scholarly journals The (mis)uses of life histories. The linguistic turn, life histories and (women’s) life stories

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 133-151
Author(s):  
Claudia de Lima Costa
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Women's Lives

This paper retraces the debates on life-histories before and after the linguistic turn in the social sciences, and, more specifically, in the anthropological tradition. It stresses how poststructuralist feminist methodological, theoretical, and political appropriations of personal narratives represent a significant textual intervention in the gendered social-cultural scripts of women’s lives.

scholarly journals Evaluation of pain in outpatient diagnostic hysteroscopy with gas

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
Daniela Barreto Fraguglia Quental Diniz ◽  
Daniella de Batista Depes ◽  
Ana Maria Gomes dos Santos ◽  
Simone Denise David ◽  
Salete Yatabe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Vaginal Delivery ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Gas ◽  
Verbal Scale ◽  
Experienced Pain ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Study Power ◽  
Diagnostic Hysteroscopy

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the intensity of pain reported by patients undergoing outpatient diagnostic hysteroscopy. Methods: Exam performed with a 5-mm lens hysteroscope, vaginal speculum, tenaculum and uterine distention with carbon dioxide gas. Before and after the examination, patients were interviewed to define, in a verbal scale from 0 to 10, pain values that they expected to feel and that they experienced after the end, and also if they would repeat it if indicated. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 15.0, statistic significance was defined as p < 0.05 with a study power of 95%. Results: Fifty-eight patients were included with mean age of 50.9 years, with 32.8% at postmenopause and 6.9% nulliparous. Among those with previous deliveries, mean parity was 2.21 and at least one vaginal delivery had occurred in 63.8%. Only 24.1% of patients knew how the exam would be done, 62.1% needed an endometrial sample and the result was considered satisfactory in 89.7%. The means of expected and experienced pain were similar (6.0 versus 6.1), and 91.4% of women would repeat the hysteroscopy if necessary. The only factor associated with less pain after the exam was previous vaginal delivery, with a decrease of pain score from 7.1 to 5.5 (p = 0.03). Mean pain was significantly lower in those who agreed to repeat the exam (5.8 versus 9.4; p = 0.003). Conclusions: Outpatient diagnostic hysteroscopy with gas can be associated with moderate but tolerable discomfort and satisfactory results.

Practice Theories: The Latest Turn in Historiography?

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Polyakov
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Development ◽  
Social Realm ◽  
Turn Over

Abstract The linguistic turn in historiography has given way to a ‘cultural’ or ‘practical’ turn over the course of the last several decades. For its proponents, this new development heralds a return of the intentional subject and a re-invigorated concern with the dynamic nature of the social realm. Approaches clustered around the concept of practice, emphasizing routines of daily activities as the backbone of social organization and its stability, specifically seek to resolve the persisting conceptual tension in social sciences between structure and agency. This article surveys the seminal work on the topic of practice, and considers how the approach can be recruited for purposes of historiographic analysis. In defending a tentatively optimistic assessment of practice theory’s usefulness for this purpose, the article also evaluates some of the weaknesses that this approach has yet to cogently address.

Can you tell me more about your postdoctoral experience? A personal narrative review of the postdoctoral position in the social sciences

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anta Niang ◽  
Emmanuelle Khoury ◽  
Natacha Brunelle ◽  
Martin Goyette
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Personal Narrative ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Postdoctoral Researchers

