Terroir and Tourism in the Age of Mass Production

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Robert C. Ulin
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
Class Privilege

The concept of terroir has an extensive history in France linking a multitude of agricultural products to climate, soil, and local knowledge. More recently, terroir is used in viticulture to emphasize the distinctiveness of wine with respect to regional natural and cultural resources and in so doing has become important to tourism. This article addresses terroir by pointing to its substantial virtues while unveiling its potential for mystification. In the age of mass production, terroir offers distinction, an essential attribute for touristic appeal. However, in its emphasis on climate and soil in the viticultural domain, terroir conceals important historical processes that in the end speak as much, if not more, to how we rank and regard wine. Moreover, the focus on natural conditions rather than those that are social also masks social relations that are embedded in class privilege and thus give the impression that wine has a life of its own independent of its historical and social contexts.

Track 2.a Introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sucharita BENIWAL ◽  
Sahil MATHUR ◽  
Lesley-Ann NOEL ◽  
Cilla PEMBERTON ◽  
Suchitra BALASUBRAHMANYAN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Local Practices

The aim of this track was to question the divide between the nature of knowledge understood as experiential in indigenous contexts and science as an objective transferable knowledge. However, these can co-exist and inform design practices within transforming social contexts. The track aimed to challenge the hegemony of dominant knowledge systems, and demonstrate co-existence. The track also hoped to make a case for other systems of knowledges and ways of knowing through examples from native communities. The track was particularly interested in, first, how innovators use indigenous and cultural systems and frameworks to manage or promote innovation and second, the role of local knowledge and culture in transforming innovation as well as the form of local practices inspired innovation. The contributions also aspired to challenge through examples, case studies, theoretical frameworks and methodologies the hegemony of dominant knowledge systems, the divides of ‘academic’ vs ‘non-academic’ and ‘traditional’ vs ‘non-traditional’.

Rural migrants in villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou, China: Multi-positionality and negotiated living strategies

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (10) ◽  
pp. 2245-2260 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Chung
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Chinese Migrants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

This paper investigates rural Chinese migrants’ agency through their multi-positionality and negotiated living strategies. The idea of ‘multi-positionality’ conceptualises a migrant’s mobility between physical locations and shifting social positions. Through individual migrants’ multi-positionality, this study discusses their place-specific social relations and thereby the diverse way to negotiate a living in villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou, China. These strategies include simple approaches such as facilitating physical movements between different locations and more sophisticated ones which develop multiple roles with outsiders and native villagers in different localities. While the former allows individual migrants to use their local knowledge to make a living in the context of institutional exclusion and discrimination, the latter further cultivates changes and an upgrade in social relations. Rural migrants' everyday stories are used to unfold an individual’s particular people–place relationship and how he/she has tapped into a place-specific resource to make a living. It does not aim to generalise rural migrants’ experience; rather it seeks to show diversity and complexity. Migrants’ stories are collected through extensive research in a village-in-the-city in Guangzhou, China. Through these stories, not only does this paper articulate the social relations which underlie individual migrants’ shifting positions, but also extends translocal studies on migrants beyond the narrative of physical locations.

Utopia, Labor, and Informational Capitalism

2015 ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Marco Briziarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Informational Capitalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Political Economic

Through the lens of a political economic approach, I consider the question whether or not social media can promote social change. I claim that whereas media have consistently channeled technological utopia/dystopia, thus be constantly linked to aspirations and fear of social change, the answer to that question does not depend on their specific nature but on historically specific social relations in which media operate. In the case here considered, it requires examining the social relations re-producing and produced by informational capitalism. More specifically, I examine how the productive relations that support user generated content practices of Facebook users affect social media in their capability to reproduce and transform existing social contexts. Drawing on Fuchs and Sevignani's (2013) distinction between “work” and “labor” I claim that social media reflect the ambivalent nature of current capitalist mode of production: a contest in which exploitative/emancipatory as well as reproductive/transformative aspects are articulated by liberal ideology.

