scholarly journals The Social Construction of “Religion” and Its Limits: A Critical Reading of Timothy Fitzgerald

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Schilbrack

Abstract Several theorists argue that the concept of “religion” is not a cultural universal but rather emerged under particular historical and political conditions in the modern post-Reformation west. “Religion,” they say, is a social construction. What are the implications of this view of the ontology of religion? My aim in this paper is to critically engage the arguments of Timothy Fitzgerald—a social constructionist about religion who combines, in my judgment, insight and confusion on the issue—in order to trace out the values and the limits of this approach.

Hypatia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir

Social construction theorists face a certain challenge to the effect that they confuse the epistemic and the metaphysical: surely our conceptions of something are influenced by social practices, but that doesn't show that the nature of the thing in question is so influenced. In this paper I take up this challenge and offer a general framework to support the claim that a human kind is socially constructed, when this is understood as a metaphysical claim and as a part of a social constructionist debunking project. I give reasons for thinking that a conferralist framework is better equipped to capture the social constructionist intuition than rival accounts of social properties, such as a constitution account and a response‐dependence account, and that this framework helps to diagnose what is at stake in the debate between the social constructionists and their opponents. The conferralist framework offered here should be welcomed by social constructionists looking for firm foundations for their claims, and for anyone else interested in the debate over the social construction of human kinds.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-149
Author(s):  
H Bao

In this article, through a critical reading of the published diaries written by gay ‘patients’ who received aversion therapy in south China in the 1990s, I examine how the transformation of subjectivities from gay to straight was made possible by such ‘self-technologizing’ practices as writing and communication. I also consider the centrality of the body and affect in the process of subject (trans)formation, and ask how a new, coherent and authentic ‘self’ was fabricated through bodily and affective experiences. This discussion not only reveals the social construction of the self as central to China’s postsocialist governmentality, but also the central role that gender and sexuality play in processes of self-formation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ari Mermelstein

Abstract Employing a “social constructionist” approach, according to which emotions are culturally conditioned expressions of values, this study considers how the sect behind 1QS used the emotions of love and hate to teach its members the proper ways of evaluating the world. Sectarian love and hate were vehicles through which the sect communicated core beliefs about election and revelation. Because his entrance into the sect was made possible by divine love, the initiate was expected to recognize his utter dependence on the divine will by loving those whom God loves and hating those whom he hates, thereby affirming his place in the covenantal community. Since divine love and hate manifested itself in the selective revelation of knowledge, sectarian love and hate required the unselfish disclosure of knowledge to other group members and the concealment of the same knowledge from outsiders. This link between the emotions of love and hate and an ethic of disclosure and concealment left its mark on routine sectarian conduct in the practice of reproof. Reproof of insiders and the conscious withholding of reproof from outsiders was a “socially dictated performance” of either love or hate that demonstrated the sectarian’s commitment to communal beliefs about covenant, knowledge, divine will, and relations with outsiders.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Langner ◽  
Anna Zajicek

In this review, we discuss the historical changes in U.S. drug policy discourse, institutional racism, and the social construction of target populations in media discourse. We do not intend to show a cause-effect relationship; instead, we use a social constructionist approach that focuses on meaning production and “truth-claims” to explore the relationship between news media and drug policy. We begin by discussing mass incarceration, war on drugs, and institutional racism. Next, we review a sample of the current research from the fields of sociology and criminology on drug policy, race, and media discourse. We then focus on the most recent articulation of drugrelated policy and media discourse – the discourse surrounding marijuana use, including most recent trends in marijuana discourse. We conclude by noting the possible direction for drug policies and discussing the need for research addressing gaps in current understanding of drug-related discourse and the social construction of target populations.


1998 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kirk ◽  
Doune Macdonald

In this paper we argue that a version of situated learning theory, as one component of a broader constructivist theory of learning in physical education, can be integrated with other forms of social constructionist research to provide some new ways of thinking about a range of challenges currently facing physical educators, such as the alienation of many young people from physical education. The paper begins with a brief comment on some uses of the term “constructivism” in the physical activity pedagogy literature, then provides a more detailed outline of some of the key tenets of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of situated learning. We then go on to show how this theory of situated learning can be applied to thinking about the social construction of school physical education, using the example of sport education.


Hypatia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 182-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Friedman

Nancy J. Hirschmann presents a feminist, social constructionist account of women's freedom. Friedman's discussion of Hirschmanns account deals with (1) some conceptual problems facing a thoroughgoing social constructionism; (2) three ways to modify social constructionism to avoid those problems; and (3) an assessment of Hirschmann's version of social constructionism in light of the previous discussion.


