scholarly journals Symbol as Metonymy and Metaphor: A Sociological Perspective on Mathematical Symbolism

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saumya Malviya
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Mathematical Practice ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Mathematical Discourse ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Classroom Context ◽  
Mathematical Symbolism ◽  
The People ◽  
Mathematical Symbols ◽  
Participant Observer

As a social practice, mathematics remains shrouded in mystery and seems inaccessible for outsiders. It comes across as a closed formal system that is largely considered independent of the people who practise it and hence totally impervious to sociological investigation. This article seeks to question these assumptions and is offered as a contribution to an emerging sociology of mathematics and abstraction. The argument unfolds on an ethnographic register and follows the reactions to a particular mathematical symbol in two different contexts. The first stretch of the description tracks the responses to this symbol on an online forum devoted to discussing mathematics and the other draws from a classroom context the author was part of as a participant observer. Thus focussing on just one aspect of mathematical practice, the way in which symbols are handled by practitioners, it attempts to underline the character of mathematics as a distinctive form of sociality. In the process it raises and seeks to address the following questions. What do controversies over and reactions to mathematical symbols tell us about mathematics as a practice? What roles do symbols play in the mathematical discourse? And, can a broader sociological perspective on mathematical symbolism be developed?

scholarly journals Konsep Hidup Kekal Menurut Pandangan Dunia Etnis Baliem, Papua Sebagai Potensi dan Krisis Bagi Kontekstualisasi Injil

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Marde Christian Stenly Mawikere
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
The People ◽  
Ideal Situation ◽  
Ideal Person ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Participant Observer ◽  
Gospel Message

This study reveals the Baliem ethnic concept of "eternal life" and how it relates to contextual gospel preaching (both potential and crisis). The study was conducted using a qualitative approach with a participant observer method supported by a study of a variety of relevant literature with a discussion of the concept of eternal life of Baliem people in Papua. As for the Baliem Society, Papua with a background of traditional societies with a worldview of animism has an eternal view of life which is lived out as an "ideal situation and condition" in the Nabelan-Kabelan myth and "an ideal person or figure" in the Naurekul myth. Through this view of eternal life, there is a "meeting point" and "difference" with the gospel message and Bible values. Because it is possible to be able to advocate and implement a contextual evangelistic approach for the Baliem people in Papua by touching and empowering their cultural values, Thus the Gospel and Christianity are not just a history or monument but are still present and change society while still paying attention to the integrity of the socio-cultural context, especially the people of Baliem, Papua.  ABSTRAKStudi ini mengungkapkan konsep etnis Baliem mengenai “hidup kekal” dan bagaimana kaitannya dengan pemberitaan Injil yang kontekstual (baik potensi maupun krisis). Penelitian dilaksanakan dengan  pendekatan kualitatif melalui metode pengamatan partisipan yang didukung dengan kajian kepada beragam literatur yang relevan dengan pembahasan mengenai konsep hidup kekal orang Baliem di Tanah Papua. Masyarakat Baliem, Papua dengan latar belakang masyarakat tradisional dengan pandangan dunia animisme memiliki pandangan hidup kekal yang dihayati sebagai “situasi dan kondisi yang ideal” pada mitos atau legenda Nabelan-Kabelan dan “pribadi atau sosok yang ideal” dalam legenda Naurekul. Melalui pandangan mengenai hidup kekal seperti ini, maka terdapat “titik temu” maupun “perbedaan” dengan berita Injil dan nilai-nilai Alkitab. Karena itu memungkinkan untuk dapat menganjurkan dan melaksanakan pendekatan kontekstualisasi Injil bagi etnis Baliem di Papua dengan menyentuh, memanfaatkan dan memberdayakan nilai budaya etnis Baliem, Dengan demikian Injil maupun kekristenan bukan hanya akan menjadi sejarah atau monumen namun akan tetap hadir dan mengubahkan masyarakat dengan tetap memperhatikan keutuhan konteks sosial budaya, khususnya etnis Baliem, Papua.

scholarly journals EKSISTENSI DAN KONTRIBUSI ULAMA PEREMPUAN DI KABUPATEN ACEH BARAT (SUATU ANALISIS PRAKTIK SOSIAL DARI BOURDIEU)

