Affective meanings and social relations: identities and positions in the social space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Ambrasat ◽  
Christian von Scheve
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Occupational Status ◽  
Regional Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Affective Meanings ◽  
Affective Relations

Ever since Georg Simmel’s seminal works, social relations have been a central building block of sociological theory. In relational sociology, social identities are an essential concept and supposed to emerge in close interaction with other identities, discourses and objects. To assess this kind of relationality, existing research capitalises on patterns of meaning making that are constitutive for identities. These patterns are often understood as forms of declarative knowledge and are reconstructed, using qualitative methods, from denotative meanings as they surface: for example, in stories and narratives. We argue that this approach to some extent privileges explicit and conceptual knowledge over tacit and non-conceptual forms of knowledge. We suggest that affect is a concept that can adequately account for such implicit and bodily meanings, even when measured on the level of linguistic concepts. We draw on affect control theory (ACT) and related methods to investigate the affective meanings of concepts (lexemes) denoting identities in a large survey. We demonstrate that even though these meanings are widely shared across respondents, they nevertheless show systematic variation reflecting respondents’ positions within the social space and the typical interaction experiences associated with their identities. In line with ACT, we show, first, that the affective relations between exemplary identities mirror their prototypical, culturally circumscribed and institutionalised relations (for example, between role identities). Second, we show that there are systematic differences in these affective relations across gender, occupational status and regional culture, which we interpret as reflecting respondents’ subjective positioning and experience vis-à-vis a shared cultural reality.

The Social Specificity of Societal Nature Relations in a Flexible Capitalist Society

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Eversberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Mutual Dependency ◽  
The Social ◽  
People’S Perceptions

Based on analyses of a 2016 German survey, this article contributes to debates on ‘societal nature relations’ by investigating the systematic differences between socially specific types of social relations with nature in a flexible capitalist society. It presents a typology of ten different ‘syndromes’ of attitudes toward social and environmental issues, which are then grouped to distinguish between four ideal types of social relationships with nature: dominance, conscious mutual dependency, alienation and contradiction. These are located in Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) social space to illustrate how social relationships with nature correspond to people’s positions within the totality of social relations. Understanding how people’s perceptions of and actions pertaining to nature are shaped by their positions in these intersecting relations of domination – both within social space and between society and nature – is an important precondition for developing transformative strategies that will be capable of gaining majority support in flexible capitalist societies.

scholarly journals Srebrenica is not a Metaphor

2021 ◽  
pp. 54-64
Author(s):  
Sarina Bakić
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Further Development

The author will emphasize the importance of both the existence and the further development of the Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center, in the context of the continued need to understand the genocide that took place in and around Srebrenica, from the aspect of building a culture of remembrance throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). This is necessary in order to continue fighting the ongoing genocide denial. At first glance, a culture of remembrance presupposes immobility and focus on the past to some, but it is essentially dynamic, and connects three temporal dimensions: it evokes the present, refers to the past but always deliberates over the future. In this paper, the emphasis is placed on the concept of the place of remembrance, the lieu de memoire as introduced by the historian Pierre Nora. In this sense, a place of remembrance such as the Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center is an expression of a process in which people are no longer just immersed in their past but read and analyze it in the present. Furthermore, looking to the future, they also become mediators of relations between people and communities, which in sociological theory is an important issue of social relations. The author of this paper emphasizes that collective memory in the specific case of genocide in and around Srebrenica is only possible when the social relations around the building (Srebrenica - Potočari Memorial Center) crystallize, which is then much more than just the content of the culture of remembrance.

Sociality, Spirituality, and Meaning Making: Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Cacioppo ◽  
Louise C. Hawkley ◽  
Edith M. Rickett ◽  
Christopher M. Masi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Aging

Scientific theories in the natural sciences posit invisible forces operating with measurable effects on physical bodies, but the scientific study of invisible forces acting on human bodies has made limited progress. The topics of sociality, spirituality, and meaning making are cases in point. The authors discuss some of the possible reasons for this as well as contemporary developments in the social sciences and neurosciences that may make such study possible and productive.

scholarly journals Dzielenie przestrzeni, praktyki graniczenia. Parkowanie, własność i przynależność na polskich osiedlach mieszkaniowych

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-167
Author(s):  
Karol Kurnicki
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Differentiation ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Creation

Space gains significance through processes of social differentiation and bordering, and in consequence is connected with the creation and maintenance of social divisions. The author seeks confirmation of this fact at the level of everyday practices in housing settlements, tracking the mechanisms used by people in situations of contact and confrontation with others in the social space. He sets himself several aims: (1) he attempts to analyze selected spatial practices (parking within the settlement, the creation of belonging), reflecting the internal structuring strategies of housing settlements; (2) he points to the causes of that structuring, that is, the main contexts in which these practices occur and are strengthened; (3) he highlights the important role of space in processes of bordering and differentiation. Practices connected with parking and the creation of belonging, although apparently disparate and deriving from contrary spheres of social life make it possible to hypothesize that the striving for separation and the increased importance of space determine the organization of borders, divisions, and social relations in housing settlements.

