Tracing the Sociopolitical Reality of Race

What Is Race? ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 4-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Haslanger
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Cultural Empowerment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
Philosophical Questions

The concept of race has a troublesome history. It has been used to divide societies and subordinate groups in unjust ways. It has also been a source of pride and strength for the subordinate (as well as, unfortunately, for the dominant). Historically it has also carried assumptions of naturalness: races are natural kinds that exist independent of human thought and activity. In recent years, however, the naturalness of race has been challenged and replaced with the idea that race is socially constructed. This raises many important philosophical questions: How should one inquire into the concept of race when there is such broad controversy over what race is? What are the relevant phenomena to be considered? How should such an inquiry take into account the social stakes (e.g. the potential impact of maintaining or rejecting the concept of race)? Is it possible for concepts to evolve, or is conceptual replacement the only option? In Chapter 1, the author takes up these methodological questions and positions herself as a critical theorist considering what role the concept of race has in the sociopolitical domain. She argues that there is a meaningful political conception of race that is important in order to address the history of racial injustice. This is compatible with there being different conceptions of race that are valuable in other contexts and for different purposes (e.g., for medical research, cultural empowerment).

Haslanger’s Reply to Glasgow, Jeffers, and Spencer

What Is Race? ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 150-175
Author(s):  
Joshua Glasgow ◽  
Sally Haslanger ◽  
Chike Jeffers ◽  
Quayshawn Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Cultural Empowerment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
Philosophical Questions

The concept of race has a troublesome history. It has been used to divide societies and subordinate groups in unjust ways. It has also been a source of pride and strength for the subordinate (as well as, unfortunately, for the dominant). Historically it has also carried assumptions of naturalness: races are natural kinds that exist independent of human thought and activity. In recent years, however, the naturalness of race has been challenged and replaced with the idea that race is socially constructed. This raises many important philosophical questions: How should one inquire into the concept of race when there is such broad controversy over what race is? What are the relevant phenomena to be considered? How should this inquiry take into account the social stakes, e.g. the potential impact of maintaining or rejecting the concept of race? Is it possible for concepts to evolve, or is conceptual replacement the only option? In Chapter 1, the author took up these methodological questions and positioned herself as a critical theorist considering what role the concept of race has in the social-political domain. Here she argues that there is a meaningful political conception of race that is important in order to address the history of racial injustice. This is compatible with there being different conceptions of race that are valuable in other contexts and for different purposes, e.g. for medical research, cultural empowerment. She argues that, although on this conception race is socially constructed, the resulting notion has a claim to being “our” concept of race.

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.

Introduction

Kick It ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Matt Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Performance Practice ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Creative Artists

This chapter explains the motivations for researching the social history of the drum kit. It traces the history of drummer jokes and outlines the structure of the chapters to follow. Chapter 1 traces the racist roots of linking drummers to primitive stereotypes and contrasts this against the cleverness of drummers that culminated in the invention of the drum. Chapter 2 shows how drummers in fact contributed to redefining the boundaries between noise and music. Chapter 3 reveals how drummers developed new conventions of literacy while standardizing both the components and performance practice of their instrument. Chapter 4 examines the development of the status of drummers as creative artists. Chapter 5 looks at drumming as a form of musical labour. Chapter 6 considers attempts to replace the drum kit and drummers with new technologies, and how such efforts ultimately underscored the centrality of the drum kit as part of the contemporary soundscape.

Anti-Semitism, Unhappy Consciousness and the Social Construction of the Palestinian Nakba

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 397-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yakub Halabi
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Refugee Problem ◽  
State Of Israel

