The Social Construction of Prophecy in The Family International

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Shepherd ◽  
Gary Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Single Mode ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Administrative Staff ◽  
Multiple Channels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family

ABSTRACT: Based primarily on interviews with the current co-leaders of The Family International, its World Services administrative staff, and supplemented with observational visits to Family Homes worldwide, this paper addresses the basic question in Rodney Stark's theory of revelations: How do revelations occur? Contrary to both Stark's and Max Weber's theoretical propositions regarding the curtailment of revelation in prophetic religions that become institutionalized after the departure of charismatic founders, current Family leaders have greatly increased their reliance on verbatim revelations through multiple channels to guide and justify the group's controversial beliefs and practices. We contrast the conventional single mode of obtaining occasional revelations (or "prophecies") by Family founder, David Berg, with the novel way in which a constant stream of official, published Family prophecies are now socially constructed. Throughout our description of this process we focus on its consequences for routinization of charisma via greater member participation, democratic decision-making, and internal consensusbuilding. At the same time this process contributes to the maintenance of external, sectarian barriers.

Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

Service innovation as a social construction: The role of boundary objects

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Mele ◽  
Roberta Sebastiani ◽  
Daniela Corsaro
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Boundary Objects ◽  
Resource Integration ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Outcome Perspective

This article advances a conceptualization of service innovation as socially constructed through resource integration and sensemaking. By developing this view, the current study goes beyond an outcome perspective, to include the collective nature of service innovation and the role of the social context in affecting the service innovation process. Actors enact and perform service innovation through two approaches, one that is more concerted and another that emerges in some way. Each approach is characterized by distinct resource integration processes, in which the boundary objects (artifacts, discourses, and places) play specific roles. They act as bridge-makers that connect actors, thereby fostering resource integration and shared meanings.

scholarly journals Coming out of the closet "six feet under": textual silences and the social construction of the family stage in the obituary genres

2006 ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Corona Marzol
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Textual Description ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Social Explanation ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Constant Element

The 'Family' stage -the lines devoted to the surviving members of the deceased's family- is a 'constant element' (Hasan 1985) in obituaries. The present study is built up around the structural analysis of genres as developed by Bhatia (1993, 2004), Hasan (1985), Martin (1985, 1992), and Swales (1990). The purpose of this study is to bring a social explanation or understanding to bear on the textual description of the 'Family' stage from a corpus of obituaries published in more than two hundred American and British newspapers collected over a period of three years. The research process has developed two more steps. First, following Huckin's (2004) notion of content analysis, quantitative and qualitative modes have been applied, trying to identify the content which is not manifest. Secondly, the identification of 'textual silences' (Huckin 2002) is followed by an exploratory ethnographic analysis (Scollon 1998) on two case studies. This multi-staged analysis is aimed at a more comprehensive account of the obituary genre as a social process (Kress 1993). It shall be argued that the 'Family' stage encapsulates one of the most controversial topics of our time.

scholarly journals Avatar Creation: The Social Construction of “Beauty” in Second Life

2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailey L. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Community Research ◽  
Social Construction Of Reality ◽  
Still Images ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Ideal Body

Rooted in the theory of Social Construction of Reality and informed by media portrayal of female beauty and virtual community research, this study examined how beauty is socially constructed by gatekeepers in Second Life. A content analysis of 360 still images of female avatars was conducted to understand the extent to the beauty types that appear in the virtual world. Findings suggest trendy and sex kitten/sensual beauty types were the most-portrayed beauty types. Most female avatars had the ideal body size and light colored skin. In addition, this study found a significant difference in beauty type among different types of products.

The History of Unreason

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
History Of

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.

