Landscape and Scale

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Bauder
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Cultural Image

That the offshore program has remained in place for decades and public outcry against it has been minimal is partly the achievement of a carefully spun discourse of foreign farm labor, as we saw in the previous chapter. In this chapter, I examine how this discourse makes use of several strategies. First, it situates the foreign migrant workers in the context of the familiar landscape of rural Ontario. Second, it frames the representation of offshore labor in dualisms of belonging and nonbelonging. Third, it associates various dualisms with different geographical scales. These scale-particular representations enable seemingly contradictory narratives to coexist. However, in the context of the wider discourse, geographical scales and associated dualisms interlock in a manner that situates seasonal migrant labor in subordinate economic and marginal social roles. It is still common among scholars to use essentialized ethnic categories to assess rural landscapes and examine social relationships in agricultural production. In view of such scholarly practices, it is particularly important to expose the ideological underpinnings of landscape representation. Geography has offered many approaches, associated with different traditions of scholarship, to the study of landscape. These approaches variously treat landscape as an expression of rural lifestyle, a manifestation of everyday social space, a material reflection of social relations, and an ideology. I assume the fourth perspective on landscape, which George L. Henderson (2003) also describes as “apocryphal” landscape because it reveals, not authentic social relations, but ideological ways of seeing. When Stephen Daniels and Denis Cosgrove (1988: 1) say, “A landscape is a cultural image,” they refer to the ideological representation of people and objects through landscape. According to this approach to landscape, the manner in which people are situated and represented in landscape can reveal ideologies of subordination and exclusion. For example, the portrayal of Gypsies as uncivilized, dirty, and a “polluting presence” in the English countryside reflects “the assumption that the countryside belongs to the privileged” (Sibley 1995: 107). In this context, landscape is the discursive construction of “a stereotyped pure space which cannot accommodate difference” (108).

The Social Specificity of Societal Nature Relations in a Flexible Capitalist Society

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Eversberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Mutual Dependency ◽  
The Social ◽  
People’S Perceptions

Based on analyses of a 2016 German survey, this article contributes to debates on ‘societal nature relations’ by investigating the systematic differences between socially specific types of social relations with nature in a flexible capitalist society. It presents a typology of ten different ‘syndromes’ of attitudes toward social and environmental issues, which are then grouped to distinguish between four ideal types of social relationships with nature: dominance, conscious mutual dependency, alienation and contradiction. These are located in Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) social space to illustrate how social relationships with nature correspond to people’s positions within the totality of social relations. Understanding how people’s perceptions of and actions pertaining to nature are shaped by their positions in these intersecting relations of domination – both within social space and between society and nature – is an important precondition for developing transformative strategies that will be capable of gaining majority support in flexible capitalist societies.

Quiet struggles: Migrant farmworkers, informal labor, and everyday resistance in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 141-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Cohen ◽  
Elise Hjalmarson
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Migrant Farmworkers ◽  
Agricultural Worker ◽  
Informal Labor ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Community Organizers ◽  
Strict Regulation ◽  
Everyday Resistance

Utilizing James C. Scott’s germinal concept of everyday resistance, we examine the subtle, daily acts of resistance carried out by Mexican and Jamaican migrant farmworkers in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. We argue that despite finding themselves in situations of formidable constraint, migrant farmworkers utilize a variety of “weapons of the weak” that undermine the strict regulation of their employment by employers and state authorities. We also argue that everyday forms of resistance are important political acts and as such, they warrant inclusion in scholarly examinations. Indeed, by reading these methods neither as “real” resistance nor as political, we risk reproducing the same systems of power that de-legitimize the actions, agency, and political consciousness of subaltern and oppressed peoples. After a brief discussion on the concept of everyday resistance, we provide an overview of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), establishing the conditions that drive migrant workers to resist and drawing connections between the regulatory framework of the SAWP, the informality of the agricultural sector, and migrant labor. Finally, we examine specific instances of resistance that we documented over 3 recent years through ethnographic fieldwork and as community organizers with a grassroots migrant justice organization. We assert the importance of situating migrants’ everyday acts of resistance at the center of conceptualizations of the broader movement for migrant justice in Canada and worldwide.

scholarly journals “AKU MASIH CINTA INDONESIA”: STUDI PENDIDIKAN KARAKTER NASIONALISME DALAM KELUARGA PADA ANAK-ANAK BURUH MIGRAN INDONESIA DI MALAYSIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (01) ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Dimas Teguh Prasetyo ◽  
Tarma ◽  
Vera Utami Gede Putri
Keyword(s):  
Character Education ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Informal Education ◽  
Migrant Worker ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Correlational Study ◽  
Family Function ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
The Family

