scholarly journals Introduction

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-77
Author(s):  
Ronald S. Stade
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Military

Concepts have cultural biographies and social lives. Some concepts become social and political keywords that can be both indicative of and instrumental in social and political conflicts. (It might even be possible to speak of conceptual violence.) But they are not just contentious; they also tend to be contested. Contentious and contested concepts have been studied by historians and social scientists from varying temporal and spatial horizons. It is a research area that lends itself to cross-disciplinary approaches, as is demonstrated in the three contributions to this section, the first of which investigates the Russian obsession with the concept of “Europe.” The second contribution to the section explores the military roots of the concept of “creative thinking,” and the final contribution examines the social life of “political correctness” as a fighting word.

The Social Life of Fighting Words

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-124
Author(s):  
Ronald S. Stade
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Contemporary Context

Political correctness has become a fighting word used to dismiss and discredit political opponents. The article traces the conceptual history of this fighting word. In anthropological terms, it describes the social life of the concept of political correctness and its negation, political incorrectness. It does so by adopting a concept-in-motion methodology, which involves tracking the concept through various cultural and political regimes. It represents an attempt to synthesize well-established historiographic and anthropological approaches. A Swedish case is introduced that reveals the kind of large-scale historical movements and deep-seated political conflicts that provide the contemporary context for political correctness and its negation. Thereupon follows an account of the conceptual history of political correctness from the eighteenth century up to the present. Instead of a conventional conclusion, the article ends with a political analysis of the current rise of fascism around the world and how the denunciation of political correctness is both indicative of and instrumental in this process.

“It's Not Just a Bunch of Buildings”: Social Psychological Investment, Sense of Community, and Collective Efficacy in a Multiethnic Low–Income Neighborhood

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Walton
Keyword(s):  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Social Disorganization ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social

This analysis of social life in a poor, multiethnic public housing neighborhood presents an opportunity for refinement of social disorganization theory. Drawing on data from interviews, focus groups, and participant observations among residents, I find that this neighborhood exhibits substantial collective efficacy, despite social disorganization theory's predictions that the structural conditions of high poverty and racial and ethnic diversity result in low collective efficacy. I explicate two social psychological investment strategies—sense of ownership and symbolic representation—that appear to facilitate a sense of community and ultimately collective efficacy, helping to explain this apparent anomaly. I argue that even in the presence of structural disadvantage, having a strong sense of community provides a basis for beneficial action on behalf of the collective because it constitutes a source of shared expectations about values and norms in the neighborhood. These findings suggest refinements to the social disorganization framework, but also provide foundational ideas for policy interventions that may improve the social lives of residents in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE: REFLECTIONS ON THE ANALYSIS OF PIETY POLITICS

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-415
Author(s):  
Dunya D. Cakir
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Women Intellectuals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Discourses ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Intellectual Activism

AbstractExamining the writings of prominent Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey, including Fatma Barbarosoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, Yıldız Ramazanoğlu, and Nazife Şişman, this article explores the repercussions of their intellectual activism for how scholars understand and study piety politics. These Islamist women intellectuals, whose discourse and subjectivities have been translated into analytical categories by scholars of piety politics, contest the terms of their encounters with academics and, more broadly, the conversion of Muslim women into objects of research. Their writings shed light on the complex interpretative interplay between academic and lay discourse when the objects of scholarly study speak back to social scientists. I argue that these kinds of critical engagements between Islamist women intellectuals and social scientific discourses attest to the mobility and circularity of social scientific categories, which have infused and reconstituted Islamist debates in Turkey. Rather than uncritically endorse or dispute these intellectuals’ interpretations of social scientific accounts, I leverage their claims to underscore the social life of academic discourse and to promote an enriched vision of piety politics and reflexive methodology.