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
IRMA JURAIDA
Keyword(s):  
Women Religious ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Women Scholars

This study discusses about the existence and extent of the contribution of women religious leaders accepted in society in West Aceh district by using sociological analysis (social practice). This study was conducted in Aceh Barat district using a qualitative approach, notably through in-depth interview techniques by way of to-face and observation. According to the thinking of Bourdieu (1990), habitus and domains provide an easy way to see how the process of constructing of the realm of Islamic boarding school and the community and penginternalisasi habitus and religious values, socio-cultural and customs in society that formed the existence of women religious leaders in the community. . the results showed that the existence and contribution of women religious leaders in society, to understand the people of Aceh are still in the capacity of women. Women have not been possible to contribute to the public realm, just in taklim, special lectures for or fellow women and local preachers. Keywords: Existence, contributions, women scholars, Aceh Barat

The Significance of Earth-Eating: Social and Cultural Aspects of Geophagy Among Luo Children

Africa ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 653-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Wenzel Geissler
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Reproductive Age ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
The People ◽  
Cultural Themes

ABSTRACTEarth‐eating is common among primary school children in Luoland, western Kenya. This article describes the social significance and meanings attributed to it. Earth‐eating is practised among children before puberty, irrespective of their sex, and among women of reproductive age, but not usually among adult men or old women. To eat earth signifies belonging to the female sphere within the household, which includes children up to adolescence. Through eating earth, or abandoning it, the children express their emerging gender identity. Discourses about earth‐eating, describing the practice as unhealthy and bad, draw on ‘modern’ notions of hygiene, which are imparted, for example, in school. They form part of the discursive strategies with which men especially maintain a dominant position in the community. Beyond the significance of earth‐eating in relation to age, gender and power, it relates to several larger cultural themes, namely fertility, belonging to a place, and the continuity of the lineage. Earth symbolises female, life‐bringing forces. Termite hills, earth from which is eaten by most of the children and women, can symbolise fertility, and represent the house and the home, and the graves of ancestors. Earth‐eating is a form of ‘communion’ with life‐giving forces and with the people with whom one shares land and origin. Earth‐eating is a social practice produced in complex interactions of body, mind and other people, through which children incorporate and embody social relations and cultural values.

Angnginrang

Emik ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-211
Author(s):  
Jumalia Jumalia
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Female College Student ◽  
The People ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Human Need ◽  
The Common ◽  
Spiritual Satisfaction ◽  
The Impact

Human need is human desires to own and enjoy the usefulness of goods or services that can provide physical and spiritual satisfaction for survival. This study deals with the common social practice of debting at Kodingateng Island, Makassar. It examine the people’s perspective about debt, the debt mechanism, and the impact of debt in their social life. This study was carried out at Kodingareng Island, Makassar, an island where debting is a common social practice. There were 11 participants involved in this study, consisting of a female college student, seven fishermen's wives, and a stall seller (pagadde-gadde), a diver (paselang), and a fisherman (papekang). They are aged between 24 and 47 years. Data was collected using in-depth interview (to explore people's perspectives on debt, debting mechanism, and the impact of debting behavior towards their life; and observation (to observe indebted transactions, who owes, what is owed, billing and payment moments). The study shows that people at Kodingareng Island perceive debt (inrang) as a “habit” that has become a local tradition and debt as a “bond” between the lender (to appa'nginrang) and the borrower (to nginrang). The debt mechanism depends on debted needs, which are varied from primary needs, secondary needs, and tertiary needs; and on the importance of such need. The more important an item becomes, the more often the type of item is debted. The mechanism is simple, one just mention what s/he need and goods can be directly taken or delivered. Despite the fact there is a informal agreement between the lender and the borrower, in many cases the payment methods depends on the borrower. The impact of debt for the people of Kodingareng Island is categorized into three: people are trapped in an endless debt since debt is carried out continuously; generating generation debtors since they are accustomed to see and to practice debt; and affecting community social relations since payments are faltered, despite debting is not a shamefull behaviour.

scholarly journals The Contestation of Organic and Non-Organic Agricultural Knowledge in Sustainable Agriculture

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-252
Author(s):  
Siti Wardah ◽  
Darmawan Salman ◽  
Andi Agustang ◽  
Imam Mujahidin Fahmid
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Agriculture ◽  
Organic Agriculture ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Organic Fertilizer ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Agricultural Knowledge ◽  
The People

