Buskers of New Orleans: Transgressive Sociology in the Urban Underbelly

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Marina
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Full Immersion ◽  
Tourist Economy ◽  
Late Modern

This article is based on extensive ethnographic research involving living and working on the urban fringes of the postindustrial, tourist-intensive economy of New Orleans. As this late modern metropolis has experienced great structural transformations, and as new urban dwellers have emerged with their own unique cultural solutions to the structural problems posed in late modernity, this work captures the culture of urban dwellers living on the social periphery of New Orleans. The analysis reveals the less-seen spaces of New Orleans, intimately depicting the social life of the new creative urban buskers through sociological analysis and reflexive ethnographic interpretation. Revealing the underbelly of New Orleans requires not only traditional interviews and participant observation but also full immersion into the subcultures of buskers through my performing on the streets with buskers in the tourist economy as they carve out creative and transgressive lives on the urban fringes.

Spontaneous Involvement and Social Life

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Ostrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Erving Goffman ◽  
The Social

Throughout his writings, Erving Goffman develops the principle that successful impression management requires an appearance of “spontaneous involvement” as evidence of individuals' sincerity. Goffman never articulates this principle in terms of how persons are actually—indeed, as he sometimes recognizes, necessarily involved spontaneously in the social environment. This paper asks: What does it mean for our reading of Goffman and of social situations generally if we move the proposition of the experiential necessity of spontaneous involvement to the center of sociological analysis? I discuss why it never moved to the center of Goffman's inquiries, and then argue that a theory of habit facilitates an elaborate of its sociological significance.

scholarly journals The Social Life of the “Forever Chemical”

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-163
Author(s):  
Daniel Renfrew ◽  
Thomas W. Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Toxic Event ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Polyfluoroalkyl Substances

This article examines the social life of PFAS contamination (a class of several thousand synthetic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and maps the growing research in the social sciences on the unique conundrums and complex travels of the “forever chemical.” We explore social, political, and cultural dimensions of PFAS toxicity, especially how PFAS move from unseen sites into individual bodies and into the public eye in late industrial contexts; how toxicity is comprehended, experienced, and imagined; the factors shaping regulatory action and ignorance; and how PFAS have been the subject of competing forms of knowledge production. Lastly, we highlight how people mobilize collectively, or become demobilized, in response to PFAS pollution/ toxicity. We argue that PFAS exposure experiences, perceptions, and responses move dynamically through a “toxicity continuum” spanning invisibility, suffering, resignation, and refusal. We off er the concept of the “toxic event” as a way to make sense of the contexts and conditions by which otherwise invisible pollution/toxicity turns into public, mass-mediated, and political episodes. We ground our review in our ongoing multisited ethnographic research on the PFAS exposure experience.

Making Merit: The Indian Institutes of Technology and the Social Life of Caste

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajantha Subramanian
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Institutes Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Capital

AbstractThe politics of meritocracy at the Indian Institutes of Technology illuminates the social life of caste in contemporary India. I argue that the IIT graduate's status depends on the transformation of privilege into merit, or the conversion of caste capital into modern capital. Analysis of this process calls for a relational approach to merit. My ethnographic research on the southeastern state of Tamilnadu, and on IIT Madras located in the state capital of Chennai, illuminates claims to merit, not simply as the transformation of capital but also as responses to subaltern assertion. Analyzing meritocracy in relation to subaltern politics allows us to see the contextual specificity of such claims: at one moment, they are articulated through the disavowal of caste, at another, through caste affiliation. This marking and unmarking of caste suggests a rethinking of meritocracy, typically assumed to be a modernist ideal that disclaims social embeddedness and disdains the particularisms of caste and race. I show instead that claims to collective belonging and to merit are eminently commensurable, and become more so when subaltern assertion forces privilege into the foreground. Rather than the progressive erasure of ascribed identities in favor of putatively universal ones, we are witnessing the re-articulation of caste as an explicit basis for merit and the generation of newly consolidated forms of upper-casteness.

scholarly journals DAKWAH DAN MORALITAS PEMUDA (Analisis Gerakan Dakwah Jamaah Hadrah Nurul Mustofa dalam Membentengi Moral Pemuda)

AKADEMIKA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sofiatul Iman
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Theoretical Description ◽  
The Social ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
General Meaning ◽  
Structural Descriptions ◽  
Youth Community

