Contributions from Sociology

Author(s):  
Marta Trzebiatowska

Sociologists are concerned with the way human behaviour is patterned. They look for plausible explanations of phenomena that strike them as important due to their objective prevalence in social life. This chapter outlines the social scientific tools for studying religion, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on a range of examples from sociology of religion it explores the significance of individuals’ dispositions on the one hand and opportunities they encounter in their everyday lives on the other. The overall argument emphasizes the need for more collaboration between social scientists and theologians, or religious studies scholars. It suggests that secular sociologists would do well to consider the possibility of change in gender relations within religious contexts, and religious scholars could learn from the sociological method of inquiry to understand better the structurally determined mechanisms which make the symbolic gender order so resistant to change.

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-415
Author(s):  
Dunya D. Cakir

AbstractExamining the writings of prominent Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey, including Fatma Barbarosoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, Yıldız Ramazanoğlu, and Nazife Şişman, this article explores the repercussions of their intellectual activism for how scholars understand and study piety politics. These Islamist women intellectuals, whose discourse and subjectivities have been translated into analytical categories by scholars of piety politics, contest the terms of their encounters with academics and, more broadly, the conversion of Muslim women into objects of research. Their writings shed light on the complex interpretative interplay between academic and lay discourse when the objects of scholarly study speak back to social scientists. I argue that these kinds of critical engagements between Islamist women intellectuals and social scientific discourses attest to the mobility and circularity of social scientific categories, which have infused and reconstituted Islamist debates in Turkey. Rather than uncritically endorse or dispute these intellectuals’ interpretations of social scientific accounts, I leverage their claims to underscore the social life of academic discourse and to promote an enriched vision of piety politics and reflexive methodology.


Author(s):  
Ю.Ю. Александрова ◽  
И.В. Кохова ◽  
Н.С. Пряжников ◽  
Е.Ю. Пряжникова

В статье обосновывается статус «сослагательного проектирования» как перспективного метода психолого-педагогической и профориентационной работы со школьниками и студентами, в основе которого — стремление рассмотреть возможные варианты развития страны, ее регионов и городов, а также конкретных профессий, с учетом готовности молодежи реализовать себя в этих профессиях на благо общества и в соответствии со своими собственными интересами. Кроме того, анализируются проблемы и риски, возможные в процессе практического использования метода «сослагательного проектирования», в частности риски персонификации и чрезмерного «раздувания» реально существующих в обществе и экономике проблем, что провоцирует нежелательную критику власти и даже экстремистские настроения. В качестве противодействия этим рискам предлагается направлять творческую энергию школьников и студентов в конструктивное русло, нацеливая их на поиск путей делового сотрудничества с теми, кто реально обладает властью и другими возможностями, но пока недостаточно использует их для развития страны. При этом эмоциональная включенность участников в обсуждение перспектив развития страны должна рассматриваться как показатель сопричастности, неравнодушия к процессам трансформации России, что соотносимо и с профессиональной, и с гражданской идентичностью. В статье также приводятся примеры использования конкретных профориентационных методик в контексте общего метода «сослагательного проектирования». Опыт использования таких методик показывает, что, с одной стороны, школьники и студенты готовы с интересом обсуждать перспективы развития страны, ее отраслей экономики, конкретных профессий и собственной жизни, но с другой — далеко не все из них делают это осознанно, а большинство вообще не утруждает себя размышлениями о возможных изменениях в технологиях и социальной жизни общества, ориентируясь лишь на реалии сегодняшнего дня. The article substantiates the status of “subjunctive design” as a promising method of psychological- educational, and professional orientation work with schoolboys and students, based on the idea of considering possible options for the development of the country, its regions and cities, as well as — specific professions and their willingness to realize themselves in these professions for the benefit of society and by their interests. Risks and possible problems in the development and practical use of the ”subjunctive design” method are analyzed, in particular the risks of excessive fantasization and personification of real problems in society and economy, which could provoke undesirable criticism of the authorities and even extremist sentiments, including the search for ways of business cooperation with those who have power and other opportunities, but so far, do not use them enough for the development of the country. On the one hand, that schoolchildren and students are ready to discuss with interest the prospects of the country’s development, its branches of the economy, specific professions and their prospects. However, on the other hand, not all of them are ready to do it reasonably, and most of them are not ready to think about possible changes in technology and the social life of society, focusing only on the realities of today.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Hadjimichael ◽  
Costas M. Constantinou ◽  
Marinos Papaioakeim

This article engages the challenge of island history as caught in between national historiography and local life stories. It focuses on Ro, a Greek islet bordering Turkey that has been imagined and idealized as a space of national resistance and resilience. The article unpacks the grand national narrative that has been developed with regard to the heroic life story of a solitary woman living on the island. It utilizes local counter-narratives as well as the life stories of other solitary individuals who have periodically lived on the island. To that extent, the article aims, on the one hand, to sensitize as to the politics of islandography and, on the other, to highlight the importance of social history in challenging hegemonic or colonial narratives as well as reimagining island space.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chetan Sinha

<p>What does the brain mean in a legal domain and how the integration of neuroscience and law goes beyond the practical difficulties highlighted by the social scientists and legal theorists? On the one hand, the legal theorists took it as a conceptual error and on the other hand, advocates of neurosciences took it as a promising emerging field of integration. Some scholars took an alternative route considering it as a fascinating element of scientific discourse. The present article aims to show that the coming of “brain language” in comparison to the other forensic languages in the everyday legal discourse is not going to become a reality, as truth inferred through the everyday experiences and the interpretations of scientific knowledge by the judges. Scientific knowledge through the mapping of active brain area by the available brain visualising techniques shows the correlation between brain and behaviour and not the causation. So its use in the legal domain seems less institutionalised, showing the determinism of the brain as less authentic in itself when compared with the intuitive path embedded in the culture and history. </p> <p><b><i> </i></b></p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 127-153
Author(s):  
Maria Łuszczyńska

