scholarly journals Social Structures in Transition: Applications of Two Theories to Chiefdoms

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311877175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Emanuelson ◽  
David Willer

Status characteristics theory and elementary theory are applied to explain developments through three structural forms that chiefdoms are known to take. Theoretic models find that downward mobility inherent in the first form, the status-lineage structure, destabilizes its system of privilege. As a consequence, high-status actors are motivated to find mechanisms to preserve and enhance privilege. By engaging in hostile relations with other chiefdoms, high-status actors offer protection to low-status others from real or imagined threats. Through that protection, they gain tribute and support. The result is structural change from influence based on status to power exercised through indirect coercion, the second structural form. In settled societies, accumulation through war and selective redistribution contribute to separation of warrior and commoner rankings. That separation leads to the third structural form, direct coercive chiefdom.

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Mitchell Peck ◽  
Sonya Conner

Over the last two decades, the way doctors and patients interact has changed. There has been a shift away from what Talcott Parsons described as a paternalistic model of interaction to a more collaborative, participatory, patient-centered model of interaction. Yet not all interactions between doctors and patients are collaborative. Using status characteristics theory, the authors hypothesized that medical encounters are more likely to be physician dominated when the status differences between doctors and patients are higher. They tested hypotheses about race, gender, and socioeconomic status differences between doctors and patients. The authors found support for the hypotheses, especially regarding status differences for race and gender. Doctor-patient interactions were most physician-centered when doctors had higher status than patients on race (white versus non-white) and gender (male versus female)


2005 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Gallagher ◽  
Stanford W. Gregory ◽  
Alison J. Bianchi ◽  
Paul J. Hartung ◽  
Sarah Harkness

In this study we examine medical interview asymmetry using the expectation states approach. Physicians lead clinical interviews because of a feature inherent in those interviews, namely the status difference between doctor and patient. This power differential varies: it is greatest when the biomedical aspects of the interview are emphasized. These observations are consistent with status characteristics theory (SCT), which is based on the expectation states approach to understanding the emergence of power-prestige orders in groups facing shared tasks. From an SCT perspective, when the required scope conditions are met the status characteristics of doctor and patient trigger expectation states that result in inequalities relevant to the biomedical tasks of the interview. We examine interactions between medical students and standardized patients from the perspective of SCT. We observe the emergence of vocal spectrum inequalities when the interview task is biomedical. Other nonverbal behavioral outcomes emerge as well, which are consistent with the asymmetry literature.


Author(s):  
Didier Debaise

Which kind of relation exists between a stone, a cloud, a dog, and a human? Is nature made of distinct domains and layers or does it form a vast unity from which all beings emerge? Refusing at once a reductionist, physicalist approach as well as a vitalistic one, Whitehead affirms that « everything is a society » This chapter consequently questions the status of different domains which together compose nature by employing the concept of society. The first part traces the history of this notion notably with reference to the two thinkers fundamental to Whitehead: Leibniz and Locke; the second part defines the temporal and spatial relations of societies; and the third explores the differences between physical, biological, and psychical forms of existence as well as their respective ways of relating to environments. The chapter thus tackles the status of nature and its domains.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-224
Author(s):  
ʿĀʾiḍ B. Sad Al-Dawsarī

The story of Lot is one of many shared by the Qur'an and the Torah, and Lot's offer of his two daughters to his people is presented in a similar way in the two books. This article compares the status of Lot in the Qur'an and Torah, and explores the moral dimensions of his character, and what scholars of the two religions make of this story. The significance of the episodes in which Lot offers his daughters to his people lies in the similarities and differences of the accounts given in the two books and the fact that, in both the past and the present, this story has presented moral problems and criticism has been leveled at Lot. Context is crucial in understanding this story, and exploration of the ways in which Lot and his people are presented is also useful in terms of comparative studies of the two scriptures. This article is divided into three sections: the first explores the depiction of Lot in the two texts, the second explores his moral limitations, and the third discusses the interpretations of various exegetes and scholars of the two books. Although there are similarities between the Qur'anic and Talmudic accounts of this episode, it is read differently by scholars from the two religions because of the different contexts of the respective accounts.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Abbiss

