scholarly journals Constructing questions for the social professions of today: the case of social pedagogy

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Úcar
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Social Pedagogy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Current Content ◽  
The Welfare State

The complex societies we now inhabit oblige us to question, reformulate or even rupture the traditional socio-political frameworks in which social pedagogy and the social professions have been developed and in which the theories that explain and justify them have been constructed. These frameworks have institutionalised concepts, practices and methodologies that often no longer fit within the complexity of today’s constantly changing realities. The aim of this article is to propose and analyse some key foundations for understanding the social professions and the actions they carry out. It concerns itself with generating questions that link social pedagogy and the social professions with the complexity of today’s social life. The questions address the current content of what we refer to as ‘the social’ and its relationship with other dimensions such as politics, culture and the environment. Among other issues, the article addresses how the social professions have developed within the political framework of the welfare state. Based on the answers to these questions, we argue in favour of updating the term ‘social’ with renewed connotations, and of defining the ‘good life’ as the reference point that must give it meaning.

The Measure of Greatness

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Moral Nature ◽  
Complex Trajectory ◽  
The Many ◽  
Human Excellence ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

Magnanimity is a virtue that has led many lives. Foregrounded early on by Plato as the philosophical virtue par excellence, it became one of the crown jewels in Aristotle’s account of human excellence and was accorded an equally salient place by other ancient thinkers. One of the most distinctive elements of the ancient tradition to filter into the medieval Islamic and Christian worlds, it sparked important intellectual engagements there and went on to carve deep tracks through several later philosophies that inherited from this tradition. Under changing names, under reworked forms, it continued to breathe in the thought of Descartes and Hume, Kant and Nietzsche, and their successors. Its many lives have been joined by important continuities. Yet they have also been fragmented by discontinuities—discontinuities reflecting larger shifts in ethical perspectives and competing answers to questions about the nature of the good life, the moral nature of human beings, and their relationship to the social and natural world they inhabit. They have also been punctuated by moments of controversy in which the greatness of this vision of human greatness has itself been called into doubt. This volume provides a window to the complex trajectory of a virtue whose glitter has at times been as heady as it has been divisive. By exploring the many lives it has lived, we will be in a better position to decide whether and why this is a virtue we might still want to make central to our own ethical lives.

The Younghusband-Waddell Collection and Its People: the Social Life of Tibetan Books Gathered in a Late-colonial Enterprise

Inner Asia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-171
Author(s):  
Hildegard Diemberger
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Cultural Biography ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractIn this paper I follow the social life of the Tibetan books belonging to the Younghusband-Waddell collection. I show how books as literary artefacts can transform from ritual objects into loot, into commodities and into academic treasures and how books can have agency over people, creating networks and shaping identities. Exploring connections between books and people, I look at colonial collecting, Orientalist scholarship and imperial visions from an unusual perspective in which the social life and cultural biography of people and things intertwine and mutually define each other. By following the trajectory of these literary artefacts, I show how their traces left in letters, minutes and acquisition documents give insight into the functioning of academic institutions and their relationship to imperial governing structures and individual aspirations. In particular, I outline the lives of a group of scholars who were involved with this collection in different capacities and whose deeds are unevenly known. This adds a new perspective to the study of this period, which has so far been largely focused on the deeds of key individuals and the political and military setting in which they operated. Finally, I show how the books of this collection have continued to exercise their attraction and moral pressure on twenty-first-century scholars, both Tibetan and international, linking them through digital technology and cyberspace.

scholarly journals KONVERSI KEAGAMAAN PASCA 1965, MENGURAI DAMPAK SOSIAL BUDAYA DAN HUBUNGAN ISLAM KRISTEN DI PEDESAAN JAWA

Harmoni ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-240
Author(s):  
M. Alie Humaedi
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Heating Up ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between Islam and Christianity in various regions is often confronted with situations caused by external factors. They no longer debate the theological aspect, but are based on the political economy and social culture aspects. In the Dieng village, the economic resources are mostly dominated by Christians as early Christianized product as the process of Kiai Sadrach's chronicle. Economic mastery was not originally as the main trigger of the conflict. However, as the political map post 1965, in which many Muslims affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party convert to Christianity, the relationship between Islam and Christianity is heating up. The question of the dominance of political economic resources of Christians is questionable. This research to explore the socio cultural and religious impact of the conversion of PKI to Christian in rural Dieng and Slamet Pekalongan and Banjarnegara. This qualitative research data was extracted by in-depth interviews, observations and supported by data from Dutch archives, National Archives and Christian Synod of Salatiga. Research has found the conversion of the PKI to Christianity has sparked hostility and deepened the social relations of Muslims and Christians in Kasimpar, Petungkriono and Karangkobar. The culprit widened by involving the network of Wonopringgo Islamic Boarding. It is often seen that existing conflicts are no longer latent, but lead to a form of manifest conflict that decomposes in the practice of social life.