Fenomena migrasi yang dilakukan oleh para buruh migran Indonesia di Malaysia menyisakan cerita terutama bagi anak-anak yang lahir dan ikut bersama orangtuanya bermigrasi. Orangtua yang memiliki fungsi pendidikan dalam keluarga dituntut mampu memberikan pendidikan informal kepada anak-anak mereka untuk selalu mencintai dan menanamkan jiwa nasionalisme dalam diri mereka. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis pengaruh pendidikan karakter nasionalisme dalam keluarga terhadap karakter nasionalisme pada anak-anak buruh migran Indonesia di Malaysia. Studi ini merupakan penelitian korelasional yang dilakukan kepada 30 anak-anak di PKBM X Estate, Bintulu, Serawak, Malaysia. Hasil menunjukan bahwa terdapat pengaruh yang positif pendidikan karakter nasionalisme dalam keluarga terhadap karakter nasionalisme anak. Koefisien determinasi yang diperoleh dalam penelitian ini sebesar 25,50% yang menunjukkan bahwa besarnya karakter nasionalisme anak yang dipengaruhi oleh pendidikan karakter nasionalisme dalam keluarga. Hal tersebut menunjukan bahwa keluarga terutama orangtua memiliki peran yang penting dalam menciptakan dan mengembangkan karakter nasionalisme anak meskipun sedang berada dan tinggal di luar Indonesia. Kata Kunci: anak buruh migran, fungsi keluarga, karakter nasionalisme, pendidikan karakter    "I Still Love Indonesia": Study of Nationalism Character Education in Families in Indonesian Migrant Worker in Malaysia Abstract The migration phenomenon conducted by Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia leaves stories especially for children born and who are with their parents migrating. Parents who have the function of education in the family are required to provide informal education to their children to always love and instill the soul of nationalism within them. This study aims to determine and analyze the influence of character education of nationalism in the family against the character of nationalism on the children of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia. This is a correlational study conducted to 30 children in Community Learing Center (CLC) X Estate, Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia. The result shows that there was a positive correlation between character education of nationalism in the family and nationalism character of migrant labor children. It shows that family especially parents have important  role to create and develop child nationalism whether they live in out of Indonesia. Keywords: character education, child labor migran, family function, nationalism character

Railway Territorialities

Transfers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 230-249
Author(s):  
Mateusz Laszczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Traffic Corridor ◽  
Transnational Space

This article examines transportation infrastructures’ capacity to produce and transform social space through a focus on the contested history of railway development in Valsusa, Italy. I draw on participant observation and interviews with local residents and activists during ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2015. I first describe how railways helped form modern sociality in Valsusa in the twentieth century. Subsequently, I explore contrasting topological effects of a projected high-speed rail through the valley. For planners envisioning a trans-European space of exchange, the railway is a powerful way to “shrink” space; for local residents, this implies reducing Valsusa to a traffic “corridor.” Yet their protest generates new social relations and knowledges, giving rise to a notion of “territory” as unbound and connected to a transnational space of resistance to capitalist expansion.

Railway Territorialities

Transfers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 230-249
Author(s):  
Mateusz Laszczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
High Speed Rail ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Traffic Corridor ◽  
Transnational Space

Abstract This article examines transportation infrastructures’ capacity to produce and transform social space through a focus on the contested history of railway development in Valsusa, Italy. I draw on participant observation and interviews with local residents and activists during ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2015. I first describe how railways helped form modern sociality in Valsusa in the twentieth century. Subsequently, I explore contrasting topological effects of a projected high-speed rail through the valley. For planners envisioning a trans-European space of exchange, the railway is a powerful way to “shrink” space; for local residents, this implies reducing Valsusa to a traffic “corridor.” Yet their protest generates new social relations and knowledges, giving rise to a notion of “territory” as unbound and connected to a transnational space of resistance to capitalist expansion.

Affective meanings and social relations: identities and positions in the social space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Ambrasat ◽  
Christian von Scheve
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Occupational Status ◽  
Regional Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Affective Meanings ◽  
Affective Relations

Ever since Georg Simmel’s seminal works, social relations have been a central building block of sociological theory. In relational sociology, social identities are an essential concept and supposed to emerge in close interaction with other identities, discourses and objects. To assess this kind of relationality, existing research capitalises on patterns of meaning making that are constitutive for identities. These patterns are often understood as forms of declarative knowledge and are reconstructed, using qualitative methods, from denotative meanings as they surface: for example, in stories and narratives. We argue that this approach to some extent privileges explicit and conceptual knowledge over tacit and non-conceptual forms of knowledge. We suggest that affect is a concept that can adequately account for such implicit and bodily meanings, even when measured on the level of linguistic concepts. We draw on affect control theory (ACT) and related methods to investigate the affective meanings of concepts (lexemes) denoting identities in a large survey. We demonstrate that even though these meanings are widely shared across respondents, they nevertheless show systematic variation reflecting respondents’ positions within the social space and the typical interaction experiences associated with their identities. In line with ACT, we show, first, that the affective relations between exemplary identities mirror their prototypical, culturally circumscribed and institutionalised relations (for example, between role identities). Second, we show that there are systematic differences in these affective relations across gender, occupational status and regional culture, which we interpret as reflecting respondents’ subjective positioning and experience vis-à-vis a shared cultural reality.

