scholarly journals Grounded Theory and Serendipity. Natural history of a Research

2022 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Tomasz Konecki
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Social World ◽  
Pet Owners ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Construction ◽  
Analytical Category

The paper deals with the issue of “serendipity” (which constitutes the context of discovery) in field research and the analysis of data by using the grounded theory methodology. The thesis of the paper is: the methodology of grounded theory is naturally associated with serendipity. We describe two aspects of serendipity in grounded theory: 1. substantive, and 2. theoretical. We present in the paper serendipity phenomenon by using the case of research on the “social world of pet owners”. We show how the research is developed by a sequence of decisions being made by researchers. The process of emergence of the main analytical category, subcategories and the whole theoretical construction during the long time of the field research and theoretical group analysis is presented, as well as the procedure of coming to unanticipated theoretical conclusions. It was all possible because of the interactional character of serendipity happening during the research in grounded theory style of investigation.

A history of the struggle against racism in the social unconscious of group analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 053331642098473
Author(s):  
Dick Blackwell
Keyword(s):  
Group Analysis ◽  
Institutional Racism ◽  
Unconscious Processes ◽  
Unconscious Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Unconscious ◽  
History Of ◽  
Conscious Belief

Institutional racism is a social unconscious process. It is the collective operation of shared unconscious assumptions and values that exist in groupings and cultures such as group analytic institutions where individuals may consciously believe they are not racist. In such cultures this conscious belief is protected by unconscious processes of denial, avoidance and negation. Attempts to address the issue within group analysis reveal some of its problematic dynamics.

scholarly journals Życie międzynarodowe rzeczy. Przedmioty luksusu i codziennego użytku w społecznej historii stosunków międzynarodowych

2018 ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Andrzej GAŁGANEK
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social History ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social World ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
The Social ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
History Of

The paper discusses the potential of objects, broadly understood luxury ‘items’ and necessities, in order to present uneven and combined development as the foundation of the social history of international relations. The author evidences that this approach to ‘objects’ allows us to achieve, at the very least, the following: (1) to observe the single social world which emerges after the division into ‘internal’ and ‘international’ is rejected; (2) to ‘touch’ the international outside the realm that the science of international relations usually associates with international politics; (3) to examine the social history of international relations, abandoning the approach that dominates in traditional historiography where production processes are privileged over consumption processes; (4) to demonstrate how human activities create internationalism. Discussing apparently different processes related to the international life of broadly understood ‘objects’, such as African giraffes, Kashmiri shawls, silk, the importance of English items for the inhabitants of Mutsamudu, or the opera Madame Butterfly the author identifies similar patterns which, although sometimes concealed, demonstrate the consequences of uneven and combined development for the social history of international relations. Prestige goods express affluence, success and power. They are usually objects manufactured from imported raw materials or materials, with limited distribution, which require a significant amount of labor or advanced technology to create. In contrast to everyday necessities, owing to their high value, prestige goods are exchanged over long distances through networks established by the elite. The analysis of manufacturing, exchange and social contexts related to prestige goods constitutes a significant source for understanding the social history of international relations. The examples in the paper present control over these goods as a source of political power. The control of raw materials, production and distribution of prestige goods is perceived as key to maintaining hierarchical social systems. Objects are inescapably related to ideas and practices. Uneven and combined development leads to meetings between people and objects, either opening or closing the space, allowing for their transfer and domestication, or rejection and destruction respectively. Concentration on the analyses of objects outside of modernization models or comparisons between civilizations and the conscious narrowing of perspective offers a tool with a heuristic potential which is interesting in the context of international relations. Comparative observation of objects (‘single’ elements of reality) via cultures undergoing uneven and combined development protects us from historiographic western exceptionalism. It also shows that the division between the ‘internal’ and ‘international’ unjustifiably splits the social world and makes it impossible to understand.

