Poets and Prostitutes: Sexual Morality in Malawian Poetry

Imbizo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Junior Lipenga
Keyword(s):  
Human Subjects ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Female Prostitute

The social phenomenon of prostitution is to be found throughout the world. Malawi is no exception. Rather than reading it from a sociological perspective, however, this article examines the representation of the prostitute in Malawian poetry. This position is informed by the contention that literature has an illocutionary force that offers a novel view of social phenomena, in some instances permitting a closer, more intimate engagement with the human subjects at the centre of the text, with the aim of enabling fresh conceptions of that subject. In the past few decades, the figure of the female prostitute has arisen occasionally in the verse of several male Malawian poets. It is the opinion of this article that, in their representation of this individual, the poets seek to expose the prostitute’s humanity, in opposition to the overriding denigration of her as a harbinger of disease and immorality. The exercise proceeds by examining eight poems written by well-known Malawian poets: Jack Mapanje, Steve Chimombo, David Rubadiri, Felix Mnthali, John Lwanda and Stanley Onjezani Kenani. In several of the poems, the writers address the women by specific names—Fiona, Tamara, Antonina—as an attempt to humanise them, to cleanse them of the appellation of monstrosity that has often been directed at the prostitute. It is an attempt to re-centre a figure that has existed on the margins of Malawian society, by according them agency and sympathy.

The Concept of Understanding the Social Phenomenon in Its Theoretical Images: From Reconstruction to Scenario Design

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-1) ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
Viktoria Vikhman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Description Language ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Future Scenario ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scenario Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Future Events

This article is devoted to solving the problem of epistemological and ontological insufficiency of traditional scientific approaches applied to the comprehension of social phenomena presented in their disordered, chaotic multidisciplinary theoretical images (interpretations). A comprehensive and in-depth analysis of disciplinary strategies / programs for comprehending social phenomena that serve as the object of scientific views of a number of scientific fields has shown that they demonstrate a pronounced methodological approach, lack of clarity of which description language describes / is able to fully describe their object of scientific knowledge. The key specificity of the problematization of the article is determined by the fact that the focus is on the process / result of reconstructing / constructing theoretical interpretations of a social phenomenon taken in the coordinates of space and time. It is proposed to correlate the following processes with the process of understanding the theoretical interpretations of the studied social phenomenon: reconstruction (past, present) and scenario construction (present, future). The author's analytical position is determined by the fact that theoretical interpretations of the perceived social phenomenon will always belong exclusively to the past and future of its plans, but not to the present. This implicit, but very important facet, unfortunately, escapes in the dominant and well-established theoretical reflection of social phenomena today. The main purpose of this publication is to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties, relying on the proposed universal concept of comprehension of multidisciplinary social phenomena. The author's approach proposed in the publication, based on the idea of understanding the theoretical interpretations of the social phenomenon under study belonging to the world of the past (reconstruction - for understanding the theorizations of its past events) and the future (scenario construction - for reflection on the theoretical pictures of its future events), is designed to overcome the discovered problem. Summarizing, the paper formulated the principles for determining the optimal way to comprehend social phenomena and the key prohibitions dictated by the author's concept of comprehending social phenomena revealed to the researcher in their multidisciplinary interpretations /theorizations.

scholarly journals Forecast Hesitancy: Why are People Reluctant to Believe, Accept, or Respond to Various Weather, Water, and Climate Hazard-Related Forecasts?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Glantz ◽  
Gregory E. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
Societal Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Risk Reducing ◽  
Delayed Responses

AbstractCurrent discussions of the social phenomenon of “vaccine hesitancy” with regard to Covid-19 provide an opportunity to use hesitancy as a means to shift thinking about untimely and delayed responses to forecasts of hydrometeorological hazards. Hesitancy, that is, provides a paradigm through which such regrettably delayed responses to hydromet hazards might be better understood and effectively addressed. Without exaggeration, just about every hydromet event provides an example of how hesitancy hinders individual, community, and national government risk-reducing preventive and mitigative responses to forecasts of foreseeable, relatively near-term climate, water, or weather hazards. Reasons for such hesitancy (for vaccine and forecast use alike) include—among others—lack of trust in the science, lack of confidence in government, and persistent concern about the uncertainties that surround forecasting—both meteorological and public health. As such, a better understanding of the causes that lead to individual and group hesitancy can better inform hydromet forecasters and affected communities about ways in which beneficial actions in response to timely forecasts are often delayed. This better understanding will facilitate, where necessary, targeted interventions to enhance the societal value of forecasting by reducing this long-observed challenge of “forecast hesitancy.” First, this article focuses on incidents of “vaccine hesitancy” that, for various reasons, people around the world are even now experiencing with regard to several now-available, and confirmed efficacious, Covid-19 vaccines. Reports of such incidents of indecisiveness first increased dramatically over the first few months of 2021, despite the strong scientific confidence that vaccination would significantly lower personal risk of contracting as well as spreading the virus. After, the notion of forecast hesitancy with regard to hydrometeorological hazards is discussed.It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.-Frank Luntz (2007)

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

scholarly journals Rola języka w uwalnianiu się z dziedzicznych traum

Politeja ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2(65)) ◽  
pp. 189-204
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Marcol
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Village

The Role of Language in Releasing from Inherited Traumas. Negotiations of the Social Position of the Silesian Minority in Serbian Banat The aim of the paper is to show the dependence between language, collective memory (also post-memory) and sense of identity. This issue is analysed using the example of an ethnic minority living in the village of Ostojićevo (Banat, Serbia) called ‘Toutowie.’ Their ancestors came in the 19th century from Wisła (Silesian Cieszyn, Poland); they left their homes because of great hunger and were looking for jobs in Banat. Narratives about the past contain traumatic experiences of the past generations transmitted in the Silesian dialect and constituting communicative memory. At the same time, a new Polish national identity is being constructed, supported by institutions and authorities; it carries a new image of the world and creates a new cultural memory. This new identity – shaped on the basis of national categories – leads to changes of its self-identification and gives the opportunity to raise its social position in the multi-ethnic Banat community.