scholarly journals Connaissance de soi et reconnaissance. Bases éthico-anthropologiques de la justice dans la pensée ricœurienne

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Contreras Tasso
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sense Of Justice ◽  
Connaissance De Soi ◽  
Interpersonal Level

This article seeks to examine the ethico-anthropological dimension at the root of the ricœurian idea of justice, which is developed quite explicitly in Oneself as Another and then picked up in his last work The Course of Recognition. Our hypothesis is that the ricœurian analysis of justice implies an essential relationship between knowledge of oneself and recognition, which is marked by an inherent tension that both links and opposes these two moments in an irreducible dialectic. However, this dialectic runs the risk of disguising a founding sense of justice in the social life of man, both on an interpersonal level and on the political level, which reinforces the institution of justice at the juridical level. So, to begin with, we will try to show how that ethical sense of the just shows itself on the basis of the anthropological analysis of the capacities of the capable man, which reinforces the original correlation between knowledge of oneself and recognition; then we will attempt to relate the fundamental contributions of the hermeneutics of the self to Ricœur’s notion of justice.

Virtues and Practices

1984 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Miller
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Narrative Unity

AbstractMaclntyre presents an account of the virtues first in terms of practices and then in terms of the narrative unity of a person’s life. He fails, however, to observe an important distinction between self-contained and purposive practices; if the virtues are to be understood by reference to practices, they must be of the latter kind. By the same token, a defence of the virtues must refer to the social purposes which practices serve rather than to the goods internal to practices. An appeal to the idea of narrative unity does not save the position in the absence of any concrete specification of the good life for man. Maclntyre’s attempt to reconstitute the virtues falls foul of the moral pluralism that he has earlier diagnosed so acutely.

scholarly journals Youth Experiences with Social Norms Feedback: Qualitative Findings from The Drug Prevention Trial the GOOD Life

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3200
Author(s):  
Christiane Stock ◽  
Satayesh Lavasani Kjær ◽  
Birthe Rasmussen ◽  
Lotte Vallentin-Holbech
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Intervention Strategy ◽  
Drug Prevention ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Normative Feedback ◽  
Web Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Prevention Programmes ◽  
Group Interviews

Background: Normative feedback is an intervention strategy commonly used in drug prevention programmes. This study collected process evaluation data about how programme recipients engage with social norms (SN) feedback in The GOOD Life intervention and how they experience it. Methods: Eight focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 44 adolescents (pupils aged 14–16 years) who have participated in the social-norms-based intervention The GOOD Life. The interviews focused on three topics: (1) interest in and impact of the intervention; (2) perception of the intervention elements; and (3) suggestions for improvement of The GOOD Life. They were transcribed and analysed with content analysis. Results: The analysis revealed that The GOOD Life motivated pupils to re-evaluate their own drug use behaviour and overall met their interest regarding receiving engaging and non-moral forms of drug prevention programmes. While pupils perceived the normative feedback session in the classroom and the posters with SN messages as positive, stimulating and surprising, the web-based application with SN feedback was rarely used and less positively evaluated. Anonymity and confidentiality were regarded as essential to provide honest answers in the poll. The pupils suggested even more variety in ways to engage them and to use more gaming elements. Conclusions: SN feedback was well perceived by adolescents. The intervention met their interest and needs and was able to achieve the intended impact of challenging norm perceptions. Anonymity and confidentiality are key in order to build trust and engage adolescents in the intervention.

