scholarly journals In between Birth and Death, Past and Future, the Self and the Others: An Anthropological Insight on Commemorative and Celebrative Tattoos in Central Italy

Religions ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Federica Manfredi
Keyword(s):  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Plastic Stage ◽  
Cultural Gaps

European society has been described more than once as poor in shared rites of passage. The manipulation of skin seems to be an increasingly popular solution to fulfil perceived cultural gaps. Can contemporary tattoos be interpreted as tools of commemorating life events, especially in the occasion of births and deaths? This article analyses meanings associated with tattoos collected during two ethnographies in central Italy. Based on qualitative interviews and participant observation, the first fieldwork focuses on death-commemorative tattoos, while a 2020 (n)ethnography investigates birth-celebrative tattoos. Data confirm that the body is the mirror of the self and the skin works as the plastic stage where the embodiment of mourning and other emotions meets the social world. Tattoos are attempts of personalized spiritualities, where births and deaths become key-moments of existence that are elected pillars of the self. However, they are not (only) a private affair. This paper addresses the intersubjective valence of tattoos and their communicative purpose. In parallel with references related to both the self and the others, ethnographical data support an interpretation of tattoos as modern self-making strategies, applied to re-ordinate the past and to project a suitable self for the future.

The Feeling of Being a Body: Resurrection and Habitus in Vaughan’s Medical Writings

2021 ◽  
pp. 124-147
Author(s):  
Daniel Juan Gil
Keyword(s):  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Devotional Writings

Chapter 4 articulates more explicitly than the previous chapter the way resurrection beliefs in Vaughan’s poetry function as “critical theory” about selfhood, identity, and the social world. The chapter examines Vaughan’s devotional and religious “self-help” literature and Vaughan’s translation and expansion of a hermetic medical treatise. Vaughan’s immanent corporeal resurrectionist commitment to finding the “seeds” of resurrection leads him to posit an essential core of bodily life—the radical balsam—that seeks eternal life but that is sickened when it is penetrated and rewired by the social and historical world. The goal of Vaughan’s devotional writings and medicine alike is to rewire the self so that it reduces its investment in the historical and social world by having its life directed by the essential core, a move that is analogous to his poetic search for the seeds and signs of resurrection within himself his poetry (the subject of chapter 3). This vision anticipates Heidegger’s phenomenology and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. Vaughan also describes a form of sexuality that anticipates Leo Bersani in imagining the body as socialized and yet as potentially unhinged from that social connectedness.

Transcending Locality

2021 ◽  
pp. 296-316
Author(s):  
Michal Pagis
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Loving Kindness ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Vipassana Meditation ◽  
Meditation Experience

This chapter explores the rising popularity of Buddhist meditation in Israel and the self-identity that bodily based mindfulness offers its practitioners. Based on extended ethnographic fieldwork among Israeli practitioners of vipassana meditation, this chapter illustrates how in periods characterized by doubt and uncertainty, Israelis find in meditation an embodied anchor for selfhood which substitutes dependency on the social world. Through meditation practice, Israelis recede into the body, temporarily liberating the self from local social embeddedness. Yet, at the same time, this same withdrawal to the body produces universal, humanistic-based identifications. The chapter detects four dimensions in the attempt to transcend local social context: an ideological rejection of particularism, the meditation center as a space without a place, the distancing of social roles and identities in vipassana practice, and a connection to humanity at large through loving-kindness. In meditation experience, considered by practitioners as the most personal, “private” withdrawal into the self, Israeli vipassana practitioners find a universal anchor that transcends social locality.

Suicide Loss Survivors: Navigating Social Stigma and Threats to Social Bonds

2021 ◽  
pp. 003022282110265
Author(s):  
Dorothy M. Goulah-Pabst
Keyword(s):  
Social Stigma ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Healing Process ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

The complicated grief experienced by suicide loss survivors leads to feelings of abandonment, rejection, intense self-blame, and depression. Stigma surrounding suicide further burdens survivors who can experience rejection by their community and social networks. Research in the field of psychology has delved into the grieving process of suicide loss survivors, however the effects of suicide require more sociological study to fully understand and support the impact of the suicidal bereavement process on the social interactions and relationships of those left behind after death. This study aims to contribute to the body of research exploring the social challenges faced after the suicide of a loved one. Based on the analysis of powerful personal narratives through qualitative interviews shared by 14 suicide loss survivors this study explores the social construction of the grieving and healing process for suicide loss survivors. Recognizing that the most reliable relief is in commiseration with like experienced people, this research points to the support group as a builder of social solidarity. The alienation caused by the shame and stigma of suicide loss can be reversed by the feelings of attachment to the group that listens, understands and accepts. Groups created by and for suicide loss survivors should be considered a necessary tool to be used toward healing those who suffer from loss by suicide.

scholarly journals Body pedagogics, culture and the transactional case of Vélo worlds

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102199664
Author(s):  
Chris Shilling
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
The Body ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Significant Growth ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cognitive Information ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
Ways Of Life

During the past two decades, there has been a significant growth of sociological studies into the ‘body pedagogics’ of cultural transmission, reproduction and change. Rejecting the tendency to over-valorise cognitive information, these investigations have explored the importance of corporeal capacities, habits and techniques in the processes associated with belonging to specific ‘ways of life’. Focused on practical issues associated with ‘knowing how’ to operate within specific cultures, however, body pedagogic analyses have been less effective at accounting for the incarnation of cultural values. Addressing this limitation, with reference to the radically diverse norms involved historically and contemporarily in ‘vélo worlds’, I develop Dewey’s pragmatist transactionalism by arguing that the social, material and intellectual processes involved in learning physical techniques inevitably entail a concurrent entanglement with, and development of, values.

