scholarly journals Images Of A Good Village: A Visual Analysis Of The Rural Idyll In The “Village Of The Year” Competition In The Czech Republic

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Pospěch ◽  
Daniela Spěšná ◽  
Adam Staveník
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Rural Sociology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Visual Methods ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Positive Representations ◽  
The Village

Abstract This paper presents a sociological analysis of the image of a “good village”, as portrayed in the annual Czech competition Village of the Year. It focuses on the positive representations attached to the rural in the political and expert discourse. The analysis is rooted in cultural rural sociology and in its study of rural idyll. It is argued that a specific kind of rural idyll is produced in the competition. This idyll is analysed using the photographs submitted to the competition by the villages themselves. A combination of visual methods is employed to uncover the positive values attached to the images. The results show that activity and social life play a key role in the image of a “good village” thus produced. On the other hand, there are virtually no references to agriculture.

The Effect Of The Russian Empire On The Political Life Of The Emirate Of Bukhara (1868-1917)

2020 ◽  
Vol 02 (10) ◽  
pp. 171-177
Author(s):  
Yangiboeva Dilnoza Uktamovna ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Fertile Soil ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Changing World

The article describes the influence of the Russian Empire on the socio-political life of the Emirate of Bukhara in the late XIX - early XX centuries during the reign of Mangit emirs Muzaffar (1860-1885), Abdulahad (1885-1910) and Alimkhan (1910-1920). There were many people who looked at this country, which has beautiful nature, fertile soil and rich in minerals. The Central Asian khanates, which were part of a constantly changing world, did not undergo renewal, despite their obsolescence. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, when the Emirate of Bukhara became politically and economically full of the policy of the Russian Empire and officially became its vassal, many historical events took place in its social life.

The Role of Religious Force in the Wukan Incident

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Social Management ◽  
The Village

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.

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.

How Not to Go Beyond Marx: A Reply to Worrell and Krier

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
General Direction ◽  
Fatal Flaw ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Imaginary

Worrell and Krier’s ‘Atopia Awaits! A Critical Sociological Analysis of Marx’s Political Imaginary’ raises serious issues regarding Marx’s legacy. They hold that a fatal flaw in Marx’s framework can be detected in his account of a post-capitalist society, which reveals a theoretically impoverished and politically dangerous neglect of essential features of social life. I argue that there are good reasons to reject Worrell and Krier’s thesis that Marx got immensely important things horribly wrong. Marx’s limited remarks on post-capitalist society are certainly inadequate in numerous respects. However, they point in the right general direction, and Worrell and Krier fail to offer a satisfactory alternative. The prospects for a critical social theory adequate to the immense challenges of the 21st century would be harmed if their readers agreed with the paper’s main thesis.

Chinese "Cancer Villages"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajiang Chen ◽  
Pengli Cheng ◽  
Yajuan Luo
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Relationship

The phenomenon of "cancer villages" has emerged in many parts of rural China, drawing media attention and becoming a fact of social life. However, the relationship between pollution and disease is often hard to discern. Through sociological analysis of several villages with different social and economic structures, the authors offer a comprehensive, historically grounded analysis of the coexistence between the incidence of cancer, environmental pollution and villagers’ lifestyles, as well as the perceptions, claims and responses of different actors. They situate the appearance of "cancer villages" in the context of social, economic and cultural change in China, tracing the evolution of the issue over two decades, and providing deep insights into the complex interactions and trade-offs between economic growth, environmental change and public health.

Spontaneous Involvement and Social Life

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Ostrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Erving Goffman ◽  
The Social

Throughout his writings, Erving Goffman develops the principle that successful impression management requires an appearance of “spontaneous involvement” as evidence of individuals' sincerity. Goffman never articulates this principle in terms of how persons are actually—indeed, as he sometimes recognizes, necessarily involved spontaneously in the social environment. This paper asks: What does it mean for our reading of Goffman and of social situations generally if we move the proposition of the experiential necessity of spontaneous involvement to the center of sociological analysis? I discuss why it never moved to the center of Goffman's inquiries, and then argue that a theory of habit facilitates an elaborate of its sociological significance.

The Social Life of Opium in China, 1483–1999

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yangwen Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Opium Trade ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opium Wars

The history of opium is a major theme in modern Chinese history. Books and academic careers have been devoted to its study. Yet the question that scholars of the opium wars and of modern China have failed to ask is how the demand for opium was generated. My puzzle, during the initial stage of research, was who smoked opium and why. Neither Chinese nor non-Chinese scholars have written much about this, with the exception of Jonathan Spence. Although opium consumption is a well-acknowledged fact, the reasons for its prevalence have never been fully factored into the historiography of the opium wars and of modern China. Michael Greenberg has dwelt on the opium trade, Chang Hsin-pao and Peter Fay on the people and events that made armed conflicts between China and the West unavoidable. John Wong has continued to focus on imperialism, James Polachek on Chinese internal politics while Opium regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952, the latest work, has studied the political systems that controlled opium. But the political history of opium, like the opium trade and the theatre of war, is only part of the story. We need to distinguish them from the wider social and cultural life of opium in China. The vital questions are first, the point at which opium was transformed from a medicine to a luxury item and, secondly, why it became so popular and widespread after people discovered its recreational value. It is these questions that I address. We cannot fully understand the root problem of the opium wars and their role in the emergence of modern China until we can explain who was smoking opium and why they smoked it.

scholarly journals Exploring and explaining participation in local opposition: brown coal mining in Horní Jiřetín

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filip Černoch ◽  
Lukáš Lehotský ◽  
Petr Ocelík ◽  
Jan Osička
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Coal Mining ◽  
Brown Coal ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Local Opposition ◽  
Opposition Movement

This book summarizes a three-year research project on local opposition to coal mining in the Northwestern part of the Czech Republic. The research focused on the relational dimensions of the opposition movement and the political context in which the movement operates.

scholarly journals Premises for the Politological Exploration of Sociobiology

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Jarosław Nocoń
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Biological Factors ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Effective Use

The article discusses the factors that encourage the use of the achievements of the broadly understood current of sociobiology in political science research. The guiding thesis here is the assumption that the effective use of the achievements of sociobiology for political science research may be an important factor inspiring new interpretations, explanations and forms of viewing the political sphere of social life. At the same time, it stimulates a broad view of the complexity of mutual relations between the sphere of culture and politics and biological factors. The condition for such a perspective is a departure from the reduced, genetically determinist perception of sociobiology and the understanding of culture and politics both in terms of products and determinants of the natural environment. The structure of the argument is subordinated to attempts to answer the following questions: Why is it worth being interested in using neo-evolutionist concepts to explain and describe the political sphere of social life? What is sociobiology and what theoretical assumptions can be a useful instrument of explanation in political science research?

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