The Current State of South African Feminist Scholarship in the Social Sciences

2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Erlank
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South African ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lewens
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Potential Functions ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Third ◽  
Current State ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Many evolutionary theorists have enthusiastically embraced human nature, but large numbers of evolutionists have also rejected it. It is also important to recognize the nuanced views on human nature that come from the side of the social sciences. This introduction provides an overview of the current state of the human nature debate, from the anti-essentialist consensus to the possibility of a Gray’s Anatomy of human psychology. Three potential functions for the notion of species nature are identified. The first is diagnostic, assigning an organism to the correct species. The second is species-comparative, allowing us to compare and contrast different species. The third function is contrastive, establishing human nature as a foil for human culture. The Introduction concludes with a brief synopsis of each chapter.

The Everyday in a Time of Transformation: Exploring a Single South African Lifeworld after 20 Years of Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
P. Conrad Kotze ◽  
Jan K. Coetzee
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Epistemological Framework

Transformation has come to be a defining characteristic of contemporary societies, while it has rarely been studied in a way that gives acknowledgement to both its societal effects and the experience thereof by the individual. This article discusses a recent study that attempts to do just that. The everyday life of a South African is explored within the context of changes that can be linked, more or less directly, to those that have characterized South Africa as a state since the end of apartheid in 1994. The study strives to avoid the pitfalls associated with either an empirical or solely constructivist appreciation of this phenomenon, but rather represents an integral onto-epistemological framework for the practice of sociological research. The illustrated framework is argued to facilitate an analysis of social reality that encompasses all aspects thereof, from the objectively given to the intersubjectively constructed and subjectively constituted. While not requiring extensive development on the theoretical or methodological level, the possibility of carrying out such an integral study is highlighted as being comfortably within the capabilities of sociology as a discipline. While the article sheds light on the experience of transformation, it is also intended to contribute to the contemporary debate surrounding the current “ontological turn” within the social sciences.

scholarly journals Seeking God's shalom in South African cities through a new glocal togetherness

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius W. Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South African ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
African Context ◽  
South African Cities ◽  
Globalising World

The objective of this article is to clearly reflect the reality of our modern world experiencing the convergence of two mighty movements meeting and flowing into each other. The first stream is the tidal wave of people migrating to the urban centres of our globalising world. The second stream is the result of a massive shift in the centre of Christianity away from its traditional rootedness in Western Christendom. The biggest challenge of our time is for this Christian Church, still stuck in the prevailing Christendom paradigm, to wake up to and actively engage this new post-Christendom context. This article would like to draw specific attention to the South African context where the traditional Western and now developing Southern Christianity find a common Developing World intersection. As ‘pilgrims or exiles’ that is facing a strange and confronting new world, the Western Church should accept the new missiological challenge that globalisation and urbanisation presents. The Western Church must heed a very urgent call to stay relevant and be actively involved in God’s global missio Dei currently unfolding in our world. The only way for the Christian Church to be local instruments of God’s Kingdom in a new urban world, is to actively seek a new glocal togetherness.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The Western theological academy needs to urgently engage the social sciences in order to cooperate and collaborate in all areas of urban and social development, urban planning, community development and even urban advocacy for the needs of the urban poor and marginalised. The Christian Church, as God’s ‘missionary people’, is Biblically mandated and spiritually equipped to be actively involved in the urban challenges that globalisation and urbanisation present.

scholarly journals An Overview of the BALSAC Population Database. Past Developments, Current State and Future Prospects

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélène Vézina ◽  
Jean-Sébastien Bournival
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Continuous Optimization ◽  
Population Data ◽  
Biomedical Sciences ◽  
Population Database ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Made In

The BALSAC database, developed since 1971, contains data on the Quebec population from the beginnings of European settlement in the 17th century to the contemporary period. Today, BALSAC is a major research infrastructure used by researchers from Quebec and elsewhere, both in the social sciences and in the biomedical sciences. This paper presents the evolution and current state of the database and offers a perspective on forthcoming developments. BALSAC contains marriage certificates until 1965. Coverage is complete for Catholic records (80 to 100% of the population depending on the region and the period) and partial for the other denominations. Birth and death certificates from all Catholic parishes have been integrated for the period 1800–1849 and work in underway for 1850–1916. All the records entered in BALSAC are subject to a linkage process which, ultimately, allows the automatic reconstitution of genealogical links and family relationships. The basic principle has remained the same since the beginning, namely to match individuals based on the nominative information contained in the sources. The changes made in recent years and the resulting gains are mostly related to IT advances which now offer more flexibility and increased performance. Future perspectives rest on the diversification of the sources of population data entered or connected to the database and, as a corollary, by continuous optimization of data processing and linkage procedures. In the era of 'big data', BALSAC is gradually moving from a historical population database to a multifaceted infrastructure for interdisciplinary research on the Quebec population.

