scholarly journals Becoming-with in a compost society — Haraway beyond posthumanism

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Timeto

PurposeThis paper considers the role of nonhuman animals in the thought of Donna Haraway, going from her critique of the animal as model/mirror for the evolution of the human body politic to her proposal for a “compost” society. It demonstrates her changing positions in relation to the social role of animals and the deepening of her critique of intersectional relations that subordinate nonhuman animals and animalized people.Design/methodology/approachThe paper intertwines a loosely historical approach and a thematic one, focusing on key issues of sociological theory, such as work, agency and kinship, and the way these relate to the animal question in Haraway's writings. Her texts are discussed both broadly and in-depth, and her positionality in terms of both feminism and antispeciesism is foregrounded.FindingsThe paper shows how the progressive abandonment of a posthuman approach in favor of a compostist one brings Haraway nearer to intersectional ecofeminism and to a fuller consideration of nonhuman agency at a material level, as well as to a deeper critique of instrumental relations of domination and issue that had been problematic in critiques of her earlier work.Social implicationsThe paper highlights the role of nonhumans in the evolution and constitution of societies and advocates a response-able multispecies politics.Originality/valueThis paper offers a comprehensive analysis of the social role of animals in Haraway's thought and the deepening antispeciesism of her feminist approach that sheds a different light on her positionality in relation to ecofeminism.

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Joyce

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the 2016 elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and to compare them with those that took place in 2012. It seeks to evaluate the background of the candidates who stood for office in 2016, the policies that they put forward, the results of the contests and the implications of the 2016 experience for future PCC elections. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based around several key themes – the profile of candidates who stood for election, preparations conducted prior to the contests taking place, the election campaign and issues raised during the contests, the results and the profile of elected candidates. The paper is based upon documentary research, making particular use of primary source material. Findings The research establishes that affiliation to a political party became the main route for successful candidates in 2016 and that local issues related to low-level criminality will dominate the future policing agenda. It establishes that although turnout was higher than in 2012, it remains low and that further consideration needs to be devoted to initiatives to address this for future PCC election contests. Research limitations/implications The research focusses on the 2016 elections and identifies a number of key issues that emerged during the campaign affecting the conduct of the contests which have a bearing on future PCC elections. It treats these elections as a bespoke topic and does not seek to place them within the broader context of the development of the office of PCC. Practical implications The research suggests that in order to boost voter participation in future PCC election contests, PCCs need to consider further means to advertise the importance of the role they perform and that the government should play a larger financial role in funding publicity for these elections and consider changing the method of election. Social implications The rationale for introducing PCCs was to empower the public in each police force area. However, issues that include the enhanced importance of political affiliation as a criteria for election in 2016 and the social unrepresentative nature of those who stood for election and those who secured election to this office in these contests coupled with shortcomings related to public awareness of both the role of PCCs and the timing of election contests threaten to undermine this objective. Originality/value The extensive use of primary source material ensures that the subject matter is original and its interpretation is informed by an academic perspective.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 142-145
Author(s):  
Mario Coffa

Purpose Based on a comparison with different realities, analysis of the situation of libraries in line with International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) policies and directives. Design/methodology/approach The method used for the following paper is that of a remote interview. Findings The expected results will emerge from the debate that can be raised from this paper. Research limitations/implications The IFLA guidelines have international value but are implemented according to the context of the individual country, not always in a uniform manner. Originality/value The interview reveals the formality of the contents through the informality of the method.


2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Enrique Alonso

The aim of this article is to analyse some of the key issues in relation to new management discourses, and above all to consider their social impact in terms of their influence on overall social policy and practice. An overview will be provided of the different historical phases of management thinking, from the approaches that connect social modernisation with bureaucratic regulation, to the theories that link the postmodern world and complexity. It will also be shown how the current management guru literature, with its manipulation of the metaphors of excellence, networks and chaos, is threatening to impose a purely economic approach on how the workforce is employed. The ‘moral harassment’ and ‘corrosion of character’ resulting from a labour market that has been made excessively flexible cannot be avoided simply by relying on people's lost sense of trust, their emotions, or their individual competences. Finally, an analysis of labour market flexibility and the social role of work will be presented, with a view to identifying a new institutional framework for the management of work.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarice Rios ◽  
Barbara Costa Andrada