Abstract This research aims to analyze the contestational process between organic and non-organic agricultural knowledge in the agricultural practices in Bonto Lebang, North Galesong, Takalar regency. This was a qualitative study exploring descriptive data in oral, written and attitudinal forms obtained from farmers and other parties concerned as an agent of sustainable agriculture in Bonto Lebang, Takalar regency. It was a case study focused on hermeneutics. The data used in conducting this research were primary and secondary data. The results of this research show that the contestation between organic and nonorganic agricultural knowledge of seeds-providing, fertilizing or land-managing was given responses from each local of subsystems such as household, government, local communities, and marketing. For the people in Bonto Lebang village Takalar regency in particular, knowledge of organic agriculture was in fact a deconstructed agricultural knowledge resulting from field experiences and some informations from the agricultural consultants that got improved from self-practices. Meanwhile, agricultural parts that mainly changed were the important parts namely maintenance using the vegetable pestiside and fertilization using the organic fertilizer. The novelty of this research is the ontology focused on knowledge or skills in organic agriculture as a social reality by assuming that behind any knowledge and skills there existed a power and authority to transform the knowledge into a social practice and then it gradually turned into social reality.

Ernesto Laclau and Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannis Stavrakakis ◽  
Antonis Galanopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Nodal Point ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Human Reality ◽  
Mediation Processes ◽  
Empty Signifier

Arguably one of the most important political theorists of our time, Ernesto Laclau has produced an extremely influential theoretical corpus involving a multitude of methodological and political implications. His contribution is mainly focused on three fields; discourse, hegemony, and populism, all of them highly connected with communication and mediation processes. In particular, Ernesto Laclau has introduced, throughout his career, a complex conceptual apparatus (comprising concepts like articulation, the nodal point, dislocation, the empty signifier, etc.) as a result of the radicalization and re-elaboration of the Gramscian conceptualization of hegemony. According to this framework, elaborated for the first time in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, co-authored with Chantal Mouffe (first published in 1985), discourse is a social practice that performatively shapes the social world. Human reality is thus articulated through discourse and obtains its meaning precisely through this discursive mediation. All social practices are therefore understood as discursive ones. To the extent, however, that processes of articulation are never taking place in a vacuum and are bound to involve different or antagonistic political orientations, the field of discursivity comes to be seen as a field marked throughout by the primacy of the political. As a result, any hegemony will be contingent, partial, and temporary. In addition, Laclau is one of the most well known analysts of populism, to which he has (partly) devoted two of his books, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (1977) and On Populist Reason (2005). Populism, for Laclau, is designated, as expected, as discourse, as a specific way to articulate and communicate social demands as well as to form popular identities, to construct “the people.” His elaborations of populism are surely critical for the analysis of a pervasive political phenomenon of our era. All in all, the thought of Ernesto Laclau remains influential in the sphere of theory and political practice, and his theoretical arsenal will be an extremely helpful tool for academics and researchers of discourse theory and political communication.

scholarly journals Image Pragmatics and Film as a Lived Practice in the Documentary Work of Hani Susumu and Tsuchimoto Noriaki

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Jesty
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Basic Difference ◽  
Social Documentary ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Participant Observer ◽  
The U.S

This paper focuses on two discrete bodies of work, Hani Susumu’s films of the late 1950s and Tsuchimoto Noriaki’s Minamata documentaries of the early 1970s, to trace the emergence of the cinéma vérité mode of participant-observer, small-crew documentary in Japan and to suggest how it shapes the work of later social documentarists. It argues that Hani Susumu’s emphasis on duration and receptivity in the practice of filmmaking, along with his pragmatic understanding of the power of the cinematic image, establish a fundamentally different theoretical basis and set of questions for social documentary than the emphasis on mobility and access, and the attendant question of truth that tend to afflict the discourse of cinéma vérité in the U.S. and France. Tsuchimto Noriaki critically adopts and develops Hani’s theoretical and methodological framework in his emphasis on long-running involvement with the subjects of his films and his practical conviction that the image is not single-authored, self-sufficient, or meaningful in and of itself, but emerges from collaboration and must be embedded in a responsive social practice in order to meaningfully reach an audience. Hani and Tsuchimoto both believe that it is possible for filmmakers and the film itself to be fundamentally processual and intersubjective: Grounded in actual collaboration, but also underwritten by a belief that intersubjective processes are more basic to human being than “the individual,” let alone “the author.” This paper explores the implications for representation and ethics of this basic difference in vérité theory and practice in Japan.

