The making of the fieldwork-er: debating agency in elites research

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattia Fumanti

Based on the outcome of 20 months fieldwork on the process of elite formation and the making of public space in a northern Namibian town, this paper explores the challenges of doing research among elites. Elites, whether political, economic, administrative, religious or traditional, occupy a prominent position within a community, which sets them apart from the rest of the population. While elite status inevitably brings to its members prestige, recognition and privileges, at the same time it often attracts criticism and suspicion of the elites' modus operandi. For these reasons the elites tend to keep an aura of secrecy around their activities, thus limiting access to their social milieu by outsiders. Beyond secrecy, in Africa, where the relationship between the elites and their subalterns is often socially and culturally regulated through age practices, generational difference can become a considerable hindrance for a young researcher. Taking inspiration from the work of feminist anthropologists, I reflect on my own experience to highlight the problematic role of the researcher's agency in the context of elite studies. Much as in the case of gender, I argue that age and generation regulates and determines the access of fieldworkers to their chosen field sites. As a consequence, fieldworkers doing research among elites have to constantly negotiate and adjust their position in the field. I aim to stress that while on many occasions these negotiations respond to the fieldworker's conscious intended strategies, in other circumstances there is little room for individual choices, let alone conscious and planned manoeuvering.

Rural History ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
STUART OGLETHORPE

Abstract:This article focuses on the mechanisation of agriculture in central Italy in the thirty years or so after 1945. This provides a particular way of examining the major changes in the rural landscape in this period, especially the end of the sharecropping system. Land in these regions had for centuries been predominantly farmed under sharecropping contracts, but for political, economic, and demographic reasons this system, which had inhibited modernisation, entered a rapid decline. Whereas labour supply had previously exceeded demand, the reverse became the case, allowing sharecropping families more freedom in how they operated. Mechanisation was not a ‘push’ factor, but as the agricultural labour force contracted it was a necessary response. The article uses individual testimony to illustrate how tenant farmers started to work outside the sharecropping contract, some becoming outside contractors with other farms and supplying tractor hire. The mechanisation of agriculture was slow and uneven, but marked an irreversible change in the relationship between farming families and their land.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 503
Author(s):  
Aloysius Ranggabumi Nuswantoro

Conflict occurs between two or more parties with different interests. Media related to conflict. The ability of the media to influence public opinion is the biggest element in the relationship between media with conflict. The media in this context can be a party that sparked the conflict but could also act as resolutor conflict. Media as a provocateur when play became an arm of one of the conflicting parties, while a conciliator conflict when showing neutrality and information that tends to peace (peace narrative). And theoretical studies should be conducted searches empirical facts on this subject, to clarify the position, the position and role of media in conflict situations. The results can also be used to see the extent to which the media contribute to creating conditions of public space and democratic deliberative. Against this, the choice to stick with journalism be the most appropriate choice for the media in an effort to maintain its position as an agent of democracy in society.


Author(s):  
Guillaume Heuguet

This exploratory text starts from a doctoral-unemployed experience and was triggered by the discussions within a collective of doctoral students on this particularly ambiguous status since it is situated between student, unemployed, worker, self-entrepreneur, citizen-subject of social rights or user-commuter in offices and forms. These discussions motivated the reading and commentary of a heterogeneous set of texts on unemployment, precariousness and the functioning of the institutions of the social state. This article thus focuses on the relationship between knowledge and unemployment, as embodied in the public space, in the relationship with Pôle Emploi, and in the academic literature. It articulates a threefold problematic : what is known and said publicly about unemployment? What can we learn from the very experience of the relationship with an institution like Pôle Emploi? How can these observations contribute to an understanding of social science inquiry and the political role of knowledge fromm precariousness?


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-468
Author(s):  
Adrienne M. Harris

This article uses the medium of film to analyze masculinities at the intersection of the regionally specific with the typical: the peripheral factory town with the universalizing panelák, or apartment block. This article addresses how the private spaces in industrial regions achieve new meaning when the role of the factory or public space, idealized in communist propaganda, has undergone a dramatic transformation. After the narratives that made spaces “great” became irrelevant in 1989 and the paneláky and factories lost their metaphorical meanings, they became simply apartment buildings and privately owned worksites. Within these spaces, many working-class men in industrial regions have faced more difficult transitions than women because they, as idealized workers under socialism, were more invested in the system and lost more from its collapse. Through an analysis of common themes in films released roughly fifteen years after the Velvet Revolution, the author asks how these men relate to the panelák, or private space, when excluded from the masculine, public space of the factory. How does the employment situation impact the family unit? What solutions do directors present to these men who find themselves ill-equipped for life in the industrial periphery after the post-1989 transition? This article draws from and contributes to recent work in the field of Czech gender studies and functions as a Czech case study on the relationship between gender and space in the former Eastern Bloc.