Globalizations

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Osterhammel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
World History ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Characteristic Features

The revival of world history towards the end of the twentieth century was intimately connected with the rise of a new master concept in the social sciences: globalization. Historians and social scientists responded to the same generational experience that the interconnectedness of social life on the planet had arrived at a new level of intensity. The conclusions drawn from this insight in the various academic disciplines diverged considerably. The early theorists of globalization in sociology, political science, and economics disdained a historical perspective. The new concept seemed ideally suited to grasp the characteristic features of contemporary society. It helped to pinpoint the very essence of present-day modernity. Globalization opened up a way towards the social science mainstream, provided elements of a fresh terminology to a field that had suffered for a long time from an excess of descriptive simplicity.

The Role of the Law Graduate in the Political Elite of Imperial Brazil

1976 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderick Barman ◽  
Jean Barman
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Secular Trend ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Standard Interpretation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Annales School ◽  
The Military ◽  
Analytical Approaches

By the application of fresh analytical approaches such as prosopography and the concepts of “secular trend” and “conjuncture” pioneered by the Annales school, historians are at last beginning to probe the social and political structures of Latin America in the national period. What before had been surmised or supposed, particularly in regard to the dominance of political and social life by elites, can now be quantitatively confirmed, while the identification of secular trends permits the historian to penetrate behind the confusion of the incidentals to the basic characteristics of the different nations and their evolution over time.The standard interpretation of Imperial Brazil (1822-1889) has until recently been that of a stable but anomalous monarchy dominated for most of its existence by its ruler Pedro II. The aging of the Emperor, the abolition of slavery on which the regime is conceived as being based, the discontents of the military, and the inevitable advance of Republicanism have been taken as the principal causes for the collapse of the Brazilian Empire on November 15, 1889.

scholarly journals The Social Life of “Scaffolds”

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Parry
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Prosthetic Device ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Product Failure ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Systemic Drug

Technologies for enhancement of the human body historically have taken the form of an apparatus: a technological device inserted in, or appended to, the human body. The margins of these devices were clearly discernible and materially circumscribed, allowing the distinction between the corporeality of the human body and the “machine” to remain both ontologically and materially secure. This dualism has performed some important work for human rights theorists, regulators, and policy makers, enabling each to imagine they can establish where the human ends and the other begins. New regenerative products such as Infuse™ and Amplify™ subsist, as animal-derived scaffolds seeded with growth hormone implanted within a prosthetic device. They are much more materially complex, and their identities thus remain open to contestation. Following Lochlann Jain’s 2006 work, I thus attend closely to their social lives, particularly the stories that are told about them and how these are employed to construct understandings of what kind of a phenomenon they are: systemic drug, biologic, or combinatorial medical device. The significance of this classificatory project is revealed in the final section of this paper, which explores how these stories shape understandings of “product failure,” liability, and causation when such products overflow their material and ontological categorization and their recipients become disturbingly “more than human.”

scholarly journals Ferdinand Tönnies és a korai társadalomtudományok, I. rész

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 232-241
Author(s):  
Endre Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Community Theory ◽  
Open Relationship ◽  
Clear Idea ◽  
Relationship Structure ◽  
The Right

The theory of society-community stands in the centre of the „social” life. It however also stands in the centre of Tönnies’s positive work itself. This potentiation gives this theory a vitality that is looking for its equivalent and to which little is changed if its presence is not perceived accordingly in every corresponding context. Tönnies is one of the first most important social scientists, who was primarily concerned with being able to investigate society with a strictly scientific character. So he was already therefore much more interested in the optimal way of knowledge than in the diverse concrete results or even in the theoretical possibility of generalization of these results. The society-community theory is an epochal achievement, its result one of the bases of the social existence. It is certainly there, that the rare „open relationship structure” of both these categories is playing. Like many others, we decide to campaign against the political instrumentalization of the society-community theory, there is by no means any denying the fact, that it has extremely deeply secured this dichotomy in the structure-building principles of the political discourse. We see the force of the debate on the ideal level: diabolization and idealization are alternating in symmetrical order obvious. The first social scientists were in multiple paradoxical situations. The first paradox consisted in the fact, that had a very clear idea of a „science” of the society. Because however, such a „science” was not yet existing, they were constrained to make „philosophically” the first steps, but of course not how the „right” philosophers would have done them. The other paradox and eternally opened question are why the „society” as the object remained temporally so much behind the „nature” as an object. It is also hardly less interesting, why the new social sciences did not already emerge in Marx’s environment. The historically belated social science experiences in the medium of this situation a vocation to become a pioneer. Simmel also adheres consistently to his often formulated youth insight that a „new science” will emerge in any case around the society.

