Risk, Culture, and Cognition

2019 ◽  
pp. 448-466
Author(s):  
Daina Cheyenne Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Culture And Cognition ◽  
Risk Culture

For many researchers, risk is objective, fixed, and measurable. Social scientists, however, have long worked under the belief that risk is a social construction and is culturally determined. This chapter follows Wilkinson’s use of the term “risk” and the goal of the chapter is to review and map out the ways social actors perceive and make sense of hazards and conditions of threatening uncertainty. Such a contribution is generally seen to lie in the area of risk perception, risk communication, and risk responsibility. This chapter explores key contributions in the study of risk in these three areas through the lens of a sociology of culture and cognition. The chapter ends with some observations on risk and cognition from ethnographic research on the long-term aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Between Certainty and Trust: Boundary-Work and the Construction of Archaeological Epistemic Authority

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Alonso González
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Boundary Work ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Term Study ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
Long Term Study

The discovery of a rock art site in 2008 by an amateur archaeologist spurred a wave of public interest in archaeology in Maragatería, Spain. As new discoveries took place, alternative archaeological discourses thrived facing the inaction of institutional and academic archaeologists. A long-term study of Maragatería carried out by the author serves to explore the construction of archaeological epistemic authority in a context where various social actors compete for dominance. Gieryn’s notion of ‘boundary-work’ serves to analyse the different strategies employed by academic and institutional archaeologists, amateurs and pseudoarchaeologists to build epistemic authority. This article draws on Latour’s affirmation that the legitimisation of scientific objectivity should rely on ‘trust’ rather than on ‘certainty’. Ethnographic research showed that the more archaeologists attempted to legitimise their authority by reclaiming certainty, the more pseudoarchaeology proliferated. In contrast, the work of amateurs restrained the growth of pseudoarchaeology by creating networks of trust.

Assuming Capacity

2019 ◽  
pp. 197-208
Author(s):  
Anne Kohler
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Assistant ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cognitive Differences ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Adolescents And Adults

This chapter reports on the successful inclusion of adolescents and adults with Down syndrome (DS) in a long-term ethnographic research project focusing on the clinical, social, and familial experiences and explores how the voices and opinions of those with DS can be leveraged to shift existing policy conversations. The three key methodological interventions are: (1) adapted photovoice, (2) assisted interviewing, and (3) the employment of a research assistant who has DS. In addition to documenting the adaptation of research methodology to suit the needs of interlocutors with intellectual disabilities, a feminist care ethics lens is used to argue that social scientists ought to examine normative assumptions about personhood and narrative that underlie existing research methods. These methodological innovations are transferable to research participants with a wide range of intellectual disabilities and can aid in conducting ethical participatory research among people with cognitive differences.

Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

Gaining access to the field in medical ethnography: Reflections on ethical, methodological, and structural challenges in the study of long-term care facilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 136345932098887
Author(s):  
Neta Roitenberg
Keyword(s):  
Long Term Care ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Care Facilities ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Access To The Field ◽  
Medical Ethnography

The article extends the discussion on the challenges in gaining access to the field in medical ethnographic research, focusing on long-term care (LTC) facilities. Medical institutions have been documented to be difficult sites to access. The reference, however, is to the recruitment of patients as informants. The challenges of recruiting practitioners as informants have not been investigated at all. The article presents the key issues that emerged in the process of gaining social access at the sites of two LTC facilities as part of a study on care workers’ identities. The main obstacles encountered during the fieldwork were organizational constraints and negotiating control over the process of recruiting the lower occupational tier of care workers with gatekeepers. The article presents the coping strategies implemented to overcome the ethical and methodological obstacles: continually reassessing the consent and cooperation of participants and developing a rapport with nurse’s aides during interviews.