The history of Zionism is composed of two narratives: One is the history of anti-Semitism that begot Zionism, and the other is the history of the Zionist–Palestinian conflict that begot the Palestinian refugee problem (the Nakba). So far, these two narratives have been investigated in parallel and, thus, they were kept artificially disconnected from each other. The history of the Palestinian catastrophe has been examined mainly in the light of the 1947–1949 events that culminated in the 1948 War and the birth of the Nakba. This narrative ignores the identity of the Zionists, especially the link between anti-Semitism and the Nakba. Many Israeli scholars claim that the territorial demands of the two groups had ushered in the 1948 War, the outcome of which was determined by the balance of power between the Zionist forces and the Arabs. Based on theories of social constructivism, this essay claims, however, that the Nakba and the establishment of the state of Israel are a socially constructed enterprise that reflected the shared ideas, the collective unhappy consciousness and the identity of Zionists and their protracted history in Europe. Anti-Semitism shaped the world views of Zionists and their desire to establish a Jewish state on the total area of mandatory Palestine—the area west of the Jordan River under British administration—in which the Jews aspired to live alone with themselves. Finally, in order to uproot the ‘diaspora mentality’ from the Jewish newcomers to Palestine and to construct a Jewish nationality, the Zionists had excluded the Palestinians from the Hebrew labour market.

Constructionist Organizational Data Mining

2011 ◽  
pp. 696-700
Author(s):  
Isabel Ramos ◽  
João Álvaro Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Knowledge Creation ◽  
Technology Applications ◽  
History Of ◽  
Adequate Representation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Objective Existence ◽  
Objective Study

Scientific or organizational knowledge creation has been addressed from different perspectives along the history of science and, in particular, of social sciences. The process is guided by the set of values, beliefs, and norms shared by the members of the community to which the creator of this knowledge belongs, that is, it is guided by the adopted paradigm (Lincoln & Guba, 2000). The adopted paradigm determines how the nature of the studied reality is understood, the criteria that will be used to assess the validity of the created knowledge, and the construction and selection of methods, techniques, and tools to structure and support the creation of knowledge. This set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions that characterize the paradigm one implicitly or explicitly uses to make sense of the surrounding reality is the cultural root of the intellectual enterprises. Those assumptions constrain the accomplishment of activities such as construction of theories, definition of inquiry strategies, interpretation of perceived phenomena, and dissemination of knowledge (Schwandt, 2000). Traditionally, social realities such as organizations have been assumed to have an objective nature. Assuming this viewpoint, the knowledge we possess about things, processes, or events that occur regularly under definite circumstances, should be an adequate representation of them. Knowledge is the result of a meticulous, quantitative, and objective study of the phenomenon of interest. Its aim is to understand the phenomenon in order to be able to anticipate its occurrence and to control it. Organizations can instead be understood as socially constructed realities. As such, they are subjective in nature since they do not exist apart from the organizational actors and other stakeholders. The stable patterns of action and interaction occurring internally and with the exterior of the organization are responsible for the impression of an objective existence. The adoption of information technology applications can reinforce or disrupt those patterns of action and interaction, thus becoming key elements in the social construction of organizational realities (Lilley, Lightfoot, & Amaral, 2004; Vaast & Walsham, 2005).

Sharing data: Some examples

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-276
Author(s):  
Robert M Hauser
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Medical Research ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

Shared methods, procedures, documentation, and data are essential features of science. This observation is illustrated by autobiographical examples and, far more important, by the history of astronomy, geography, meteorology, and the social sciences. Unfortunately, though sometimes for understandable reasons, data sharing has been less common in psychological and medical research. The China Family Panel Study is an exemplar of contemporary research that has been designed from the outset to create a well-documented body of shared social-scientific data.

scholarly journals Kommunikationsprobleme in der medizinhistorischen Mittelalterforschung

Gesnerus ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 20-33
Author(s):  
Ortrun Riha
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Social History ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social History Of Medicine

Although medieval medical research on scientific prose has a tradition of a hundred years, its results are largely ignored by the scientific community. The reason for this is not only a shift of interest towards the social history of medicine but, more important, a deficiency in the fields of systematology and terminology which makes communication difficult, if not impossible. Most regrettable is the lack of a comprehensive review of the texts and their topics which could serve as a basis for further methodological discussion.

scholarly journals OUVIR O ESPAÇO GEOGRÁFICO: a formação territorial de Itabaiana (Sergipe) nas memórias

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (14) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
João Pedro Celestino dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The People ◽  
Memory Register ◽  
The Social ◽  
De Se ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
Memory Resource ◽  
Historia De Vida ◽  
Geographical Space