Project Report on the "Investigation of the Present Situation and Development of Ethnic Minorities in China"

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
Hao Shiyuan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Warring States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spring And Autumn Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shi Ji

When viewed from the perspective of history, China has not had a flourishing anthropology and ethnology. However, China's traditions of ethnographic-like perspectives have flourished for a long time. Since the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and Warring States Period (475-221 BC), multiethnic structure and social relations have been recorded in China's history. Ever since Sima Qian's Shi Ji (the Historical Records), the first general history of China compiled around 100 BC, the social history and cultural customs of ethnic minorities had been covered in each dynasty's history. Moreover, some special chapters had been dedicated to keeping the records of ethnic minorities. Of course such records were not completely unbiased.

Zwischen Naturgeschichte, Statistik und Gesellschaftsroman. Soziographische Wissensordnungen im Kontext einer europäischen Publizistik im 19. Jahrhundert

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-162
Author(s):  
Christiane Schwab
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Scientific Terminology ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Periodical Publishing

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the rise of market-oriented periodical publishing correlated with an increasing desire to inspect the modernizing societies. The journalistic pursuit of examining the social world is in a unique way reflected in countless periodical contributions that, especially from the 1830s onwards, depicted social types and behaviours, new professions and technologies, institutions, and cultural routines. By analysing how these “sociographic sketches” proceeded to document and to interpret the manifold manifestations of the social world, this article discusses the interrelationships between epistemic and political shifts, new forms of medialization and the systematization of social research. It thereby focuses on three main areas: the creative appropriation of narratives and motifs of moralistic essayism, the uses of description and contextualization as modes of knowledge, and the adaptation of empirical methods and a scientific terminology. To consider nineteenth-century sociographic journalism as a format between entertainment, art, and science provokes us to narrate intermedial, transnational and interdisciplinary tales of the history of social knowledge production.

Metal Mirrors from Altai Sites of the Xiongnu Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-375
Author(s):  
Alexey A. Tishkin ◽  
Nikolay N. Seregin
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Metal Alloys ◽  
Visual Examination ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Abstract Metal mirrors are important indicators when reconstructing the history of the ancient peoples of Altai on the basis of archaeological materials. Among the latter there are imported products, recorded in the mounds of the Xiongnu time (2nd century BC – 1st century AD). The article gives an overview of the results of a comprehensive study of the mirrors. Only one mirror was found intact, and the rest are represented by fragments. This collection of 19 archaeological items is divided into two groups, reflecting the direction of contacts of the Altai population in this period. The first demonstrates Chinese products that could have entered the region indirectly from the Xiongnu who dominated Inner Asia. Some of them were made in the previous period, but were used for a long time. The analyses of metal alloys from the Yaloman-II site supplements the conclusions made during the visual examination. The second group, through its origin, is associated with the cultures of the so-called Sarmatian circle, whose sites were located to the west of the Altai. A separate section of the article is devoted to a discussion of reconstruction of some aspects of the social history of the nomads and their world.

The Secular Appropriation of Hasidism by an East European Jewish Intellectual: Dubnow, Renan, and the Besht

2004 ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
Robert M. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Common People ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
East European ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The 19Th Century

This chapter studies the role that Hasidism played in the thought of the modernized Jewish intelligentsia of Eastern Europe toward the end of the 19th century. Simon Dubnow played a pivotal role in the emergence of this new image of Hasidism. In his autobiography, Dubnow describes in some detail the influence on him at that time of Leo Tolstoy and Ernest Renan. The influence of Renan's History of Christianity is quite evident in the structure of Dubnow's History of Hasidism as well as in some of Dubnow's solutions to problems of interpretation. Like Renan, Dubnow opened with a discussion of the social and intellectual background of a movement that can be traced to a founder known only for a long time through oral sources which retained the character of legend or saga. Applying Renan's statement that such pious biographies have a historical core, Dubnow stripped the life of the Baal Shem Tov, as recorded in the Shivhei ha-Besht, of its supernatural elements to reveal a simple, humble man who loved nature, especially the forests of the Carpathian mountains; a man who had immense affection for the common people and disdain for the proud, aloof scholars of his time and who preached a lofty doctrine of religious pantheism and universal brotherhood.