This article offers a ‘post-heritage’ reading of both iterations of Upstairs Downstairs: the LondonWeekend Television (LWT) series (1971–5) and its shortlived BBC revival (2010–12). Identifying elements of subversion and subjectivity allows scholarship on the LWT series to be reassessed, recognising occasions where it challenges rather than supports the social structures of the depicted Edwardian past. The BBC series also incorporates the post-heritage element of self-consciousness, acknowledging the parallel between its narrative and the production’s attempts to recreate the success of its 1970s predecessor. The article’s first section assesses the critical history of the LWT series, identifying areas that are open to further study or revised readings. The second section analyses the serialised war narrative of the fourth series of LWT’s Upstairs, Downstairs (1974), revealing its exploration of female identity across multiple episodes and challenging the notion that the series became more male and upstairs dominated as it progressed. The third section considers the BBC series’ revised concept, identifying the shifts in its main characters’ positions in society that allow the series’ narrative to question the past it evokes. This will be briefly contrasted with the heritage stability of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–15). The final section considers the household of 165 Eaton Place’s function as a studio space, which the BBC series self-consciously adopts in order to evoke the aesthetics of prior period dramas. The article concludes by suggesting that the barriers to recreating the past established in the BBC series’ narrative also contributed to its failure to match the success of its earlier iteration.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Abbiss

This article offers a ‘post-heritage’ reading of both iterations of Upstairs Downstairs: the LondonWeekend Television (LWT) series (1971–5) and its shortlived BBC revival (2010–12). Identifying elements of subversion and subjectivity allows scholarship on the LWT series to be reassessed, recognising occasions where it challenges rather than supports the social structures of the depicted Edwardian past. The BBC series also incorporates the post-heritage element of self-consciousness, acknowledging the parallel between its narrative and the production’s attempts to recreate the success of its 1970s predecessor. The article’s first section assesses the critical history of the LWT series, identifying areas that are open to further study or revised readings. The second section analyses the serialised war narrative of the fourth series of LWT’s Upstairs, Downstairs (1974), revealing its exploration of female identity across multiple episodes and challenging the notion that the series became more male and upstairs dominated as it progressed. The third section considers the BBC series’ revised concept, identifying the shifts in its main characters’ positions in society that allow the series’ narrative to question the past it evokes. This will be briefly contrasted with the heritage stability of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–15). The final section considers the household of 165 Eaton Place’s function as a studio space, which the BBC series self-consciously adopts in order to evoke the aesthetics of prior period dramas. The article concludes by suggesting that the barriers to recreating the past established in the BBC series’ narrative also contributed to its failure to match the success of its earlier iteration.


1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (4II) ◽  
pp. 501-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soofia Mumtaz

This paper discusses some issues currently preoccupying social scientists with respect to the process of development and its implications for Third World countries. These issues have become highly significant considering the momentum and nature of the development process being launched in the so-called "underdeveloped" world, within the context of modern nation-states. Therefore, in this paper, we seek to identify: (a) What is meant by development; (b) How the encounter between this process and traditional social structures (with their own functional logic, based on earlier forms of production and social existence) takes place; (c) What the implications of this encounter are; and (d) What lessons we can learn in this regard from history and anthropology. Development as a planned and organized process, the prime issue concerning both local and Western experts in Third World countries, is a recent phenomenon in comparison to the exposure of Third World countries to the Western Industrial system. The former gained momentum subsequent to the decolonization of the bulk of the Third World in the last half of this century, whereas the latter dates to at least the beginning of this century, if not earlier, when the repercussions of colonization, and later the two World Wars, became manifest in these countries.


Author(s):  
Barbara K. Gold

This chapter discusses the key issues surrounding Perpetua’s life and her narrative, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. It introduces the most perplexing circumstances around her life and times: the authorship of her Passio (which is written in at least three different hands); her life and family; the conditions of her martyrdom and of martyrdoms during the pre-Constantinian period; the status of martyrdom texts as personal, social, or historical documents; whether persecutions can be historically verified or were exaggerated by the Christians and others; and the afterlife of Perpetua and her text in writers from the third century to contemporary times. The introduction lays out the arguments for these thorny issues and tries to find a reasonable position on each one.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-257
Author(s):  
Susan Corby ◽  
Pete Burgess ◽  
Armin Höland ◽  
Hélène Michel ◽  
Laurent Willemez

Abstract Several European countries have a first instance ‘mixed’ labour court, that is a judicial panel comprising a professional judge and two or more lay judges, the latter with experience as employees or employers/managers. The lay judges’ main contribution is their workplace knowledge, but they act in a juridical setting where legal norms prevail, so does the professional judge, despite being in a minority, dominate? This article seeks to address this question by focussing on first instance labour courts in Great Britain, Germany and France. Theories of differential power, particularly status characteristics theory, and previous empirical research indicate that professional judges dominate, but our findings are more nuanced. Based on 177 interviews in three countries, we find that professional judge dominance varies according to the country’s institutional context and the salience of lay judges’ workplace knowledge. These institutional differences, however, are mediated by the attitudes of the judicial actors. Many interviewees noted that some lay judges were more prepared to challenge the professional judge than others, whereas others observed that some professional judges were more inclusive than others.


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