Embracing Change

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intercultural Encounters

Rapid changes in the contemporary world are increasing pressure on the social and psychological sciences to try to understand the present and foresee possible futures. Embracing Change: Knowledge, Continuity, and Social Representations focuses on the production of shared knowledge, as interpreted from a social psychological perspective inspired by the theory of social representations that highlights the role of the “Other” in the production of social understanding. Adopting this “socio-psychological gaze” entails bringing the primacy of relationships and communication to the forefront of the knowing processes while taking social and cultural forces into account. Growing streams of research bear witness to the potential of this theoretical and methodological approach, in synergy with cognate perspectives. This volume contains a collection of contributions from leading authors on how social representations theory can help us understand change and continuity in social knowledge regarding hot topics and domains of our time, such as health concerns, environmental issues, aging in an aging society, and intercultural encounters. The state of the art is explored with reference to advances in theory, methods, and the stance of the researcher in the process of inquiry. The volume’s focus is on how change has been studied in social psychology, how common knowledge is organized in everyday life, and how scholars can study and contribute to change in knowledge patterns. Casting light on challenging social issues, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars in social psychology, sociology, and social sciences.

Introduction: Why a Social Representations Perspective?

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Alberta Contarello
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Entire Volume ◽  
Social Object ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Aging ◽  
Theoretical Side

This chapter introduces the social representations perspective that forms the background of the entire volume, presenting the social-psychological gaze (regard psychosocial): the acknowledgment that the knowledge of a social object necessarily requires the mediation of an Alter, a “thirdness.” From this premise, specific ways of studying change and continuity in meaning-making derive, putting change at the forefront as well as concerns about the role of the researcher along the path. After considering these features, the chapter briefly presents the various parts that compose the book and the single chapters. From a social representations stance or from cognate perspectives, several keywords and topics are encountered, both on a theoretical side and with empirical examples, addressing social issues in domains such as health, aging, inequalities, environment, and community.

Introduction to The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Johanna Ray Vollhardt
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
Collective Victimhood ◽  
Level Of Analysis

This chapter introduces the volume and gives a brief overview of its structure and the content of each chapter. The chapter describes the nature of social psychological research on collective victimhood to date, defines the concept, and provides an organizing framework for scholarship on collective victimhood. This framework emphasizes the interplay of structural and individual-level factors that need to be considered, as well as how the social psychology of collective victimhood is studied at the micro-, meso-, and macro level of analysis. In order to avoid a determinist and simplistic view of collective victimhood, it is crucial to consider the different ways in which people actively construe and make sense of collective victimization of their group(s). It is also important to consider the role of power, history, and other structural factors that together shape the diversity of experiences of collective victimization as well as the consequences of collective victimhood.

scholarly journals The Social Psychology of Citizenship, Participation and Social Exclusion: Introduction to the Special Thematic Section

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford Stevenson ◽  
John Dixon ◽  
Nick Hopkins ◽  
Russell Luyt
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Reflective Process ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
Thematic Section ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Psychological Research

The aim of this special thematic section is to bring together recent social psychological research on the topic of citizenship with a view to discerning the emerging trends within the field and its potential contributions to the broader interdisciplinary area of citizenship studies. Eight papers spanning diverse theoretical traditions (including social identity, social representations and discursive approaches) apply an array of methods to consider different aspects of citizenship across a variety of cultural and national contexts. Some focus on individuals’ perceptions and discussions of citizenship, others examine the group dynamics which flow from these understandings, and the rest examine the potential for citizenship to exclude as well as include marginalised communities. While diverse, the contributions share some core commonalities: all share a concern in trying to understand citizenship from the perspective of the citizen; all conceptualise citizenship as an active and reflective process occurring between members of a community; and all highlight the irreducibly social and collective nature of the experience and practice of citizenship in everyday life. We propose that these elements of convergence have the potential to give the social psychology of citizenship a solid basis and recognisable profile in order to contribute to the broader arena of citizenship studies.

Performing the Truth: The Social-Psychological Context of TRC Narratives

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Statman
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Football Club ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Dynamics ◽  
The Church ◽  
Forgiveness And Reconciliation

Little attention has been directed towards analysing the TRC as a system, itself generating, monitoring and enforcing rules and parameters defining proper interaction, testimony and discourse. This article critically examines the social psychology of the TRC process, focusing on three areas: (1) the role of positivist methodology in the marginalisation of victim narratives; (2) the role of the church and of Christian ideology in shaping the outcome of hearings and the information gathering process; and (3) using the Mandela United Football Club hearing as a case study, the ways in which the hearings process itself shaped, constrained and controlled the expressions of “truth” that it generated. It examines the social-psychological dynamics whereby the TRC structure and process curtailed expressions of anger and vengeance, inducing instead performances of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Social Representations and Commitment

