Gems, Cameos, and Social Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 357-383
Author(s):  
Jörn Lang

This chapter focuses on the social practice of Roman images in the form of engraved gems and cameos. They were carried along on the body of their owner, so that the way they were perceived was highly flexible. The function of the representations was thus not limited to spatially fixed contexts of perception and could potentially function in all social configurations in which their wearer interacted socially. This essay aims to consider gems and cameos as objects within social spheres of activity. The starting point is the use of the objects. This makes it possible at least to limit the social interactions into which the images were integrated. Following upon this functional approach and an overview of common pictorial motifs, examples of possible ways these representations were concretely integrated to social practices will be shown. To this end, both outwardly directed functions such as social status or affiliation with a social group as well as actor-oriented aspects such as personal commemoration or the desire for individual protection are considered.

1926 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Young

This paper is the result of an attempt to determine if, in the different social classes obtained by a grading of a large section of the male working population of England and Wales for the triennial period 1910–12, as described by the Registrar-General in the Supplement to his 75th Annual Report, there was shown any special susceptibility to cancer in particular parts of the body. From a comparison of the standardised mortality-rates from cancer in 16 different sites in (1) men of three social grades, namely, the upper and middle classes, skilled workmen and unskilled workmen, (2) two sub-groups of the upper and middle classes and (3) men of two social classes, a higher and a lower intermediate to classes 1 and 3 and 3 and 5 respectively, it seems reasonable to draw the following conclusions:1. The mortality-rates from cancer in the majority of the parts of the body considered, including amongst others the tongue, oesophagus and stomach, which altogether account for 92 per cent, of the total deaths, are definitely higher in the men of lowest social status; the incidence decreases, though not always regularly, with ascent in the social scale.2. The mortality from cancer in other parts of the body, namely, the bowel, the prostate and probably the pancreas, is definitely highest, however, in men of the best social status.3. Though the relatively high cancer mortality-rates in these sites in the best social class may probably be attributed in some measure, which it is difficult or impossible to assess, to improved facilities for, and methods of diagnosis in this class, as compared with those in the lowest classes, this cannot be the whole explanation as the differences are considerable and as no increased mortality from cancer is evident in any of the sites except the pancreas with such an ascent in the social scale as takes place in passing from social group 1 b, to social group 1 a, where the influence of more skilful diagnosis might also be expected to reveal itself. If we may accept the mortality from hepatic cancer in the different social classes as an approximate index of the general accuracy of diagnosis of malignant disease therein, then varying accuracy of diagnosis can have little influence in producing the divergencies in mortality from cancer in these special sites that are found in the social groups under review.4. The excessive mortality from cancer of the bowel amongst males of the best social class cannot reasonably be ascribed to their habits of life such as high-feeding and easy-living or to their alleged greater liability to autointoxication. If this were so, cancer of the stomach and cancer of the rectum might also be expected to show a higher incidence in the same social class; the mortality-rates from cancer in these sites, however, are not higher in this class than in the lower social classes.


GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-206
Author(s):  
SAJITHA M

Food is one of the main requirements of human being. It is flattering for the preservation of wellbeing and nourishment of the body.  The food of a society exposes its custom, prosperity, status, habits as well as it help to develop a culture. Food is one of the most important social indicators of a society. History of food carries a dynamic character in the socio- economic, political, and cultural realm of a society. The food is one of the obligatory components in our daily life. It occupied an obvious atmosphere for the augmentation of healthy life and anticipation against the diseases.  The food also shows a significant character in establishing cultural distinctiveness, and it reflects who we are. Food also reflected as the symbol of individuality, generosity, social status and religious believes etc in a civilized society. Food is not a discriminating aspect. It is the part of a culture, habits, addiction, and identity of a civilization.Food plays a symbolic role in the social activities the world over. It’s a universal sign of hospitality.[1]


Author(s):  
Vida Jesenšek

AbstractLexicography is traditionally associated with its significant social and cultural role and consequently corresponding tasks and functions. Dictionaries have several, partially overlapping functions: they serve practical lexicography to satisfy various individual needs of the speakers, hence at the same time they also serve the language documentation which addresses national, language policy, administrative, economic as well as educational and scientific needs of a language community. This basic attitude to the social-cultural status of dictionaries, although simplified, is the starting point for considerations of historically significant milestones in the development of lexicography with Slovenian. Following Hausmann (1989) and his presentation of approaches to the social status of lexicography and its products, Slovenian lexicography is viewed from the perspective of the cultural-historical development of Slovenian-speaking society.


Author(s):  
Irina David

The aim of this chapter is to highlight how the female body and the social practices that it is subject to are depicted in Émile Zola's literary work as indicators of dominating perceptions in 19th century patriarchal French society with regard to social roles in general and women's role in society in particular. Rather than focusing on an anatomic, biological analysis of the body, the discussion will turn to the body as a social construct, as metaphor for the overall treatment of women as beings whose appearance and behavior have to constantly be regulated for them to no longer constitute a threat to the male-centric society they live in.


