scholarly journals Shopping with violence: Black Friday sales in the British context

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 677-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Smith ◽  
Thomas Raymen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Black Friday

This article argues that the 2014 adoption of the US shopping tradition of Black Friday sales to stores and supermarkets in the United Kingdom and beyond represents an important point of enquiry for the social sciences. We claim that the importation of the consumer event, along with the disorder and episodes of violence that accompany it, are indicative of the triumph of liberal capitalist consumer ideology while reflecting an embedded and cultivated form of insecurity and anxiety concomitant with the barbaric individualism, social envy and symbolic competition of consumer culture. Through observation and qualitative interviews, this article presents some initial analyses of the motivations and meanings attached to the conduct of those we begin to understand as ‘extreme shoppers’ and seeks to understand these behaviours against the context of the social harms associated with consumer culture.

Supporting Research in the Social Sciences

1989 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
M. V. Posner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Research ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Is Research ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Short Memory ◽  
Research Councils

WHAT IS RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES FOR? SHOULD (much of) it be financed by the state? How should it be organized? Where should it take place? In the United Kingdom, these questions thud down each morning on the desk of the Chairman of the Economic and Social Research Council, which now has a new home (in Swindon, with its big sister Research Councils) and a new Chairman, Professor Howard Newby. Six years, and more than one chairman, have come and gone since I sat at that desk; I have a short memory, and a full recognition of the duty of a retired bureaucrat — ‘get out, and shut up’. I am not willing or able to bore readers with a description or a critique of recent policies. But my present function gives me a new standpoint; things look different from Strasbourg, and an international perspective helps; above all, my responsibilities now spread widely (although jolly thinly) over the whole range of learning, scholarship, and science. So these are home thoughts from abroad.

scholarly journals The Rising Salience of the Absent: An Interactionist Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Hillyard
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Rural Sociology ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Rural Studies ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social

The paper uses examples from rural studies to demonstrate the relevance of symbolic interactionism for unlocking the complexity of contemporary society. It does so by making a case for a nonprescriptive theory-method dialectic. Case examples are drawn upon in support of the argumentation, including early interactionism and ethnographic work in the United Kingdom, and, in the second half of the paper, rural sociology and fieldwork. The main argument presented is that the traditional remit of interactionism should be extended to recognize how absence is increasingly influential. It concludes that interactionism is in tune with other new trajectories in the social sciences that take into consideration co-presence proximity both on and off-line.

Awards are Popular

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno S. Frey ◽  
Jana Gallus
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Point ◽  
Great Role ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social

State orders play a great role in most countries. This applies not only to monarchies (e.g. the United Kingdom) but also includes staunch republics such as France or the United States. Awards are most popular in the arts and media (e.g. the Oscars), in sports, in religion, in the voluntary and humanitarian sector, in academia (e.g. honorary doctorates), and also in business (e.g. Manager of the Year). One of the most cherished awards is the Nobel Prize, given for peace, literature, and various sciences. Inducement prizes have been successful to spark innovation. They promise a monetary sum and public acclaim to that person or group of persons finding a solution to a well-specified problem. There are also ironic prizes (such as the Golden Raspberry Awards or the Goat of West Point). The social sciences, including economics, have largely disregarded awards. The Economics of Award is only in its beginnings.

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