scholarly journals Znaczenie uroczystości kultowych w życiu społecznym armii rzymskiej okresu pryncypatu w świetle Feriale duranum

Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 273-286
Author(s):  
Tomasz Dziurdzik
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Free Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Military ◽  
Military Communities

The aim of the present paper is to thoroughly reconstruct the meaning of the official cult ceremonies for the social life of the Roman Imperial army. Crucial to the analysis is the evidence produced by the Feriale Duranum, a papyrus docu­ment dating to the reign of Severus Alexander, but supported also by other sources. The matter of loyalty to the state and ruler is characteristic of most military ceremonies. Hierarchy and social order are emphasised as well, all four being values important for the military ideology. Participation in the same rites influ­enced the morale and esprit de corps not only in a particular unit, but also within the whole army. Therefore one can view the rites as an expression of a military identity, serving also to distinguish the soldiers as a separate social group. The of­ficial holidays were also of importance for the private life of a soldier, being one of few occasions when exemption from work and free time were granted. This made such ceremonies a welcome break from camp routine. As such, the official military religious rites were vital for the social life of both individual soldiers and military communities, be it units or even the whole army.

scholarly journals A Pragmatist's Guide to Prediction in the Social Sciences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Verhagen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Simple Technique ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Many

Making out-of-sample predictions is an under-utilised tool in the social sciences, often for the wrong reasons. Many social scientists confuse prediction with unnecessarily complicated methods, or narrowly predicting the future. This is unfortunate, because prediction understood as the simple process of evaluating a model outside of the sample used for estimation is a much more general, and disarmingly simple technique that brings a host of benefits to our empirical workflow. One needn't use complicated methods or be solely concerned with predicting the future to use prediction, nor is it necessary to resolve the centuries-old philosophical debate between prediction and explanation to appreciate its benefits. Prediction can and should be used as a simple complement to the rich methodological tradition in the social sciences, and is equally applicable across a vast multitude of modelling approaches, owing to its simplicity and intuitive nature. For all its simplicity, the value of prediction should not be underestimated. Prediction can address some of the most enduring sources of criticism plaguing the social sciences, like lack of external validity and the use of overly simplistic models to capture social life. In this paper, I illustrate these benefits with a host of empirical examples that merely skim the surface of the many and varied ways in which prediction can be applied, staking the claim that prediction is one of those illustrious `free lunches' that can greatly benefit the empirical social sciences.

scholarly journals The social life of time and methods: Studying London’s temporal architectures

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 604-631
Author(s):  
Ella Harris ◽  
Rebecca Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Temporal Logics ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Rhythms

This paper contributes to work on the social life of time. It focuses on how time is doubled; produced by, and productive of, the relations and processes it operates through. In particular, it explores the methodological implications of this conception of time for how social scientists may study the doubledness of time. It draws on an allied move within the social sciences to see methods as themselves doubled, as both emerging from and constitutive of the social worlds that they seek to understand. We detail our own very different methodological experiments with studying the social life of time in London, engaging interactive documentary to elucidate nonlinear imaginaries of space-time in London’s pop-up culture (Ella Harris) and encountering time on a series of walks along a particular stretch of road in south east London (Beckie Coleman). While clearly different projects in terms of their content, ambition and scope, in bringing these projects together, we show the ability of our methods to grasp and perform from multiple angles and scales what Sharma (2014) calls ‘temporal architectures’. Temporal architectures, composed of elements including the built environment, commodities, services, technologies and labour, are infrastructures that enable social rhythms and temporal logics and that can entail a politicized valuing of the time of certain groups over others. We aim to contribute to an expanded and enriched conceptualisation of methods for exploring time, considering what our studies might offer to work on the doubled social life of time and methods, and highlighting in particular their implications for an engagement with a politics of time and temporality.

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