Revisiting the History of Socio-professional Classification in France

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (04) ◽  
pp. 697-732
Author(s):  
Thomas Amossé
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Labor Law ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Statistical Tool ◽  
Subsequent Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pragmatic Sociology

The result of a process begun in the nineteenth century, the French system of socio-professional classification (code des catégories socio-professionnelles) was drawn up between 1951 and 1954 and has only been slightly modified since. With no strong theoretical framework and conceived according to a realist approach, it gave substance to social classes in the description of postwar society. During a period of “reworking” (1978-1981), it became an exciting topic of sociological exploration, furnishing a representation of Pierre Bourdieu’s two-dimensional social space and serving as a laboratory for the pragmatic sociology of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. In a subsequent period of “updating” (1995-2001), administrative caution regarding changes contrasted with the evolution of categories used in labor law and the goal of analytical purity underpinned by econometrics. The history of this classification details the peculiar position of a statistical tool for representing the social world, ostensibly static amidst constant changes to the institution that managed it, the actors who used it, the social categories—everyday or legal—to which it referred, and, finally, the sociological theories that gave it a conceptual grounding.

Beyond the Case

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Singular Case ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Extended Case Method ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comparative Ethnography

The social sciences have seen a substantial increase in comparative and multisited ethnographic projects over the last three decades, yet field research often remains associated with small-scale, in-depth, and singular case studies. The growth of comparative ethnography underscores the need to carefully consider the process, logics, and consequences of comparison. This need is intensified by the fact that ethnography has long encompassed a wide range of traditions with different approaches toward comparative social science. At present, researchers seeking to design comparative field projects have many studies to emulate but few scholarly works detailing the process of comparison in divergent ethnographic approaches. Beyond the Case addresses this by showing how practitioners in contemporary iterations of traditions such as phenomenology, the extended case method, grounded theory, positivism, and interpretivism approach this in their works. It connects the long history of comparative (and anti-comparative) ethnographic approaches to their contemporary uses. Each chapter allows influential scholars to 1) unpack the methodological logics that shape how they use comparison; 2) connect these precepts to the concrete techniques they employ; and 3) articulate the utility of their approach. By honing in on how ethnographers render sites or cases analytically commensurable and comparable, these contributions offer a new lens for examining the assumptions, payoffs, and potential drawbacks of different forms of comparative ethnography. Beyond the Case provides a resource that allows both new and experienced ethnographers to critically evaluate the intellectual merits of various approaches and to strengthen their own research in the process.

Schooled by Wren, or a School by Wren? The Conception and Design of Christ’s Hospital Writing School, London

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 87-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Foxall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
School Building ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
School Movement

On 2 March 1692, Sir Christopher Wren visited the governors of Christ’s Hospital in London, bringing with him a design for a new writing school to be erected on the Hospital’s Newgate Street site. Seven drawings for the school building survive in the Wren collection at All Souls College, Oxford. However, rather than suggesting Wren’s authorship, these drawings are customarily attributed to his pupil and long-time assistant, Nicholas Hawksmoor. It is generally accepted that Hawksmoor received delegated commissions from Wren by at least the early 1690s, but, although the draughtsmanship and stylistic evidence of the Writing School drawings suggest consistency with this interpretation, the surviving documentary evidence by no means proves Hawksmoor’s involvement. In fact, Wren’s name appears no less than thirteen times in the surviving Hospital minutes of 1691 to 1696, while Hawksmoor is never mentioned.The Writing School designs are briefly described in most architectural histories of the period, although they are considered remarkable more for heralding a shift in architectural taste than for the building shown in the drawings or for the social and ideological impulses that impelled its creation. This article considers the Writing School in the context of contemporary debates and anxieties concerning the provision of education for the poor, and within the wider sphere of late seventeenth-century charity-school building. Wren’s involvement is considered in relation to his philanthropic interest in the charity-school movement. The article concludes with an analysis of the designs and building history of the Writing School, and, on the basis of previously unpublished eighteenth- and nineteenth-century graphic sources, discounts Giles Worsley’s suggestion that Hawksmoor added a pediment to the final design. Wren and Hawksmoor’s specific responsibilities for the conception, design and execution of the building are considered, and it is argued that, although Hawksmoor was responsible for most of the surviving drawings relating to the project, Wren directed the process, taking responsibility for all designs produced in his office and claiming authorship for the drawings produced.

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