Intersectionality: From Theory to Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-265
Author(s):  
Hajer Al-Faham ◽  
Angelique M. Davis ◽  
Rose Ernst
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Grassroots Organizations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
The Social

Intersectionality as a framework and praxis has gathered significance in law and the social sciences over the past 20 years. This article begins by reviewing how intersectionality has been conceptualized, as well as the implications of varying definitions attributed to intersectionality. We then explore applications of intersectionality, first in research that focuses on uncovering processes of differentiation and systems of inequality across a range of topics, including reproductive rights, colonization, religion, immigration, and political behavior. After examining these processes and systems, we turn to a second research approach that focuses on categories of difference and between-category relationships. We find that despite different views on conceptualization, application, and implications, intersectionality may nevertheless open new avenues of inquiry for scholars as well as opportunities for transformative coalition building in social movements and grassroots organizations.

scholarly journals Elementos y obstáculos a tomar en cuenta en la conceptuación y apropiación de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos / Elements and Obstacles to Be Taken into Account in the Conceptualization and Appropriation of Sexual and Reproductive Rights

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Ortiz-Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Sexual Rights ◽  
Social Legitimacy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexual And Reproductive Rights

El presente artículo ubica el concepto de derechos sexuales en el ámbito de las ciencias políticas, y muestra el papel que diversos actores y procesos sociales han tenido en la evolución del concepto, que aún lucha por ganar legitimidad social. Se evidencia cómo los derechos sexuales pertenecen al terreno de la ética, el derecho y el ejercicio de la ciudadanía, en contraste con la perspectiva de las religiones ortodoxas que no consideran que la sexualidad sea terreno del derecho sino de la naturalidad. Frente a dicha perspectiva se enfatiza el papel de los movimientos sociales y de las conferencias de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para facilitar la construcción de discursos. Finalmente el artículo ofrece una evaluación de la apropiación de los derechos sexuales por mujeres en el México contemporáneo. AbstractThe article places the concept of sexual rights within the sphere of the social sciences. It shows the role of various actors and social processes in the evolution of a concept that it is still struggling to gain social legitimacy. It shows how sexual rights belong to the sphere of ethics, law and the exercise of citizenship as opposed to the view of orthodox religions, which consider that sexuality belongs to the sphere of nature rather than law. The author contrasts the religious position with the role of social movements and the United Nations Conference in facilitating the construction of discourse. Finally, the article ends by offering an evaluation of the appropriation of sexual rights by women in contemporary Mexico.

An investigation into social studies curriculum and course books in the context of women's and children's rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-394
Author(s):  
Hüseyin Erol ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Social

Human rights are necessary and compulsory for all people irrespective of language, religion, race, gender or sect. Learning about these rights begins within family and continues in school formally. Human rights education is necessary for values of human rights to pass from theory to practice. The rights given to people or groups with certain characteristics only in the past are today offered on the basis of equality and freedom in the contemporary society. Among those groups, children and women who obtained their rights later than others are of sensitive importance. This study investigated the extent to which children’s and women’s rights are included in the social sciences curriculum and social sciences course books. Among qualitative research methods, the document analysis was used in the study. The results of study showed that children's and women's rights are not included in social sciences course and curriculum at a desired level, the values that can be associated with human rights are included, yet these values are not distributed in a balanced way across grades. Learning outcomes regarding human rights in the curriculum of social sciences can be increased. The contents about children's and women's rights can be increased. Also, the current and controversial topics regarding children's and women's rights can be added in the course books.

scholarly journals Whose Reality Counts?

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23
Author(s):  
Reddi Sekhara Yalamala
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Dynamic Force ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rapid Transformation

The low caste, Dalit and Tribal social movements in India have reconfigured the fabric of Indian society in significant ways over the past decade. Likewise, the movement of these same groups into anthropology, a discipline previously dominated in India by uppercaste intellectuals, has created a dynamic force for change in the academy. At a time when India is vying with the global economic powers for supremacy, the people severely affected are low caste, Dalits and Tribal peoples, who see their lands being lost and their lifestyles in rapid transformation. Some from these same groups are also witnessing some of their daughters and sons pursuing higher studies and entering into the social sciences. The entry of these young scholars not only challenges the caste-based status quo in the academy, but it also forces these scholars to question their own position in relation to these social movements and in relation to Indian society more broadly.

scholarly journals Literary Subterfuge and Contemporary Persian Fiction

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 109-113
Author(s):  
Samad Alavi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Islamic Republic ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Course Syllabi ◽  
The World