Financialization in South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1012-1030
Author(s):  
Ewa Karwowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
South African ◽  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Global South ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
The Social

Financialization has become a popular concept across the social sciences, usually defined as the increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors, and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies. Financialization researchers highlight the detrimental consequences of an excessively large and powerful financial sector on economy and society. In South Africa, financialization has been shaped by its colonial and apartheid past, especially the strong links of South African corporations and banks to the international financial centre of London. Low growth and investment, an outcome of the finance-led accumulation regime, have also resulted in the continuity of extreme inequality and high levels of unemployment. In the Global South, financialization mainly affects emerging economies since they possess relatively developed financial markets in comparison to poorer countries. South Africa is the only African economy for which there is a substantial financialization literature. In comparison to other emerging economies, South Africa is relatively strongly financialized as stock market capitalization is extremely high, making Johannesburg one of the top financial centres in the Global South. Furthermore, financial inflows into the country are comparatively large, JSE-listed companies are well integrated into global value chains and household debt is high.

scholarly journals Solar Geoengineering: Social Science, Legal, Ethical, and Economic Frameworks

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 399-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane A. Flegal ◽  
Anna-Maria Hubert ◽  
David R. Morrow ◽  
Juan B. Moreno-Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Empirical Social Science ◽  
Solar Geoengineering ◽  
Public Views

Solar geoengineering research in the social sciences and humanities has largely evolved in parallel with research in the natural sciences. In this article, we review the current state of the literature on the ethical, legal, economic, and social science aspects of this emerging area. We discuss issues regarding the framing and futures of solar geoengineering, empirical social science on public views and public engagement, the evolution of ethical concerns regarding research and deployment, and the current legal and economic frameworks and emerging proposals for the regulation and governance of solar geoengineering.

scholarly journals Agile leadership - a comparison of agile leadership styles

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Greineder ◽  
Niklas Leicht
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Selection Criteria ◽  
Literature Analysis ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Research

Leadership has been the focus of research in the social sciences since the early 1930s. However, no generally valid theory exists to date. In recent years, theories relating to agile leadership have also increasingly emerged. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the current state of research on agile leadership. For this purpose, a systematic literature analysis is conducted. The different terms used in the context of agile leadership are restricted by means of selection criteria. Furthermore, characteristics of agile leadership will be analyzed and consolidated. This results in a catalogue of criteria with which the selected leadership styles. The evaluation shows that there are overlaps in the styles, which also can be identified in the research.

scholarly journals An Overview of the Current State of Human Issues in Horticulture in the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia I. Lohr ◽  
Paula Diane Relf
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Gardens ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Plant Sciences

Throughout history, plants have been used to benefit people. In the United States, formal research to document the impacts of plants on people was not published until the 1970s, when papers from social and medical scientists began to appear. In the 1990s, symposia, including the first on “The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-being and Social Development,” brought people together from around the world to share and expand their knowledge in this emerging field. Symposium participants have included researchers in the social sciences and plant sciences, practitioners in horticultural therapy, teachers in colleges and public gardens, industry representatives applying the knowledge, and more. This has formed the basis for current activities in research, teaching, and practice throughout the United States. Examples from research that now documents a variety of beneficial impacts of plants on people are discussed.

scholarly journals Reflexive Transformation of Intimacy in Late Modernity Theories: Some Critiques and Conceptual Alternatives

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cătălina-Ionela Rezeanu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Private Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reflexive Modernity ◽  
Intimate Relations

The last decades have seen a growing trend towards researching intimacy. A considerable amount of literature has been published based on the reflexive transformation of intimacy framework. This paper starts from the premise that, recently, more and more scholars have criticized the idea that detraditionalization and individualization led to the transformation of intimacy during reflexive modernity (late modernity). Critics question the ability of late modernity concepts to offer a cross- cultural and nuanced image of contemporary particularities of private life and intimate relations. The purpose of this study is to show the current state of knowledge in the social sciences on individualization thesis and detraditionalization thesis, the main theoretical criticisms of the two theses and conceptual alternatives to them. To achieve these goals, we conducted an interpretive synthesis of 16 articles from international literature, published between 1999-2014, in the thematic area of social changes brought by late modernity into the domain of private life and intimacy. In the Introduction section, we briefly present the two theses as reflected in the two of the most cited books on these themes: The Transformations of Intimacy. Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies (Giddens, 1992) and The Normal Chaos of Love (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). In the body of the paper, we synthesize the arguments sustaining the criticism of the two theses and show some conceptual alternatives to these criticisms, as stated in the literature. In the concluding section, we resume the main arguments to open directions for future studies.

scholarly journals Replicability in Empirical Legal Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason M. Chin ◽  
Kathryn Zeiler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Statistical Issues

As part of a broader methodological reform movement, scientists are increasingly interested in improving the replicability of their research. Replicability allows others to perform replications to explore potential errors and statistical issues that might call the original results into question. Little attention, however, has been paid to the state of replicability in the field of empirical legal research (ELR). Quality is especially important in this field because empirical legal researchers produce work that is regularly relied upon by courts and other legal bodies. In this review, we summarize the current state of ELR relative to the broader movement toward replicability in the social sciences. As part of that aim, we summarize recent collective replication efforts in ELR and transparency and replicability guidelines adopted by journals that publish ELR. Based on this review, ELR seems to be lagging other fields in implementing reforms. We conclude with suggestions for reforms that might encourage improved replicability. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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