What Makes Modernity Late?

There is a deep, if invisible conflict between our consumer culture and our democratic ideals. It is the result of social processes that, in the last half century, have profoundly transformed how we live and who we are. This paper explores the underpinnings of the condition that many identify as ‘late’ or ‘post’ modernity. Rather than focusing on the intellectual transformations wrought by the Enlightenment, it takes up Charles Taylor’s dialectical account of the relation between the social developments of modernity and changes in social understandings. It then considers the nature and import of our contemporary practices and conditions, their relation to the ‘postmodern’, and their implications both at home and abroad for the ability to sustain meaningful democracies under conditions of globalisation.

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The social construction of stay-at-home fathering across everyday spaces.

Qualitative Psychology ◽

10.1037/qup0000175 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 185-205

Author(s):

Heidi Mattila

Keyword(s):

Social Construction ◽

The Social ◽

At Home

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Sustainable Illegality: Gagauz Women in Istanbul

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v8i1.150 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 17-25 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bayram Unal

Keyword(s):

Police Officers ◽

Ethnic Origin ◽

Social Processes ◽

Survival Strategies ◽

Preferential Treatment ◽

National Group ◽

Turkish Migrants ◽

Illegal Migrants ◽

Sociological Inquiry ◽

The Social

This study deals with survival strategies of illegal migrants in Turkey. It aims to provide an explanation for the efforts to keep illegality sustainable for one specific ethnic/national group—that is, the Gagauz of Moldova, who are of Turkish ethnic origin. In order to explicate the advantages of Turkish ethnic origin, I will focus on their preferential treatment at state-law level and in terms of the implementation of the law by police officers. In a remarkable way, the juridical framework has introduced legal ways of dealing with the illegality of ethnically Turkish migrants. From the viewpoint of migration, the presence of strategic tools of illegality forces us to ask not so much law-related questions, but to turn to a sociological inquiry of how and why they overstay their visas. Therefore, this study concludes that it is the social processes behind their illegality, rather than its form, that is more important for our understanding of the migrants’ survival strategies in destination countries.

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Silence and Sound in Black Girl Utopia

Departures in Critical Qualitative Research ◽

10.1525/dcqr.2017.6.3.90 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 90-97

Author(s):

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Keyword(s):

Social Structure ◽

Black Girl ◽

The Social ◽

Mind And Body ◽

Definition Of ◽

Tone Deaf ◽

At Home

Ladeedah is an audio novella that takes place in a Black utopic space after “the improvised revolution.” Ladeedah is a tone-deaf, rhythm-lacking Black girl in a world where everyone dances and sings at all times. What is Ladeedah's destiny as a quiet, clumsy genius in a society where movement and sound are the basis of the social structure and the definition of freedom? This excerpt from Ladeedah focuses on Ladeedah's attempts to understand the meaning of revolution from her own perspectives—at home, at school, and in her own mind and body.

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Betwixt and Between

10.1093/oso/9780198810087.003.0018 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Shenique S. Thomas ◽

Johnna Christian

Keyword(s):

Sense Of Belonging ◽

Minority Groups ◽

Family Members ◽

Social Processes ◽

Ethnic Minority Groups ◽

The Social ◽

The Family ◽

Incarcerated Men ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

Racial And Ethnic Minority

This chapter draws from a qualitative study of incarcerated men to investigate the social processes and interactions between both correctional authorities and family members that inform their sense of belonging and legitimacy. It reveals that prison visitation rooms present a complex environment in which incarcerated men have access to discreet periods of visibility and relevance to their family members and the broader community. There are, however, several precarious aspects to these processes. The family members who are central to enhancing men’s visibility and legitimacy are primarily women from economically disadvantaged, racial, and ethnic minority groups, resulting in their own marginalization, which is compounded within prison spaces. By illuminating both the challenges and opportunities of familial connections, this chapter informs a social justice framework for understanding the experiences of both incarcerated men and their family members.

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Spaces of Consumption in American Literary Realism

The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Realism ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190642891.013.24 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 391-410

Author(s):

Gary Totten

Keyword(s):

Consumer Culture ◽

Social Space ◽

Natural World ◽

Power Dynamics ◽

Literary Realism ◽

Natural Environments ◽

Production And Consumption ◽

The Social ◽

The Relationship ◽

New Strategies

This chapter discusses how consumer culture affects the depiction and meaning of the natural world in the work of American realist writers. These writers illuminate the relationship between natural environments and the social expectations of consumer culture and reveal how such expectations transform natural space into what Henri Lefebvre terms “social space” implicated in the processes and power dynamics of production and consumption. The representation of nature as social space in realist works demonstrates the range of consequences such space holds for characters. Such space can both empower and oppress individuals, and rejecting or embracing it can deepen moral resolve, prompt a crisis of self, or result in one’s death. Characters’ attempts to escape social space and consumer culture also provide readers with new strategies for coping with their effects.

