‘The changes and chances of this mortal life’: aspects of ageing in the fiction of Stanley Middleton

2001 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 721-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
MIKE HEPWORTH

Sociological research shows that individuals attempt to make sense of the meaning of the ageing process in the course of conversations with other people. The social construction of ageing is therefore an interactive process during which ideas and beliefs about ageing are negotiated and exchanged. Novels are a rich and easily accessible source of data on the social construction of the meaning of ageing during the course of social interaction and this paper explores the imaginative contribution of the English novelist Stanley Middleton to our awareness of these subtle processes. It is suggested that Middleton's fiction provides a particularly rewarding example of the contribution of the novelist to our understanding of the origins of the experience of growing older as a product of social interaction.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (20) ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Christiane Monteiro Machado ◽  
Jorge Pedro Sousa

Ageing, more than a demographic phenomenon (a consolidated process in Europe, still a recent one in Brazil), is a social construction influenced by the media. Advertising, which simultaneously reflects and contributes to the construction of social values, uses stereotypes as a tool for creating easily identifiable characters. This study aims at identifying aspects explored by advertising messages using stereotypes to portray older people. The sample consists of nineteen pieces selected from more than 4,500 posts on Facebook and Youtube by the ten companies with the largest advertising spending in Brazil from July 2017 to June 2018. Among the 104 pieces that feature elderly people, nineteen did use stereotypes. In twelve of them, positive stereotypes, always related to longlife accumulated experience, while seven included negative traits, such as elderly people losing touch with reality, having difficulties with technology, poor social interaction, physical impairements, or old-fashioned clothing. Negative stereotyping reflects an outdated perspective of the ageing process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-305
Author(s):  
Sidra Jamil ◽  
Naeem Ahmed ◽  
Sibghat U. Bajwa ◽  
Nazar Hussain

South Punjab, the land of Sufi saints, and epitome of peace and love has transformed into the fulcra of militancy in last two decades. The current study draws the connection between society (social-organisation) and social interaction with the construction of individual’s perceptions and behaviours. The study also underscores the flaws lie in the social composition of society of South Punjab that contributes to the construction of violent perceptions and behaviours, and trigger individuals to join militant wings. The research was conducted in Multan- a district of South Punjab.  The qualitative methods: ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews are used in this research. Purpose sampling is used to select sample population encompassing people from diverse social backgrounds. The findings of the research unfold those prime social institutions including religion, education, economic and government are mal-functioning, due to which region became heartland of militancy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (04) ◽  
pp. 1062-1068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Omi ◽  
Howard Winant

Osagie K. Obasogie's Blinded by Sight: Seeing Race through the Eyes of the Blind (2014) makes important contributions to both to the sociology of law and to critical race studies. The book challenges “colorblind” racial ideology by showing empirically that people who are blind from birth nevertheless “see” race, grasping it as a nearly omnipresent feature of social interaction and social organization. These insights, however, do not diminish the importance of the racial body. Beyond refuting colorblindness, Obasogie's book points to a neverending tension, embedded in what we call racial formation, between the social construction of race and the corporeality of race. This tension has been present since the dawn of empire and African slavery. Obasogie's achievement of falsifying colorblindness should not lead us to neglect the importance of the racial body.


1992 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 1186-1186
Author(s):  
Garth J. O. Fletcher

2010 ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
M.-F. Garcia

The article examines social conditions and mechanisms of the emergence in 1982 of a «Dutch» strawberry auction in Fontaines-en-Sologne, France. Empirical study of this case shows that perfect market does not arise per se due to an «invisible hand». It is a social construction, which could only be put into effect by a hard struggle between stakeholders and large investments of different forms of capital. Ordinary practices of the market dont differ from the predictions of economic theory, which is explained by the fact that economic theory served as a frame of reference for the designers of the auction. Technological and spatial organization as well as principal rules of trade was elaborated in line with economic views of perfect market resulting in the correspondence between theory and reality.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document