Author(s):  
Andrea Felicetti

This article advances one of the most important debates in recent scholarship on democratic theory: the one on deliberative systems. In the wake of the systemic turn deliberative scholars agree that not all components of a deliberative system can or even need to be deliberative. However, there is little clarity about the role of non-deliberative politics in a system and to what extent these are justifiable while we seek a more deliberative society. In this paper I first illustrate the main ideas of the systemic turn, explore the distinction between ‘deliberative’ and ‘non-deliberative’ politics and investigate the main arguments justifying non-deliberative politics. Then, I build upon these arguments to shed new light on the relationship between deliberative and non-deliberative politics. I identify three distinctive actors in deliberative systems (political institutions, empowered agents, and public space actors). Finally, I argue that deliberative democrats should adopt three different approaches (intensive, moderate, and free) in order to assess whether the use of non-deliberative politics by each of these actors is legitimate.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Rikmat Ismatullah

<p>M. Umer Chapra discusses various concepts that related to the Islamic economic system and compare with the conventional economic  system,  directions  and  challenges  facing  the  Islamic  economy in the future as well as, as the central theme of his book, he picked up the concept of  Ibn  Khaldun's economic  development.  Interestingly,  he  managed  to  formulate  the  concept  into  a  cycle  that  is  easy  to  understand.</p><p>He not only succeeded in formulating the concept of Ibn Khaldun into the cycle of increase progress and decrease cycles, but also he was able to further define the relationship between one component of development linkages with other components. Ibn  Khaldun  explains the important for  the development of Sharia  (S),  the development  community  (W),  law  enforcement  and  other  Development  (j &amp; g),  as well as the role of  Government (G).   Umer  Chapra  formulate  these  components  in  the  cycle,  the   cycle   advances  toward  him:  SNW-j &amp;  g-GS  and  other  cycle: j &amp; g-WNSG-j &amp; g. In this article, he discusses about some of the thinking of classical Islamic scholars who provide the base  foundation  in  the concept of Islamic  economics  in  particular  Ibn  Khaldun  in  his several works such as the Muqaddimah, which tried to  determine  factors  affecting  quality  by  analyzing  factors  such as the role  of interconnected moral factors, psychological, political, economic, social, demographic, and historical phenomena of the rise and fall of dynasties  and  civilizations.</p><p><strong>Key</strong><strong></strong><strong>words:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Capra</strong><strong>,</strong><strong> </strong><strong>Systems</strong><strong>, Economics, Islam.</strong></p>


Author(s):  
Magdalena Miśkowiec

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between an urban festival and changes in the social and spatial-functional structures in a city. We analyze the Light Move Festival in Łódź as a case study, showing the use of light in emphasizing local identity and cultural heritage. Data for this study was collected by means of interviews with the festival’s organizers. We also present data gathered in a survey conducted among the festival’s participants in 2016. The results show the social-demographic structure of the respondents, frequency of participation and source of information. We present the correlation between the festival’s spatial organization and the guidelines of the “Attractive Urban Spaces 2020+ Program” (Strategie przestrzennegorozwoju Łodzi 2020+ w ramach programu szczegółowego „Atrakcyjneprzestrzenie miejskie 2020+”). The study presents the possibility to use an urban festival as a local potential for building sustainable social and spatial policy. With constant population outflow, such events may help to attract new residents and rebuild the city’s image. It also creates an opportunity to test temporary traffic solutions and to familiarize the residents with them. Considering the revitalization actions undertaken by the city of Łódź, one might ask a question: What kind of impact does The Light Move Festival have on the city of Łódź?


