The Enhancement Imperative: The Evolutionary Neurophysiology of Durkheimian Solidarity

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Reward Circuitry ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Neurophysiological Studies ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Selection For

Durkheimian solidarity, especially in regard to religion, is reanalyzed in terms of recent developments in the neurosciences and evolution. Neurophysiological studies indicate that religious arousers can piggyback on reward circuitry established by natural selection for interpersonal attachments. This piggybacking is rooted in uneven evolutionary changes in cognitive capacities, emotional arousal capabilities, and preconscious screening rules for rewarding arousal release. Uneven development means that only a special class of enhanced arousers embedded in macro social structures can tap some of the reservoirs of expanded arousal release protected by these screening rules. It becomes imperative that part of collective social life offers these special arouser packages. Beginning with religion and inequality, the social construction of enhanced arousers leaves a trail across human history. However, this trail is not quite what Durkheim had in mind.

Darwinian Dynamics of Depression

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (11) ◽  
pp. 1029-1037
Author(s):  
John Price
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depressive States

Darwin's theory of sexual selection offers a challenge to psychology and psychiatry. We select each other, and have been doing so since social life first evolved. But who is selected and what happens to those who are not selected? What social structures have evolved to contain the unselected? What behaviours have evolved to manage the selection process? How do the selected relate to the unselected and what behaviours have evolved to manage this asymmetry in social relations? What mental states have evolved to characterize the selected and the unselected? These questions should be kept in mind when we observe and study the social structures, behaviours and mental states that we see displayed before us in all the variety of nature. It is suggested that a significant amount of current psychiatric disorder, especially depressive states and both social and generalized anxiety disorder, have evolved because they managed the processes of being unselected and de-selected, and maintained the unselected in that social role without loss of life or physical incapacity, and enabled the unselected to contribute to general social well-being.

scholarly journals Identity and Hair Narrative in Adichie's Americanah

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 859-864
Author(s):  
Dr. Angela Ngozi Dick
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Human Hair ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Symbolic Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Calendar

Although the social construction of the human hair varies from culture to culture, the symbolic function of hair varies from person to person. In Adichie’s  Americanah, the characters are primarily defined by their hair before the construction of their race, career and  personality. The human hair becomes the premise for brotherhood and sisterhood in. Many episodes take place in the salon, thereafter a person’s hair is qualified as either good or bad. The theoretical framework for this paper is New Historicism which interrogates social life and power relations among people in the society. In this work we conclude that Adichie tells the story of human hair not for its sake but to portray the problem of immigrants, religious fanaticism, disruption of academic calendar and the frustration therein, loveless marriage, the environment and other human conditions. Finally, the hair shows that every person is a complete human being first and foremost

scholarly journals From Affective Arrangements to Affective Milieus

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Schuetze
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Affect Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Social Dynamic ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Analytical Research ◽  
Affect Dynamics

In this paper, I develop the concept of affective milieus by building on the recently established notion of affective arrangements. Affective arrangements bring together the more analytical research of situated affectivity with affect studies informed by cultural theory. As such, this concept takes a step past the usual synchronic understanding of situatedness toward an understanding of the social, dynamic, historical, and cultural situatedness of individuals in relation to situated affectivity. However, I argue that affective arrangements remain too narrow in their scope of analysis since their focus mainly lies on local, marked-off, and unique constellations of affect relations. They neglect the more mundane and day-to-day affect dynamics of social life. Hence, I introduce the notion of affective milieus, which brings to light the everyday, ubiquitous affective engagements of individuals with their socio-material surroundings. Affective milieus specifically call attention to how commonplace affect relations create territories in the social universe which form and mold individuals all the time. In that way, this paper apprehends and advances recent developments in the research on situated affectivity.

Why Sociology Matters to Race and Biosocial Science

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-214
Author(s):  
Dorothy E. Roberts ◽  
Oliver Rollins
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Social Algorithms

Recent developments in genetics and neuroscience have led to increasing interest in biosocial approaches to social life. While today's biosocial paradigms seek to examine more fully the inextricable relationships between the biological and the social, they have also renewed concerns about the scientific study of race. Our review describes the innovative ways sociologists have designed biosocial models to capture embodied impacts of racism, but also analyzes the potential for these models normatively to reinforce existing racial inequities. First, we examine how concepts and measurements of difference in the postgenomic era have affected scientific knowledges and social practices of racial identity. Next, we assess sociological investigations of racial inequality in the biosocial era, including the implications of the biological disciplines’ move to embrace the social. We conclude with a discussion of the growing interest in social algorithms and their potential to embed past racial injustices in their predictions of the future.