scholarly journals SOCIOCULTURAL DETERMINANT OF THE SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE PHENOMENON

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
Yuriі Boreiko
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Symbolic Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual

The article analyzes the sociocultural basis of constituting the symbolic space, the content of the symbolic violence phenomenon, the cultural and symbolic potential of the toponymics objects. It is established that practices of symbolic violence consist in constructing a system of subjective coordinates by imposing rules, senses, meanings, values that become self-evident. Symbolic space encompasses the collective consciousness of the socio-cultural community and has the ability to form a system of subjective coordinates where the individual's life activity unfolds. The intelligibility of symbolic space is conventionally established, which is provided by the process of socialization. Pursuing the goal of domination, hegemony, coercion, symbolic violence moves the real confrontation into a symbolic environment, directing the influence on the mental structures of the social subject. Giving to senses and meanings a legitimate character is a way to explain and substantiate social relations, their cognitive and normative interpretation. Accumulating the experience of community coexistence throughout its history, habitus is a set of dispositions that motivate an individual to a certain reaction or behavior. Habitus, which generates and structures practices, combines the individual tendency of the actor to act adequately to the situation, the interaction of actors in the community, and the interaction of the community and each of its members with reality. As a historically changing phenomenon, habitus determines the nature of interactions between individuals whose communication skills are consistent with the functioning of social institutions. An important component of the symbolic space and part of the cultural and historical discourse are the objects of toponymics, which explains the constant ideological and political interest in this segment of socio-cultural life. Objects of toponymics act as a marker of ordering social space, a tool for including the subject in socio-spatial landscapes. The renaming of toponyms demonstrates the connection between the social conditions in which it takes place and the reaction of the social relations entity to changes in the toponymic space.

Prostitution indendørs. Massageklinikken som socialt rum

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Alzaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Life World ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Working World

Cristina Alzaga: Indoor Prostitution: The Parlour as a Social Space This article presents a sociological hermeneutic analysis of the lived everyday working world of Danish indoor prostitutes. It draws upon observations and interviews, as well as documentary and experiential data, produced during a six-month period of ethnographic fieldwork at a Copenhagen massage parlour, where the author served as “telephone lady“. The article uncovers the social order (nomos) of this life world, its social relations and shared interpretations as well as organizational traits and practical-corporeal terms. It also discusses the variety and multidimensionality of the relations between prostitutes and clients. The article seeks to uncover the meanings of the distinct experiential dynamics and work experiences that take form within this particular working universe, and examines their contradictory relations to the dominant views and accounts of prostitution in the outside world, including the views pre¬sented by mainstream research on prostitution.

A Substrate Approach in the Study of Digital Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-75
Author(s):  
Elena V. Gryaznova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
The Universe

The aim of the article is to substantiate the need for a substrate approach in the study of the nature and essence of digital culture. The main research methods were those of analysis, comparison, communication, dialectics, and the substrate approach. The study was conducted in several stages. At the first stage, the author made an analytical review of domestic and foreign publications on the use of the substrate approach in the study of the nature and essence of digital culture. At the second stage, the author compared and generalized the results. At the third stage, the author substantiated the need to build a model of digital culture based on the substrate approach. In the course of the study, the author came to the conclusion that for a holistic analysis of the new cultural phenomenon of digital culture, along with the structural and functional approach, it is necessary to apply the substrate approach. It will allow identifying three main substrates of digital culture: civilizational, social and anthropological. Each substrate gives digital culture appropriate attributes and modes. The civilizational substrate defines such attributes of digital culture as digital technologies, digital social relations and institutions, digital potential (needs and abilities). The social substrate makes all types of digital activities, including its structural elements (pedagogical, managerial, economic, environmental, scientific, medical, physical and artistic), attributes of digital culture. The anthropological substrate generates new digital forms of generic human qualities – language, activity, communication and consciousness. Knowledge of the generic and acquired qualities of digital culture will reveal patterns of its development, and, consequently, possible consequences for the development of civilization, society and people. The substrate model of digital culture will allow systematizing the formulation of problems that require understanding and solution at different levels of the universe. At the level of civilization, it is the formation of new forms of social relations and institutions, the development and implementation of the digital potential of humanity, the laws of transition to a new high-quality civilizational development. At the level of society, it is the laws of interaction and integration of digital forms of activity, the laws of the birth and existence of new forms of subjectivity, the laws and principles of the existence of digital reality and digital social space. The anthropological level reveals the regularities of development and qualitative changes in the system of generic qualities of people, and therefore of people themselves.

scholarly journals Social Memory in the Light of the Study of Information Space and Time

