Contexts and structures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lake
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Economic Exchange ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Hierarchy ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Institutional Structures

This introductory chapter provides an outline of some of the ideological, political, and institutional structures and contexts within which the plays under discussion in this study were produced and consumed. Shakespeare's stagings of history were peculiarly intense in their concentration on the doings of kings and princes. In an emergently absolutist personal monarchy and during a period in which issues of succession and legitimacy were much on people's minds, plays that were so insistently about kings and queens were also quintessentially political plays. As a great deal of recent work has shown, such political concerns could well structure and, in their turn, be structured by, parallel sets of concerns and beliefs about the workings of the social order and the gender hierarchy. Political narratives then became useful ways to figure and interrogate the dynamics of economic exchange and value determined by the market or the workings of the gender hierarchy.

A Distant Rainbow

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-38
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Western World ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Caste Status ◽  
Governing Institutions

This introductory chapter traces the origins and resilience of the idea of India as the world’s largest democracy. Democracy was neither a gift of the Western world nor uniquely suited to Indian conditions. India was in fact a laboratory featuring a first-ever experiment in creating national unity, economic growth, religious toleration, and social equality out of a vast and polychromatic reality, a social order whose inherited power relations, rooted in the hereditary Hindu caste status, language hierarchies, and accumulated wealth, were to be transformed by the constitutionally guaranteed counter-power of public debate, multiparty competition, and periodic elections. Efforts to build an Indian democracy are said to have done more than transform the lives of its people. India fundamentally altered the nature of representative democracy itself. India’s democratic credentials, however, face new scrutiny as a result of the executive excesses of a populist demagogue as governing institutions crumble. The chapter argues that India’s democratic decline actually goes back further. It looks at the destructive effects of the long-standing neglect of the social foundations of India’s democracy and considers the possible mutation of democracy into a strange new kind of government called despotism.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela T. Ragusa
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Sandra Harding ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Over Time

Epistemology is the concept used to describe ways of knowing. In other words, how you know what you know. Sociologists have been interested in how knowledge is produced since the discipline was founded in the 19th Century. How we come to know our world and make sense of it are influenced by social institutions, individual attitudes and behaviors, and our demographic position within the social order. The social order is an historical product which continues to change over time. To facilitate our learning from our socio-historical experiences, sociologists frequently turn to ideas expressed by social theorists. Social theory, whether classical or contemporary, may thus be employed to help us make sense of changes in our social and material world. Although technology is arguably as ancient as our first ancestors, as the chapters in this book reveal, the characteristics of and communications within our postindustrial society vary greatly from those which occurred in the age of modernity. This introductory chapter identifies a few well-known social theorists who have historically attempted to explain how and why social systems, at macro and micro levels, change over time. Next, it contextualizes communication as a cultural product, arguing the best way to examine the topic is from multiple, local perspectives. In the feminist tradition of postmodernist Sandra Harding, it implores us to consider the premise and source of the knowledge sources we use and espouse while communicating and interacting in specific ways and environments. Finally, grounded in the systemic backdrop of social inequality, this chapter encourages readers to begin the task of critical thinking and reflecting about how each of us, as individuals and members of local communities, nations and the world, assuage or reproduces the structurally-derived inequalities which the globalization of communication and technical systems and interacting in a global environment manifests.

scholarly journals URUNG AIYY TOYON AS A KEY MALE IMAGE OF PATRIARCHAL YAKUTS MYTHOLOGY

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-148
Author(s):  
Евгений Петрович Слепцов ◽  
Аида Июньевна Егорова
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Active Element ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Hierarchy ◽  
Male Image

