Introduction: Towards a Bourdieusian Sociology of Affective Affinity

Author(s):  
Steven Threadgold
Keyword(s):  

This chapter makes the case for the importance of an ‘affective Bourdieu’ firstly by arguing why considerations of affect are buttressed by Bourdieu (or at least a theory of practice) and why Bourdieu’s theory of practice also needs a better conceptualisation of affect. It then outlines antecedents for the theory of affective affinities, especially pointing to Mason’s work on affinities. The chapter then presents a table of Bourdieu’s concepts with their definitions placed alongside new definitions that highlight affect. Overall, this chapter sets the scene for theorising the concept of affective affinities as important for considering the connections between class, emotions and affect.

2021 ◽  
pp. 074171362110053
Author(s):  
Tracey Ollis

This case study research examines informal adult learning in the Lock the Gate Alliance, a campaign against mining for coal seam gas in Central Gippsland, Australia. In the field of the campaign, circumstantial activists learn to think critically about the environment, they learn informally and incidentally, through socialization with experienced activists from and through nonformal workshops provided by the Environmental Nongovernment Organization Friends of the Earth. This article uses Bourdieu’s “theory of practice,” to explore the mobilization of activists within the Lock the Gate Alliance field and the practices which generate knowledge and facilitate adult learning. These practices have enabled a diverse movement to educate the public and citizenry about the serious threat fracking poses to the environment, to their land and water supply. The movements successful practices have won a landmark moratorium on fracking for coal seam gas in the State of Victoria.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 238212052110003
Author(s):  
Aida J Azar ◽  
Amar Hassan Khamis ◽  
Nerissa Naidoo ◽  
Marjam Lindsbro ◽  
Juliana Helena Boukhaled ◽  
...  

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced medical schools to suspend on-campus live-sessions and shift to distance-learning (DL). This precipitous shift presented medical educators with a challenge, ‘to create a “ simulacrum” of the learning environment that students experience in classroom, in DL’. This requires the design of an adaptable and versatile DL-framework bearing in mind the theoretical underpinnings associated with DL. Additionally, effectiveness of such a DL-framework in content-delivery followed by its evaluation at the user-level, and in cognitive development needs to be pursued such that medical educators can be convinced to effectively adopt the framework in a competency-based medical programme. Main: In this study, we define a DL-framework that provides a ‘ simulacrum’ of classroom experience. The framework’s blueprint was designed amalgamating principles of: Garrison’s community inquiry, Siemens’ connectivism and Harasim’s online-collaborative-learning; and improved using Anderson’s DL-model. Effectiveness of the DL-framework in course delivery was demonstrated using the exemplar of fundamentals in epidemiology and biostatistics (FEB) course during COVID-19 lockdown. Virtual live-sessions integrated in the framework employed a blended-approach informed by instructional-design strategies of Gagne and Peyton. The efficiency of the framework was evaluated using first 2 levels of Kirkpatrick’s framework. Of 60 students, 51 (85%) responded to the survey assessing perception towards DL (Kirkpatrick’s Level 1). The survey-items, validated using exploratory factor analysis, were classified into 4-categories: computer expertise; DL-flexibility; DL-usefulness; and DL-satisfaction. The overall perception for the 4 categories, highlighted respondents’ overall satisfaction with the framework. Scores for specific survey-items attested that the framework promoted collaborative-learning and student-autonomy. For, Kirkpatrick’s Level 2 that is, cognitive-development, performance in FEB’s summative-assessment of students experiencing DL was compared with students taught using traditional methods. Similar, mean-scores for both groups indicated that shift to DL didn’t have an adverse effect on students’ learning. Conclusion: In conclusion, we present here the design, implementation and evaluation of a DL-framework, which is an efficient pedagogical approach, pertinent for medical schools to adopt (elaborated using Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice) to address students’ learning trajectories during unprecedented times such as that during the COVID-19 pandemia.


2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110538
Author(s):  
Quentin Maire

The relationship between global citizenship identity and actions remains an unsettled issue. In this article we use the PISA 2018 survey to explore whether global citizenship identity is associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in ‘globally minded’ practices among young Australians. Descriptive analysis reveals that self-reported global citizenship identity is associated with higher levels of moral cosmopolitanism, more so than with greater intercultural values or with more positive attitudes to immigrants. However, this self-declared identity does not necessarily translate into cosmopolitan action. Statistical modelling shows that, in the Australian context, global citizenship knowledge, values and identity account for a limited proportion of differences in self-reported cosmopolitan action. We argue that a sociological theory of practice helps explain these results. We conclude by highlighting future research opportunities to better understand the social determinants of global citizenship practices, including by exploring out-of-school socialisation and a broader range of cosmopolitan practices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Sakti Ritonga ◽  
Oekan S. Abdoellah

