the mechanisms by which stigma and discriminatory attitudes affect the overall life of people living with HIV / AIDS will help us not only to treat adequate them, but to form a workable and effective action against the spread of the disease. From the moment when scientists are confronted with HIV and AIDS, the social response to fear, denial, stigma and discrimination has accompanied the epidemic. It can be said that HIV and AIDS are more of a social phenomenon than a pure biological or medical problem. It leads to an unfounded sense of shame and guilt and a sense of futility. Stigma incites depression and despair, causes lack of self-esteem. It pushes people to mental and social isolation and deprives them of support and care, increasing their vulnerability. In this way, stigma exacerbates the negative impact of the disease and increases the risk of its spread.

scholarly journals Getting the most out of family data with the R package fSRM

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Stas ◽  
Felix D. Schönbrodt ◽  
Tom Loeys
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
R Package ◽  
Family Data ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Different Levels

Family research aims to explore family processes, but is often limited to the examination of unidirectional processes. As the behavior of one person has consequences that go beyond that one individual, Family functioning should be investigated in its full complexity. The Social Relations Model (SRM; Kenny & La Voie, 1984) is a conceptual and analytical model which can disentangle family data from a round-robin design at three different levels: the individual level (actor and partner effects), the dyadic level (relationship effects) and the family level (family effect). Its statistical complexity may however be a hurdle for family researchers. The user-friendly R package fSRM performs almost automatically those rather complex SRM analyses and introduces new possibilities for assessing differences between SRM-means and between SRM-variances, both within and between groups of families. Using family data on negative processes, different type of research questions are formulated and corresponding analyses with fSRM are presented.

scholarly journals SOCIOCULTURAL DETERMINANT OF THE SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE PHENOMENON

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
Yuriі Boreiko
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Symbolic Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual

The article analyzes the sociocultural basis of constituting the symbolic space, the content of the symbolic violence phenomenon, the cultural and symbolic potential of the toponymics objects. It is established that practices of symbolic violence consist in constructing a system of subjective coordinates by imposing rules, senses, meanings, values that become self-evident. Symbolic space encompasses the collective consciousness of the socio-cultural community and has the ability to form a system of subjective coordinates where the individual's life activity unfolds. The intelligibility of symbolic space is conventionally established, which is provided by the process of socialization. Pursuing the goal of domination, hegemony, coercion, symbolic violence moves the real confrontation into a symbolic environment, directing the influence on the mental structures of the social subject. Giving to senses and meanings a legitimate character is a way to explain and substantiate social relations, their cognitive and normative interpretation. Accumulating the experience of community coexistence throughout its history, habitus is a set of dispositions that motivate an individual to a certain reaction or behavior. Habitus, which generates and structures practices, combines the individual tendency of the actor to act adequately to the situation, the interaction of actors in the community, and the interaction of the community and each of its members with reality. As a historically changing phenomenon, habitus determines the nature of interactions between individuals whose communication skills are consistent with the functioning of social institutions. An important component of the symbolic space and part of the cultural and historical discourse are the objects of toponymics, which explains the constant ideological and political interest in this segment of socio-cultural life. Objects of toponymics act as a marker of ordering social space, a tool for including the subject in socio-spatial landscapes. The renaming of toponyms demonstrates the connection between the social conditions in which it takes place and the reaction of the social relations entity to changes in the toponymic space.

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