В статье рассматриваются вопросы развития социальных, в том числе гендерных установок в якутской мифологии и эпосе. Проведен анализ роли образа Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона в формировании патриархальной организации якутского общества. Образ Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона явился патроном нового социального порядка и инструментом вытеснения культов матрилинейной общины и их ведущего персонажа – хозяйки земли. В работе выделены этапы исторического развития образа Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона, связанные со структурными изменениями в общине якутов в процессе перехода от матрилинейности к патрилинейности, а также идеологической функции данного культа. Образ Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона выступил носителем типических черт социальной группы тойонов и мифы о нем оказывались активным элементом структур господства в якутском обществе. Культ Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона сложился и поддерживался как идеологическое обоснование власти тойонов, глав отдельных патронимий. Он был необходим для того, чтобы привнести и укрепить идею патриархальной организации в якутскую мифологию. Образ Yрүҥ Айыы Тойон самодостаточен и не нуждается в чудесных качествах и героических деяниях. Самое существенное для творцов и потребителей мифологии заключалось в его социальном статусе главы агнатной общины. В мифе и героическом эпосе олонхо образ Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона закрепляет патриархальную генеалогию. В культе Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона выпукло представлена идея гендерного господства мужчины и проявляются тенденции, которые вели к образованию гендерной иерархии в якутском обществе. Мифология Yрүҥ Айыы Тойона явилась обоснованием системы агнатного родства, освящая нормы обычного права, закреплявшие господствующее положение мужчины и подчиненное положение женщины. Миф об Yрүҥ Айыы Тойоне предстает как активный элемент структур господства в якутском обществе, игравшим функцию инструмента закрепления гендерного неравенства и установления власти якутского тойоната. The article considers the development of social attitudes including gender imperatives in Yakut mythology and epic. The analysis of the role of the character of Urung Aiyy Toyon in the formation of the patriarchal organization of the Yakut society is carried out. The character of Urung Aiyy Toyon was a patron of the new social order and a tool for supplanting the matrilineal community cult and its leading character the mistress of the Earth. The work highlights the stages of the historical development of the character of Urung Aiyy Toyon, associated with structural changes in the Yakut society during the process of transition from matrilineality to patrilineality, as well as the ideological function of this cult. The character of Urung Aiyy Toyon acted as a bearer of typical features of the social group of toyons, and myths about him turned out to be an active element of the structures of domination in the Yakut society. The cult of Urung Aiyy Toyon was formed and maintained as an ideological rationale for the power of the toyons, heads of individual patronymias. It was necessary in order to bring and strengthen the idea of a patriarchal organization in Yakut mythology. The character of Urung Aiyy Toyon is self-sufficient and does not need magical qualities and heroic deeds. For creators and consumers of mythology its social status as the head of the agnationalcommunitythe was most important. In the myth and the heroic epic of Olonkho, Urung Aiyy Toyon reinforces the patriarchal genealogy. In the cult of Urung Aiyy Toyon, the idea of male dominance is vividly represented and the tendencies that lead to the formation of a gender hierarchy in Yakut society are manifested. The mythology of Urung Aiyy Toyon was the rationale for the system of agnatic kinship, sanctifying the norms of customary law, reinforcing male dominance and women's subordinate position. The myth of Urung Aiyy Toyon appears as an active element of the structures of domination in Yakut society, which functioned as a tool for consolidating gender inequality and establishing the power of the Yakut toyons.

scholarly journals Gendering Pacification: Policing Women at Anti-fracking Protests

2019 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Monk ◽  
Joanna Gilmore ◽  
William Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Police Power ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

This article seeks to consider the policing of anti-fracking protests at Barton Moss, Salford, from November 2013 to April 2014. We argue that women at Barton Moss were considered by the police to be transgressing the socio-geographical boundaries that establish the dominant cultural and social order, and were thus responded to as disruptive and disorderly subjects. The article draws upon recent work on pacification, which views police power as having both destructive and productive dimensions, to consider the impact of police violence on women involved in protest. We seek to explore the ways in which this violence impacts not only on those involved in protest but also those on the peripheries. The article suggests that the threat and use of sexual violence by police towards women aims to enforce compliance within the protest movement and to send a message, specifically to those on the fringes of the movement, that protest is illegitimate and inherently dangerous. As such, sexual violence forms part of the social production and construction of gender and is instrumental in the making and remaking of subjectivities. The case study suggests that police brutality towards women at Barton Moss, therefore, operated as a disciplinary function to regulate acceptable forms of protest and acceptable forms of femininity.

scholarly journals Fishing Livelihoods and Fisheries Governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael Fabinyi ◽  
Kate Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Fisheries Governance ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Structures

AbstractThis book centres on an understanding of fishing livelihoods within processes of historical change, and the social and political relationships within which they are embedded. Drawing on our research experience from the Asia-Pacific region, we examine where fishing livelihoods have come from, and where they are going. This introductory chapter introduces fishing livelihoods and the governance challenge that they face, before examining social science research in greater depth. We then develop the idea of a relational approach to fishing livelihoods, describing how they are shaped by wider political and economic trajectories, by local social relationships and by institutional structures.

