On critical approaches, unintended consequences and the data of everyday life in ‘performing towns’

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Fleisher
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Way

I welcome Axel Christophersen's effort to offer a new approach to the study of Scandinavian medieval urban communities, and his outline of an ‘urban archaeology of social practice’. His presentation of a theoretical framework and language offers many insights as to how archaeologists can analyse the way people constructed their social lives through practice. It is exciting to see studies that grapple with the complexities of everyday life in urban settings. This article makes a significant contribution in its explicit approach to a theory of practice that archaeologists can use to explore and describe social change. Christophersen draws heavily on the work of Shove, Pantzar and Watson as detailed in their 2012 bookThe dynamics of social practice. Everyday life and how it changes; I was unfamiliar with this work until reading this essay and I am impressed with the way this framework offers a language and a concrete approach to understanding how practices emerge, evolve and disappear. My goal here is not to revisit the details of this argument, but rather to push on some select issues raised in the paper. I first discuss the way that Christophersen frames his arguments against a processual archaeological approach, suggesting that his effort to provide an alternative might be unintentionally minimizing a more critical approach to everyday life. Next, I discuss the role and place of unintended consequences in Christophersen's argument. And finally I examine the way that Christophersen's approach might be more fully operationalized with data, providing some examples from my own work in eastern Africa.

scholarly journals Investigating the Dark Side of Stories of “Good” Leadership: A Discursive Approach to Leadership Gurus’ Storytelling

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Clifton
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Ontological Shift ◽  
Empty Signifier ◽  
Discursive Approach ◽  
The Way

Since the quest for locating an agreed upon prediscursive phenomenon behind the word “leadership” has proved fruitless, some researchers have suggested that leadership is an empty signifier to which many meanings can be attached. Taking this ontological shift seriously, rather than trying to locate leadership as a “thing” that is out there somewhere, it is perhaps better to investigate how meanings of leadership are constructed as in situ social practice. Adopting a discursive approach to leadership and using transcripts of a celebrity interview with management gurus Jack and Suzy Welch, this article analyses the stories they tell in which they provide normative accounts of what good leadership should be. Rather than taking these stories at face value, this article investigates both the way in which these stories are told as in situ social practice and the Discourses of leadership that are used as resources for storytelling and which are (re)produced in the storytelling. Findings indicate that while Jack and Suzy Welch do morally accountable identity work that presents leadership as heroic and positive, these stories also hide a darker side of leadership that is revealed in the analyses of wider societal Discourses that are invoked. The article closes with a call for a more critical approach to stories of leadership.

scholarly journals Urbanity as social practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Axel Christophersen
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Development Potential ◽  
Individual Feedback

I would like to thank the commenters for spending their time on critical and constructive responses to my paper ‘Performing towns’. The comments add valuable insights, knowledge, viewpoints and ideas, which significantly elucidate the possibilities as well as the limitations of approaching medieval urban communities from a social-practice theoretical perspective (SPT). The commenters have pointed at theoretical questions too superficially treated, the need for a more extensive knowledge base and, most importantly, the need for a broader discussion of the methodological and empirical consequences of an SPT approach in analysing everyday life in a Scandinavian urban community based on archaeological empirical data. Rather than giving individual feedback, I instead centre my reply around four topics that the commenters have raised and which relate closely to the paper's paramount issue and development potential.

Make Love at War? Representing Gender and Memory in the Soviet Estonian Film Dark Windows (Pimedad aknad, Tõnis Kask, 1968)

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-37
Author(s):  
Liis Jõhvik
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
The One ◽  
Falling In Love ◽  
The Way

Abstract Initially produced in 1968 as a three-part TV miniseries, and restored and re-edited in 2008 as a feature-length film, Dark Windows (Pimedad aknad, Tõnis Kask, Estonia) explores interpersonal relations and everyday life in September 1944, during the last days of Estonia’s occupation by Nazi Germany. The story focuses on two young women and the struggles they face in making moral choices and falling in love with righteous men. The one who slips up and falls in love with a Nazi is condemned and made to feel responsible for the national decay. This article explores how the category of gender becomes a marker in the way the film reconstructs and reconstitutes the images of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The article also discusses the re-appropriation process and analyses how re-editing relates to remembering of not only the filmmaking process and the wartime occupation, but also the Estonian women and how the ones who ‘slipped up’ are later reintegrated into the national narrative. Ultimately, the article seeks to understand how this film from the Soviet era is remembered as it becomes a part of Estonian national filmography.

Reflections on the Freedman School

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gow
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers Freedman’s contribution to scholarship and the nascent elements of a school of thought relevant to both academic and policy realms, as well as introducing a more skeptical and critical approach to the subject’s scholarship. It considers Freedman’s engagement with the policy world and why this has managed to be both extensive and successful, as well as its outcomes. It also introduces discussion of possible challenges to Freedman’s work, presenting a balancing perspective to positive appreciations of his oeuvre. The chapter concludes by indicating the weaknesses of such challenges and reaffirms the sense of a school of thought informed by a distinctive approach. This is the blend of scripturalism and constructivism, on one side, with realism, on the other, that is the hallmark of the nascent school, and the way in which it is germane in both academic and policy domains.

scholarly journals Rethinking GPS navigation: creating cognitive maps through auditory clues

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory D. Clemenson ◽  
Antonella Maselli ◽  
Alexander J. Fiannaca ◽  
Amos Miller ◽  
Mar Gonzalez-Franco
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Brain Aging ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Cognitive Maps ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Space Technology ◽  
Gps Navigation ◽  
Spatial Understanding ◽  
The Way

