The Sociology of Meditation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Pagis
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Meditation Practice ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
People Search ◽  
Contemporary Practice ◽  
Globalized World

Sociologists study meditation as a social phenomenon, utilizing the contemporary practice of meditation as a window to larger questions about social life and organization in the contemporary world. This chapter illustrates how meditation serves as a new institution and social sphere that balances the “secular” and the “mystical” as well as “being together” and “being alone.” It embraces rising individualization and secularization, yet it is based on collective, joint circles where affective effervescence is produced and where people search for experiences that can be categorized as mystical, transformative, or therapeutic. The studies introduced in this chapter focus on three themes: meditation practice as a religious and spiritual phenomenon embedded in the contemporary world with its themes of individualization, secularization, and religious syncretism; the popularization of meditation as a social movement in a globalized world; and the micro-social world of meditation practice, focusing on social relations and the social self.

scholarly journals Genesis of State Social Policy of Ukraine: Administrative and Legal Aspect

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
L. S. Katsalap
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Legal Provision ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social

The author of the article studies and systematizes the set of available scientific achievements on the origin, formation and development of state social policy of Ukraine, considering the fact that one of the priorities of Ukrainian society in the need for progressive improvement of all mechanisms of public administration is the formation of effective social policy. And taking into account the aggregate of the most urgent issues of the development of our state, connected with overcoming the negative phenomena in a social life, the administrative and legal provision of the reliable mechanism of social protection of the population by public authorities requires particular attention. The author of the research analyzes the historical and legal base of the social sphere of the Ukrainian state since the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine until now. It is emphasized that international legislation aimed at ensuring human rights and freedoms became the basis of regulatory and legal provision of the social sphere in Ukraine. It is noted that the analysis of the content of social functions of the Ukrainian state is characterized by the presence of factors of democratic state formation in the society that is focused on the European vector. The author followed the chronological sequence of the formation of social institutions and legislative regulation of social relations in the state, which led to the current state of social policy. The difficult way of the formation of modern social policy of Ukraine, its achievements, weaknesses and perspective directions of the development are highlighted. The author defines the priority directions of future scientific researches in the specified sphere.

scholarly journals Embodiment of Ancestral Spirits, the Social Interface, and Ritual Ceremonies: Construction of the Shamanic Landscape among the Daur in North China

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Feng Qu
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
North China ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Interface ◽  
Human Construction ◽  
Human Social Life

The case study in this paper is on the Daur (as well as the Evenki, Buriat, and Bargu Mongols) in Hulun Buir, Northeast China. The aim of this research is to examine how shamanic rituals function as a conduit to actualize communications between the clan members and their shaman ancestors. Through examinations and observations of Daur and other Indigenous shamanic rituals in Northeast China, this paper argues that the human construction of the shamanic landscape brings humans, other-than-humans, and things together into social relations in shamanic ontologies. Inter-human metamorphosis is crucial to Indigenous self-conceptualization and identity. Through rituals, ancestor spirits are active actors involved in almost every aspect of modern human social life among these Indigenous peoples.

Class Formation and Ideological Practice: A Case from Sri Lanka

1981 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Brow
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding

An adequate understanding of the complex connections between changes in the social relations of production and changes in the bases of group formation demands an historical approach in which consciousness and its ideological products are viewed dynamically, not as the mechanically determined superstructural reflections of material relations but as an active and constituent components of everyday social life. The concepts required for such an analysis are developed here, drawing on the seminal work of both Marx and Weber, as well as on more recent scholarship, and are applied to recent changes in agrarian relations and ideological practice in Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka.

Risking Debt for Honor

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Cash
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rural Urban Migration ◽  
The Republic

Research on godparenthood has traditionally emphasized its stabilizing effect on social structure. This article, however, focuses attention on how the practices and discourses associated with marital sponsorship in the Republic of Moldova ascribe value to the risks and uncertainties of social life. Moldova has experienced substantial economic, social, and political upheaval during the past two decades of postsocialism, following a longer period of Soviet-era modernization, secularization, and rural–urban migration. In this context, godparenthood has not contributed to the long-term stability of class structure or social relations, but people continue to seek honor and social respect by taking the social and economic risks involved in sponsoring new marriages.

scholarly journals SAMFUND? Durkheim revisited i Amazonas og videre

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Veber
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Structured Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Functionalist Theory ◽  
Empirical Context ◽  
Objective Structures

“Society” appears a difficult notion. We use it all the time. But is it any good as an analytical concept? Sociologists seem to agree it is not. Few societies have the empirical characteristics of the bounded entity that structural-functionalist theory assumed. Constructivist notions of society as “imagined community” appear to be tied up with the existence of the State or with the spread of information technology. This leaves contemporary anthropology with “society” as a residue, the left-over from culture’s gluttonous theoretical supper. Still, social science aims to explain or understand social relations, interactions, and the processes by which structures and functions are worked into social systems as implied by the notion of society. The notion of society allows us to assume the existence of objective structures of order in the social life of people. Unlike the notion of culture, however, the notion of society has not been critically scrutinized by anthropologists. In contemporary Danish anthropology with its focus on culture and cultural representations, writers tend to simply take society for granted as the intrinsic empirical context of culture. From the perspective of Durkheimian notions of “the social”, the paper provides a brief review of interpretations that retrospectively have appeared analytical dead-ends. The author goes on to suggest that the notion of “symbolically generalized media of communication” may offer a productive opening that embraces both sides of the culture/society dichotomy in the search for structured systems of social existence whether subjectively or objectively conceived. The idea of “symbolically generalized media or communication” was originally formulated by Talcott Parsons and subsequently reworked by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Rather than an interrelated series of parts that make up a whole plus something else in the classic Durkheimian sense, society from this perspective appears in the form of structured sets of actions oriented by a horizon of possibilities and expectations, symbolically constituted, yet always provisional and emergent. Inspired by analyses of two different cases in Amazonian research the paper offers a brief hint at how the notion may be employed in anthropology.