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to comment on the article by Forrester-Jones and Carvalho and examine some issues on notions of disability in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach – Analysis of the specialized literature and a critical appraisal of key issues regarding notions of disability in Brazil. Findings – The authors focus on three issues: what could be characterized as learning disability in Brazil and how social movements, institutions and public policies shape and are shaped by local conceptions of disability; the limits of individual autonomy, independence and freedom in the case of learning disabilities and the social and historical particularities of the Brazilian case; and the role of the APAES and Pestalozzi Society both as a site of social exclusion and, more recently, as a source of expertise in the movement toward the development of “inclusive special education.” Originality/value – The commentary highlights some of the complexities of the local field of disability in Brazil.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingying Hu ◽  
Ling Zhao ◽  
Sumeet Gupta ◽  
Xiuhong He

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the negative consequences of ubiquitous connectivity enabled by personal IT ensembles (PITEs) usage; and second, to investigate the gender differences in the adverse effects of ubiquitous connectivity.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a socio-technical approach to identify the technical and interpersonal dimensions of PITE-enabled ubiquitous connectivity and develops a theoretical model to investigate their stress-inducing effects based on the framework of technostress. Furthermore, the moderating role of gender is examined based on the social role theory. The authors test the model on a sample of 439 Chinese netizens.FindingsUbiquitous technical and interpersonal connectivity induce four stressors: information overload, communication overload, life invasion and privacy invasion. These stressors further lead to psychological exhaustion and reluctance to try new ITs. The ubiquitous technical connectivity exerts stronger effects on stressors for female users than male users, and interpersonal connectivity exerts a stronger effect for male users than female users.Originality/valueThis study primarily contributes to the small amount of research on PITE-enabled ubiquitous connectivity by considering ubiquitous connectivity from a socio-technical perspective and examining the stress-related effects and outcomes of both technical and interpersonal dimensions of ubiquitous connectivity. This study also provides valuable insights into the gender differences in the stress-inducing effects of the two dimensions of ubiquitous connectivity.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsin-Chen Lin ◽  
Patrick F. Bruning

PurposeSponsorship has become an important marketing activity. However, research on the topic treats the sponsorship context, characterized according to the type of sponsored property and the social role of these properties, as a stable characteristic or as a dichotomous characteristic within empirical studies. Therefore, the authors outline a multi-level typology of the different types of sponsorship contexts to account for traditional types of sponsorship as well as emerging themes such as online sponsorship. The authors then propose an agenda for future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct a general review of the sponsorship literature to synthesize established sponsorship types with newly emerging themes to develop a multi-level typology of sponsorship contexts and a research agenda.FindingsThe authors’ conceptual analysis revealed a typology of sponsorship contexts that captures both general and specific types of sports sponsorship, prosocial cause sponsorship, culture and community sponsorship, and media and programming content sponsorship.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ typology provides an organizing framework for future research focussing on different sponsorship contexts. However, the emergent categories still require further empirical testing. Therefore, the authors develop a set of questions to guide future research on the topic.Practical implicationsThe authors’ typology outlines the different sponsorship contexts that should be considered by organizations that engage in sponsorship-linked marketing.Originality/valueThis paper provides a multi-level categorization of sponsorship contexts that integrates both traditional categories and newly emerging categories to better inform future research on situational differences in sponsorship.


Author(s):  
Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽  
Valerii Pylypenko

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1060-1068
Author(s):  
Galina A. Dvoenosova ◽  

The article assesses synergetic theory of document as a new development in document science. In information society the social role of document grows, as information involves all members of society in the process of documentation. The transformation of document under the influence of modern information technologies increases its interest to representatives of different sciences. Interdisciplinary nature of document as an object of research leads to an ambiguous interpretation of its nature and social role. The article expresses and contends the author's views on this issue. In her opinion, social role of document is incidental to its being a main social tool regulating the life of civilized society. Thus, the study aims to create a scientific theory of document, explaining its nature and social role as a tool of social (goal-oriented) action and social self-organization. Substantiation of this idea is based on application of synergetics (i.e., universal theory of self-organization) to scientific study of document. In the synergetic paradigm, social and historical development is seen as the change of phases of chaos and order, and document is considered a main tool that regulates social relations. Unlike other theories of document, synergetic theory studies document not as a carrier and means of information transfer, but as a unique social phenomenon and universal social tool. For the first time, the study of document steps out of traditional frameworks of office, archive, and library. The document is placed on the scales with society as a global social system with its functional subsystems of politics, economy, culture, and personality. For the first time, the methods of social sciences and modern sociological theories are applied to scientific study of document. This methodology provided a basis for theoretical vindication of nature and social role of document as a tool of social (goal-oriented) action and social self-organization. The study frames a synergetic theory of document with methodological foundations and basic concepts, synergetic model of document, laws of development and effectiveness of document in the social continuum. At the present stage of development of science, it can be considered the highest form of theoretical knowledge of document and its scientific explanatory theory.


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