Place Exploration: Six Tensions to Better Conceptualize Place as a Social Actor in Urban Ethnography

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-111
Author(s):  
Thomas Corcoran ◽  
Jennifer Abrams ◽  
Jonathan Wynn
Keyword(s):  
Social Actor ◽  
Urban Ethnography

Experimentalism as a Tool of Economic Innovation in Germany

2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wade Jacoby ◽  
Martin Behrens
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Wage Bargaining ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
System A ◽  
German Model ◽  
Economic Innovation

Our purpose in this article is to analyze changes in the German wagebargaining system, a system that has attracted enormous attentionfrom scholars of comparative political economy and comparativeindustrial relations. We argue that the wage bargaining portion ofthe German model is neither frozen in place, headed for deregulation,nor merely “muddling through.” Rather, we see the institutionalcapacities of the key actors—especially the unions and employerassociations—making possible a process we term “experimentalism.”In briefest form, experimentalism allows organizations that combinedecentralized information-gathering abilities with centralized decision-making capacity to probe for new possibilities, which, oncefound, can be quickly diffused throughout the organization. We willshow that the capacity for such experimentalism varies across actorsand sectors. And, to make things even tougher, neither major Germansocial actor can sustain innovation in the longer term withoutbringing along the other “social partner.”

scholarly journals #reimagining Arab Women’s Social Media Empowerment and the Postdigital Condition

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110101
Author(s):  
Zoe Hurley
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Physical Spaces ◽  
Self Presentations

Social media intersects across physical spaces, digital infrastructures, and social subjectivities in terms of what is being called the “postdigital,” in an increasingly merging offline/online world. But what precisely does it mean to be “postdigital” if you are an Arab woman or social actor in the Global South? How does access to social networking sites, while increasing visibilities, also provide potential for increased agency? This study is concerned with the extent to which Arab women’s self-presentation practices on Instagram could be considered as empowering, or otherwise, within the postdigital condition. First, the study takes Instagram as a case to develop a theoretical framework for considering social media as a tertiary artifact, involving material, routine-symbolic, and conceptual affordances. Second, it applies the artifact framework to explore a corpus of self-presentations by five Arab women influencers. Feminist postdigital theorizing offers unique contributions to problematizing normative, ethnocentric, and neoliberal conceptions of Arab women’s empowerment. The application of the novel framework leads to an interpretative discussion of Arab women’s influencing practices across merging offline/online and transnational boundaries. Overall, the critical perspective begins to reimagine Arab women’s empowerment, not simply as individualized or material processes, but as agencies that are interwoven within the commercialized and conceptual dynamics of visual social media.

Unsettling bodies of knowledge: Walking as a pedagogy of affect

2020 ◽  
pp. 135050762097971
Author(s):  
Timon Beyes ◽  
Chris Steyaert
Keyword(s):  
Pedagogical Practice ◽  
Urban Ethnography ◽  
Management Learning ◽  
Course Work ◽  
Affective Process

In this article, we connect with recent attempts to rethink management learning as an embodied and affective process and we propose walking as a significant learning practice of a pedagogy of affect. Walking enables a postdualist view on learning and education. Based on course work focused on urban ethnography, we discuss walking as affect-pedagogical practice through the intertwined activities of straying, drifting and witnessing, and we reflect upon the implications for a pedagogy of affect. In conclusion, we speculate about the potential of a pedagogy of affect for future understandings and practices of management learning.

scholarly journals Representing nonhuman animals as equals: An ecolinguistic analysis of vegan campaigns

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena Zhdanava ◽  
Surinderpal Kaur ◽  
Kumaran Rajandran
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Ecological Philosophy ◽  
Social Action Theory ◽  
Image Shape ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Nonhuman Species