Mediating Social Media's Ambivalences in the Context of Informational Capitalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Briziarelli ◽  
Eric Karikari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Informational Capitalism ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Transformative Function ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Mode Of Production

This essay explores the dialectics of media, by considering the socially reproductive and transformative function of social media from a political economic perspective. The authors claim that while media have consistently generated aspirations and fear of social change, their powerful capability of shaping societies depend on the historically specific social relations in which media operate. They engage such an argument by examining how the productive relations that support user generated content practices such as the ones of Facebook users affect social media in their capability to reproduce and transform existing social contexts. In the end, the authors maintain that the most prominent mediation of social media consists of the ambivalent nature of current capitalist mode of production: a contest in which exploitative/emancipatory as well as reproductive/transformative aspects are articulated by liberal ideology.

Mediating Social Media's Ambivalences in the Context of Informational Capitalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Marco Briziarelli ◽  
Eric Karikari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Informational Capitalism ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Transformative Function ◽  
Political Economic

This essay explores the dialectics of media, by considering the socially reproductive and transformative function of social media from a political economic perspective. The authors claim that while media have consistently generated aspirations and fear of social change, their powerful capability of shaping societies depend on the historically specific social relations in which media operate. They engage such an argument by examining how the productive relations that support user generated content practices such as the ones of Facebook users affect social media in their capability to reproduce and transform existing social contexts. In the end, the authors maintain that the most prominent mediation of social media consists of the ambivalent nature of current capitalist mode of production: a contest in which exploitative/emancipatory as well as reproductive/transformative aspects are articulated by liberal ideology.

scholarly journals When Borders Migrate: Reconstructing the Category of ‘International Migrant’

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Gorodzeisky ◽  
Inna Leykin
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
International Borders ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Cross National

Using the Baltic states as an empirical example of a wider social problem of categorization and naming, this article explores the statistical categories of ‘international migrant/foreign-born’ population used in three major cross-national data sources (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Eurostat and The World Bank Indicators (WBI)). We argue that these seemingly politically neutral categories ignore historical processes of state formation and migration, and privilege the current ethnonational definition of the state. We demonstrate how, in regions with recent geopolitical changes, the international migrant category’s spatial and temporal constraints produce distorted population parameters, by marking those who have never crossed sovereign states’ borders as international migrants. In certain social contexts, applying the international migrant category to those who have never crossed international borders shapes and legitimizes restrictive citizenship policies and new forms of social exclusion. We further argue that, when uncritically adopting this category, transnational institutions assert territorial imaginaries embedded in ethnonational political discourses and legitimize exclusionary citizenship policies.

Locating the locale of local food: The importance of context, space and social relations

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 563-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brídín E. Carroll ◽  
Frances Fahy
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

AbstractLocalization is one process/outcome that is proffered as key to the ‘grand challenges’ that currently face the food system. Consumers are attributed much agency in this potential transformation, being encouraged from all levels of society to exert their consumer muscle by buying local food. However, due to the social construction of scale it cannot be said that ‘local food’ is a definite entity and consumers understand the term ‘local food’ differently depending on their geographic and social context. As such, the research upon which this paper is based aimed to provide a nuanced understanding of how consumers in the particular spatial and social contexts of urban and rural Ireland understood the concept of ‘local food’. A specific objective was to test the theory that these consumers may have fallen into the ‘local trap’ by unquestioningly associating food from a spatially proximate place with positive characteristics. A three-phase mixed methodology was undertaken with a sample of consumers dwelling in urban and rural areas in both Dublin and Galway, Ireland: 1000 householders were surveyed; 6 focus group discussions took place; and 28 semi-structured interviews were carried out. The results presented in this paper indicate that for most participants in this study, spatial proximity is the main parameter against which the ‘localness’ of food is measured. Also, it was found that participants held multiple meanings of local food and there was a degree of fluidity in their understandings of the term. The results from the case study regions highlight how participants’ understandings of local food changed depending on the food in question and its availability. However, the paper also indicates that as consumers move from one place to another, the meaning of local food becomes highly elastic. The meaning is stretched or contracted according to the perceived availability of food, greater or lesser connections to the local producer community and the relative geographic size of participants’ locations. Our analysis of findings from all three phases of this research revealed a difference in understandings of local food among participants resident in urban and rural areas: participants dwelling in rural areas were more likely than those in urban areas to define local food according to narrower spatial limits. The paper concludes with an overview of the practical and theoretical significance of these results in addressing the current dearth of research exploring the meaning of local food for consumers and suggests avenues for future research.