LISTENING TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE: the territorial formation ofItabaiana (Sergipe) in the memoriesESCUCHAR EL ESPACIO GEOGRÁFICO: la formación territorial de Itabaiana (Sergipe) en las memóriasO presente artigo proporciona uma discussão sobre como o recurso da memória – construída socialmente – desempenha papel relevante na leitura geográfica do espaço. Esta leitura é realizada através do registro de memória de sujeitos sociais históricos e atuantes, residentes do município de Itabaiana, Sergipe. O principal objetivoé entender como estes sujeitos sociais contribuíram para a formação territorial desse município a partir, principalmente, da análise de temas e questões suscitados por cada umdeles. Como recurso metodológico, a realização de entrevistas, apoiadas na História Oral. Os depoimentos registrados são analisados a fim de se obter um quadro de temas relativos à formação territorial de Itabaiana. A experiência com os depoimentos tem possibilitado a compreensão de marcas sociais e territoriais inerentes ao processo de exploração e formação do território: algumas passíveis de associações com a historiografia, outras próprias à história de vida das pessoas e à compreensão de seu espaço tempo.Palavras-chave: Formação Territorial; Itabaiana; Memória; Geografia.ABSTRACTThe present article provides a discussion on how the memory resource - socially constructed - plays a relevant role in the geographic reading of space. This reading is performed through the memory register of historical and active social subjects, residents of the municipality of Itabaiana, Sergipe. The main objective is to understand how these social subjects contributed to the territorial formation of this municipality, based mainly on the analysis of themes and issues raised by each of them. As a methodological resource, interviews were conducted, supported by Oral History. The recorded statements are analyzed in order to obtain a table of subjects related to the territorial formation of Itabaiana. The experience with the testimonies has made it possible to understand the social and territorial marks inherent to the process of exploration and formation of the territory: some of them may be associated with historiography, others are appropriate to the life history of the people and the understanding of their space time.Keywords: Territorial Formation; Itabaiana; Memory; Geography.RESUMENEl presente artículo proporciona una discusión sobre cómo el recurso de la memoria - construida socialmente - desempeña un papel relevante en la lectura geográfica del espacio. Esta lectura se realiza a través del registro de memoria de sujetos sociales históricos y actuantes, residentes del municipio de Itabaiana, Sergipe. El principal objetivo es entender cómo estos sujetos sociales contribuyeron a la formación territorial de ese municipio a partir, principalmente, del análisis de temas y cuestiones suscitados por cada uno de ellos. Como recurso metodológico, se realizaron entrevistas apoyadas en la Historia Oral. Los testimonios registrados son analizados a fin de obtener un cuadro de temas relativos a la formación territorial de Itabaiana. La experiencia con los testimonios ha posibilitado la comprensión de marcas sociales y territoriales inherentes al proceso de explotación y formación del territorio: algunas pasibles de asociaciones con la historiografía, otras propias a la historia de vida de las personas y la comprensión de su espacio tiempo.Palabras clave: Formación Territorial; Itabaiana; Memoria; Geografía.

History of Feminist Approaches to Technology Studies

2011 ◽  
pp. 759-764
Author(s):  
Jennifer Brayton
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

While women have historically engaged with technological practices and processes as designers, producers, users and consumers, technology itself has been socially constructed as a masculine domain and inherent to male gender identity. As a result, women have not been recognized as technological participants, nor have they had their contributions validated. To understand this exclusion, different feminist approaches have been historically utilized to help situate the framing of technology as a masculine domain that is organized by the social structures of patriarchy, capitalism, and social stratification. Feminist approaches have been used to deconstruct the defining of technology as masculine, to illuminate the historical ways in which women have been part of technological fields, and to give evidence of the pleasure and empowerment women can feel with technology.

scholarly journals Early Modern Ottoman Politics of Emotion: What Has Love Got to Do With It?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (02-03) ◽  
pp. 132-154
Author(s):  
Nil Tekgül
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Political Language ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Cultural Importance ◽  
Ottoman History ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Despite a growing interest worldwide in the history of emotions, the topic has attracted the attention of scholars of Ottoman history only recently. In an attempt to understand the motivations underlying political undertakings, this article explores emotions, with a specific focus on mahabbet (love) and merhamet (compassion). It examines the social meaning attached to and the cultural importance of love and compassion in early modern Ottoman political language. I claim that as a socially constructed and political emotion, compassion was historically and culturally significant, serving as a tool to formulate political relations of domination and subordination.

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