Abstract Ecolinguistics studies the interactions between language and ecology. It investigates whether the stories created by language are destructive or beneficial to all the constituents of the environment. In search of positive stories for our environment, this article focuses on vegan campaigns which generally bring awareness about veganism that, in turn, advocates protection of nonhuman animals and abstention from their exploitation. Nonhuman animals are part of the ecosystem and the way they are portrayed in language may determine the relationship between human and nonhuman animals. As vegan campaigns refer to nonhuman animals as sentient living beings, it is important to analyze whether the language and image of these campaigns articulate their purposes and create beneficial stories for nonhuman species. This article explores the stories regarding nonhuman animals in 27 posters of the vegan campaign “Go Vegan World” and examines how these stories are shaped and whether they are aligned with vegan values. The study is approached from an ecolinguistic perspective with a focus on multimodality where the language was analyzed through van Leeuwen’s Social Actor and Social Action theory, and the image was analyzed with Kress and van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design. Further, the analysis involves the ecosophy defined as a personal ecological philosophy of relationships between human and nonhuman animals, plants, and the physical environment. The findings suggest that the campaign language and image shape three stories: salience where nonhuman animals are individuals with their own feelings and lives; conviction that nonhuman animals matter as much as humans; ideology where biocentrism is promoted. By comparing these stories with the article’s ecosophy, an ecolinguistic analysis showed that they are largely beneficial in representing nonhuman animals as sentient living beings who are equal to humans.

scholarly journals Explaining participation in undeclared work in France: lessons for policy evaluation

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 203-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Windebank ◽  
Ioana Alexandra Horodnic
Keyword(s):  
Policy Framework ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
French Population ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Tax Morale ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Economic Actor ◽  
Undeclared Work

Purpose France is a model of best practice in the European Union as regards policy to combat undeclared work. The purpose of this paper is to take the country as a case study to evaluate the competing explanations of why people engage in undeclared work which underpin such policy, namely, the dominant rational-economic-actor approach and the more recent social-actor approach. Design/methodology/approach To evaluate these approaches, the results of 1,027 interviews undertaken in 2013 with a representative sample of the French population are analysed. Findings The finding is that higher perceived penalties and risks of detection have no significant impact on the likelihood of conducting undeclared work in France. In contrast, the level of tax morale has a significant impact on engagement in the activity: the higher the tax morale, the lower is the likelihood of participation in the undeclared economy. Higher penalties and risks of detection only decrease the likelihood of participation in undeclared work amongst the small minority of the French population with very low tax morale. Practical implications Current policy in France to counter undeclared work is informed principally by the rational-economic-actor approach based on a highly developed infrastructure for detection and significant penalties alongside incentives to declare small-scale own-account work. The present analysis suggests that this approach needs to be supplemented with measures to improve citizens’ commitment to compliance by enhancing tax morale. Originality/value This case study of a country with a well-developed policy framework to combat undeclared work provides evidence to support the social-actor approach for informing policy change.

A systemic method of investigating the development of human potential: the individual as an economic and social actor

2021 ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Maria Fedorova
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Human Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Social Responsibilities ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels

The article argues that considering the individual as an economic and social actor in a socio-economic System makes it possible to look into various aspects of human development at different levels in interrelation. The main indicators of the economic and social subsystems are analyzed, which characterize the development of human potential in Russia in the period 2010-2019. A number of measures for the development of social responsibilities of the state, charity and volunteering have been substantiated.

scholarly journals Evaluating the individual- and country-level variations in tax morale

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 816-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin C. Williams ◽  
Besnik Krasniqi
Keyword(s):  
Tax Compliance ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Tax Morale ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Country Level ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

Purpose Recently, a small but burgeoning literature has argued that tax non-compliance cannot be fully explained using the conventional rational economic actor approach which views non-compliance as occurring when the pay-off is greater than the expected cost of being caught and punished. Instead, a social actor approach has emerged which views tax non-compliance as higher when “tax morale”, defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, is low. To advance this social actor model, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the individual and national heterogeneity in tax morale, which is crucial if tax compliance is to be improved. Design/methodology/approach To do this, the authors report data from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey on tax morale in 35 Eurasian countries. Findings Logit econometric analysis reveals, on the one hand, that there is higher tax morale among middle-aged, married, homeowners with children, with a university degree and employed, and on the other hand, that there is higher tax morale in more developed countries with stronger legal systems and less corruption, and higher levels of state intervention in the form of both taxation and expenditure. Research limitations/implications Rather than continue with the rational actor approach, this paper reveals that how an emergent social actor approach can help to more fully explain tax non-compliance and results in a different policy approach focused upon changing country-level economic and social conditions associated with low tax morale and thus non-compliance. Practical implications These results display the specific populations with low tax morale which need targeting when seeking to tackle tax non-compliance. Originality/value This paper provides a new way of explaining and tackling tax non-compliance in Eurasian countries.

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