Purpose This paper is the result of a collaboration and sharing of experiences of two postdoctoral researchers. The purpose of this paper is to put these experiences into perspective by cross-referencing our respective personal narratives with an analysis of the existing literature on the postdoctoral experience in the social sciences. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a non-exhaustive systematic literature review using the database PsycInfo and the multidisciplinary Web of Science Catalogue database to find relevant articles published from 2000 to today. Of the 946 articles identified from the database, only 12 were included in the literature review. The authors also included four articles identified from other sources, such as Google Scholar. Secondly, the authors used a method inspired by reflexive personal narrative writing, which allowed us to share our postdoctoral experience and examine how it compares or complements the existing literature on postdoctoral experience in the social sciences. Findings The literature highlights three significant criteria that play a major role in the postdoctoral experience across disciplines: professional identity, work–life balance and relationship with supervisor. While the majority of the current literature seems to highlight the importance of career prospects in the daily lives of postdoctoral researchers, the other two aspects seem to be somewhat less explored. However, personal factors as well as the relationship with the supervisor appear to be of major importance in the search for work–life balance, feelings of competency and overall satisfaction among postdoctoral researchers. Research limitations/implications At the theoretical level, this paper allows a better understanding of the experiences of postdoctoral students in the social sciences, which seem to be less documented than those in scientific fields (e.g., Science, technology, engineering and mathematics postdoctoral fellow). Practical implications On a practical level, it constitutes a tool for reflection for postdoctoral researchers in the social sciences as well as for academic actors working to support and develop the well-being of these researchers (e.g. teachers, supervisors, administrators), all with the aim of optimising academic practices. Originality/value These results are discussed with respect to the specificity that our subjective personal narratives can offer to understand postdoctoral experiences, particularly in the social sciences, and thus offer reflections on ways to attend to individual psychosocial and relational needs that can foster an improved personal and professional training.

What is Social Science History, Anyway?

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-480
Author(s):  
Paula Baker
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Science History ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Methodologies

This group of essays came out of an attempt to address the “usually unasked,” “bound to embarrass” question that Eric Monkkonen raised in his 1994 presidential address to the Social Science History Association. As both the social sciences and history have been reshaped in recent years by intellectual tendencies variously labeled “postmodernism,” “poststructuralism,” or the “linguistic turn,” the never especially clear relationship between the social sciences and history has grown even more muddy. The essays that follow are drawn from two sessions of the 1998 annual program of the Social Science History Association. The sessions brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines and cohorts who held divergent ideas about the links between social science and history and different substantive agendas for explaining historical change. A mix of essays that highlight new methodologies for analyzing the past and pieces that offer explanations or remedies, the articles printed here point to some of the central issues in the debate about what social science history might mean today.

Betty's Story

1996 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
Textual Information ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Purposeful Sampling ◽  
The Social ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
Member Checks

This life history is created within the context of a larger study. Purposeful sampling was used to identify six college-aged, self-identified intellectuals from a group of students in a University Scholars program at a large university. The group included three men and three women all around 20 years old. Multiple interviews with member checks were used to create textual data from each participant. Participants discussed personal independence, the desire to learn, the meaning of the term “intellectual,” attitudes toward schooling, their teachers, educational programs for intellectually gifted students, social and cultural interests, their personal lives, and other topics. The analysis of the data used textual information from the interviews combined with information from sociological and anthropological sources to situate the participants' life stories in social, historical, and cultural contexts thereby creating life histories. A life lived is what actually happens. A life experienced consists of the images, feelings, desires, thoughts, and meanings known to the person whose life it is … A life as told, a life history, is a narrative, influenced by the cultural conventions of telling, by the audience, and by the social context (Denzin, 1989, p. 30).

scholarly journals Bringing the world back in: Revolutions and relations before and after the quantum event

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 414-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jairus Grove
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Disciplinary Expertise ◽  
Quantum Event

Quantum physics is being positioned as a new archive for addressing major theoretical problems in the field of international relations. Two of the major proponents of engaging quantum thinking within international relations, James Der Derian and Alexander Wendt, have argued that quantum thinking offers the possibility of a major paradigm shift in the field. Before we determine quantum’s revolutionary potential, the persistent and most pressing question for me is how to position quantum thinking among other kinds of and claims to knowledge. I want to horizontalize where different kinds of knowledge sit within the renewed attention to quantum theory. Rather than just horizontalize or flatten ontology, I want to see what happens when we place scientific and philosophical inquiry in dialogue, and what that conversation does to the authority and value of quantum thinking for the social sciences. The article reconstructs the dialogue between the first generation of quantum physicists and the philosophers who informed them. Rather than make an explicit argument about the philosophical debt of physics, I argue that a broad and highly interdisciplinary set of questions drove both fields well beyond the specific areas of expertise of any of these thinkers. I believe this adventure of ideas followed by physicists, philosophers, and social theorists alike offers us a way forward as the complexity of our contemporary global challenges confront us now with the necessity to think well beyond our disciplinary expertise.

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