Author(s):  
O. Moroz ◽  
V. Kotkevych

Problem setting. National identity is a multidimensional, complex phenomenon in which political and cultural (ethnic) factors combine and interact in some way. The question of their relationship, interaction and share in the formation of national communities has been the subject of long-standing debate . In Ukraine in a wide public space the ethnic paradigm of the nation dominates, according to which the phenomenon of the nation is maximally identified with the ethnos politically organized in its state. In academic circles, there is a much more complex vision of the essence of the nation. However, in the context of the problem of further development of Ukrainian national identity and national consolidation of Ukrainians, many authors focus primarily on the importance of the cultural factor. But, the importance of political factors of national consolidation is markedly underestimated. In particular, the question of the role of institutions of representative democracy and democratic political culture in the process of strengthening the current Ukrainian national identity, the difficulties and opportunities associated with them, is on the margins. Recent research and publications analysis. In Ukraine, a wide range of different aspects of the formation of modern Ukrainian national identity has been the subject of coverage in the monographs of M. Stepyko, M. Rozumny, articles by N. Pidberezhnyk, D. Kravchenko, O. Shaparenko, and other researchers. In the context of the analysis of the problem of national consolidation of Ukraine, A. Kolodiy presented her vision of the essence of the phenomenon of nation and national identity. In the collective monograph of scientists of the Institute of State and Law named after V. Koretsky presents an analysis of the specifics of the identity of the population of certain regions of Ukraine, proposals for effective mechanisms for its integration into the Ukrainian common national identity. Distinctive narratives of national identity that exist in Ukraine have been the subject of research by American political scientist K. Korostelina. British / Ukrainian researcher T. Kuzio addressed the problem of the interaction of different identity options and democratization processes in Ukraine in the post-Soviet period. In their reflections, these authors offered, in particular, the different visions of the share of political, ethnic and cultural components of national identity, the dynamics of their interaction in the process of national formation of modern Ukraine. Of particular note are the publications of Yu. Ruban, who pointed out, also in the Ukrainian context, the close interdependence between democratic institutions and national identity.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The relationship between the processes of formation of modern Ukrainian national identity and democratic values as its important and necessary component, democratic institutions, in particular, electoral and potential ways of national consolidation of Ukrainian citizens, needs to be studied in more detail.The purpose of the article is to determine the place and role of institutions of representative democracy in the processes of formation of Ukrainian national identity, in particular, taking into account current political changes, identifying related challenges and opportunities.Paper main body. For almost three decades of Ukraine’s independent state existence, its political development has taken place within the framework of democratic political institutions and has been carried out through the mechanisms of representative democracy. In the process of state/national development of Ukraine, the formation of its current national identity, the basic institutional components of democratic political procedures have proved to be a mandatory and permanent factor.  In the process of interaction between the government and society, its starting point is the legitimation of power in the eyes of citizens. Citizens’ perception of state power as legitimate appears to be in some way connected with the process of asserting national identity in its political dimension. It is democratic procedures in a pluralistic society that become the basis of the legitimacy of power.The central element of the democratic legitimization of power and one of the most important components of communication between government and society is elections, which in this aspect are essentially a factor in the formation of national identity. In the course of the electoral process, numerous group and individual identities that exist in society, in a certain way, manifest themselves in public space, in open and defined by certain rules rivalry with others.The common national idea / ideology and democratic principles of political coexistence are interrelated factors, because the formation of a common identity through dialogue, through the integration of human rights, political and civil liberties into the whole multidimensional construction of national identity can be a factor in consolidating society. Encouraging the integration of linguistic, ethnic and other minorities into the social and political space of a single state on the basis of interculturalism will thus contribute to the formation of a common civic identity in people with different (but at the same time in no way isolated from each other) cultural identities. Citizens’ perceptions of the state as an institution that takes into account their interests and values, a greater level of civic participation in decision-making and implementation will ultimately mean greater efficiency of democratic governance, thus contributing to socio-economic progress and stability of the entire socio-political system.  Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. The task of forming an image of national identity capable of integrating around itself, around the Ukrainian core, the achievements and values of various ethnic, linguistic and cultural minorities, politically united by the borders of the Ukrainian state, remains relevant. In this context, democratic institutions and values, forming the basis for constructive public articulation of different points of view and interests, have the potential to promote more effective government and intergroup communication, reduce conflict in society, feelings of alienation between government and certain groups.  Further prospects for research in this area are a more detailed analysis of the relationship between the democratic mechanisms of public communication and the peculiarities of the formation of the current Ukrainian national identity and national consolidation. In particular, in this context, the appropriate influence of the specifics of electoral procedures and processes, different forms of government needs to be considered separately.


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bambang Karsono ◽  
Sri Shindi Indira ◽  
Deni Deni

Uniqueness, comfort, security and safety are attributes in a place that can influence the place attachment. Place attachment is the relationship of function and emotional components between people and place that creates meaning. Place attachment in public open spaces is usually related with the bond of the people and its physical environment and also the perception either negative or positive of the place. This research examine the role of uniqueness, comfort, security and safety as attributes which influenced the place attachment in the Kuching Riverfront Promenade (KRP), a popular public space among the locals people. Mixed method approach was using in this research to discovers the role of attributes to place attachment. A total of 165 respondents and 18 stall operators were interviewed, at the same time field survey was conducted in a selected area of the promenade. Findings indicated that the attributes: uniqueness, comfort, security and safety have a strong impact to respondents to identify the local environment and it exerts influence on the place attachment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1131-1152
Author(s):  
Luis M. Sierra

This essay examines the racialization of space and the role of memory in the twentieth-century urbanization of La Paz, Bolivia. Historical memory linked particular races to specific spaces; this in turn helped determine spending on infrastructure, hygiene, and other urban projects. The essay analyzes the ways in which the extramuro (outside the walls of the city) was marked as the place for undesirable, but necessary elements of the city, and as the point of origin for the filth and a whole host of diseases within the city. The relationship between La Paz and the discourses on indígenas in public space in the twentieth century takes center stage: these discourses marked indígenas as undesirable and yet redeemable. This essay analyzes the close connection between the construction of race and the urbanization of that same space. I conclude by reassessing the links between race, space, and memory in Bolivia.


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