Abstract: Da'wah messages can be accepted among the (youth) community through da'wah packages that attract the attention of da'wah objects (mad'u). In packing da'wah messages, it is necessary to understand the mad'u situation, as done by jam'iyyah Hadrah Nurul Mustofa, which is much favored by young people, especially in Darungan-Cangkring-Jenggawah-Jember. The da'wah activities carried out by the Hadrah Nurul Mustofa have a special attraction for members and the community in general as their madú. Because the design of the da'wah movement is carried out in balance with the social conditions of young people who incidentally are alcoholic addicts. The purpose of this study is to understand the propaganda movement carried out by the Hadrah Nurul Mustofa to provide academic contributions with a theoretical description in the missionary movement, in addition it also provides a broad understanding for readers regarding the missionary movement, especially for Muslims who have the obligation to convey religious messages through da'wah. In this study, the researcher uses descriptive qualitative methods to explore data. This type of research uses a phenomenological approach that describes the general meaning of a number of individuals on various life experiences, so that the researcher can explore data relating to the tendency of youth and general habits already inherent in their social life. Collecting data in this study with active participant observation, non-structural in-depth interviews so that the data needed can be explored as deeply as possible. Data analysis uses a combined description of the phenomenon being studied by including textural descriptions and structural descriptions. This is the essence of individual experience that is the object of research and displays the peak aspects of phenomenological studies. The validity of the research data uses data triangulation which includes source triangulation, technique triangulation and time triangulation. The conclusion of this research is that the Majlis Shalawat Nurul Mustofa in fortifying youth morality is by using an emotional approach so that they have self-motivation in leaving all the wrong behaviors and doing good deeds or positive attitudes.Keyword: Da'wah, Moral, Youth

scholarly journals Figuracja disco polo: ilustracja muzyczna polskiej transformacji

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
Marcin Choczyński
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
The Social ◽  
Musical Arrangement

This article attempts a sociological analysis of a specific musical trend – disco polo – through the prism of the figuration theory proposed by Norbert Elias. Street music of the 1990s was an extremely accurate musical illustration of the period of systemic transformations in Poland, because disco polo’s characteristic elements (e.g., kitsch, impermanence, and banality, as well as optimism, a sense of community, and freshness) were combined with social feelings and attitudes toward the rapidly changing reality. Disco polo documented the social life of the time, as is visible in its symbolic layer as well as in its purely musical arrangement: it was the hallmark of a generation.

Conducting Comparative Participant Observation

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-87
Author(s):  
Corey M. Abramson ◽  
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Causal Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Following the argument for the importance of comparative participant observation for approaches descendent from the conventional scientific tradition (CST), this chapter outlines how the behavioralist foundations summarized in chapter 1 translate to procedures and techniques for charting causal mechanisms in comparative ethnographic research. The chapter begins by examining the practices and techniques of the behavioralist approach in detail and describes the mode of research design, sampling, data collection, analysis, and explanation associated with this approach, giving examples from prior empirical works. The chapter then turns to longstanding concerns about ethnographic reliability and replication and explains how this approach addresses them. In doing so, it shows how behavioralist criteria align with, and diverge from, other methodological approaches to the collection, analysis, and extension of ethnographic data. The chapter concludes by explaining the contributions that can be made by repositioning participant observation within the spectrum of approaches to understanding causal processes in the social sciences.

Building social capital: Polish football supporters through the lens of James Coleman’s conception

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Grodecki
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Social

The purpose of the presented study is to understand and describe the mechanisms for generating social capital in the groups of devoted football supporters in Poland, by: (a) exploring those features of football supporters’ social structures that are essential for creating social capital and enabling them to maintain it within those groups; and (b) trying to identify the historical processes which foster emergence of these features in supporters’ social structures. The presented analysis is part of a wider research project on Polish football supporters’ social capital. It draws on a qualitative approach based on the triangulation of a variety of methods: on-going ethnography, participant observation, individual interviews and content analysis (internet forums, book biographies, magazines, zines and qualitative research materials from previous research). Drawing on Coleman’s concept, this study identifies the presence of specific forms of social capital ( appropriate social organization, obligations and expectations, norms and effective sanctions and information channels) and internal factors ( ideology, closure and stability) facilitating maintenance of this ‘source’ in the structures of devoted supporters’ groups in Poland. The results show also that social capital is created on the stands and then transferred to the other areas of social life. Furthermore, the social capital used in areas other than where it was first created can strengthen efficiency and trust in the original organization. Further, external factors like the co-production process and ‘war’ with the state are considered as variables fostering the emergence of social capital in the analysed structures. However, these same external factors also made those structures very exclusive.