Dilemmas of Political Agency and Sovereignty: The Omelian Allegory

2020 ◽  
pp. 026327642096743
Author(s):  
Annabel Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Walk Away ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Conception Of The Good

This essay is a political reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’, which examines agency and resistance in situations of political wrong. Le Guin’s short story allows us to reformulate the questions of the boundaries of popular sovereignty and the opposition to general consent. These concerns will be here regarded as elements of a critique of neoliberal capitalism, in which freedom and self-realization are founded on injustices that persist because of a prevalent conception of the good life. The case of ‘Omelas’, moreover, challenges our understanding of resistance in revealing the blurred boundary between political action and mere noncompliance. The question asked will be about the nature of noncompliance: is noncompliance a form of resistance, and, if so, can it transform the political reality?

scholarly journals Presenting unwieldy pasts

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-252
Author(s):  
Katherine Hite ◽  
Daniela Jara
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Late Phase ◽  
The Political ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
The Rich

In the rich and varied work of memory studies, scholars have turned to exploring the meanings that different communities assign to the past, the social mediations of memories, as well as how the memories of subaltern subjects re-signify the relationship between history and memory. This special issue explores the ever present dynamics of unwieldy pasts through what have been termed “the spectral turn” and “the forensic turn.” We argue that specters (which appear in the literature as ghosts, or as haunting) and exhumations defy notions of temporality or resolution. Both trace the social dynamics that redefine the meanings of the past and that voice suffering, expose institutions’ limits, reveal disputes, explore affect and privilege political resistance. They draw from significant intellectual traditions across disciplinary and thematic boundaries in the natural and social sciences, the humanities, art and fiction. Their intellectual subjects range from work that explores the political struggles of confronting slavery and the possibility of reparations in the Americas long after it was formally abolished, to sensitive treatments of graves of Franco’s Spain. We suggest that both the spectral turn and the forensic turn have provided lenses to conceptualize the social life of unwieldy pasts, by exploring its dynamics, practices, and the cultural transmissions. They have also offered a language to communities that mobilize the political strength of resentment, deepened by the late phase of global capitalism and its consequent, deepening inequalities.

Dignifying Death: the Politics of Burial in Bulawayo

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 110-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Ranger
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Social Life ◽  
West African ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Control ◽  
Successful Performance ◽  
Symbolic Management ◽  
The Social ◽  
Independent Churches

AbstractThere has recently been much more recognition of the African role in the making of the colonial cities of southern Africa. Nevertheless, many kinds of action have still seemed to be impossible for Africans living in tightly controlled municipal townships. Among these is the political and symbolic management of death. While literature on West African towns celebrates 'mausoleum politics' and the struggle over the burial of dead men under the floors of their houses, in colonial Southern African cities it has been assumed that Africans had no choice but to accept the constraining rules of drab municipal cemeteries. Similarly, the initiative and agency, which we know rural Africans in Southern Africa to have exercised in their encounters with mission Christianity, have been much less documented in the towns. In short, it has been assumed that the Southern African town—and particularly the black townships—represented colonial control at its most intense and oppressive, allowing little room for symbolic or practical autonomy whether in social life, politics or religion. This article tests such presuppositions in relation to Southern Rhodesia's second largest town, and major industrial centre, Bulawayo. It argues that from the late 1890s there has always been a black Bulawayo, expressed first in the absence of municipal or state control of the Location and expressed later by the emergence of varying influential men and women there with the capacity to take cultural and symbolic initiatives, perhaps especially in the sphere of death, burial and commemoration. It discusses the successful performance of rites to 'bring back the spirit' a year after death despite missionary and municipal prohibitions; it discusses the role of the innumerable Burial Societies in colonial Bulawayo; it discusses the efforts of educated young men to erect memorials for African kings and chiefs; it discusses the varying focus of three types of African urban Christianity—missionfounded churches, 'Ethiopianist' independent churches and Apostolic prophetic churches—on rituals of death. By so doing it opens up many questions about the social, political, cultural and religious life of an African Location in colonial southern Africa.

History in Art

Antiquity ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 5 (19) ◽  
pp. 277-290
Author(s):  
Flinders Petrie
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Knowledge ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
History Of

When we look at the great diversity of man’s activities and interests, it is evident how much space they afford for reviewing his history in many different ways. To most of our historians the view of the political power and course of legislation has seemed all that need be noticed; others have dealt with history in religion, or the growth of mind in changes of moral standards, as in Lecky’s fine work. In recent years the history of knowledge in medicine, in the applied sciences, and in abstract mathematics, has been profitably studied, as affording the basis of civilization. The purely mental view is shown in the social life and customs of each age, and expressed in the growth of Art. This last expression of man’s spirit has great advantages in its presentation; the material from different ages is of a comparable nature, and it is easily placed together to contrast its differences. Moreover it covers a wider range of time than we can et observe in man’s scope, but it is as essential to his nature as any of the other aspects that we have named.

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