Social Suffering after the Sewol Ferry Sinking : On Representation, Experience and Intervention

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyeon Jung Lee
Keyword(s):  
2012 ◽  
Vol 60 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 108-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmin Gunaratnam

The practice of live sociology in situations of pain and suffering is the focus of this article. An outline of the challenges of understanding pain is followed by a discussion of Bourdieu's ‘social suffering’ (1999) and the palliative care philosophy of ‘total pain’. Using examples from qualitative research on disadvantaged dying migrants in the UK, attention is given to the methods that are improvised by dying people and care practitioners in attempts to bridge intersubjective divides, where the causes and routes of pain can be ontologically and temporally indeterminate and/or withdrawn. The paper contends that these latter phenomena are the incitement for the inventive bridging and performative work of care and live sociological methods, both of which are concerned with opposing suffering. Drawing from the philosophy of total pain, I highlight the importance of (1) an engagement with a range of materials out of which attempts at intersubjective bridging can be produced, and which exceed the social, the material, and the temporally linear; and (2) an empirical sensibility that is hospitable to the inaccessible and non-relational.


2021 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 106781
Author(s):  
Daniela Cohen ◽  
Daniel H. Landau ◽  
Doron Friedman ◽  
Béatrice S. Hasler ◽  
Nava Levit-Binnun ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Justin Raycraft

This paper addresses how Makonde Muslim villagers living on the Swahili coast of southern Tanzania conceptualize and discuss environmental change. Through narratives elicited during in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, I show that respondents associate various forms of environmental change—ecological, climatic, political, and socioeconomic—with God’s plan. Respondents had a sound grasp of the material workings of their lived realities and evoked religious causality to fill in the residual explanatory gaps and find meaning in events that were otherwise difficult to explain. Such narratives reveal both a culturally engrained belief system that colors people’s understandings of change and uncertainty and a discursive idiom for making sense of social suffering. On an applied note, I submit that social science approaches to studying environmental change must take into account political and economic contexts relative to local cosmologies, worldviews, and religious faiths, which may not disaggregate the environment into distinct representational categories.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 190-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brid Featherstone ◽  
Anna Gupta ◽  
Kate Morris

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to move away from a sole focus on assessing and dealing with individualised risk factors in order to more fully engage with and understand the social determinants of many of the harms that are manifest in families. Design/methodology/approach It draws from a number of research studies being conducted by the authors and a literature on psycho-social approaches to social suffering. Findings It highlights the evidence on the contribution of poverty and inequality to many of the problems encountered within families. It explores how hurt, shame and loss are experienced by those who are marginalised and struggling to live well and care safely for themselves and others. Practical implications It highlights the practice implications of adopting an approach that engages with both the social and the psychological and understands their inter-relationship. It offers some thoughts on how the social in psycho-social might receive the attention it deserves, a situation which does not pertain currently. Originality/value It offers an original contribution to thinking in the area of child protection where the focus is primarily on individualised risk factors. It highlights the importance of understanding the social determinants of many of the harms experienced in families and offers some pointers towards thinking and practising differently.


Author(s):  
Linda Brooks

Linda Brooks examines the impact of the current government austerity measures experienced at a local charity based in the borough of Castle Point in Essex. Linda draws from first-hand experience of working with young adults to provide valuable insights into the direct impact of austerity measures as lived under social suffering. She employs ethnographic and biographical approaches to show real life examples of the impact of government austerity measures, which increase social disadvantage for young people within the local communities.


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