Elections and Social Media

2015 ◽  
pp. 314-328
Author(s):  
Ahmet Sarıtaş ◽  
Elif Esra Aydın
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
The Past ◽  
Target Mass ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Today, using of the internet extended social media by individuals habitually enables both the business firms and politicians to reach their target mass at any time. In this context, internet has become a popular place recently where political communication and campaigns are realized by ensuring a new dimension to political campaigns. When we examine the posts and discussions in the social media, we can say that they are converted into open political sessions. As there are no censorship in such channels, individuals have a freedom to reach to any partial/impartial information and obtain transparent and fast feedback, and with this regard, political parties, leaders and candidates have a chance to be closer to electors. In this study, it is aimed to give information about the social media, present what medium has been used for election campaigns from the past until today and besides, by considering the effects of effective and efficient use of social media and new trends related to the internet by politicians, together with their applications in the world, to make suggestions about its situation and application in Turkey.

Critical Times for the Social Contract

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Political Turmoil ◽  
Critical Times

This chapter proposes a theory of the social contract, in the context of the gilets jaunes. This theory is detailed in the five chapters that follow. The theory proposed here is that the movement itself is best understood as a fundamental challenge to the existing social contract in France — and by extension to other social contracts throughout the world — and its history is not limited to the months of political turmoil it engendered in France or even to the past couple of years of political upheaval in the wider world, but it poses a challenge to the very future of political order. A rethinking of the social contract is necessary given this crisis, and framing the present political turmoil in philosophical terms will help shed some light on the opportunities for change that are arising, in part thanks to the movement.

Conclusion

A Child's Day ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 165-178
Author(s):  
Killian Mullan
Keyword(s):  
Time Use ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Uk

This concluding chapter surveys the key findings and issues raised in the previous chapters. This study of a child's day provides the most extensive picture currently available in the UK, and elsewhere in the world, into how children's time use has changed over the past several decades. It identifies areas of expected change as well as other areas of surprising stability. It reveals how change and stability in children's time use blend together to comprise a child's day, uncovering also the multi-layered contexts of a child's day. Aspects of children's time use, and how this may have changed, will no doubt continue to surface in public debate in connection with their well-being. While welcoming this, it is necessary to always question and seek to understand how supposed changes actually fit within a child's day, the types of days where these changes are concentrated, among whom, and to seek out evidence on how such changes relate to other activities and the social contexts of daily life.

Living with Disasters: Perspectives on the (Re-)Production of Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Swee ◽  
Zuzana Hrdličková
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
General Public ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Local Agencies ◽  
Consequent Increase

Although communities around the world have been experiencing destructive events leading to loss of life and material destruction for centuries, the past hundred years have been marked by an especially heightened global interest in disasters. This development can be attributed to the rising impact of disasters on communities throughout the twentieth century and the consequent increase in awareness among the general public. Today, international and local agencies, scientists, politicians, and other actors including nongovernmental organizations across the world are working toward untangling and tackling the various chains of causality surrounding disasters. Numerous research and practitioners’ initiatives are taking place to inform and improve preparedness and response mechanisms. Recently, it has been acknowledged that more needs to be learned about the social and cultural aspects of disasters in order for these efforts to be successful (IFRC 2014).

The World the Bedouin Lived in: Climate, Migration and Politics in the Early Modern Arab East

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-55
Author(s):  
Astrid Meier ◽  
Tariq Tell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Marginal Zones

Environmental history provides a perspective from which we can deepen our understanding of the past because it examines the relationships of people with their material surroundings and the effects of those relationships on the individual as well as the societal level. It is a perspective that holds particular promise for the social and political history of arid and marginal zones, as it contributes to our understanding of the reason some groups are more successful than others in coping with the same environmental stresses. Historians working on the early modern Arab East have only recently engaged with the lively field of global environmental history. After presenting a brief overview of some strands of this research, this article illustrates the potential of this approach by looking closely at a series of conflicts involving Bedouin and other power groups in the southern parts of Bilād al-Shām around the middle of the eighteenth century.

Structural Metadata and the Social Limitation of Interoperability: A Sociotechnical View of XML and Digital Library Standards Development

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome McDonough
Keyword(s):  
Local Control ◽  
Digital Library ◽  
Markup Languages ◽  
The Past ◽  
Library Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Standards Development ◽  
External Connection ◽  
Standard Development

The past decade has seen the rise of both the XML standard and a variety of XML-based structural metadata schemas within the digital library community. Both XML itself, and the metadata schemas developed by the digital library community can be considered as cases of sociotechnical artifacts, constructions that bear within them their designers' worldview of how people within the world should appropriate and use their technology. If we examine the metadata schemas produced by the digital library community, we find that the designers' inscription strongly favors local control over encoding practice to insuring interoperability between institutions. If the goal of digital library interoperability is to be realized, schema designers will need to acknowledge the tension between local control and external connection using markup languages, and adjust their standard development efforts accordingly.

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