Knowledge and Gender: Epistemological Questions in the Social Analysis of Sport

1985 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ann Hall

The central question examined in this essay is whether there can be a distinctive feminist epistemology or theory of knowledge. If there can be, then what would it look like? The ensuing discussion focuses on why it is so important to comprehend this feminist challenge to the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge that have shaped our understanding of social life and what implications this has for the social analysis of sport. The paper begins by noting that in order to answer our sociological questions about gender inequality in sport, it makes more sense to view sex/gender as a system of social relations between females and males rather than treat them as dichotomous categories. Our questions therefore become relational rather than distributive. Four theoretical approaches to the sex/gender system (liberal, traditional marxist, radical, and socialist) are outlined with particular attention being paid to the epistemological and methodological assumptions that stem from each variant. The notion of a standpoint, and in particular the standpoint of women, is introduced to show how it is possible for women to demystify their social reality and to begin the necessary reconstruction of the sportsworld so that women’s interests are no longer subordinate to those of men.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Misbah Zulfa Elizabeth

<p>Visual expression is something un-denayable in social life because the viasuality is the expression of the social life. This article has the purpose to explore how visual expression of women resistance toward gender inequality. Applying qualitative research with the method of documentation study this article in detail analyses the interpretation of religious text as the source of inequality and gender reality in social context. It is revealed that visual expression of the poster suggesting to treat men and women respectfully is the resistance toward religious text interpretation which is inequally treat men and women.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 518-537
Author(s):  
Milos Jovanovic

The paper compares Pierre Bourdieu?s sociological approach with the one developed by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The aim of the paper is to identify the complementarities and incongruences of these approaches. The main similarity consists in the intention to ?dialectically? overcome/bridge the gap between ?objectivism? and ?subjectivism? in social theory. Another parallel includes a negative attitude towards the relativistic tendencies of postmodernism. These authors share the thematization of: the body as a locus of social influences, the centrality of language in social life, the social functions of knowledge, and the importance of power in social relations. Differences in theorizing are attributed to the different intellectual, theoretical, and socio-cultural contexts in which these scientists operated. The divergences of these theoretical approaches become evident when one examines the different meaning and significance attached to the concepts of individuation, structure, action, habitus and habitualization, structure of relevance and relation of common-sense and scientific knowledge. Finally, there is a visible difference in political views: Bourdieu was a critic ?from the left,? while Berger and Luckmann were self-proclaimed liberal conservatives.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-61
Author(s):  
David Calnitsky

This article proposes an abstract sociological model of stable patriarchal social relations and feminist social change. I describe a patriarchal equilibrium of gender inequality and propose an approach for thinking about how various kinds of interventions can short-circuit the system, pushing it onto a new equilibrium path. In particular, I focus on possible interventions into parental leave policy, describing their social structural and cultural ramifications as well as a range of objections to them. However, more important than the specific interventions proposed is the general model itself, which depicts reinforcing structures of patriarchal culture, gender inequality in labor markets, and gender inequality in the home—and moreover, how this model can evolve. It describes a feedback loop that can lock structures of gender inequality in place but also provides a means for considering the spaces available to both blunt the social reproduction of gender inequality and reinforce “genderless” social relations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-158
Author(s):  
A. V. Zhuchkova

The article deals with A. Bushkovsky’s novel Rymba that goes beyond the topics typical of Russian North prose. Rather than limiting himself to admiring nature and Russian character, the author portrays the northern Russian village of Rymba in the larger context of the country’s mentality, history, mythology, and gender politics. In the novel, myth clashes with reality, history with the present day, and an individual with the state. The critic draws a comparison between the novel and the traditions of village prose and Russian North prose. In particular, Bushkovsky’s Rymba is discussed alongside V. Rasputin’s Farewell to Matyora [ Proshchanie s Matyoroy ] and R. Senchin’s The Flood Zone [ Zona zatopleniya ]. The novel’s central question is: what keeps the Russian world afloat? Depicting the Christian faith as such a bulwark, Bushkovsky links atheism with the social and spiritual roles played by contemporary men and women. The critic argues, however, that the reliance on Christianity in the novel verges on an affectation. The book’s main symbol is a drowning hawk: it perishes despite people’s efforts to save it.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Feng Qu

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.


Young ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 110330882098605
Author(s):  
Roger Soler-i-Martí ◽  
Andreu Camprubí Trepat ◽  
Ester Oliveras ◽  
Mireia Sierra Andrés

This article analyses to what extent the social and solidarity economy (SSE), the aim of which is to prioritize people’s needs and well-being, can offer young people education-to-work transitions conditions and opportunities which are different from those in the conventional economy. The very nature of SSE means that it is especially suitable for challenging gender inequality and proves to be exceptionally useful for testing feminist economics. Against a backdrop of economic crisis, SSE has shown greater resilience when compared to other sectors, although it is still not widespread. To examine how SSE can improve young women’s experiences and labour trajectories, this article analyses working conditions, job satisfaction and gender roles in school-to-work transitions of young women in SSE in Catalonia. Results show that the collective and value-driven nature of SSE entails a specific awareness and commitment that empower young women’s transitions experiences and expectations.


1981 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Brow

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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Cash

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.


Author(s):  
Hanne Veber

“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.


Harmoni ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-240
Author(s):  
M. Alie Humaedi

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.


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