A conceptual exploration of moral space

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Hans Boutellier
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Human Diversity ◽  
Security Issue ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Moral Space ◽  
The Social

This introductory chapter elaborates on the relation between social organization and morality. It discusses the emergence of a network society, the secular condition, superdiversity, individualized morality and the dominance of the security issue. It argues that Western societies can be characterized with three words: complexity without direction. With digitalization as a driving force, the social order of our times has completely changed compared to the ideologically organized world of some decades ago. Morality is no longer a ‘natural’, but must be understood as emerging from the ethical and normative buzz that arises from an improvising society. This emerging morality is fuelled by inspiring stories, moments of ‘fullness’ (i.e., moral or spiritual feelings), and practices under the condition of the rule of law that respect human diversity and put clear boundaries on subversive actions.

The Social Order Yields to Functional Analysis

1958 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 158-160
Author(s):  
LAWRENCE SCHLESINGER
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The Social

George Hoggart Toulmin: politics and geology

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-481
Author(s):  
ROY PORTER
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Christian View ◽  
The Social ◽  
French Enlightenment ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
History Of

The physician George Hoggart Toulmin (1754–1817) propounded his theory of the Earth in a number of works beginning with The antiquity and duration of the world (1780) and ending with his The eternity of the universe (1789). It bore many resemblances to James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth" (1788) in stressing the uniformity of Nature, the gradual destruction and recreation of the continents and the unfathomable age of the Earth. In Toulmin's view, the progress of the proper theory of the Earth and of political advancement were inseparable from each other. For he analysed the commonly accepted geological ideas of his day (which postulated that the Earth had been created at no great distance of time by God; that God had intervened in Earth history on occasions like the Deluge to punish man; and that all Nature had been fabricated by God to serve man) and argued they were symptomatic of a society trapped in ignorance and superstition, and held down by priestcraft and political tyranny. In this respect he shared the outlook of the more radical figures of the French Enlightenment such as Helvétius and the Baron d'Holbach. He believed that the advance of freedom and knowledge would bring about improved understanding of the history and nature of the Earth, as a consequence of which Man would better understand the terms of his own existence, and learn to live in peace, harmony and civilization. Yet Toulmin's hopes were tempered by his naturalistic view of the history of the Earth and of Man. For Time destroyed everything — continents and civilizations. The fundamental law of things was cyclicality not progress. This latent political conservatism and pessimism became explicit in Toulmin's volume of verse, Illustration of affection, published posthumously in 1819. In those poems he signalled his disapproval of the French Revolution and of Napoleonic imperialism. He now argued that all was for the best in the social order, and he abandoned his own earlier atheistic religious radicalism, now subscribing to a more Christian view of God. Toulmin's earlier geological views had run into considerable opposition from orthodox religious elements. They were largely ignored by the geological community in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, but were revived and reprinted by lower class radicals such as Richard Carlile. This paper is to be published in the American journal, The Journal for the History of Ideas in 1978 (in press).

Bringing Moral Culture into the Fray

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conflict ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Moral Culture ◽  
Social Scientific Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Basic Level

This introductory chapter briefly presents the conflict in Yellowstone, elaborates on the book's theoretical argument, and specifies its substantive and theoretical contributions to the social scientific study of environment, culture, religion, and morality. The chapter argues that the environmental conflict in Yellowstone is not—as it would appear on the surface—ultimately all about scientific, economic, legal, or other technical evidence and arguments, but an underlying struggle over deeply held “faith” commitments, feelings, and desires that define what people find sacred, good, and meaningful in life at a most basic level. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

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