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-99
Author(s):  
Rail’ Gazizov ◽  
◽  
Aydar Kayumov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Cross Sections ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Information Space ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The Social

This article deals with the philosophical analysis of social memory in the conditions of the development of today’s information society. In the paper, the social and intellectual cross-sections of information space and time are investigated. These cross-sections are directly related to the analysis of society’s legal consciousness, which seems to, so to say, lag behind the reflections about information space and time. The authors note that social space and time are formed through achieving the unity of information space and time. This is largely facilitated by social memory, which in its essence is a culture, and culture is connected with self-awareness. Culture as memory – historical and moral, obtained through social practice – provides the practice of material and spiritual production. Social memory acts as a kind of qualitative indicator of the state of society and contributes to the transition of information into knowledge, whose elements are characterized by the intense nature of their interaction. This intensity is explained by the fact that knowledge, unlike information, stands guard over the past, protecting it from external attempts to present anything positive that had been as something that had never happened and make it disappear in the annals of time. Philosophy is related to the analysis of the ultimate grounds of information space and time, which increases the intensity of interaction between the elements of the social system. At the same time, social memory increases the degree of interaction between existing values. It should be noted that social memory is very important for further research on the functioning of information society. It is a prerequisite for social forecasting of the development of cultural and social relations. Social memory is a way of existence of knowledge as a form of realization of human creative potential.

scholarly journals UNIVERSAL CONDITIONS FOR DECONFLICTING OF SOCIAL SPACE: THE ETHICAL ABSOLUTISM’ POTENTIAL

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-17
Author(s):  
Yulia Brodetska
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethical Relativism ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Ethical Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
The One ◽  
Spiritual Phenomena

The article’s analysis focuses on the ontological aspects of social existence harmonious. Ethical principles of good are the main de-confliction mechanisms, factors that are reproduced and responsible for solving the problem of social and individual order. Universal ethical values - freedom, love, responsibility, creativity is a preexisting knowledge that produces, translates and reproduces the coherence practices of co-existence at both individual and social levels. It is revealed that the functionality of the latter is reproduced in the space of productive communication experience, which acquires personality in the social interaction context. The "threat" to ethical knowledge, which is the ontological basis of the social being organization, is the problem of ethics relativity. This problem arises and spreads as a result of the ethical knowledge objectification, its transformation into a thing. In other words, it is the transformation of universal values, the goals of ethics as spiritual phenomena, into the means of achieving individual desire, personal well-being, the tools of satisfying my selfish desires, that transforms a person into a conformal consumer. From ancient hedonism to modern versions of transhumanism, ethical relativism theories continue to actively raise questions about the relevance of the ethical absolutism principles. It is noted that the dissonance that arises in connection with the actualization of the ethics relativism question indicates an aggravation of the formalization problem of spiritual knowledge. Consequently, ethical conformity is required to conform to the ontology of social being. This correspondence is based on the absoluteness of ethics as a condition for the functioning of harmonious social relations - on the one hand, and human development - on the other. Thus, the analysis of the consolidation mechanisms of human being, its integrity, harmony, should focus on the actualization of the ethical absolutism issue, which is particularly acute in today's conflict world. It is this perspective that explores the problems of integrating social and individual order and provides tools and solutions.

scholarly journals An Ideology of Client-Oriented Service: Institutional and Commonality-Based Foundations

2019 ◽  
pp. 418-427
Author(s):  
Snezhana Ramsina
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Advantageous Position ◽  
Market Relations

The relevance of studying ideological foundations of service is determined by the significance of service in the system of social relations at the level of social commonalities interactions. An institutional regulation of the interaction between subjects of service requires exploring ways of institutional and commonality–based development of the participants’ social ties: consumers, representatives of the business community of the servicing sector and state agencies. Institutional characteristics of service disclose its links to social processes and reveal the problems of social interactions between different community subjects. A sociological approach allows for identifying opportunities for shaping sustainable service interaction of social commonalities. The study aims to explore institutional and commonality-based foundations of the ideology of service – the necessity to create an organizational model of service capable of extending the boundaries of client-orientation in service interactions is actualized. Based on the tradition of symbolic interactionism, commonality-driven, institutional, functional, and system approaches in sociology conditions for forming the social balance of the interests of service subjects at commonality-based and institutional levels of interaction were found. A commonality approach complemented by the theory of marketing made it possible to characterize the nature of the social impact of each service subject on the substance and forms of interaction. The social context of shaping relationships between interacting commonalities is characterized from the perspective of an institutional approach. The ideology of client-orientedness is able to overcome institutional controversies, provide stability in the social space of service practices. The focus of servicing business on the satisfaction of consumer needs defines the advantageous position of the consumer in market relations of service communality-based triad. Collaboration between entrepreneurs and the authorities is targeted to the provision of a fulfilling life of the citizens- the consumer within the framework of state policy and business efforts in the servicing sector of the economy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document