scholarly journals Perspective by incongruity in the performance of dialectical ironic analysis: a disciplined approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cate Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
World View ◽  
Social World ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Perspective By Incongruity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociological Thought ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
The Way

The importance of dialectic to sociological thought has been recognised by many of the discipline’s most eminent thinkers. Adopting a dialectical world view infused with irony provokes insights revealing logical contradictions, so opening up possibilities for the development of alternative interpretations of the social world. There is, however, very little in the way of method to support the development of dialectical irony as a key analytical tool for the social sciences. This article seeks to remedy this deficit. Drawing on three key examples (trained incapacity, functional stupidity and interpassivity) the article examines Kenneth Burke’s ‘perspective by incongruity’ as a means for interrogating the dialectical moment, so contributing towards the development of dialectical ironic analysis within a methodology of humour.

scholarly journals Diversidade, Imaterialidade e Globalização

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (01) ◽  
pp. 163-184
Author(s):  
Artur André Lins
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social World ◽  
Cooperative System ◽  
Immaterial Labor ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Sociological Thought ◽  
Capital Humano ◽  
The Way

Resumo: Este ensaio pretende lidar com os problemas colocados à reflexão sociológica pelo processo de globalização, especificamente no contexto da segunda metade do século XX. Quais temas, objetos e conceitos que, desde então, desafiam a compreensão do mundo social? Em que medida o mundo contemporâneo se transformou e quais os impactos dessa transformação para a nossa reflexividade? Partindo dessas questões preliminares, o texto elaborado se estrutura em três principais partes: 1) primeiramente, argumenta-se sobre o contexto de surgimento das ciências sociais e a historicidade de suas categorias de análise e o modo como a mudança social, nesse caso, o processo de globalização, nos colocou em face de novos desafios para a reflexão sociológica; 2) posteriormente, procuramos pensar o processo de reestruturação do capital e do trabalho após 1970, colocando o problema posto pela noção de “trabalho imaterial” e “capital humano”; 3) posteriormente, nos dedicamos à compreensão do sistema cooperativo das Nações Unidas e o modo pelo qual, nesse contexto, se estabelecem tensões com a estrutura do Estado-nação, sobretudo a partir da emergência de um novo emblema sociológico: o discurso da diversidade. Palavras-chave: diversidade; imaterialidade; globalização; pensamento social. Abstract: This essay aims to deal with the problems placed to sociological thought by the globalization process, specifically in the context of the second half of the 20th century. What themes, objects and concepts have since challenged the understanding of the social world? To what extent has the contemporary world been transformed and what are the impacts of this transformation on our reflexivity? Based on these preliminary questions, this papper is structured by three main parts: 1) first, it argues about the context of the emergence of social sciences and the historicity of its categories of analysis and the way in which social change, particularly, the globalization process, has brought us new challenges  for sociological thought; 3) later, we try to think about the process of restructuring of capital and labor after 1970’s, facing the problem posed by the notion of “immaterial labor” and “human capital”; 2) afterwards, we dedicate ourselves to understanding the United Nations cooperative system and the way in which, in this context, tensions are established with the structure of the nation-state, especially from the emergence of a new sociological emblem: the discourse of diversity. Keywords: diversity; immateriality; globalization; social thought.

scholarly journals A New Role for Management of the Social Sciences in an Age of Complexity

2016 ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
Jody Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
World View ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Inquiry Science ◽  
Organic World ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Way

A particular scientific world view has become dominant, influential and successful in modern sciences today. Science and technology have transformed the way we view ourselves, our societies and our place in the cosmos. However, just as science and technology seem to be at the peak of their power, unexpected problems are disrupting the sciences from within. This reflects a deeper and more serious problem regarding scientific inquiry. Science is being held back by old assumptions that have become dogmas, the biggest of which is that science already knows all the answers, and only the details need to be worked out. A transformational paradigm shift is required from a mechanistic world view to an organic world view to better address the challenges of the new millenium.

A Response

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 1103-1108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martti Koskenniemi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Social World ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Specific Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Constant Source ◽  
The Way

From the preceding essays, but also from the general discussion around From Apology, two themes emerge as a constant source of puzzlement, not least to myself. How does the argument in that book affect – if at all – the way we do international law? And what does the claim to be “critical” really mean? These are, I suppose, aspects of one larger set of problems that permeate the whole of that work. “Oh yes, it does describe the argumentative patterns pretty well. But it does not really change anything, does it?” One might approach this sort of query in different ways. It might be thought of as an expression of the classical theme about the relations of theory and practice in the social sciences. How do academic works influence the social world to which they are addressed? Or one might be more interested in the specific relationship between (academic) doctrines and legal practice – the “outside” and the “inside” of the legal profession.