The issue of the elderly people’s rights has been discussed more and more often in the broader context of human rights. There is much evidence from social life that these rights are not being respected to the extent they should be. Securing and respecting the rights of older the elderly is becoming a challenge for state authorities that uphold human rights and create the directions of social policy for the rights protection. It is especially important as the elderly people due to their age, health status, weakened social position, rarely become advocates of their own interests. They are victims of an unobvious and often invisible process of marginalization and self-exclusion from an active social life. The aim of this article is to sketch the phenomenon of the marginalization of the elderly in the context of mechanisms related to their functioning on the one hand, and age, and on the other to social attitudes towards seniors. There are presented the elderly people’s rights and basic conditions for the rights to be respected..


1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Lomax ◽  
N. Casey

The degree to which researcher generated visual records (for example video texts) may be used to collect valid information about the social world is subject to considerable academic debate (cf. Feld and Williams, 1975; Gottdiener, 1979 and Grimshaw, 1982). On the one hand the method is assumed, by implication, to have limited impact on the data, the taped image being treated as a replica of the unrecorded event (Vihman and Greenlee, 1987; Vuchinich, 1986). On the other, it is suggested that the video camera has a uniquely distorting effect on the researched phenomenon (Gottdiener, 1979: p. 61; Heider, 1976: p. 49). Research participants, it is argued, demonstrate a reactive effect to the video process such that data is meaningful only if special precautions are taken to validate it. Strategies suggested include a covert approach to the data collection itself (cf. Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Haass, 1974; Gottdiener, 1979; Albrecht, 1985) or the application of triangulative techniques such as respondent validation (Gottdiener, 1979; Albrecht, 1985 and Arborelius and Timpka, 1990). In this paper we suggest that both these views are problematic. The insistence of one on marginalising the role of the research process and the other on attempting to separate the process from the research data is at the expense of exploring the degree to which the process helps socially and interactionally produce the data. As we demonstrate, the activity of data collection is constitutive of the very interaction which is then subsequently available for investigation. A reflexive analysis of this relationship is therefore essential. Video generated data is an ideal resource in as far as it can provide a faithful record of the process as an aspect of the naturally occurring interaction which comprises the research topic.


2016 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 61-72
Author(s):  
Tomasz Barankiewicz

ON THE EXPLANATORY POSSIBILITIES OF CULTURAL APPROACH TO SYSTEMIC CHARACTER OF LAWThe article discusses the issue of cultural understanding of the law. Generally in this study we describe the condition of society of the period of late modernity. First of all, we assume that, on the one hand, law is a certain system of norms founded traditionally according to the principle of non-contradiction, whereas on the other hand, the constituted law cannot be isolated from other regulators of social life. The law is a complex phenomenon and can be analyzed at many levels. However, using the social and cultural argument, the principle of non-contradiction refers to the whole axiological and normative system of a given culture. The cultural approach applied here points to both the diversity as well as the unity of cultural patterns and rules in social life.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Ahmad Kholil

Sociologically, religion has a double function. On the one hand, religion can be a factor of social cohesion and harmony creation, but on the other hand it can also be a factor religious disharmony between people of different religions. This paper examines the views of  Fethullah Gülen on the social function of  religion that is based on love and peace. Differences of religion, according to him, is a consequence of the choice of each human being in order to establish the absolute truth based on how they believe. Therefore, differences in religion is not something scar y or even harmful for social life, as long as people are able to live in the light of love and peace.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Hochner

Contrary to most readers who have emphasized the notions of passage or liminality, I demonstrate in this study that Van Gennep’s Rites de passage is articulated around the four notions of sequences, margins, passages, and schema. Subsequently, the main claim of this article is to propose the idea of social kinesis—or social rhythm—as the crux of Van Gennep’s theory. Such a fresh reappraisal of Van Gennep is also an opportunity to show how Pierre Bourdieu sought for social laws and regularities in a rather deterministic fashion, and completely overlooked Van Gennep’s idea of motion. More importantly, this article is an invitation to reconsider Van Gennep’s epistemological approach as a bridge between the social and the life sciences. Indeed, Van Gennep’s so-called méthode des séquences emerges from a dialogue between the social sciences and biology on the one hand, and with cosmology on the other. Indeed, I illuminate how Van Gennep investigated the enigmas of social life and dynamics within the framework of his understanding of metabolism and regenerative processes.


Author(s):  
Josiah Ober

The introduction to the volume outlines the approaches represented in the following chapters, discusses their importance and identifies running themes and the avenues of research that they open, and sets them into the wider framework of possible forms of fruitful engagement between ancient Greek history and the social sciences. It explores the methodologies employed in recent work, in particular by the author (Josiah Ober), to show that engagement with the social sciences is not just about using quantified data to test explanatory hypotheses. The chapter is also, explicitly, written for two audiences: on the one hand it strives to describe the advantages that thoughtful engagement with the social sciences can bring to the ancient historian; on the other hand, it addresses social scientists and makes the case for the significance of the ancient world (and of the ancient Greek polis in particular) as the source of privileged and (relatively speaking) abundantly documented case studies for testing modern theories.


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