<p><strong>Abstrak:</strong> <strong>Praktik Kekerabatan Batak Toba Muslim sebagai Strategi Pengendalian Lahan di Asahan.</strong> Studi ini menunjukkan pemakaian relasi kekerabatan Batak Toba Muslim sebagai strategi penghidupan bagi penguasaan tanah dalam ruang penguasaan yang ganti berganti sejak era Melayu-Islam di Asahan melalui perspektif teori praktik dari Bourdieu. Penelitian dilakukan dengan metode etnografi. Satuan analisis ditetapkan secara berjenjang mulai keluarga, kelompok keturunan, perkumpulan marga, serta komunitas Batak Toba pada wilayah perkampungan pedalaman Bandar Pulau, Bandar Pasir Mandoge dan Buntu Pane. Studi menemukan siasat-siasat adaptasi telah memperluas aliansi dan meningkatkan fungsi praktis kekerabatan Batak Toba dalam upaya penguasaan tanah sebagai sumber daya penghidupan terpenting sebagai satuan kekerabatan berkorporasi. Kontestasi terhadap lahan semakin rumit seiring masuknya pengaruh modal korporasi perkebunan dan kekuatan negara di perkampungan. Ketika berhadapan dengan kepentingan institusi lain yang lebih besar seperti perusahaan perkebunan dan negara dalam hal sengketa lahan, tampak siasat penggunaan jaringan marga atau kelompok keturunan menjadi terbatas fungsinya, jika dibandingkan dengan persaingan sumber daya di antara sesama keluarga Batak Toba.  </p><p><strong>Kata Kunci: </strong>praktik kekerabatan, strategi mata pencaharian, migrasi, Muslim Batak Toba<br /><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Abstract</strong>: This study shows the use of Toba Batak Moslem kinship relations as a livelihood strategy for land control in the changing space of power since the Malay-Islamic era in Asahan through the perspective of Bourdieu's theory of practice. The research was conducted using ethnographic methods. The analysis units are determined in stages starting from the family, descent group, clan association, and the Toba Batak community in the hinterland areas of Bandar Pulau, Bandar Pasir Mandoge and Buntu Pane. The results of the study found that adaptation strategies have expanded alliances and increased the practical function of the Toba Batak kinship in an effort to control land as the most important source of livelihood as a corporate kinship unit. Contestation of land is getting more complicated as the influence of plantation corporate capital and state power enters the village. When dealing with the interests of other larger institutions such as plantation companies and the state in terms of land disputes, it appears that the use of clan networks or descent groups is limited in function, when compared with the competition for resources among Toba Batak families.  <br /><strong> </strong><br /><strong>Keywords:</strong> kinship practices, livelihood strategies, migration, Toba Batak Moslem</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-153
Author(s):  
Nicolas Marquis

Self-help books are frequently criticised by social scientists, who often impute problematic effects (on individuals and on society) to their reading. This article intends to show why this phenomenon needs to be studied through a theory of practice which includes the reception process. Drawing upon 55 interviews and 297 letters from self-help book readers, the article questions the practice of self-help reading in its own relevance system to show how readers use these books with a need for effectiveness and conduct different inquiries about their credibility. I finally argue that this empirical stage not only does not impair a critical perspective on self-help books but might actually improve it.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hisham M. Ali

While Bourdieu’s theory of practice provides an ensemble of conceptual tools, which analyze patterns of social life that are irreducible to the limiting view of individuals as free-acting agents, Genette’s paratextual theory offers the metalanguage necessary to account for the microcosm of paratext as a linguistic space. This study takes issue with unidirectional approaches to researching paratexts in terms of linguistic or sociological accounts, and argues for a bidirectional understanding of paratext to unearth the interplay between structure and agency. Drawing on Genette’s paratextual features and Bourdieu’s sociology, this interactive approach is explored in a series of analyses of paratexts enveloping two Arabic translations of Gibran’s The Earth Gods. Through a discussion of the linguistic manifestations and the socio-historical backdrops of paratexts, the paper argues that the preface with its attendant micro features has the potential to exhibit the translation illusion, which epistemologically foregrounds the stakes and investments that motivate the production of translation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Etzold

Abstract. The paper discusses street vendors' spatial appropriations and the governance of public space in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The much debated question in social geography how people's position in social space relates to their position in physical space (and vice versa) stands at the centre of the analysis. I use Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to discuss this dialectic relation at two analytical levels. On a micro-political level it is shown that the street vendors' social positions and the informal rules of the street structure their access to public space and thus determine their "spatial profits". At a macro-political level, it is not only the conditions inside the "field of street vending" that matter for the hawkers, but also their relation to the state-controlled "field of power". The paper demonstrates that Bourdieu's key ideas can be linked to current debates about spatial appropriation and informality. Moreover, I argue that Bourdieu's theory builds an appropriate basis for a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography in the Urban South.


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