Re-envisioning Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Feinman ◽  
Linda M. Nicholas
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Managerial Control ◽  
Market System ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Way

Exuberant Spanish accounts of the 16th century Aztec market system have been part of the documentary record for hundreds of years. Yet the significance of markets and marketplace exchanges in the prehispanic Mesoamerican world has consistently been under-theorized until relatively recently. One of the key, but not sole, factors that has forced a shift in our analytical framing is the archaeological evidence that almost all production (craft and agrarian) was situated domestically in prehispanic Mesoamerica, yet many households were producing at least in part for exchange. In consequence, centralized managerial control over production would have been difficult if not impossible to sustain. Although such findings have cast great doubt on long-held visions of Mesoamerican command economies, understanding how power was funded in different prehispanic time/space contexts remains a central issue with a greater analytical focus now shifted to the fiscal foundations of collective action, governance, and power. Despite important shifts in the specific lessons and legacies that we draw from Marx’s historical analysis, intellectual parallels and debts to this materialist frame of thought remain, and these help generate new questions to guide the way forward for studying this region’s past.

Diligent Notes on Laziness: Oblomov, Lenin and the Capitalization of Laziness

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-258
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Hospital ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Work Analysis ◽  
Main Obstacle ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Russian Linguistic ◽  
The Way

The essay investigates the phenomenon of laziness by first analyzing the opposition between laziness and the good. Both utility and the good make reference to labor. This opposition between labor and laziness is pivotal in Oblomov, Ivan Goncharov’s famous novel written in 1859. It marks a radical transition from a feudal paradigm to a capitalistic one. The two main characters in the novel are Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a Russian, and Andrey Ivanovich Stolz, a German, who together seem to personify the contradiction between laziness and labor. But the purpose of the essay is to deconstruct that opposition. In this connection, one can cite Kazimir Malevich, who maintained that laziness is the Mother of Perfection and is always unconsciously inherent in the conscious intent to work. Analysis of the Latin concepts of otium and negotium indicates that the laziness/labor opposition may be deconstructed as a dialectic between labor and its opposite. In other words, laziness does not stand in contradiction to labor but is instead its inseparable dialectical other. In the last part of the essay, the article considers the thinking of Anatoly Peregud, a poet who spent almost all his life in a psychiatric hospital. According to Peregud, Lenin derived his pseudonym from the Russian linguistic root “len” (laziness) in order to make laziness central to communism. For his part, Lenin saw Oblomov as an emblem of the main obstacle standing in the way of communism.

scholarly journals The Problem of Coordination and the Pursuit of Structural Constraints in Psychology

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162097477
Author(s):  
David Kellen ◽  
Clintin P. Davis-Stober ◽  
John C. Dunn ◽  
Michael L. Kalish
Keyword(s):  
Functional Relationship ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Theoretical Progress ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
Empirical Means ◽  
The Way

Paul Meehl’s famous critique detailed many of the problematic practices and conceptual confusions that stand in the way of meaningful theoretical progress in psychological science. By integrating many of Meehl’s points, we argue that one of the reasons for the slow progress in psychology is the failure to acknowledge the problem of coordination. This problem arises whenever we attempt to measure quantities that are not directly observable but can be inferred from observable variables. The solution to this problem is far from trivial, as demonstrated by a historical analysis of thermometry. The key challenge is the specification of a functional relationship between theoretical concepts and observations. As we demonstrate, empirical means alone cannot determine this relationship. In the case of psychology, the problem of coordination has dramatic implications in the sense that it severely constrains our ability to make meaningful theoretical claims. We discuss several examples and outline some of the solutions that are currently available.

Anna Karenina: The Dialectic of Prophecy

PMLA ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-282
Author(s):  
David H. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moby Dick ◽  
Anna Karenina ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Way

One of the most impressive features of Anna Karenina is the way in which Tolstoy draws the reader's imagination beyond the literal level of the narrative into generalizations that seem mythical in a manner difficult to articulate. With Dostoevsky or Melville, one sees immediately a propensity for exploiting the symbolic value of things. With Tolstoy, things try, as it were, to resist conversion: they strive to maintain their “thingness” as empirical entities. A character in Dostoevsky is usually only half man; the other half is Christ or Satan. Moby Dick is obviously only half whale; the other half is Evil or some principle of Nature. But Anna Karenina is emphatically Anna Karenina. Like almost all of Tolstoy's characters, she has a proficiency in the husbandry of identity; she jealously hoards her own unique reality, so that it becomes difficult to say of her that she is a “type” of nineteenth-century Russian lady or a “symbol” of modern woman or an “archetypical” Eve or Lilith.

Futures Honed

Futures ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 118-134
Author(s):  
Barbara Adam
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The Past ◽  
Writing Theory ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Verse Form ◽  
The Way

This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followed by Adam’s ‘Honing Futures’, which is presented in four short verses of distilled theory. In the interview Adam reflects on thirty-five years of futures-thinking rooted in her deeply original work on time and temporality, and her innovative response to qualitative and linear definitions of time within the social sciences. The interview continues with a discussion of the way Adam’s thinking on futures intersects in her work with ideas of ethics and collective responsibility politics and concludes with a brief rationale for writing theory in verse form. In ‘Honing Futures’, a piece of futures theory verse form, Adam charts the movements and moments in considerations of the Not Yet and futurity’s active creation: from pluralized imaginings of the future, to an increasingly tangible and narrower anticipated future, to future-making as designing and reality-creating performance. Collectively, the verses identify the varied complex interdependencies of time, space, and matter with the past and future in all iterations of honing and making futures.

Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and the Legacy of Hugo Chávez’s Governments

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Angosto-Ferrández
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Indigenous Movement ◽  
The Way

The unprecedented enfranchisement of Venezuela’s indigenous population is partly a result of the formation of a state-sponsored indigenous movement. This movement prioritizes access to social services, economic development, and political participation in state structures over certain goals of free determination. Other forms of collective action with different priorities are evidence of the existence of diverging interests and goals among indigenous people. These divergences are a reflection of the way in which the indigenous population partakes in the shaping of contemporary Venezuelan politics. La inclusión social de las comunidades indígenas de Venezuela no tiene precedentes y se debe, en parte, a la formación de movimientos indígenas auspiciados por el estado. Estos movimientos le dan prioridad al acceso a los servicios sociales, al desarrollo económico y a la participación política en las estructuras estatales por encima de ciertas metas de libre determinación. Otras formas de acción colectiva con prioridades diferentes revelan la presencia/existencia de intereses y objetivos divergentes entre las comunidades indígenas. Estas diferencias son un reflejo de la manera en que las poblaciones indígenas participan en la formación de la política venezolana contemporánea.

scholarly journals Początki kształtowania się reprezentacji społecznej zapożyczeń w sferze publicznej

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Piotr Zbróg
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Way

The beginnings of the shaping of social representations of borrowings in the public sphereThe article presents an initial phase of the process of shaping of social representations of borrowings. The aim was to obtain a view of the way in which participants of the public sphere talked about these elements of language, how they perceived them as well as what common sense image was created on this basis in the communication sphere and how it was modified. The first judgements and opinions on the matter of foreign words appeared around the 16th century and evolved from that moment. The theory of social representations developed by Serge Moscovici was applied as a theoretical and methodological basis of the description. Its research tools allow us to see the way in which societies construct meanings of matters important to them. On the basis of the analysis of the material it was established that from the beginning there were rather antagonistic elements of social representations of borrowings. The functionality of borrowings was noticed. Yet it was postulated that they should be eliminated from texts on account of the necessity to develop the native language, the incomprehensibility of statements as well as the excessive trend of foreignness.

scholarly journals The Problem of Coordination and the Pursuit of Structural Constraints in Psychology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kellen ◽  
Clintin Davis-Stober ◽  
John C Dunn ◽  
Michael Kalish
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Available P ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Theoretical Progress ◽  
Functional Relations ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
Empirical Means ◽  
The Way

Paul Meehl’s famous critique laid out in detail many of the pathological practices and conceptual confusions that stand in the way of meaningful theoretical progress inpsychological science. Integrating some of Meehl’s points, we argue that one of the reasons for the slow progress in psychology is the failure to acknowledge the problem of coordination. This problem arises whenever we attempt to measure quantities that are not directly observable, but can be inferred from observable variables. The solution to this problem is far from trivial, as demonstrated by a historical analysis of thermometry. Also, it is not a problem that can be solved by empirical means. At its center is the need for a clear understanding of the functional relations between theoretical concepts and observations. In the case of psychology, the problem of coordination has dramatic implications in the sense that it severely limits our ability to make meaningful theoretical claims. We discuss several examples and lay out some of the solutions that are currently available.

scholarly journals Agricultural family schools in the «Pampa Gringa», historical traces between the particular and the universal

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-161
Author(s):  
Myriam Southwell
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Secondary Level ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
South American ◽  
The South ◽  
Conceptual Debate ◽  
Alternative Modality ◽  
The Way

Agricultural Family Schools have been the way to concretize a model of pedagogy of alternation, an education modality that has been little investigated from a historical point of view. This article aims to present the emergence of alternating pedagogy in Europe, its influence in the South American territory, and to analyse in more detail its expansion in Argentina from the late 1960s. We are interested in dwelling on these alternative modes of conceiving and building schools not only because of their value as a contribution to agricultural education at the secondary level, but also as a contribution to research on specific historical experiences which constitute areas for inscription of school innovations, pedagogical debates, struggles and resistance (McLeod, 2014). Likewise, we are interested in analysing this alternative modality of schooling from the conceptual debate on the tension between the particular and the universal, which is expressed in this different way of conceiving teaching and learning and analysing the hegemony of the school format (Southwell, 2008). To do this, we carry out a historical analysis of the testimonies that recorded the emergence, debates and expansion of these institutions, as well as the educational concepts that were configured in the historical journey developed until today.

scholarly journals Néhány megjegyzés Heltai imádságos könyvének utóéletéről

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihály Balázs
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Considerable Length ◽  
The Way

Although in recent years there has been an upsurge in the research of the history of early modern spirituality, this research has paid hardly any attention to the Unitarian denomination. The reasons for this lie beyond the scope of the present study: between the late 16th century and the late 18th century the denomination had to refrain from the use of printing, and thus, the manuscript versions of prayer texts were threatened by loss and destruction. It is a unique paradox, however, that the first edited protestant Hungarian prayer book of considerable length was published precisely by this denomination in 1570/1571. The first part of the paper explores the concept of the prayer book based on Johann Habermann’s famous Gebetbüchlein, and compares it to the greatest achievements of the same sort within this period, the Catholic Péter Pázmány’s and the Calvinist Albert Szenci Molnár’s works. This section is followed by a survey of the vivid reception of Heltai’s work, with particular focus on the way the Unitarian author’s work was used in the Lutheran community of Lőcse. The concluding part argues that building on the foundations of this tradition, as well as on the heritage of Calvinist prayer culture, an unparalleled Unitarian prayer literature developed in the 17th-18th centuries, which deserves the attention of comparative research.

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