Our Most Troubling Madness

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Defeat ◽  
Social World ◽  
Epidemiological Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Brain Alteration ◽  
Benign Course ◽  
Cultural Features ◽  
The Way

This book examines the way schizophrenia is shaped by its social context: how life is lived with this madness in different settings, and what it is about those settings that alters the course of the illness, its outcome, and even the structure of its symptoms. Until recently, schizophrenia was perhaps our best example—our poster child—for the “bio-bio-bio” model of psychiatric illness: genetic cause, brain alteration, pharmacologic treatment. We now have direct epidemiological evidence that people are more likely to fall ill with schizophrenia in some social settings than in others, and more likely to recover in some social settings than in others. Something about the social world gets under the skin. This book presents twelve case studies written by psychiatric anthropologists that help to illustrate some of the variability in the social experience of schizophrenia and that illustrate the main hypotheses about the different experience of schizophrenia in the west and outside the west--and in particular, why schizophrenia seems to have a more benign course and outcome in India. We argue that above all it is the experience of “social defeat” that increases the risk and burden of schizophrenia, and that opportunities for social defeat are more abundant in the modern west. There is a new role for anthropology in the science of schizophrenia. Psychiatric science has learned—epidemiologically, empirically, quantitatively—that our social world makes a difference. But the highly structured, specific-variable analytic methods of standard psychiatric science cannot tell us what it is about culture that has that impact. The careful observation enabled by rich ethnography allows us to see in more detail what kinds of social and cultural features may make a difference to a life lived with schizophrenia. And if we understand culture’s impact more deeply, we believe that we may improve the way we reach out to help those who struggle with our most troubling madness.

scholarly journals Music to My Ears: A Material-semiotic Analysis of Fetal Heart Sounds in Midwifery Prenatal Care

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110051
Author(s):  
Annekatrin Skeide
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Prenatal Care ◽  
Fetal Heart ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Parental Love ◽  
The Social ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic

Unlike sonographic examinations, sonic fetal heartbeat monitoring has received relatively little attention from scholars in the social sciences. Using the case of fetal heartbeat monitoring as part of midwifery prenatal care in Germany, this contribution introduces music as an analytical tool for exploring the aesthetic dimensions of obstetrical surveillance practices. Based on ethnographic stories, three orchestrations are compared in which three different instruments help audiences to listen to what becomes fetal heartbeat music and to qualify fetal and pregnant lives in relation to each other. In the Doppler-based orchestration, audible heartbeat music is taken as a sign of a child in need of parental love and care cultivated to listen. The Pinard horn makes esoteric fetal music that can be appreciated by the midwife as a skilled instrumentalist alone and helps to enact a child hidden in the belly. The cardiotocograph brings about soothing music and a reassuring relationship with a child but also durable scripts of juridical beauty. This material-semiotic analysis amplifies how well-being is shaped in midwifery prenatal care practices.

scholarly journals Quantum and systems theory in world society: Not brothers and sisters but relatives still?

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 434-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Albert ◽  
Felix Maximilian Bathon
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
Social World ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Entire World ◽  
And Function

This article provides a sympathetic, yet also somewhat critical, engagement with the notion of ‘quantizing’ by exploring substantive overlaps between quantum and systems theory. It is based on the observation that while quantum theory is ‘non-classical’ in its entire world-view, there is a danger that when it comes to the social world it is simply laid on a world-view of that world, which remains at its core ‘classical’. This situation calls for engaging quantum with existing non-classical social theories. Resemblances between quantum and systems theory are obviously given through similarities around the concepts of observation and meaning, whose status and function in both bodies of theory is explored. We then probe the degree to which obvious analogies in fact could be read as overlaps and similarities that could be put to complementary analytical use: in a sense, we argue that systems theory ‘does’ quantum theory, and vice versa. The article concludes with some vistas of this discussion for the field of international relations.

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.

scholarly journals We Need to Talk about Impact: Why Social Policy Academics need to Engage with the UK's Research Impact Agenda

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE E. SMITH ◽  
ELLEN STEWART
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Policy Relevance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

AbstractOf all the social sciences, social policy is one of the most obviously policy-orientated. One might, therefore, expect a research and funding agenda which prioritises and rewards policy relevance to garner an enthusiastic response among social policy scholars. Yet, the social policy response to the way in which major funders and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are now prioritising ‘impact’ has been remarkably muted. Elsewhere in the social sciences, ‘research impact’ is being widely debated and a wealth of concerns about the way in which this agenda is being pursued are being articulated. Here, we argue there is an urgent need for social policy academics to join this debate. First, we employ interviews with academics involved in health inequalities research, undertaken between 2004 and 2015, to explore perceptions, and experiences, of the ‘impact agenda’ (an analysis which is informed by a review of guidelines for assessing ‘impact’ and relevant academic literature). Next, we analyse high- and low-scoring REF2014 impact case studies to assess whether these concerns appear justified. We conclude by outlining how social policy expertise might usefully contribute to efforts to encourage, measure and reward research ‘impact’.

Generations Later: The Same Furious Passage of the Black Graduate Student

2022 ◽  
pp. 000276422110660
Author(s):  
Jalia Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Student ◽  
Social World ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
White Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociological Thought ◽  
Informal Rules

In this article, the author relies on a narrative based format to explore the interactions between everyday race-making processes and the white space of academia. Recognizing the unique ways systems of power interact with their experiences in the social world, they chronicle their engagements detailing the pervasive ways rules of white space are placed. The article recognizes three informal rules of white space in academia: the accepted reification of white sociological thought; the acceptance of white professional standards; and the continued centering of white comfort.

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