Material Culture

Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence E. McDonnell ◽  
Kelcie Vercel
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
The Social

Beginning with many of its earliest writings, sociology has a long tradition of theorizing the role of objects and material culture in social life. In the middle of the 20th century, these themes were taken up again by major sociological and anthropological thinkers who inspired a resurgence of interest in the study of objects. The sociology of culture and art began to address the production and reception of objects, while scholars from anthropology, cultural studies, and media studies began to develop a robust body of work around material culture. These two fields have somewhat different takes on the study of objects. Sociological accounts tend to be people focused, examining how institutional characteristics of art worlds shape the objects produced, and focusing explanations of meaning-making on the social position of the audience more so than the symbolic qualities of the object. Alternatively, material culture approaches tend to be object focused, engaging objects as symbols that help explain how people organize subcultures, create solidarity through exchange, or express social status. A turn toward materiality, originating from anthropology but taken up more recently in sociology, privileges the material qualities of objects and how they shape the use and symbolic meaning of objects. This work on objects raises the question of how sociologists should incorporate objects into accounts of action. This question has sparked an ongoing cross-disciplinary debate about whether objects have agency. Research in science and technology studies, alongside studies of craft and sport, have brought attention to how objects act back, shaping how knowledge is produced. Objects have also been understood as mechanisms of power, by shaping categories and morality, ritualizing icons, stabilizing social relations as instruments of the states and institutions, and structuring action through the built environment. These robust and vibrant areas of research make a strong case for the incorporation of objects into theories of power and knowledge.

Refracted visions: Street photography, humanism and the loss of innocence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Carville
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Visual Expression ◽  
Politics Of Religion ◽  
Street Photography

Justin Carville draws on recent debates in relation to photography and the everyday in order to examine the role of street-photography in the cultural politics of religion as it was played out in the quotidian moments of social relations within Dublin’s urban and suburban spaces during the 1980s and 90s. The essay argues that photography was important in giving visual expression to the social contradictions within the relations between religion and the transformation of Irish social life, not through the dramatic and traumatic experiences that defined the nation’s increased secularism, but in the quiet, humdrum and sometimes monotonous routines of religious ceremonies and everyday social relations.

scholarly journals Dzielenie przestrzeni, praktyki graniczenia. Parkowanie, własność i przynależność na polskich osiedlach mieszkaniowych

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-167
Author(s):  
Karol Kurnicki
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Differentiation ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Creation

Space gains significance through processes of social differentiation and bordering, and in consequence is connected with the creation and maintenance of social divisions. The author seeks confirmation of this fact at the level of everyday practices in housing settlements, tracking the mechanisms used by people in situations of contact and confrontation with others in the social space. He sets himself several aims: (1) he attempts to analyze selected spatial practices (parking within the settlement, the creation of belonging), reflecting the internal structuring strategies of housing settlements; (2) he points to the causes of that structuring, that is, the main contexts in which these practices occur and are strengthened; (3) he highlights the important role of space in processes of bordering and differentiation. Practices connected with parking and the creation of belonging, although apparently disparate and deriving from contrary spheres of social life make it possible to hypothesize that the striving for separation and the increased importance of space determine the organization of borders, divisions, and social relations in housing settlements.

scholarly journals Women in the "Kerangkeng" of Tradition: the Study on the Status of Women in Minangkabau

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-385
Author(s):  
Welhendri Azwar
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Patriarchal Ideology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Control ◽  
Biological Differences ◽  
Status Of Women

The system of values, norms and some stereotypes attached to women are one of the factors that giving influences on the position and relationships of women with men in the existing social structure. Each person embraces the system of values or norm which is a consensus and constructed by the community itself than from generation to generation. The emergence of social construction on the status and role of women is the result of the perspective of a community towards their biological differences between men and women. The perspective which then results in oppression, exploitation, and subordination of women in social relations are contextually strongly related to socio-cultural conditions at that time. This section will discuss how women are positioned in the social life and the perspective of the culture of its subordination. Next, it is also described how the emergence of patriarchal ideology, a system that accommodates the interests of men to dominate and control women, as a consequence of the understanding of the nature of women which biologically different to men. The hegemony of patriarchal ideology brings the social awareness for women to accept the conditions of subordination as a natural thing, which is wrapped by the products of culture and tradition. It includes how patriarchal ideology is giving the effect on the system and the tradition of marriage.

Moral Principles in the Life of Society, or “Metaphysics of History”

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4-2) ◽  
pp. 311-329
Author(s):  
Vladislav Cheshev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Moral Consciousness ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

The article investigates the influence of moral principles on historically developing social relations. The appeal to this problem is based on a conceptual approach to the origin of human morality, which arises in the course of sociogenesis as a set of behavioral principles that provide the intraspecific cultural (non-genetic) solidarity necessary for human societies. It is noted that the moral consciousness of individuals, which regulates interpersonal relationships, is a necessary but insufficient means for transmitting moral principles. Morality is expressed in the relationship between society and an individual. Society solves the problem of reproduction of moral regulators, it brings them into the nature of social relations by necessity. In this regard, attention is drawn to the role of elite groups in solving the aforementioned problem, in particular, it points out the peculiarities of the formation of an elite layer in Russian history. The elite is the bearer of moral images of social behavior, which expresses the attitude to public goals, interests, historical meanings of social life. The task of the elite is the implementation of these principles in the nature of social relations. The egoism of individuals and social groups can impede the solution of such a problem. Overcoming difficulties of this kind can be achieved by an awareness of history, which provides the basis for public consensus. The article focuses on the ethos of the “spirit of capitalism”, which enters into the social environment through the principles of the organization of economic activity. The paper shows the relevance of the problem of interaction of economic ethics and moral foundations of society as a systemic whole.