Talking Heads vs. Virtual Workspaces: A Comparison of Design across Cultures

1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 259-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Heaton
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cooperative Work ◽  
Computer Supported Cooperative Work ◽  
Technology Design ◽  
The Past ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Talking Heads ◽  
Cscw Design ◽  
The Social

The past decade has seen the development of a perspective holding that technology is socially constructed. This paper examines the social construction of one group of technologies, systems for computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). It compares the design of systems for computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) in Scandinavia and Japan with particular attention to the influence of culture on the resulting products. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the argument that culture is an important factor in technology design, despite commonly held assumptions about the neutrality and objectivity of science and technology. The paper further proposes an explanation for why, despite similar technical backgrounds and research interests, CSCW design is conducted differently and produces different results in Denmark and Japan. It argues that, by looking at CSCW systems as texts which reflect the context of their production and the society from which they come, we may be better able to understand the transformations that operate when these texts are ‘read’ in the contexts of their implementation.

Place Matters, But How? Rural Identity, Environmental Decision Making, and the Social Construction of Place

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hope Alkon ◽  
Michael Traugot
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Environmental Conflicts ◽  
Rural Identity ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Sociodemographic Differences ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Place Character ◽  
Construction Of Place ◽  
The Relationship

This article investigates the relationship between environmental policy and the social construction of place in two neighboring California counties. We examine two counties with dramatic geographic and sociodemographic differences that drew on similar place narratives in order to justify collaborative solutions to agricultural–environmental conflicts. Each narrative trumpets the importance of agriculture to each county's place character and praises the ability of well–intentioned county residents to work together. Our cases illuminate two processes through which place is socially constructed with regard to extralocal factors: place comparison allows residents to highlight potential risks by contrasting their own places with others while place meta–narratives allow actors to draw on culturally available notions of types of places. We conclude by discussing the relationship between place narratives and other factors that can affect policy choice, and therefore, shape the landscape itself.

The Social Construction of Human Kinds

Hypatia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Metaphysical Claim ◽  
Human Kinds ◽  
Response Dependence ◽  
Human Kind

Social construction theorists face a certain challenge to the effect that they confuse the epistemic and the metaphysical: surely our conceptions of something are influenced by social practices, but that doesn't show that the nature of the thing in question is so influenced. In this paper I take up this challenge and offer a general framework to support the claim that a human kind is socially constructed, when this is understood as a metaphysical claim and as a part of a social constructionist debunking project. I give reasons for thinking that a conferralist framework is better equipped to capture the social constructionist intuition than rival accounts of social properties, such as a constitution account and a response‐dependence account, and that this framework helps to diagnose what is at stake in the debate between the social constructionists and their opponents. The conferralist framework offered here should be welcomed by social constructionists looking for firm foundations for their claims, and for anyone else interested in the debate over the social construction of human kinds.

Herds and Hierarchies: Class, Nature, and the Social Construction of Horses in Equestrian Culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra Coulter
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Living Animal ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Nature

Abstract This study centers on equestrian show culture in Ontario, Canada, and examines how horses are entangled symbolically and materially in socially constructed hierarchies of value. After examining horse-show social relations and practices, the paper traces the connections among equestrian culture, class, and the social constructions of horses. Equestrian relations expose multiple hierarchical intersections of nature and culture within which both human-horse relations and horses are affected by class structures and identities. In equestrian culture, class affects relations within and across species, and how horses are conceptualized and used, as symbols and as living animal bodies.

The Social Construction of Social Facts

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor Townsley
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Introductory Sociology ◽  
Social Facts ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
The Social

This article describes an exercise that explores how race categories and classifications are socially constructed scientifically. In an introductory sociology setting, students compare their perceptions of the size of minority populations with counts from the U.S. Census. In a series of debriefing sessions, students analyze both their perceptions and Census counts as social constructions of the moral phenomena we call race. In the process, students are introduced to Census data and the Census web site as well as to historical and theoretical literature on the social construction of race. Students are then asked to reflect critically about the scientific practices in which race is constructed as a social fact, and in particular, to consider their own roles in these practices as users and subjects of race categories. The larger goal is to help students to develop a critical sociological imagination that productively engages the analysis of race in contemporary society.

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