Social Construction as Social Significance

2018 ◽  
pp. 34-53
Author(s):  
Ásta
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Ian Hacking ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social

Various ways in which a category of people can be said to be socially constructed is discussed before a conception of social construction that can underwrite the project of offering a metaphysics of social categories is offered. The author discusses several conceptions of causal social construction, including where the social is the cause and the effect, and where ideals or norms play a role in the construction. The type of social construction needed for the project of giving a metaphysics of social construction is constitutive social construction. The author offers her conception of constitutive social construction, the key component of which is an account of social meaning. Comparison with the accounts of social construction by Ian Hacking, Ron Mallon, and Sally Haslanger is made.

Citizen sociolinguists scaling back

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Betsy Rymes ◽  
Gareth Smail
Keyword(s):  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Multilingual Communication ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis paper examines the different ways that professional experts and everyday language users engage in scaling practices to claim authority when they talk about multilingual practices and the social significance they assign to them. Specifically, we compare sociolinguists’ use of the term translanguaging to describe multilingual and multimodal practices to the diverse observations of amateur online commentators, or citizen sociolinguists. Our analysis focuses on commentary on cross-linguistic communicative practices in Wales, or “things Welsh people say.” We ultimately argue that by calling practices “translanguaging” and defaulting to scaled-up interpretations of multilingual communication, sociolinguists are increasingly missing out on analyses of how the social meaning of (cross)linguistic practices accrues and evolves within specific communities over time. By contrast, the fine-grained perceptions of “citizen sociolinguists” as they discuss their own communicative practices in context may have something unique and underexamined to offer us as researchers of communicative diversity.

Service innovation as a social construction: The role of boundary objects

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Mele ◽  
Roberta Sebastiani ◽  
Daniela Corsaro
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Boundary Objects ◽  
Resource Integration ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Outcome Perspective

This article advances a conceptualization of service innovation as socially constructed through resource integration and sensemaking. By developing this view, the current study goes beyond an outcome perspective, to include the collective nature of service innovation and the role of the social context in affecting the service innovation process. Actors enact and perform service innovation through two approaches, one that is more concerted and another that emerges in some way. Each approach is characterized by distinct resource integration processes, in which the boundary objects (artifacts, discourses, and places) play specific roles. They act as bridge-makers that connect actors, thereby fostering resource integration and shared meanings.

scholarly journals Avatar Creation: The Social Construction of “Beauty” in Second Life

2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailey L. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Community Research ◽  
Social Construction Of Reality ◽  
Still Images ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Ideal Body

Rooted in the theory of Social Construction of Reality and informed by media portrayal of female beauty and virtual community research, this study examined how beauty is socially constructed by gatekeepers in Second Life. A content analysis of 360 still images of female avatars was conducted to understand the extent to the beauty types that appear in the virtual world. Findings suggest trendy and sex kitten/sensual beauty types were the most-portrayed beauty types. Most female avatars had the ideal body size and light colored skin. In addition, this study found a significant difference in beauty type among different types of products.

Sound is Not a Simulation

2010 ◽  
pp. 44-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda O Keeffe
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Game Player ◽  
Prior Investigation

In order to design a computer game soundscape that allows a game player to feel immersed in their virtual world, we must understand how we navigate and understand the real world soundscape. In this chapter I will explore how sound, particularly in urban spaces, is increasingly categorised as noise, ignoring both the social significance of any soundscape and how we use sound to interpret and negotiate space. I will explore innovative methodologies for identifying an individual’s perception of soundscapes. Designing virtual soundscapes without prior investigation into their cultural and social meaning could prove problematic.

The History of Unreason

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
History Of

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.

Talking Heads vs. Virtual Workspaces: A Comparison of Design across Cultures

1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 259-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Heaton
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cooperative Work ◽  
Computer Supported Cooperative Work ◽  
Technology Design ◽  
The Past ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Talking Heads ◽  
Cscw Design ◽  
The Social

The past decade has seen the development of a perspective holding that technology is socially constructed. This paper examines the social construction of one group of technologies, systems for computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). It compares the design of systems for computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) in Scandinavia and Japan with particular attention to the influence of culture on the resulting products. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the argument that culture is an important factor in technology design, despite commonly held assumptions about the neutrality and objectivity of science and technology. The paper further proposes an explanation for why, despite similar technical backgrounds and research interests, CSCW design is conducted differently and produces different results in Denmark and Japan. It argues that, by looking at CSCW systems as texts which reflect the context of their production and the society from which they come, we may be better able to understand the transformations that operate when these texts are ‘read’ in the contexts of their implementation.

Place Matters, But How? Rural Identity, Environmental Decision Making, and the Social Construction of Place

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hope Alkon ◽  
Michael Traugot
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Environmental Conflicts ◽  
Rural Identity ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Sociodemographic Differences ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Place Character ◽  
Construction Of Place ◽  
The Relationship

This article investigates the relationship between environmental policy and the social construction of place in two neighboring California counties. We examine two counties with dramatic geographic and sociodemographic differences that drew on similar place narratives in order to justify collaborative solutions to agricultural–environmental conflicts. Each narrative trumpets the importance of agriculture to each county's place character and praises the ability of well–intentioned county residents to work together. Our cases illuminate two processes through which place is socially constructed with regard to extralocal factors: place comparison allows residents to highlight potential risks by contrasting their own places with others while place meta–narratives allow actors to draw on culturally available notions of types of places. We conclude by discussing the relationship between place narratives and other factors that can affect policy choice, and therefore, shape the landscape itself.

The Social Construction of Human Kinds

Hypatia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Metaphysical Claim ◽  
Human Kinds ◽  
Response Dependence ◽  
Human Kind

Social construction theorists face a certain challenge to the effect that they confuse the epistemic and the metaphysical: surely our conceptions of something are influenced by social practices, but that doesn't show that the nature of the thing in question is so influenced. In this paper I take up this challenge and offer a general framework to support the claim that a human kind is socially constructed, when this is understood as a metaphysical claim and as a part of a social constructionist debunking project. I give reasons for thinking that a conferralist framework is better equipped to capture the social constructionist intuition than rival accounts of social properties, such as a constitution account and a response‐dependence account, and that this framework helps to diagnose what is at stake in the debate between the social constructionists and their opponents. The conferralist framework offered here should be welcomed by social constructionists looking for firm foundations for their claims, and for anyone else interested in the debate over the social construction of human kinds.

Herds and Hierarchies: Class, Nature, and the Social Construction of Horses in Equestrian Culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra Coulter
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Living Animal ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Nature

Abstract This study centers on equestrian show culture in Ontario, Canada, and examines how horses are entangled symbolically and materially in socially constructed hierarchies of value. After examining horse-show social relations and practices, the paper traces the connections among equestrian culture, class, and the social constructions of horses. Equestrian relations expose multiple hierarchical intersections of nature and culture within which both human-horse relations and horses are affected by class structures and identities. In equestrian culture, class affects relations within and across species, and how horses are conceptualized and used, as symbols and as living animal bodies.

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