Lead Paint Exposure in Migrant Labor Camps

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 604-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Osband ◽  
James R. Tobin
Keyword(s):  
Lead Poisoning ◽  
Lead Exposure ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Lead Paint ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
Labor Camps ◽  
Migrant Farm

During the summer of 1970, 117 migrant farm labor camps were studied for lead paint hazard. Of these, 115 had lead-based paint on their structures. The average dwelling had 50% of its surfaces painted with lead-based paints. The average dwelling had 40% of its paint in a peeling or chipping state. We conclude that all children living in such housing should be recognized as having been subjected to lead exposure. Because of this, lead poisoning should be more thoroughly looked for in rural settings.

Social Space in Simulation Models

2014 ◽  
pp. 200-219
Author(s):  
Davide Nunes ◽  
Luis Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Consensus Formation ◽  
Space Design ◽  
Network Topologies ◽  
Multiple Interaction ◽  
Set Up

In real world scenarios, the formation of consensus is a self-organisation process by which actors have to make a joint assessment about a target subject, be it a decision making problem or the formation of a collective opinion. In social simulation, models of opinion dynamics tackle the opinion formation phenomena. These models try to make an assessment, for instance, of the ideal conditions that lead an interacting group of agents to opinion consensus, polarisation or fragmentation. This chapter investigates the role of social relation structure in opinion dynamics and consensus formation. The authors present an agent-based model that defines social relations as multiple concomitant social networks and explore multiple interaction games in this structural set-up. They discuss the influence of complex social network topologies where actors interact in multiple distinct networks. The chapter builds on previous work about social space design with multiple social relations to determine the influence of such complex social structures in a process such as opinion formation.

Seeds of Knowledge

2011 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Eliezer Geisler
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

What is the basic unit of knowledge? To answer this pesky query means to also reveal what is knowledge and perhaps even what is the structure of knowledge. In such a pursuit we should start with some definitions of types and forms of knowledge, so that we can possibly gain desired common ground. In the previous chapter I discussed the recent focus on propositions and language as descriptors of knowledge. These are active at the level of words, concepts, and even complex notions, such as “belief” and “justification.”

The State and the Ongoing Struggle Over Coca in Bolivia: Legitimacy, Hegemony, and the Exercise of Power

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Sanabria
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Structural Instability ◽  
Current Drive ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Year 2000

Dangerous Harvest, the title of this volume, is an especially appropriate metaphor with which to begin to discuss and understand the ongoing, protracted, and increasingly violent struggle over coca in Bolivia—the third most-important coca leaf–producing country in the world (BINM 1998: 65). Such a metaphor—which suggests the reaping of a product that is potentially precarious, menacing, ominous, and even deadly—points to the fact not only that coca is an inherently conflict-ridden arena or social space but also that the most enduring and significant upshot of the current drive against coca, what is being “harvested” by recent counternarcotics efforts, is the potential for long-term structural instability and conflict in Bolivian society. In this chapter I pay special attention to this struggle over coca in Bolivia, particularly from the late 1980s to the early part of 2000. I will argue that the contest over coca in Bolivia reflects and embodies numerous and inherently conflictive claims and counterclaims (social, political, economic, and ideological) by different segments of Bolivian society, many of which entail fundamental questions about legitimacy, hegemony, and challenges to the exercise of power by elites and state elites. That is, to view the coca conflict as essentially one between “evil” or “criminal” coca growers and traffickers, on the one hand, and enlightened, law-abiding authorities and citizens, on the other—precisely the criminal justice perspective that ideologically informs, guides, and justifies current anticoca policy by U.S. and U.S.-funded counternarcotics agencies and programs—is not only not enlightening but also fundamentally counterproductive in that it fails to provide the necessary insights with which to grapple with and arrive at a just solution to some of the most important roots of the current coca strife in Bolivia. I will also try to understand and explain the seemingly successful coca eradication efforts in the late 1990s and first half of the year 2000, as well as how and why resistance to these efforts by coca cultivators in the Chapare appear to have been particularly ineffective in recent years.

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