scholarly journals Devising Consumption: cultural economies of insurance, credit and spending

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz McFall
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Economies

Devising Consumption explores the vital role played by thefinancial service industries in enabling the poor to consumeover the last hundred and fifty years. Spending requiresmeans, but these industries also offered practical marketingdevices that captured, captivated and enticed poorconsumers. The role of these devices has been poorlyunderstood both in the social sciences and in businessstudies and marketing. The book advances the case for a morepragmatic understanding of how ordinary, dull, everydayconsumption is arranged, and offers an alternative toorthodox approaches.

Underdevelopment, Obstacles to the Perception of Change, and Leadership

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert O. Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The Real ◽  
Cumulative Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Intellectual Leadership

This chapter challenges the defeatism of Hirschman's friends and colleagues during the 1950s–1960s, when numerous political and social upheavals were happening worldwide. In this chapter, Hirschman explains that many of the so-called “structural causes”—a term advanced by his Latin American colleagues in the social sciences which refers to entrenched obstacles that make all efforts to change self-defeating—are ideological constructs. The chapter discusses two obstacles to the perception of change: the persistence of traits which are related to the “little traditions,” as well as the bias in the perception of cumulative change. It argues that the real, “stealthy” change that was actually occurring is being obscured in the process and the vital role of political and intellectual leadership is thus ignored.

Poverty and Penia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This chapter lays out the theoretical approach for the book and discusses the methodological problems of writing about poverty and the poor in the ancient world. Whilst studying the lives of the poor in the ancient world is to some extent elusive, it argues that historians can do more than simply imagine this group of people back into the gaps left by other evidence. As well as reviewing previous scholarship on poverty in the ancient world, it suggests a way forward which is more in line with contemporary poverty research within the social sciences.

Concluding Summary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Research ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the argument of the book. It elaborates some of the benefits of Literalism, such as less conceptual confusion and an expanded range of entities for research that might illuminate human cognition. It motivates distinguishing the questions of whether something has a cognitive capacity from whether it is intuitively like us. It provides a conceptual foundation for the social sciences appropriate for the increasing role of modeling in these sciences. It also promotes convergence in terms of the roles of internal and external factors in explaining both human and nonhuman behavior. Finally, it sketches some of the areas of new research that it supports, including group cognition and artificial intelligence.

A Phenomenology of Rhythm

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lexi Eikelboom
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Importance ◽  
Jazz Performance

This chapter proposes a framework for approaching the theological significance of rhythm through phenomenology, prosody, and the social sciences. In accordance with the general categories of phenomenology established by Merleau-Ponty and the “rhythmanalysis” of Henri Lefebvre, the chapter investigates two experiences of rhythm: approaches to analysing the human encounter with rhythm in the reading of poetry and the role of rhythm in social interactions introduced through commonalities between rhythm in conversation and in jazz performance. These explorations establish two features of rhythm that are of analytical importance for the chapters that follow: (1) the synchronic and the diachronic as two necessary but distinct theoretical perspectives on rhythm, each of which emphasizes different features of rhythm and (2) the importance of interruption for understanding rhythm’s significance.

Indonesian Historical Writing after Independence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Dutch Version ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Academic History ◽  
Artistic Representations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Military ◽  
Local Perspectives

This chapter discusses Indonesian historical writing after independence. At the time Indonesia became independent, knowledge of academic history-writing was virtually non-existent. Indonesian elites then faced the postcolonial predicament of having to adopt Western nationalistic approaches to history in order to oppose the Dutch version of the archipelago’s history that had legitimized colonial domination. Soon after independence, the military took over and dominated the writing of history in Indonesia for several decades. Challenges to the military’s view of history came from artistic representations of history, and from historians—trained in the social sciences—who emphasized a multidimensional approach balancing central and local perspectives. However, it was only after 2002 that historians could openly criticize the role of the military.

Reconsidering American Power

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
American Power ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Sponsorship ◽  
To Come

Postcolonial studies, postmodern studies, even posthuman studies emerge, and intellectuals demand that social sciences be remade to address fundamentals of the human condition, from human rights to global environmental crises. Since these fields owe so much to American state sponsorship, is it easier to reimagine the human and the modern than to properly measure the pervasive American influence? Reconsidering American Power offers trenchant studies by renowned scholars who reassess the role of the social sciences in the construction and upkeep of the Pax Americana and the influence of Pax Americana on the social sciences. With the thematic image for this enterprise as the ‘fiery hunt’ for Ahab’s whale, the contributors pursue realities behind the theories, and reconsider the real origins and motives of their fields with an eye on what will deter or repurpose the ‘fiery hunts’ to come, by offering a critical insider’s view.

The Politics of Global Health Inequalities

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-84
Author(s):  
Yusra Ribhi Shawar ◽  
Jennifer Prah Ruger
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Health Inequality ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Health ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
The Social

Careful investigations of the political determinants of health that include the role of power in health inequalities—systematic differences in health achievements among different population groups—are increasing but remain inadequate. Historically, much of the research examining health inequalities has been influenced by biomedical perspectives and focused, as such, on ‘downstream’ factors. More recently, there has been greater recognition of more ‘distal’ and ‘upstream’ drivers of health inequalities, including the impacts of power as expressed by actors, as well as embedded in societal structures, institutions, and processes. The goal of this chapter is to examine how power has been conceptualised and analysed to date in relation to health inequalities. After reviewing the state of health inequality scholarship and the emerging interest in studying power in global health, the chapter presents varied conceptualisations of power and how they are used in the literature to understand health inequalities. The chapter highlights the particular disciplinary influences in studying power across the social sciences, including anthropology, political science, and sociology, as well as cross-cutting perspectives such as critical theory and health capability. It concludes by highlighting strengths and limitations of the existing research in this area and discussing power conceptualisations and frameworks that so far have been underused in health inequalities research. This includes potential areas for future inquiry and approaches that may expand the study of as well as action on addressing health inequality.

Social Ontology and Model-Building: A Response to Epstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Nadia Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.

French female youth and sports inspectors and the challenge of neoliberalism during the Trente Glorieuses

2021 ◽  
pp. 175774382110372
Author(s):  
Clémence Lebossé ◽  
Carine Érard ◽  
Christian Vivier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Human And Social Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Trente Glorieuses ◽  
Psychological Dimensions

In a society where the politics of life is geared toward maximizing the physical and psychological dimensions of human capital to ensure economic growth, France’s Inspectorate for Youth and Sports played a key role in disseminating a new mode of governance of bodies and youth—a form of self-governance based on the rising neoliberal values that emerged during the period of the Trente Glorieuses. Representing a tiny minority in an essentially male bastion, a small number of women, cherry-picked for their expertise and effectiveness as inspectors, came to play a vital role in a new mode of youth governance aimed, against a backdrop of social control, at encouraging young people to assume greater self-responsibility and to take ownership of their physical education and activities. Guided by research in the human and social sciences as a basis for rethinking how physical education is taught in schools, women may be seen as key contributors to the emergence of a new ethos designed to develop the ability of French youth to adapt to the social and economic transformation of capitalist society by appealing to the psyche (superego) and self-regulation. Despite promoting a “differentialist feminism”.

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