scholarly journals Embodiment of Ancestral Spirits, the Social Interface, and Ritual Ceremonies: Construction of the Shamanic Landscape among the Daur in North China

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Feng Qu
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
North China ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Interface ◽  
Human Construction ◽  
Human Social Life

The case study in this paper is on the Daur (as well as the Evenki, Buriat, and Bargu Mongols) in Hulun Buir, Northeast China. The aim of this research is to examine how shamanic rituals function as a conduit to actualize communications between the clan members and their shaman ancestors. Through examinations and observations of Daur and other Indigenous shamanic rituals in Northeast China, this paper argues that the human construction of the shamanic landscape brings humans, other-than-humans, and things together into social relations in shamanic ontologies. Inter-human metamorphosis is crucial to Indigenous self-conceptualization and identity. Through rituals, ancestor spirits are active actors involved in almost every aspect of modern human social life among these Indigenous peoples.

Class Formation and Ideological Practice: A Case from Sri Lanka

1981 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Brow
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding

An adequate understanding of the complex connections between changes in the social relations of production and changes in the bases of group formation demands an historical approach in which consciousness and its ideological products are viewed dynamically, not as the mechanically determined superstructural reflections of material relations but as an active and constituent components of everyday social life. The concepts required for such an analysis are developed here, drawing on the seminal work of both Marx and Weber, as well as on more recent scholarship, and are applied to recent changes in agrarian relations and ideological practice in Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka.

scholarly journals Non-discursive Knowledge and the Construction of Identity Potters, Potting and Performance at the Bronze Age Tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Budden ◽  
Joanna Sofaer
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Differential Acquisition ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article explores the relationship between the making of things and the making of people at the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta, Hungary. Focusing on potters and potting, we explore how the performance of non-discursive knowledge was critical to the construction of social categories. Potters literally came into being as potters through repeated bodily enactment of potting skills. Potters also gained their identity in the social sphere through the connection between their potting performance and their audience. We trace degrees of skill in the ceramic record to reveal the material articulation of non-discursive knowledge and consider the ramifications of the differential acquisition of non-discursive knowledge for the expression of different kinds of potter's identities. The creation of potters as a social category was essential to the ongoing creation of specific forms of material culture. We examine the implications of altered potters' performances and the role of non-discursive knowledge in the construction of social models of the Bronze Age.

The role of public libraries in the development of social capital in local communities – a theoretical study

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Maja Dorota Wojciechowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

PurposeSocial capital, understood as intangible community values available through a network of connections, is a factor in the development of societies and improving quality of life. It helps to remove economic inequalities and prevent poverty and social exclusion, stimulate social and regional development, civic attitudes and social engagement and build a civic society as well as local and regional identity. Many of these tasks may be implemented by libraries, which, apart from providing access to information, may also offer a number of services associated with social needs. The purpose of this paper is to present the roles and functions that libraries may serve in local communities in terms of assistance, integration and development based on classical social capital theories.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the classical concepts of social capital in the context of libraries. It analyses the findings of Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, James Coleman, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin, Ronald Stuart Burt, Wayne Baker and Alejandro Portes. Based on their respective concepts, the paper analyses the role of the contemporary library in the social life of local communities. In particular, it focuses on the possible new functions that public libraries may serve.FindingsA critical review of the concept of social capital revealed certain dependencies between libraries and their neighbourhoods. With new services that respond to the actual social needs, libraries may serve as a keystone, namely they may integrate, animate and engage local communities. This, however, requires a certain approach to be adopted by the personnel and governing authorities as well as infrastructure and tangible resources.Originality/valueThe social engagement of libraries is usually described from the practical perspective (reports on the services provided) or in the context of research on the impact of respective projects on specific groups of users (research reports). A broader approach, based on original social theories, is rarely encountered. The paper draws on classical concepts of social capital and is a contribution to the discussion on possible uses of those concepts based on an analysis of the role of libraries in social life and in strengthening the social capital of local communities.

Risking Debt for Honor

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Cash
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rural Urban Migration ◽  
The Republic

Research on godparenthood has traditionally emphasized its stabilizing effect on social structure. This article, however, focuses attention on how the practices and discourses associated with marital sponsorship in the Republic of Moldova ascribe value to the risks and uncertainties of social life. Moldova has experienced substantial economic, social, and political upheaval during the past two decades of postsocialism, following a longer period of Soviet-era modernization, secularization, and rural–urban migration. In this context, godparenthood has not contributed to the long-term stability of class structure or social relations, but people continue to seek honor and social respect by taking the social and economic risks involved in sponsoring new marriages.

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