Professional judgements of risk and capacity in situations of self-neglect among older people

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1055-1072 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANNON MCDERMOTT
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Older People ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Medical Illness ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Professional Intervention ◽  
Sydney Australia

ABSTRACTOver the past 50 years, self-neglect among older people has been conceptualised in both social policy and the academy as a social problem which is defined in relation to medical illness and requires professional intervention. Few authors, however, have analysed the concept of self-neglect in relation to critical sociological theory. This is problematic because professional judgements, which provide the impetus for intervention, are inherently influenced by the social and cultural context. The purpose of this article is to use critical theory as a framework for interpreting the findings from a qualitative study which explored judgements in relation to older people in situations of self-neglect made by professionals. Two types of data were collected. There were 125 hours of observations at meetings and home assessments conducted by professionals associated with the Community Options Programme in Sydney, Australia, and 18 professionals who worked with self-neglecting older people in the community gave in-depth qualitative interviews. The findings show that professional judgements of self-neglect focus on risk and capacity, and that these perceptions influence when and how interventions occur. The assumptions upon which professional judgements are based are then further analysed in relation to critical theory.

scholarly journals Humour in Sports Coaching: ‘It’s a Funny Old Game’

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 744-762 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Nicholas Edwards ◽  
Robyn L Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Ethnographic Film ◽  
The Social ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Sports Coaching

The primary purpose of this article was to investigate the use and manifestation of humour within sports coaching. This was particularly in light of the social significance of humour as a critical component in cultural creation and negotiation. Data were gathered from a 10-month ethnographic study that tracked the players and coaches of Senghenydd City Football Club (a pseudonym) over the course of a full season. Precise methods of data collection included participant observation, reflective personal field notes, and ethnographic film. The results demonstrated the dominating presence of both ‘inclusionary putdowns’ and ‘disciplinary humour’, particularly in relation to how they contributed to the production and maintenance of the social order. Finally, a reflective conclusion discusses the temporal nature of the collective understanding evident among the group at Senghenydd, and its effect on the humour evident. In doing so, the work contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the social role of humour within sports coaching.

The Body Beautiful: Symbolism and Agency in the Social World

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 297-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Reischer ◽  
Kathryn S. Koo
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Tracking Work from the Wrist: The Surveillance of Ethiopian Women Athletes for Capital

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Borenstein
Keyword(s):  
Women Athletes ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
The Body ◽  
European American ◽  
Surveillance Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Tracking Devices ◽  
Paper Address

This paper considers the ways in which these new GPS watches becoming commonplace among Ethiopian athletes are changing how women professional athletes in Ethiopia (who have the potential to bring in substantial earnings in Ethiopia) are monitored by husbands, coaches, agents, and sponsors. In the past 2-3 years, however, digital self-tracking devices (DSTDs) have come close to replacing shoes as the most sought after training aid. Watches – that track pacing, kilometers, miles, steps, caloric output, elevation gain, and heart rate – are bought and brought home from international competitions and gifted by agents, managers, and fans from abroad. Some sponsored athletes’ data are even instantaneously transferred to Nike laboratories in Portland after they finish practice in Addis Ababa. Drawing on participant observation and interviews, the paper address the new pressures and working conditions that this type of monitoring can introduce by considering how husbands, brothers, coaches, and agents – all men (Ethiopian, European, American, etc.) –  monitor these devices and reflect or change existing the gendered dynamics of working in elite sport. It asks: What are the working implications of this new kind of monitoring? How do they intersect and contest gendered norms that exist through and outside of sport and surveillance studies? And how does this impact conceptions of the body both within and outside of professional athletics?

Theorising love in sociological thought: Classical contributions to a sociology of love

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihai Stelian Rusu
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Sociological Tradition ◽  
Binding Force ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Set Up

This article sets out to explore the contributions of classical social thinkers to a sociological understanding of love. It builds on the premise that despite its major relevance and consequential importance in shaping both individual lives and the social world, until recently love was a heavily undertheorised topic in the sociological tradition. Moreover, the body of disparate sociological reflections that have been made on the social nature of love has been largely forgotten in the discipline’s intellectual legacy. The article then proceeds in unearthing the classics’ contributions to a sociology of love. It starts with Max Weber’s view that love promises to be a means of sensual salvation in an increasingly rationalised social world based on impersonal formal relationships. Next, it critically examines Pitirim A. Sorokin’s integral theory of love. It then moves to address Talcott Parsons’ view on love as a binding force whose social function is to integrate the conjugal couple of the modern nuclear family in the absence of the external pressures exerted by the kinship network. The article concludes by showing how these conceptualisations of love were all embedded in wider theoretical constructions set up to account for the modernisation process.

Social Interaction Style in Autism: An Inquiry into Phenomenological Methodology

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-192
Author(s):  
Sofie Boldsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Ongoing Study ◽  
Interaction Style ◽  
Approaches To Studying ◽  
The Social ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology

Abstract Autistic difficulties with social interaction have primarily been understood as expressions of underlying impairment of the ability to ‘mindread.’ Although this understanding of autism and social interaction has raised controversy in the phenomenological community for decades, the phenomenological criticism remains largely on a philosophical level. This article helps fill this gap by discussing how phenomenology can contribute to empirical methodologies for studying social interaction in autism. By drawing on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and qualitative data from an ongoing study on social interaction in autism, I discuss how qualitative interviews and participant observation can yield phenomenologically salient data on social interaction. Both, I argue, enjoy their phenomenological promise through facilitating attention to the social-spatial-material fields in and through which social interactions and experiences arise. By developing phenomenologically sound approaches to studying social interaction, this article helps resolve the deficiency of knowledge concerning experiential dimensions of social interaction in autism.

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