scholarly journals Worrying about Trust

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
PIOTR SZTOMPKA
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Common People ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Modern

In the last few decades, the subject of trust has become one of the central research topics in sociology and political science. Various theoretical approaches have crystallized, and an immense amount of empirical data has been collected. The focus on trust is for two kinds of reasons. One has to do with immanent developments in the social sciences. We have witnessed a turn from almost exclusive preoccupation with the macro-social level, that is the organizational, systemic or structuralist images of society, toward the micro-foundations of social life; that is, everyday actions and interactions, including their ‘soft’ dimensions, mental and cultural intangibles and imponderables. Another set of reasons has to do with the changing quality of social structures and social processes in the late-modern period. The ascendance of democracy means that the role of human agency is growing, and more depends on what common people think and do, how they feel toward others and toward their rulers and how they choose to participate and cooperate. The process of globalization means that more and more of the factors impinging on everyday life of people are non-transparent, unfamiliar and distant, demanding new type of attitudes. The expansion of risk means that people have to act more often than before in conditions of uncertainty. The traumas of rapid, comprehensive and often unexpected social change produce disorientation and a loss of existential security. If the ambition of sociology to become the reflexive awareness of society is to be realized, then the current interest in trust seems to be wholly warranted.

scholarly journals Continuities in the Period of “Revolutionary Changes” and the “Dusk of the Peasant Status” (Contribution to the Study of Rural Life in Socialist Czechoslovakia)

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Oto Polouček
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Late Socialism ◽  
The Impact ◽  
External Interventions

AbstractThe narratives from the socialist period remarkably resemble the discussions after 1989 when it comes to the statement that the second half of the 20th century brought discontinuities that changed the countryside, even though their evaluations are different: the “desired” progress promoted by the normalisation language had not admitted the listing of the negative impacts on the countryside and the environment which logically became the centre of discussion after 1989. There is, however, a consensus in that the collectivisation of agriculture and the modernisation of the countryside had a significant impact on the functioning of rural communities, the way of life and municipal hierarchies. The author of the study suggests, though, that it is impossible to fully grasp the impacts of the transformation of the countryside on the present if we only observe the discontinuities. His assumptions are based on his own interest in the memories about the social life in the late socialism period, while focusing on the observation of the continuities that can be based on a reflection of normative ideas and values. Thanks to an analysis of orally historical interviews and the evaluation of contemporary ethnographic research, the members of rural communities were shown to have successfully developed initiatives to ensure continuity in social life despite its changing form and inter-generational discussions. This can be explained with the observation of symbols with which people identify themselves – thanks to their embeddedness in the values system and high adaptability to external interventions. It is impossible to fully understand the strategies of adaptabilities, so characteristic of this period, without observing the impact of the continuities (e.g. the need to use hypernormalised language to advocate one’s own interests).

Dagara bagr: ritualising myth of social foundation

Africa ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-633
Author(s):  
Alexis B. Tengan
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Secret Society ◽  
North West ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Events ◽  
South West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Private And Public

AbstractThe article explores the ritualising processes of a myth of social foundation, the bagr myth, among the Dagara of north-west Ghana and south-west Burkina Faso. It describes how rituals form part of the daily life of the Dagara and shows how bagr rituals form a series of private and public events lasting the whole year or the bagr season. The article describes the social life in the neighbourhood within which most ritual activities take place and outlines the historical events which are possibly responsible for the creation of the bagr myth itself as a narrative text. The rest of the article is devoted to the ritualising processes of the bagr myth. Much of the article, particularly this section, is structured around the author's own experiences and participant observation of ritual activities. The aim is to show why the public rituals of bagr are not about initiating particular individuals into a secret society or lodges but are about how Dagara society constitutes itself. The day and night ritual narration of the bagr myth involving different segments of society and described in detail in the second half of the article seems to justify this claim. The article includes excerpts from bagr narratives recorded by the author to illustrate how the text is being constructed and the sort of information it is intended to communicate.

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