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Extending Geodemographics Using Data Primitives: A Review and a Methodological Proposal

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi10060386 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 386

Author(s):

Jennie Gray ◽

Lisa Buckner ◽

Alexis Comber

Keyword(s):

Social Dynamics ◽

Feature Space ◽

Social Processes ◽

Multiple Time ◽

Current State ◽

Cluster Label ◽

Static Data ◽

The Social ◽

Using Data

This paper reviews geodemographic classifications and developments in contemporary classifications. It develops a critique of current approaches and identifiea a number of key limitations. These include the problems associated with the geodemographic cluster label (few cluster members are typical or have the same properties as the cluster centre) and the failure of the static label to describe anything about the underlying neighbourhood processes and dynamics. To address these limitations, this paper proposed a data primitives approach. Data primitives are the fundamental dimensions or measurements that capture the processes of interest. They can be used to describe the current state of an area in a multivariate feature space, and states can be compared over multiple time periods for which data are available, through for example a change vector approach. In this way, emergent social processes, which may be too weak to result in a change in a cluster label, but are nonetheless important signals, can be captured. As states are updated (for example, as new data become available), inferences about different social processes can be made, as well as classification updates if required. State changes can also be used to determine neighbourhood trajectories and to predict or infer future states. A list of data primitives was suggested from a review of the mechanisms driving a number of neighbourhood-level social processes, with the aim of improving the wider understanding of the interaction of complex neighbourhood processes and their effects. A small case study was provided to illustrate the approach. In this way, the methods outlined in this paper suggest a more nuanced approach to geodemographic research, away from a focus on classifications and static data, towards approaches that capture the social dynamics experienced by neighbourhoods.

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Naive, connected, and counselor tween girl identity groups: Consumption practices and social identity constructions within consumer culture

Journal of Consumer Culture ◽

10.1177/14695405211016089 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146954052110160

Author(s):

Tiziana Brenner Beauchamp Weber ◽

Eliane C. Francisco Maffezzolli

Keyword(s):

Social Identity ◽

Social Identity Theory ◽

Consumer Culture ◽

Social Group ◽

Social Identities ◽

Consumer Identity ◽

Identity Constructions ◽

The Social ◽

Consumption Practices ◽

Identity Groups

This research identifies the relationship between consumption practices and the construction of social identity among tweens in a Brazilian context. Using consumer culture theory and social identity theory, we employed 80 h of observation, 9 interviews, and projective techniques with fifteen girls. Three social identity groups were acknowledged: naive, connected, and counselors. These groups revealed different identity projects, such as the integration and maintenance within the social group of current belonging, the access to the social group with the greater distinctions, the generation of differentiable and positive distinctions (both intra- and intergroups), and the expression and consolidation of identity and its respective consumption practices. This research contributes to the consumption literature that relates to consumer identity projects. The findings reveal a current resignification of girlhood and exposes tweens’ consumption practices as a direct mechanism of the expression and construction of their social identities. These are mechanisms of social identity construction as mediated by group relations through the processes of access, maintenance, integration, differentiation, and distinction.

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Why do crowds cause trouble? Exploring affective instability in collectivity

Marketing Theory ◽

10.1177/14705931211034911 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 147059312110349

Author(s):

Maíra Magalhães Lopes ◽

Joel Hietanen ◽

Jacob Ostberg

Keyword(s):

Consumer Culture ◽

Sao Paulo ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

São Paulo ◽

Urban Activism ◽

The Social ◽

Social Expression ◽

Affective Instability ◽

Being And Becoming

Through our ethnographic study of urban activism collectives in São Paulo, we propose another approach for exploring the process of collective formations and their longevity. Rather than seeking out the representational meanings of individualized communities, we approach collectivity from the perspective of crowds. Crowds are affective. Crowds are contagious. By adopting affect-based theorizing, we discuss affective intensities that bring about collectivity before the individuals awaken to narrate their meaning-makings. In our ethnographic context, collectives resist manifestations of gentrification (i.e., consumer culture in itself) and offer us a multifaceted site of being and becoming with the crowds. We explore how connections and disconnections affectively rekindle the social expression of collective bodies in consumer culture. This way, we add new dimensions to extant theorizing of consumer collectivity that tends to focus on individualized meaning, stability, and harmony.

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