For at least the past several decades, Persian literary scholarship has drawnits conceptual framework largely from the social sciences. Despite severalnoteworthy exceptions, a tendency to read Persian literature for its sociopoliticalcontent still guides the way scholars write about and teach the fieldtoday. Indeed, a brief survey of course syllabi with “Persian literature” in theirtitles would no doubt reveal that instructors (the present writer included) byand large introduce writers and their works based on non-literary socio-historicaldevelopments, either arranging texts chronologically by their years ofproduction or presenting them (still usually chronologically) as reflections ofthe historical events, social movements, and ideological currents that shapedthe societies from which those texts arose.Mehdi Khorrami’s Literary Subterfuge and Contemporary Persian Fiction:Who Writes Iran? challenges this trend, arguing that we do a great disserviceto both individual texts and literary studies as a discipline when weconsider non-literary factors as the primary criteria by which to analyze andschematize literary works. Instead, while acknowledging the importance ofsocial, historical, and ideological contexts, in other words the world outsidethe text, Khorrami’s study of contemporary Persian fiction contends that wemust scrutinize the world inside the texts – their aesthetic, linguistic, and formaldevices and concepts – to develop a comprehensive view of literature’shistorical evolution.The work under review argues that modernist Persian fiction evolves froma counter-discursive to a non-discursive position vis-à-vis official discoursesin Iran, primarily under the Islamic Republic. The author’s conception of discursivityrelates directly to his understanding of the term modernist. The single ...

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

scholarly journals The Relevance of Inequality Research in Sociology for Inequality Reduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110201
Author(s):  
Thomas A. DiPrete ◽  
Brittany N. Fox-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Scale Change ◽  
The Subject

Social inequality is a central topic of research in the social sciences. Decades of research have deepened our understanding of the characteristics and causes of social inequality. At the same time, social inequality has markedly increased during the past 40 years, and progress on reducing poverty and improving the life chances of Americans in the bottom half of the distribution has been frustratingly slow. How useful has sociological research been to the task of reducing inequality? The authors analyze the stance taken by sociological research on the subject of reducing inequality. They identify an imbalance in the literature between the discipline’s continual efforts to motivate the plausibility of large-scale change and its lesser efforts to identify feasible strategies of change either through social policy or by enhancing individual and local agency with the potential to cumulate into meaningful progress on inequality reduction.

scholarly journals Niche Construction Theory in Archaeology: A Critical Review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Spengler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Heuristic Function ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanism ◽  
Ecosystem Impacts ◽  
Niche Construction Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism

AbstractOver the past decade, niche construction theory (NCT) has been one of the fastest-growing theories or scholarly approaches in the social sciences, especially within archaeology. It was proposed in the biological sciences 25 years ago and is often referred to as a neglected evolutionary mechanism. Given its rapid acceptance by the archaeological community, it is important that scholars consider how it is being applied and look for discrepancies between applications of the concept. Many critical discussions of NCT have already been published, but most of them are in biology journals and may be overlooked by scholars in the social sciences. In this manuscript, my goal is to synthesis the criticisms of NCT, better allowing archaeologists to independently evaluate its usefulness. I focus on the claims of novelty and differences between NCT and other approaches to conceptualizing anthropogenic ecosystem impacts and culture-evolution feedbacks. I argue that the diverse concepts currently included in the wide-reaching purview of NCT are not new, but the terminology is and may be useful to some scholars. If proponents of the concept are able to unify their ideas, it may serve a descriptive function, but given that lack of a testable explanatory mechanism, it does not have a clear heuristic function.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

Moral economy: What’s in a name

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empty Symbol ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Economic

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.

Futures Honed

Futures ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 118-134
Author(s):  
Barbara Adam
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The Past ◽  
Writing Theory ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Verse Form ◽  
The Way

This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followed by Adam’s ‘Honing Futures’, which is presented in four short verses of distilled theory. In the interview Adam reflects on thirty-five years of futures-thinking rooted in her deeply original work on time and temporality, and her innovative response to qualitative and linear definitions of time within the social sciences. The interview continues with a discussion of the way Adam’s thinking on futures intersects in her work with ideas of ethics and collective responsibility politics and concludes with a brief rationale for writing theory in verse form. In ‘Honing Futures’, a piece of futures theory verse form, Adam charts the movements and moments in considerations of the Not Yet and futurity’s active creation: from pluralized imaginings of the future, to an increasingly tangible and narrower anticipated future, to future-making as designing and reality-creating performance. Collectively, the verses identify the varied complex interdependencies of time, space, and matter with the past and future in all iterations of honing and making futures.

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