Building social capital: Polish football supporters through the lens of James Coleman’s conception

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Grodecki
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Social

The purpose of the presented study is to understand and describe the mechanisms for generating social capital in the groups of devoted football supporters in Poland, by: (a) exploring those features of football supporters’ social structures that are essential for creating social capital and enabling them to maintain it within those groups; and (b) trying to identify the historical processes which foster emergence of these features in supporters’ social structures. The presented analysis is part of a wider research project on Polish football supporters’ social capital. It draws on a qualitative approach based on the triangulation of a variety of methods: on-going ethnography, participant observation, individual interviews and content analysis (internet forums, book biographies, magazines, zines and qualitative research materials from previous research). Drawing on Coleman’s concept, this study identifies the presence of specific forms of social capital ( appropriate social organization, obligations and expectations, norms and effective sanctions and information channels) and internal factors ( ideology, closure and stability) facilitating maintenance of this ‘source’ in the structures of devoted supporters’ groups in Poland. The results show also that social capital is created on the stands and then transferred to the other areas of social life. Furthermore, the social capital used in areas other than where it was first created can strengthen efficiency and trust in the original organization. Further, external factors like the co-production process and ‘war’ with the state are considered as variables fostering the emergence of social capital in the analysed structures. However, these same external factors also made those structures very exclusive.

After the cultural turn: For a textural sociology

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 552-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo de la Fuente
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Surface Patterns ◽  
Cultural Turn

This article proposes the social sciences consider texture – rather than text − as the important legacy of the ‘cultural turn’ in the social sciences. The article considers texture in the literal sense of surface-patterns, as well as texture as a metaphor for the ‘dynamic’ and hard-to-capture qualities of social life. The article draws on the philosopher Stephen C. Pepper and the anthropologist Tim Ingold, the ‘practice turn’ in organizational studies and recent developments in geography and cultural research to map out different textural frameworks. While sociologists have lagged behind their counterparts in other fields in embracing a textural sensibility, the article considers the writings of Georg Simmel and the Yale School of Cultural Sociology as prominent exceptions to that rule. The article concludes by encouraging sociologists to consider the textural as a way into a ‘theoretical’ – as against a purely ‘methodological’ conception – of the qualitative.

Contexts and Temporalities in Andrew Abbott's Processual Sociology

2016 ◽  
Vol 71 (03) ◽  
pp. 361-392
Author(s):  
Morgan Jouvenet
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
American Pragmatism ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Andrew Abbott ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction ◽  
Original Approach

Since the 1970s, Andrew Abbott has promoted an original and ambitious project for the social sciences. In particular, he has argued for the development of a “processual sociology” based on precepts first articulated by the Chicago tradition of sociology and in his view somewhat forgotten. Against functionalism, against the “variables paradigm,” he has emphasized the Chicago tradition's focus on patterns of interaction and their contexts, and has deepened our analysis of the local and ever-particular dimensions of social entities by considering their inscription in successive sequences. As well as seeking to formalize these sequences, this vision aims to link processes playing out at different rhythms and levels. As a project it is based on a conception of social life as a “world of events,” where “change is the normal nature of things” and “not something that happens occasionally to stable social actors.” This makes it possible to explain the emergence and durability of social entities (for example, professions and disciplines) in the flow of events. The originality of this approach consists in founding a new institutionalist analysis of social realities on this ontology of perpetual movement.Marked by American pragmatism but also traversed by the question of order and social structures, Abbott's oeuvre offers an original approach to the diversity of contexts and temporalities in processes that, through the intermingling of various “lineages,” constitute social traditions and entities. This article presents Abbott's contextualist theses and the intellectual background against which they emerged. It also considers the place that the processual approach accords to contingency and personhood, factors that enable Abbot to work toward a synthesis of history and sociology.

Looking Sociologically at Family Coping with Visual Impairment

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.L. Nixon
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Visual Impairment ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Family Coping ◽  
Family Social Support ◽  
The Social ◽  
Support Relations

This article provides an overview of relevant sociological perspectives and knowledge about major social aspects of family coping with visual impairment. Special attention is given to the importance of the social structures and dynamics of families as social networks, the social construction of impairment experiences by families, family social support relations, and the visual impairment of older family members.

scholarly journals SEME PEREMPUAN SUMBAWA

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Monicha Pratiwi ◽  
Hayati Hayati ◽  
Ika Wijayanti
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Qualitative Research Methods ◽  
Social Construction Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Concept Of Beauty

The research entitled Seme Perempuan Sumbawa (A case study about women in PlampangVillage, Sumbawa) aims to find out the function and meaning of 'g' as it commonly used bySumbawanese women, especially in Plampang Village. The utilization of 'seme' is generallyto protecting and caring the skin of Sumbawanese women in Plampang Village. Thisresearch used Social Construction theory with Symbolic Interactionism theory. Thisresearch used qualitative research methods. Based on the results of the research, the use of'seme' that is conducted by Sumbawanese women especially in Plampang Village is basedon the concept of beauty that develops in society, where beautiful women are those who aregood at caring for themselves. Besides that, there is a motive underlying the women inPlampang Village in using seme, which is the desire to look more maintained by using seme.The Seme itself has five functions such as a traditional sunblock, the regular use of the semeis believed to be a traditional facial brightener and smoothener. In additional, it also helpsto treat and preserve the skin beauty and to remove something like pimples and black spots.The last function of seme is to tighten and beautify Sumbawanese women's skin especially inPlampang Village. The use of seme is meant everything for them, it's so meaningful for thewomen in the social life and the last it meant as a media in maintaining the beauty ofSumbawanese women especially in Plampang Village.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document