scholarly journals KONVERSI KEAGAMAAN PASCA 1965, MENGURAI DAMPAK SOSIAL BUDAYA DAN HUBUNGAN ISLAM KRISTEN DI PEDESAAN JAWA

Harmoni ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-240
Author(s):  
M. Alie Humaedi
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Heating Up ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between Islam and Christianity in various regions is often confronted with situations caused by external factors. They no longer debate the theological aspect, but are based on the political economy and social culture aspects. In the Dieng village, the economic resources are mostly dominated by Christians as early Christianized product as the process of Kiai Sadrach's chronicle. Economic mastery was not originally as the main trigger of the conflict. However, as the political map post 1965, in which many Muslims affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party convert to Christianity, the relationship between Islam and Christianity is heating up. The question of the dominance of political economic resources of Christians is questionable. This research to explore the socio cultural and religious impact of the conversion of PKI to Christian in rural Dieng and Slamet Pekalongan and Banjarnegara. This qualitative research data was extracted by in-depth interviews, observations and supported by data from Dutch archives, National Archives and Christian Synod of Salatiga. Research has found the conversion of the PKI to Christianity has sparked hostility and deepened the social relations of Muslims and Christians in Kasimpar, Petungkriono and Karangkobar. The culprit widened by involving the network of Wonopringgo Islamic Boarding. It is often seen that existing conflicts are no longer latent, but lead to a form of manifest conflict that decomposes in the practice of social life.

Refracted visions: Street photography, humanism and the loss of innocence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Carville
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Visual Expression ◽  
Politics Of Religion ◽  
Street Photography

Justin Carville draws on recent debates in relation to photography and the everyday in order to examine the role of street-photography in the cultural politics of religion as it was played out in the quotidian moments of social relations within Dublin’s urban and suburban spaces during the 1980s and 90s. The essay argues that photography was important in giving visual expression to the social contradictions within the relations between religion and the transformation of Irish social life, not through the dramatic and traumatic experiences that defined the nation’s increased secularism, but in the quiet, humdrum and sometimes monotonous routines of religious ceremonies and everyday social relations.

Moral Order in the Post-Socialist Chinese City

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Fulong Wu ◽  
Zheng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Population Groups ◽  
Urban Neighbourhoods ◽  
The Social ◽  
Chicago School Of Sociology

The seminal works by Park and the Chicago school of sociology are of great value for studying a rapidly urbanising China characterised by the decline of the formerly socialist structure and the increasing commodification of services and housing. Their assertion that the industrial organisation of cities has substituted primary and neighbourhood relations with secondary relations characterised by anonymity and utilitarianism also resonates with the rising middle-class population in China. However, our chapter contends that certain population groups have not followed the trajectory of change described by Park but instead continue to rely on primary and local social relations due to interventions of the Chinese state. Our argument is supported by a discussion on the varying social relations in Chinese urban neighbourhoods and specifically on the social life of rural migrants in the urban Chinese society.

Social Groups and Ranking: an Aspect of Ancient Indian Social Life Derived From the Pali Canonical Texts

1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-316
Author(s):  
N.K. Wagle
Keyword(s):  
Triple System ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Group Affiliation ◽  
Social Ranking ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
The Buddha

AbstractIn summing up, a number of conclusions can be drawn. We have tried on the one hand to establish the various de facto social groups implied in the formulae of address, reference and salutation ascertaining the group affiliation of the persons involved. We have also tried to bring out the meaning of various terms and establish a triple system of ranking. The meaning attached to these terms, we may point out, is specifically interactional, and the proof of its validity lies only in its consistency. We have demonstrated this throughout our presentation of the data as well as the conclusions. Our conclusions mainly indicate a three-fold system of ranking. In the social sphere the brāhmanas successfully maintain their hostile equality with the Buddha. But in the religious and political fields, they are not as successful. In the religious field the Buddhist order more than holds its own and claims several distinguished brāhmanas within its fold. Politically too, the Buddha is less encumbered than the brāhmanas. Unlike them, he is not servile to the king. Despite their actual humility in the king's presence, in their mode of address the brāhmanas recognize no superior in any system of ranking, but at the most only equals. They and the Buddhists have an equal hold on the gahapatis, who represent the secular population, the prizes in the religious struggle. Having analysed the social groupings, we may further comment on them and see if we can relate our "inferred" social ranking of the groups to what is already stated about them in the texts. We may

Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Wildavsky
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Preference Formation ◽  
Political Cultures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ways Of Life

Preferences come from the most ubiquitous human activity: living with other people. Support for and opposition to different ways of life, the shared values legitimating social relations (here called cultures) are the generators of diverse preferences. After discussing why it is not helpful to conceive of interests as preferences or to dismiss preference formation as external to organized social life, I explain how people are able to develop many preferences from few clues by using their social relations to interrogate their environment. The social filter is the source of preferences. I then argue that culture is a more powerful construct than conceptual rivals: heuristics, schemas, ideologies. Two initial applications—to the ideology of the left-right distinctions and to perceptions of danger—test the claim that this theory of how individuals use political cultures to develop their preferences outperforms the alternatives.

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