2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Martin

This essay supplements the recent literature on the social construction of ‘religion’ by demonstrating that liberal discourses on the ‘private sphere’ and the ‘separation of church and state’ originated in a rhetorical slippage between different uses of the word ‘religion’ in early modern Europe. However, contrary to much of the recent social constructionist literature, this essay demonstrates that the implemen- tation of the so-called ‘separation of church and state’ resulted not in an actual separation, but, rather, that this discourse masks the very real circulation of power from one institution to the other. Keywords: Social Construction of Religion, Early Modern Political Theory, Privatization of Religion, Liberal Discourses on Religion, Liberal Political Theory, Separation of Church and State


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Yeomans ◽  
Sarah Bowman

PurposeThe paper explores university leaders' employee-focused sensegiving discourse during the COVID-19 health crisis. The aim is to reveal how leadership sensegiving narratives construct emotion in the rhetor-audience relationship.Design/methodology/approachA social constructionist, sensemaking approach centres on the meaning-making discourse of university leaders. Using rhetorical discourse analysis (RDA), the study analysed 67 emails sent to staff during a three-month period at the start of the global pandemic. RDA helps to reveal how university leaders help employees make sense of changing realities.FindingsThree core narratives: organisational competence and resilience; empathy, reassurance and recognition; and community and location reveal a multi-layered understanding of leadership sensegiving discourse in which emotion intersects with material and temporal sensemaking dimensions. In supporting a process of organisational identification and belonging, these core narratives help to mitigate audience dissonance driven by the antenarrative of uncertainty.Research limitations/implicationsAn interpretivist approach was used to analyse qualitative data from two UK universities. While focused on internal communication, the employee perspective was not examined. Nevertheless, this paper extends the human dimension of internal crisis communication, building on constructionist approaches that are concerned with emotion and sensegiving.Originality/valueThis paper expands the domain of internal crisis communication. It integrates the social construction of emotion and sensemaking with the underexplored material and temporal dimensions in internal crisis communication and applies RDA.


Author(s):  
Marcia C. Inhorn

This chapter argues that any ethnographic study of masculinity must begin with R.W. Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity. It has been incredibly influential in masculinity research since the 1980s, and has greatly influenced some early work of Egyptian masculinity and sexuality. As the only social constructionist analytic developed specifically for studying masculinity, hegemonic masculinity has been widely used since its 1985 introduction. Drawing explicitly from feminist theory and Marxist sociology, Connell sought to reconcile the lived reality of inequality among men with the fact of men's group dominance over women. This new theory sought to examine hierarchical inequality among men, relate analysis of masculinity to feminist insights on the social construction of gender, and resist the dichotomy of structure versus the individual plaguing contemporary studies of gender and class.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Supriansyah Supriansyah

This article examines the identity of the Banjar people who have been trapped in issues of ethnicity, religion and culture. The social construction of the identity of contemporary or urban Banjar people is still not touched by many researchers. Known as a religious and obedient society, the urban Banjar people cannot avoid contact with the clash of differences, where the presence of the internet makes it easy to clash or friction with various things. Living in the postmodern era, the Banjar community met with digital culture and consumerism. Both are very susceptible to coloring Islam, which is also happened in forming the identity of the Banjar people itself. Two important questions in this article, namely what do the Banjar people face in the postmodern era? And what is the effect on the construction of the identity of the Banjar people? In fact, the spirituality of the Banjar community which is touched by digital culture and consumerism is transformed by infecting the secular side and the melting of traditionalism in Banjar's public life. The culture of Ahlussunnah wal jamaah of the Banjar community is no longer rigid but mingles with several different ideologies or ideologies. The Islamic identity of the Banjar people is no longer dominated by the ideology of Aswaja. At the same time, political conditions play an active role, so there is silence on the worship side because it is intertwined with consumerism, digital culture and the strengthening of the flow of Islamic populism in society. Artikel ini mengulik identitas masyarakat Banjar yang selama ini masih terjebak dalam persoalan etnisitas, keberagamaan dan kebudayaan. Konstruksi sosial atas identitas urang Banjar kontemporer atau urban masih belum banyak disentuh oleh banyak peneliti. Dikenal sebagai masyarakat yang religious dan taat beribadah, urang Banjar urban tidak bisa mengelak bersentuhan dengan benturan berbagai perbedaan, di mana dengan kehadiran internet memudahkan terjadi benturan atau gesekan dengan berbagai hal. Hidup di era pascamodern, masyarakat Banjar berjumpa dengan kultur digital dan budaya konsumerisme. Dua kultur yang sangat rentan mewarnai keberislaman, yang mana juga sebagai identitas urang Banjar itu sendiri. Dua pertanyaan penting dalam artikel ini, yaitu apa saja yang dihadapi dalam kehidupan masyarakat Banjar di era pascamodern? Dan apa pengaruhnya terhadap konstruksi identitas urang Banjar? Spritualitas masyarakat Banjar yang dijamah kultur digital dan konsumerisme bertransformasi dengan menjangkiti sisi sekuler dan mencairnya tradisionalisme di kehidupan publik Banjar. Kultur Ahlussunnah wal Jamaah masyarakat Banjar tidak lagi rigid dan berbaur cair dengan beberapa paham atau ideologi yang berbeda. Identitas Keberislaman urang Banjar tidak lagi didominasi dibatasi ideologi Aswaja. Di saat yang sama kondisi politik turut memainkan peran aktif, sehingga terjadi pendangkalan pada sisi peribadatan karena berkelindan dengan konsumerisme, kultur digital dan menguatnya arus populisme Islam di masyarakat.


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