Socio-Cultural Interpretations to the Diffusion and Use of Broadband Services in a Korean Digital Society

2011 ◽  
pp. 78-89
Author(s):  
Dal Yong Jin
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Korean History ◽  
The People ◽  
Broadband Services ◽  
Modern Korean History ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

This chapter attempts to ascertain the causes of the rapid growth of broadband services in the context of the broader socio-cultural elements. It recognizes technology as a socio-cultural product which has historically been constituted by certain forms of knowledge and social practice, so this chapter explores cultural elements contributing to the diffusion of broadband services in the context of the cultural environment in Korea. Further, this chapter discusses the significant role of the people, as users, in the process of the rapid diffusion and growth of broadband services. In particular, it emphasizes the way in which the 1997 economic crisis, as one of the most significant socio-cultural turning points in modern Korean history, has influenced the deployment of broadband services as high-speed Internet connections have developed since 1997.

Socio-Cultural Interpretations to the Diffusion and Use of Broadband Services in a Korean Digital Society

2009 ◽  
pp. 1200-1212
Author(s):  
Dal Jin Yong
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Korean History ◽  
The People ◽  
Broadband Services ◽  
Modern Korean History ◽  
Internet Connections ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

This chapter attempts to ascertain the causes of the rapid growth of broadband services in the context of the broader socio-cultural elements. It recognizes technology as a socio-cultural product which has historically been constituted by certain forms of knowledge and social practice, so this chapter explores cultural elements contributing to the diffusion of broadband services in the context of the cultural environment in Korea. Further, this chapter discusses the significant role of the people, as users, in the process of the rapid diffusion and growth of broadband services. In particular, it emphasizes the way in which the 1997 economic crisis, as one of the most significant socio-cultural turning points in modern Korean history, has influenced the deployment of broadband services as high-speed Internet connections have developed since 1997.

Mathematical Reasoning

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
Vitaly V. Tselishchev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Mathematical Reasoning ◽  
Mathematical Proof ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Practice ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Formal Proof ◽  
Formal Proofs ◽  
Logical Conclusion

The article is devoted to the comparison of two types of proofs in mathematical practice, the methodological differences of which go back to the difference in the understanding of the nature of mathematics by Descartes and Leibniz. In modern philosophy of mathematics, we talk about conceptual and formal proofs in connection with the so-called Hilbert Thesis, according to which every proof can be transformed into a logical conclusion in a suitable formal system. The analysis of the arguments of the proponents and opponents of the Thesis, “conceptualists” and “formalists”, is presented respectively by the two main antagonists – Y. Rav and J. Azzouni. The focus is on the possibility of reproducing the proof of “interesting” mathematical theorems in the form of a strict logical conclusion, in principle feasible by a mechanical procedure. The argument of conceptualists is based on pointing out the importance of other aspects of the proof besides the logical conclusion, namely, in introducing new concepts, methods, and establishing connections between different sections of meaningful mathematics, which is often illustrated by the case of proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (Y. Rav). Formalists say that a conceptual proof “points” to the formal logical structure of the proof (J. Azzouni). The article shows that the disagreement is based on the assumption of asymmetry of mutual translation of syntactic and semantic structures of the language, as a result of which the formal proof loses important semantic factors of proof. In favor of a formal proof, the program of univalent foundations of mathematics In. Vojevodski, according to which the future of mathematical proofs is associated with the availability of computer verification programs. In favor of conceptual proofs, it is stated (A. Pelc) that the number of steps in the supposed formal logical conclusion when proving an “interesting” theorem exceeds the cognitive abilities of a person. The latter circumstance leads the controversy beyond the actual topic of mathematical proof into the epistemological sphere of discussions of “mentalists” and “mechanists” on the question of the supposed superiority of human intelligence over the machine, initiated by R. Penrose in his interpretation of the Second Theorem of Goedel, among whose supporters, as it turned out, was Goedel himself.

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