scholarly journals A Foreign Woman Researcher in a Purdah Society: Opportunities and Challenges for Knowledge Production in the 2000s

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Grünenfelder
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Sexual Segregation ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Fieldwork Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
Foreign Woman

This paper aims to further discussions on access to "foreign" worlds, limits in knowledge production, and the role of gender relations in field research. What follows is an engagement with arguments developed by Hanna Papanek and Carroll Pastner in this journal some decades ago. They both drew on fieldwork experiences in Pakistan to argue that foreign women fieldworkers can (sometimes) take advantage of ambiguities in the social structures of Purdah societies, that is, societies characterized by "sexual segregation and the seclusion of women" (Pastner 1982:262), to flexibly position themselves and to be able to interact with both men and women. This paper rethinks their arguments and evaluates the current situation on the basis of fieldwork experience as a foreign woman in Pakistan in the late 2000s. It argues that possibilities for foreign women to get physical access to men's worlds, although still available, remain limited and in some ways have become more restricted (including access to women's worlds) due to political developments in recent decades. The paper also argues that, irrespective of the feasibility of physical access to other gender's worlds, it is necessary to reflect on subjectivities through which access to "foreign" worlds is mediated and knowledge is produced.

Experience of Ethnographic Fieldwork in an English Benedictine Monastery

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Irvine
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Fieldwork Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
Peripheral Participation

What is the role of imitation in ethnographic fieldwork, and what are its limits? This article explores what it means to participate in a particular fieldsite; a Catholic English Benedictine monastery. A discussion of the importance of hospitality in the life of the monastery shows how the guest becomes a point of contact between the community and the wider society within which that community exists. The peripheral participation of the ethnographer as monastic guest is not about becoming incorporated, but about creating a space within which knowledge can be communicated. By focusing on the process of re-learning in the monastery – in particular, relearning how to experience silence and work – I discuss some of the ways in which the fieldwork experience helped me to reassess the social world to which I would return.

Fluid Multilingual Practices among Youth in Cameroon and Mozambique

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torun Reite ◽  
Francis Badiang Oloko ◽  
Manuel Armando Guissemo
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
The South ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social

Inspired by recent epistemological and ontological debates aimed at unsettling and reshaping conceptions of language, this essay discusses how mainstream sociolinguistics offers notions meaningful for studying contexts of the South. Based on empirical studies of youth in two African cities, Yaoundé in Cameroon and Maputo in Mozambique, the essay engages with “fluid modernity” and “enregisterment” to unravel the role that fluid multilingual practices play in the social lives of urban youth. The empirically grounded theoretical discussion shows how recent epistemologies and ontologies offer inroads to more pluriversal knowledge production. The essay foregrounds: i) the role of language in the sociopolitical battles of control over resources, and ii) speakers’ reflexivity and metapragmatic awareness of register formations of fluid multilingual practices. Moreover, it shows how bundles of localized meanings construct belongings and counterhegemonic discourses, as well as demonstrating speakers’ differential valuations and perceptions of boundaries and transgressions across social space.

Mending Broken Hearts

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen L. Idler ◽  
David A. Boulifard ◽  
Richard J. Contrada
Keyword(s):  
Medical Records ◽  
Lower Risk ◽  
Adult Mortality ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Never Married ◽  
The Social ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Long Term Mortality

Marriage has long been linked to lower risk for adult mortality in population and clinical studies. In a regional sample of patients ( n = 569) undergoing cardiac surgery, we compared 5-year hazards of mortality for married persons with those of widowed, separated or divorced, and never married persons using data from medical records and psychosocial interviews. After adjusting for demographics and pre- and postsurgical health, unmarried persons had 1.90 times the hazard of mortality of married persons; the disaggregated widowed, never married, and divorced or separated groups had similar hazards, as did men and women. The adjusted hazard for immediate postsurgical mortality was 3.33; the adjusted hazard for long-term mortality was 1.71, and this was mediated by married persons’ lower smoking rates. The findings underscore the role of spouses (both male and female) in caregiving during health crises and the social control of health behaviors.

scholarly journals The Role of Muhammadiyah Institution Towards Muslim Minority in West Papua

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Ismail Suardi Wekke ◽  
Beja Arif ◽  
Andi Zubair ◽  
Moh. Wardi
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Development ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Organizational Governance ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
The Social ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Power Base ◽  
Regional Leaders ◽  
Education And Society

Muhammadiyah is known as Islamic organization pioneering modern educational and social movement. Recently, Muhammadiyah education has experienced rapid development, yet there are still many problems and challenges to overcome in order to continue competing and giving the best for the society. The aim of this research was to figure out the role of Muhammadiyah in conducting dakwah bil hal movement in education and social environment in Sorong City, Papua. By using qualitative method and in-depth interview and also field research, this study found out that bil hal Muhammadiyah Movement in Sorong City, Papua has given significant impact on the society, especially in education from Kindergarten to University level. Meanwhile, in the social field, Muhammadiyah in Sorong City had built orphanage for boys and girls. However, in terms of management of organizational governance, Muhammadiyah needs to strengthen the solidity between regional leaders, optimization of autonomous assemblies and organizations as a power base to support maximization of dakwah bil hal Muhammadiyah movement in the future, especially in education and society.

From crisis to the everyday: Shouldn't we all be writing economies?