2020 ◽  
pp. 237-260
Author(s):  
Rim Feriani ◽  
Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani ◽  
Debra Kelly

This chapter considers the ways in which Khatibi’s practices of reading contribute to theories of meaning through his thinking on the deciphering of signs and symbols and of making sense of the world, and of the worlds of the text, in their multifaceted forms. It takes as its starting point what Khatibi terms, in his introductory essay ‘Le Cristal du Texte’ in La Bessure du Nom propre, ‘l’intersémiotique’, migrant signs which move between one sign system and another. Khatibi takes as his own project examples from semiotic systems found within Arabic and Islamic cultures, from both popular culture, such as the tattoo, to calligraphy and the language of the Koran, from the body to the text and beyond – including storytelling, mosaics, urban space, textiles. His readings reveal the intersemiotic and polysemic meanings created in the movements of these migrant signs between their sign systems. For Khatibi, this ‘infinity’ of the ‘text’ is linked also to a mobile and migrant identity refracted in the multifaceted surfaces of the crystal (hence the title of the essay – ‘Le Cristal du Texte’) rather than in one reflection as in a mirror. Moving from these concerns of Khatibi with which he develops his radical theory of the sign, of the word and of writing, the chapter goes on to propose new readings of a selection of other writers with a shared, but varied, relationship to their Islamic heritage. These are writers working with and through that heritage – and importantly, as for Khatibi, including the Sufi heritage – and whose writing is also resonant with Khatibi’s intersemiotic theoretical and cultural project concerned with the individual and the collective, the historical and the contemporary, the political, the social and the linguistic.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Françoise Bartiaux ◽  
Luis Reátegui Salmón

Based on empirical data on “green” practices according to household size, this article questions the role, if any, given to close personal relationships by social practice theories in sustaining or not daily life practices. Data are mainly drawn from an Internet survey conducted in Belgium in 2006 by WWF-Belgium on daily practices, related to food, energy consumption, mobility, and tourism. Results show that smaller households carry out more numerous “green” practices than larger ones. The concluding discussion underlines the relevance of including social interactions—namely within the household—into the conceptual framework derived from the social theories of practices, to take into account the rearticulating role of social interactions and domestic power claims when carrying out a practice or a set of practices, and when changing it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana España Keller

This paper asks what is the value of transforming the kitchen into a sonic performative work and public site for art and social practice. A Public Kitchen is formed by recreating the private and domestic space of a kitchen into a public space through a sonic performance artwork. The kitchen table is a platform for exploring, repositioning and amplifying kitchen tools as material phenomena through electronic and manual manipulation into an immersive sonic performance installation. This platform becomes a collaborative social space, where somatic movement and sensory, sonic power of the repositioned kitchen tools are built on a relational architecture of iterative sound performances that position the art historical and the sociopolitical, transforming disciplinary interpretations of the body and technology as something that is not specifically exclusively human but post-human. A Public Kitchen represents a pedagogical strategy for organizing and responding collectively to the local, operating as an independent nomadic event that speaks through a creative practice that is an unfolding process. (Re)imagining the social in a Public Kitchen produces noisy affects in a sonic intra-face that can contribute to transforming our social imaginations, forming daring dissonant narratives that feed post-human ethical practices and feminist genealogies. This paper reveals what matters—a feminist struggle invaluable in channeling the intra-personal; through the entanglement of the self, where language, meaning and subjectivity are relational to human difference and to what is felt from the social, what informs from a multi-cultural nomadic existence and diffractive perspective. The labored body is entangled with post-human contingencies of food preparation, family and social history, ritual, tradition, social geography, local politics, and women’s oppression; and is resonant and communicates as a site where new sonic techniques of existence are created and experiences shared.


1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Middleton ◽  
Helen L. Hewitt

This work represents the development of two lines of interest, one in the study of social practices of remembering and the other concerning issues of identity in the care of people with profound learning difficulties. We examine of the way life story work is used as a resource in providing for continuities in the experience of people with profound learning difficulties when moved from hospital to community based care. Our concern is the way carers attend to issues of identity in their relationships with people who are unable to speak on their own behalf. We discuss how identities are accomplished as part of the social practice of remembering in the construction of life story books designed to resource continuities of identities across changes in the provision of care. Identities are not examined in terms of some subjective representation of coherence across time and space. We examine the way social organisation of remembering in life story work makes visible identities in terms of continuities of participation in the social practices that make up the conditions of living of the recipients of care and the working practices of those who provide it.


2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 939-960 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOÃO NUNES

AbstractIt has become common to speak of health security, but the meaning of the latter is often taken for granted. Existing engagements with this notion have been constrained by an excessive focus on national security and on the securitising efforts of elites. This has led to an increasingly sceptical outlook on the potentialities of security for making sense of, and helping to tackle, health problems. Inspired by the idea of security as emancipation, this article reconsiders the notion of health security. It takes as its starting point the concrete insecurities experienced by individuals, and engages with them by way of an analytical framework centred on the notion of domination. Domination deepens analysis by connecting individual experiences of insecurity, the social interactions through which these are given meaning, and the structures that make them possible. Domination also broadens the remit of analysis, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of insecurity. The analytical benefits of this framework are demonstrated by two examples: HIV/AIDS; and water and sanitation. The lens of domination is also shown to bring benefits for the political engagement with global health problems.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
James McGrath

AbstractThis article examines the social status of the historical Jesus in relation to recent studies that place Jesus into the social category of an illegitimate child. After surveying the evidence with respect to the situation of such individuals in first-century Mediterranean and Jewish society, we shall proceed to examine whether Jesus’ implied social status (as evidenced by accounts of his adult social interactions) coheres with what one would expect in the case of someone who bore the stigma of that status. Our study suggests that the scandal caused by Jesus’ association with the marginalized clearly implies that he did not himself fall into that category.


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