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Bonetto ◽  
Fabien Girandola ◽  
Grégory Lo Monaco
Keyword(s):  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
First Line ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bibliographic Search ◽  
English Articles

Abstract. This contribution consists of a critical review of the literature about the articulation of two traditionally separated theoretical fields: social representations and commitment. Besides consulting various works and communications, a bibliographic search was carried out (between February and December, 2016) on various databases using the keywords “commitment” and “social representation,” in the singular and in the plural, in French and in English. Articles published in English or in French, that explicitly made reference to both terms, were included. The relations between commitment and social representations are approached according to two approaches or complementary lines. The first line follows the role of commitment in the representational dynamics: how can commitment transform the representations? This articulation gathers most of the work on the topic. The second line envisages the social representations as determinants of commitment procedures: how can these representations influence the effects of commitment procedures? This literature review will identify unexploited tracks, as well as research perspectives for both areas of research.

Beyond the Social Determinants of Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Laura Hall ◽  
Urpi Pine ◽  
Tanya Shute
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Weather Changes ◽  
People First

Abstract This paper will reflect on key findings from a Summer 2017 initiative entitled The Role of Culture and Land-Based Healing in Addressing and Ending Violence against Indigenous Women and Two-Spirited People. The Indigenist and decolonizing methodological approach of this work ensured that all research was grounded in experiential and reciprocal ways of learning. Two major findings guide the next phase of this research, complicating the premise that traditional economic activities are healing for Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people. First, the complexities of the mainstream labour force were raised numerous times. Traditional economies are pressured in ongoing ways through exploitative labour practices. Secondly, participants emphasized the importance of attending to the responsibility of nurturing, enriching, and sustaining the wellbeing of soil, water, and original seeds in the process of creating renewal gardens as a healing endeavour. In other words, we have an active role to play in healing the environment and not merely using the environment to heal ourselves. Gardening as research and embodied knowledge was stressed by extreme weather changes including hail in June, 2018, which meant that participants spent as much time talking about the healing of the earth and her systems as the healing of Indigenous women in a context of ongoing colonialism.

Los estereotipos sociales a través del filtro de la traducción

Babel ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-233
Author(s):  
Gemma Andújar Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Perceptions ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Social Stereotypes ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Points Of View

Cultural referents not only designate specific realities of a given culture which do not always exist in another but they are also semantic elements which trigger social representations. By conveying values and points of view about different social groups, cultural referents become linguistic instruments to build stereotypes. These thought patterns are shared by the members of a social or cultural community and act as a filter of reality. The aim of this paper is to study the role of cultural referents in the construction of social stereotypes, focusing on the socio-cognitive universe they evoke. To this end, we have analyzed the translations techniques applied in the Spanish, Catalan and English versions of a novel which has been very successful on the French literary scene: Muriel Barbery’s L’Élégance du hérisson (2006). As show the results of this textual comparison, the explanations, descriptions and additional information observed in target texts do not trigger the same associations as cultural referents do in the source text. Translational approaches are too limited when it comes to achieve linguistic adequacy to different world visions. Therefore, translation must be conceived as an encounter between two cultural systems, in which the translator must build bridges, not so much between two linguistic systems as between the social perceptions and values of two different cultural communities.

scholarly journals The Influence of Masculinity and the Moderating Role of Religion on the Workplace Well-Being of Factory Workers in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 6250
Author(s):  
Quan Gao ◽  
Orlando Woods ◽  
Xiaomei Cai
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Spiritual Support ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Factory Workers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Being There ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Moderating Role

This paper explores how the intersection of masculinity and religion shapes workplace well-being by focusing on Christianity and the social construction of masculinity among factory workers in a city in China. While existing work on public and occupational health has respectively acknowledged masculinity’s influences on health and the religious and spiritual dimensions of well-being, there have been limited efforts to examine how variegated, and especially religious, masculinities influence people’s well-being in the workplace. Drawing on ethnography and in-depth interviews with 52 factory workers and 8 church leaders and factory managers, we found that: (1) Variegated masculinities were integrated into the factory labor regime to produce docile and productive bodies of workers. In particular, the militarized and masculine cultures in China’s factories largely deprived workers of their dignity and undermined their well-being. These toxic masculinities were associated with workers’ depression and suicidal behavior. (2) Christianity not only provided social and spiritual support for vulnerable factory workers, but also enabled them to construct a morally superior Christian manhood that phytologically empowered them and enhanced their resilience to exploitation. This paper highlights not only the gender mechanism of well-being, but also the ways religion mediates the social-psychological construction of masculinity.

scholarly journals Curriculum design in theology and development: Human agency and the prophetic role of the church

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Development Programme ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.

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