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110680
Author(s):  
Priti Narayan ◽  
Emily Rosenman
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Economic Geography ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Public Economic ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

This commentary explores the politics of writing about the economy in a culture, society, and discipline that tends to prioritize masculinist (and white) theories and definitions of economy over embodied experiences of people living their everyday lives. Inspired by Timothy Mitchell's problematization of the economy as an object of analysis, we press further on the seemingly singular unit of “the” economy and who is allowed to define it as such. We are animated by questions of who is considered an expert on the economy and how, or by whom, crises in the economy are recognized. Drawing from our own writing experiences during the pandemic and from social movements we research, we argue for alternate ways of thinking about experiences of and expertise on the economy. In reckoning with how social movements speak to power in a bid to transform economies, we consider the role of economic geography in the economy of writing and knowledge production surrounding “the economy” itself. We make the case for a more public economic geography grounded in the social and economic embeddedness of knowledge production, the material consequences of who gets to define what is economically “important,” and the potential for this expertise to be located anywhere.

Disidentification

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Elizabeth Morrissey
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Disciplinary Knowledge ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
The Social

Deriving from José Esteban Muñoz’s foundational 1999 text Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics, disidentification is a theoretical heuristic and performative practice that is an essential framework for thinking through, and living in, intersecting sites of marginality and oppression. In particular, disidentification is a heuristic that provides critical scholars with a framework for theorizing the relationships between subject formation, ideology, politics, and power while also offering people from marginalized communities a way to navigate intersecting forms of oppression and enact agency. Scholars use disidentification to refer to performances that minoritarian subjects engage in to survive within inhospitable spaces, while nevertheless working to subvert them. Thus, as both a theoretical framework and a performative practice, disidentification is an antiracist tool that can be utilized to theorize and respond to normative power structures including Communication Studies’ modes of disciplinary knowledge production. Indeed, the discipline of Communication Studies is diverse, but in spite of this, what coheres this expansive body of scholarship is an investment in understanding how communication produces, scaffolds, organizes, and potentially revises our world. Disidentification, by foregrounding identities and experiences of difference, offers Communication Studies researchers a way to consider how one’s life can be understood in relation to others, within the social structures that govern daily life, and within the ideological commitments that organize our experiences.

Men in Mixed-Orientation Marriages in Contemporary China: Unpacking the Role of Heteronormativity and Patriarchy

2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2110557
Author(s):  
Changhui Song ◽  
Joyee Shairee Chatterjee ◽  
Donna L. Doane ◽  
Philippe Doneys
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Filial Piety ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depth Interviews

This qualitative study based on 34 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with cis-gendered tongzhi (men who are attracted to men) critically explores the factors influencing their decisions to enter mixed-orientation marriages (MOMs) in China. Theoretically, the study weaves together insights from queer and feminist theorizing and analyzes the role of heteronormativity and patriarchy, especially in relation to hegemonic masculine ideals, in the context of marriage norms in contemporary China. Our examination showcases the contradictory role heteronormativity and patriarchy play in simultaneously marginalizing and privileging these groups of men along the axes of sexual, gender, and lineage (inter-generational) hierarchies. It also underscores the continued role of filial piety norms. Overall, the study contributes to deepening our understanding of the complex nature of MOMs and discussions of MOMs as marriage fraud. We argue that examining these non-normative marriages furthers explication of the social structures underpinning gender and sexuality in a context of patriarchal marriage-normative societies.

Diversity and Relationships

2020 ◽  
pp. 114-150
Author(s):  
Mona Sue Weissmark
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Social ◽  
Clinical Consequences ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender

This chapter outlines key issues in scientific literature concerning how evolutionary processes have shaped the human mind. To that end, psychologists have drawn on Charles Darwin’s sexual selection hypothesis, or how males compete for reproduction and the role of female choice in the process. Darwin argued that evolution hinged on the diversity resulting from sexual reproduction. Evolutionary psychologists posit that heterosexual men and women evolved powerful, highly patterned, and universal desires for particular characteristics in a mate. Critics, however, contend that Darwin’s theory of sexual selection was erroneous, in part because his ideas about sexual identity and gender were influenced by the social mores of his elite Victorian upper class. Despite this critique, some researchers argue similarly to Darwin that love is part of human biological makeup. According to their hypotheses, cooperation is the centerpiece of human daily life and social relations. This makes the emotion of love, both romantic and maternal love, a requirement not just for cooperation, but also for the preservation and perpetuation of the species. That said, researchers speculate that encounters with unfamiliar people, coincident with activated neural mechanisms associated with negative judgments, likely inspire avoidance behavior and contribute to emotional barriers. This suggests the need to further study the social, psychological, and clinical consequences of the link between positive and negative emotions.

Stretching Situated Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Standpoint Epistemology ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter, first of three to develop relational cosmology in conversation with critical social theory and IR theory, argues that at the heart of relational cosmology lies a commitment to situated knowledge. This perspective on knowledge production is similar in some regards to standpoint epistemology but also diverges from it in key respects. The chapter argues that IR scholarship can benefit from close engagement with relational cosmology suggestions as to how our knowledge is limited and how we might need to ‘deal with it’, especially in the social sciences, where there is a tendency to glorify the role of the human in knowing the human.

Ageing and gender

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Chris Gilleard ◽  
Paul Higgs
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Financial Assets ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Bonding Capital

This chapter begins by considering the distinction between sex and gender. The latter constitutes the source of the social division between men and women considered as social beings. It serves as both a reflection of division and inequality and a source of difference and identity. The chapter then explores the framing of this division in terms of patriarchy and the inequalities that are organised by and structured within the relations of work and of social reproduction. It focuses next upon the consequences of such a division, first in terms of both financial assets and resources and then in terms of social relational capital, drawing upon Putnam’s distinction between bridging and bonding capital. It then considers other sources of difference that become more salient in later life, in terms of health illness and longevity. The chapter ends with the role of gender in representing later life, and the role of later life in representing gender. It concludes by distinguishing between gender as a structure shaping third age culture, and gender as a constituent in the social imaginary of the fourth age.

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