No Longer Disabled: The Legal Impact of the New Social Construction of HIV

1997 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-43
Author(s):  
Wendy E. Parmet ◽  
Daniel J. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Positive Development ◽  
Hiv Disease ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Medical Interventions ◽  
Terminal Disease ◽  
Hiv Epidemic

The second social construction of HIV disease has begun. In the first fifteen years of the HIV epidemic, many viewed the disease “as the modern plague.” Now, as the epidemic matures and new “miracle treatments" are heralded, the disease is beginning to conjure a very different set of images. Where once AIDS was dreaded as the inexplicable cataclysm of the end of the millennium, now, as the virus appears amenable to treatment, we are beginning to see the disease as something both preventable and controllable, no longer beyond human direction. And, where the disease was once synonymous with death, disability, and decline, we now witness stories of miracle recoveries and long-term survival. In the minds of many, the terminal disease has become the chronic disease; the dreaded plague has become but another social problem.In most respects, the new social construction of HIV, emerging from the advent of potentially effective medical interventions, is a positive development.

Community Long Term Care Ombudsman Program Disaster Assistance: Ready, Willing or Able?

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Wayne Nelson ◽  
Bo Kyum Yang ◽  
F. Ellen Netting ◽  
Erin Monahan
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
Disaster Mitigation ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Disaster Assistance ◽  
Disaster Experience ◽  
Public Crisis ◽  
Disaster Training

AbstractThe high elder care death toll of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, pushed the federally mandated Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program (LTCOP) into the unsought and unforeseen realm of disaster preparedness. This new role was an extension of the LTCOP’s historic resident’s rights investigative case advocacy. To assess if, how, and to what extent local ombudsmen adapted to this new function, 102 local LTCOP leaders completed a telephone survey based on the CMS Emergency Planning Checklist. This assessed their own and their programs’: (a) readiness to help facilities reduce disaster threats to residents, (b) familiarity with relevant disaster laws, rules, and resources; (c) readiness to help residents through the disaster cycle; and (d) levels of disaster training and/or their plans to provide such training to their staff and LTC stakeholders. Forty-two respondents (41.13%) had experienced a public disaster but over half or those responding (n = 56, 54.90%) felt fairly to somewhat prepared to help in a public crisis. After being ready to work away from their office during a crisis ($\overline{x}$ = 4.14, SD = 1.00) respondents felt most prepared “to assist during nursing home emergency closure and evacuation” ($\overline{x}$ = 3.86, SD = 1.09). t-tests revealed that respondents with a disaster experience were significantly more prepared in all assessed dimensions than as those without disaster experience. The study highlights the training needs of ombudsmen in high risk areas to better prepare them for disaster mitigation in nursing homes.

Obstetric Violence in Their Own Words: How Women in Mexico and South Africa Expect, Experience, and Respond to Violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110373
Author(s):  
Vania Smith-Oka ◽  
Sarah E. Rubin ◽  
Lydia Z. Dixon
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Powerful Method ◽  
Obstetric Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
Temporal Model ◽  
Women's Stories ◽  
Structural Inequalities

This article, based on ethnographic research in Mexico and South Africa, presents two central arguments about obstetric violence: (a) structural inequalities across diverse global sites are primarily linked to gender and lead to similar patterns of obstetric violence, and (b) ethnography is a powerful method to give voice to women's stories. Connecting these two arguments is a temporal model to understand how women across the world come to expect, experience, and respond to obstetric violence—that is, before, during, and after the encounter. This temporal approach is a core feature of ethnography, which requires long-term immersion and attention to context.

Legal Reform and Social Construction: Violence, Gender, and the Law

1994 ◽  
Vol 19 (04) ◽  
pp. 829-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Frohmann ◽  
Elizabeth Mertz
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
The Social

As scholars and activists have addressed the problem of violence against women in the past 25 years, their efforts have increasingly attuned us to the multiple dimensions of the issue. Early activists hoped to change the structure of power relations in our society, as well as the political ideology that tolerated violence against women, through legislation, education, direct action, and direct services. This activism resulted in a plethora of changes to the legal codes and protocols relating to rape and battering. Today, social scientists and legal scholars are evaluating the effects of these reforms, questioning anew the ability of law by itself to redress societal inequalities. As they uncover the limitations of legal reforms enacted in the past two decades, scholars are turning—or returning—to ask about the social and cultural contexts within which laws are formulated, enforced, and interpreted.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document