scholarly journals The identity process in times of rupture: Narratives from the Egyptian revolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hassan Awad
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Adaptive Learning ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Positive Identity ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Prefigurative Politics ◽  
Shed Light

This is a longitudinal study of the identity process through times of dramatic social change. Using a narrative psychological approach this research follows the life stories of five Egyptian bloggers as they write their stories on online blogs over the course of the three years following the 2011 revolution, at which time Egypt has witnessed major social and political changes. The aim is to understand the identity process of individuals as they develop and adapt through changing social contexts and how they create alternative social relations as they engage in prefigurative politics. The findings shed light on how ruptures trigger a process of reflexivity, adaptive learning, and sense-making that facilitates coping and the reconstruction of a positive identity after ruptures. It also suggests that the narration of the experience of rupture through storytelling creates a heightened sense of agency in individuals’ ability to create new meanings of their world in spite of the socio-cultural and political constraints. This study presents narratives as an informing methodological resource that connects identity process with social representations and emphasizes the value of storytelling as an integral part of the adaptation process.

scholarly journals The Great British Sorting Machine: Adolescents’ future in the balance of family, school and the neighborhood

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jan Benjamin Mijs ◽  
Jaap Nieuwenhuis
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
School Performance ◽  
Reference Group ◽  
Group Processes ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
Low Educated

Research calls attention to the divergent school and labor market trajectories of Europe’s youth while, across the Atlantic, researchers describe the long-lasting consequences of poverty on adolescent development. In this paper we incorporate both processes to shed a new light on a classic concern in the sociology of stratification: how are adolescents’ aspirations, expectations, and school performance shaped by the combined socioeconomic contexts of family, school and neighborhood life? Theoretically, social contexts provide children with cultural resources that may foster their ambitions and bolster their academic performance. Reference group theory instead highlights how seemingly positive settings can depress educational performance as well as aspirations and expectations. We empirically test these competing claims, drawing on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) which describes the school and neighborhood trajectories of 7,934 British children followed from birth to adolescence. We find that, generally, childhood school and neighborhood deprivation is negatively associated with adolescents’ school performance, aspirations and expectations for their future, in line with the cultural resource perspective. However, there are important exceptions to this pattern which point to reference group processes for (1) children of highly-educated parents, whose academic performance especially suffers from growing up in a poor neighborhood, and (2) for children from low-educated parents, whose academic aspirations and expectations are unexpectedly high when they either went to an affluent school or lived in an affluent neighborhood—but not both. We conclude by discussing implications for theory, policy and future research.

Functional Approaches

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
J. Lachlan Mackenzie
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Spatio Temporal

All functional approaches share the conviction that the structure of languages and their historical development are strongly impacted by the cognitive properties of language users, the social relations between them, and the spatio-temporal and socio-cultural contexts in which they operate. This chapter describes how functionalism has impinged on the study of English grammar and covers the interrelations of discourse and grammar, various corpus- and usage-based approaches, the influence of processing considerations, the hierarchical organization of the clause, information structure, the noun phrase, and the contributions of language typology. The grammatical analysis of English has been enriched by the insight that its structures are bound up with our ability to participate in dialogues, to construct written texts, to surmize the state of mind of our conversational partner, to modulate our formulations to maximize politeness, and to use different registers or dialects in different social contexts.

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