AbstractGPS navigation is commonplace in everyday life. While it has the capacity to make our lives easier, it is often used to automate functions that were once exclusively performed by our brain. Staying mentally active is key to healthy brain aging. Therefore, is GPS navigation causing more harm than good? Here we demonstrate that traditional turn-by-turn navigation promotes passive spatial navigation and ultimately, poor spatial learning of the surrounding environment. We propose an alternative form of GPS navigation based on sensory augmentation, that has the potential to fundamentally alter the way we navigate with GPS. By implementing a 3D spatial audio system similar to an auditory compass, users are directed towards their destination without explicit directions. Rather than being led passively through verbal directions, users are encouraged to take an active role in their own spatial navigation, leading to more accurate cognitive maps of space. Technology will always play a significant role in everyday life; however, it is important that we actively engage with the world around us. By simply rethinking the way we interact with GPS navigation, we can engage users in their own spatial navigation, leading to a better spatial understanding of the explored environment.

From compassion to distance: Hannah Höch’s ‘Mother’

2021 ◽  
pp. 135050682110289
Author(s):  
Andrea Pérez-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Abortion Rights ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Way

This article addresses the work of the German artist Hannah Höch in the light of the struggle for abortion rights in the Weimar Republic. I attempt to show how Höch’s uses of the technique of photomontage can be read as a way of introducing a distance between the work and the viewer that allows us to question the beliefs we use to make sense of the world. Specifically, I discuss her photomontage Mutter (‘Mother’), a version of a photograph taken by John Heartfield, and some of her writings and interviews. I also examine closely the material conditions and political debates in which Höch’s work – as a social practice – developed. After a brief introduction and a methodological outline, I present Höch in the context of Berlin Dada and summarise the main underlying arguments of my hypothesis. Namely, that the major interest of Höch’s photomontages lies in the complex articulation of activism and philosophy, and in the way in which they put mainstream categories into question by ‘distancing’ fragments of reality.

Ladakh and the Creative Greening of the Desert: The Life Work of Sonam Wangchuk and Rebecca Norman Through Alternative Practices in Education and Farming

2021 ◽  
pp. 239386172110146
Author(s):  
Susan Visvanathan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Alternative Education ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Water Harvesting ◽  
Cold Desert ◽  
Alternative Practices ◽  
Life Work ◽  
The Way

This article attempts to understand the way in which climate change affects the once dry cold desert of Ladakh and how local communities have adapted to these changes by becoming excellent organic gardeners. The contributions of Sonam Wangchuk and his work with regard to water harvesting and alternative education have been recognised by the Ramon Magsaysay Committee for 2018. This will propel Sonam to complete his life mission, which is the construction of a whole new township in Phey, to relieve Leh of the overload it now experiences. The article provides a background to the work of Sonam and his wife Rebecca Norman in the details of everyday life and work, which they bring to their school, SECMOL.

“Down-to-Earth TV dramas”: The reception of authenticity, reality, and modality in Danish TV dramas

2021 ◽  
pp. 174960202110463
Author(s):  
Yeşim Kaptan
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Television Viewing ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
The Way

This article investigates how Turkish audiences conceptualize authenticity in their engagement with foreign television (TV) productions in the case of Danish TV dramas. The theoretical notion of authenticity is juxtaposed with empirical material from fieldwork interactions, focus group interviews, and one-on-one interviews conducted with Turkish audiences between 2016 and 2018. By employing a semiotic analysis of fieldwork data, I argue that Turkish audiences attribute authenticity to the Danish TV drama series according to a socially created modality (truth value of a sign). This article draws on accounts about modality markers in TV drama series such as authentic portrayals of Danish TV characters and plausible-realistic depictions as a verisimilitudinous representation of everyday life. In the context of cross-cultural television viewing practices, the way Turkish audiences attribute meaning to Danish TV series in terms of authenticity, realism, and modality reveals a distinct differentiation between Danish TV dramas and other nationally and globally circulating media products.

Social Class, Consumption and the Influence of Bourdieu: Some Critical Issues

1997 ◽  
Vol 44 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 274-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Longhurst ◽  
Mike Savage
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Occupational Groups ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Way

Bourdieu's work has been an important point of departure for recent analyses of the relationship between social class and consumption practices. This chapter takes stock of Bourdieu's influence and explores some problems which have become apparent—often in spite of Bourdieu's own hopes and general views. We point to the way that Bourdieu's influence has led to an approach to consumption which focuses on the consumption practices of specific occupational classes and on examining variations in consumption practice between such occupational groups. We argue that it this approach has a series of problems and suggest the need to broaden analyses of consumption to consider issues of ‘everyday life’, sociation, and social networks.

scholarly journals Communication features in online and offline spaces.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-112
Author(s):  
Anrieta A. Karapetyan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Nonverbal Communication ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Cultural Components

No other media has become so popular in such a short period of time as online, which mainly serves for the purpose of communication. Online communications have the potential to fundamentally change the character of our social lives on all levels of social interactions. This article represents an attempt of discussing pros and cons of the online communication compared to the offline ones, and including functional as well as cultural components such as habits, usefulness, as well as specific cases affecting the gradual and immediate shift from the offline to the online communication (like COVID19 pandemic). Online communication spaces provide ample opportunities for selfrepresentation, convenience and compliance, easy connectivity from every place in the world, it is time-consuming and costly. It is widely used in all areas of everyday life. At the same time participants of online communication need nonverbal communication and those all-important social signals, which make communication more efficient. Despite the number of advantages, online communication still cannot completely replace the offline ones.

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