Creating Cultures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Whitney Sanford
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
Intentional Communities ◽  
Community Residents ◽  
The World ◽  
Be The Change

Residents of intentional communities attempt to create new cultures, enabling them to be the change they wanted to see in the world and not simply complaining about the world they live in. Producing their own food, living simply, and community interdependence provide them a freedom from larger social structures and a consumer-oriented cultures, also redefining what constitutes labor and freedom. Does growing food constitute freedom, or is freedom attained through the efficiency of purchasing a ready-made meal? In this way, community residents redefine freedom and have interpreted the term bread labor, popularized by Tolstoy and Gandhi, into a 21st century context.

Social Glocalisation and Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Hobelsberger
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Practical Theology ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Local Effects ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Work Health

This book discusses the local effects of globalisation, especially in the context of social work, health and practical theology, as well as the challenges of higher education in a troubled world. The more globalised the world becomes, the more important local identities are. The global becomes effective in the local sphere. This phenomenon, called ‘glocalisation’ since the 1990s, poses many challenges to people and to the social structures in which they operate.

scholarly journals The Epidemiological Characteristics of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe: Focus on Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 2942
Author(s):  
Giovanni Gabutti ◽  
Erica d’Anchera ◽  
Francesco De Motoli ◽  
Marta Savio ◽  
Armando Stefanati
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
World Population ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Reporting Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Epidemiological Characteristics ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Epidemiological Situation

Starting from December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has forcefully entered our lives and profoundly changed all the habits of the world population. The COVID-19 pandemic has violently impacted the European continent, first involving only some European countries, Italy in particular, and then spreading to all member states, albeit in different ways and times. The ways SARS-CoV-2 spreads are still partly unknown; to quantify and adequately respond to the pandemic, various parameters and reporting systems have been introduced at national and European levels to promptly recognize the most alarming epidemiological situations and therefore limit the impact of the virus on the health of the population. The relevant key points to implement adequate measures to face the epidemic include identifying the population groups most involved in terms of morbidity and mortality, identifying the events mostly related to the spreading of the virus and recognizing the various viral mutations. The main objective of this work is to summarize the epidemiological situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe and Italy almost a year after the first reported case in our continent. The secondary objectives include the definition of the epidemiological parameters used to monitor the epidemic, the explanation of superspreading events and the description of how the epidemic has impacted on health and social structures, with a particular focus on Italy.

Transforming Universities in the Online World

2011 ◽  
pp. 2135-2140
Author(s):  
Stewart Marshall ◽  
Shirley Gregor
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Global Competition ◽  
Government Regulations ◽  
Business Market ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theory Of Structuration ◽  
The World ◽  
Market Pressures

As the world moves online, various pressures drive changes in the way industries and organizations do business: market pressures, for example, global competition; technological pressures, for example, the use of e-commerce to lower the costs of production; and societal pressures, for example, government regulations (Turban, King, Lee, & Viehland, 2004). In considering the implications of the online world for industry, it is necessary to consider both structure and process, where process includes change processes (Gregor & Johnston, 2000, 2001; Johnston & Gregor, 2000). In Giddens’ (1977, 1984, 1991) theory of structuration, process (activity) and structure are reciprocal. As Giddens (1977) states, “social structures are both constituted by human agency, and yet at the same time are the very medium of this constitution”(p. 121) or, as Rose (1999) puts it, “agents in their actions constantly produce and reproduce and develop the social structures which both constrain and enable them” (p.643).

Linguistic failures

English Today ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niu Qiang ◽  
Martin Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Contract Law ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
International Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
The Status ◽  
China Today ◽  
World Maritime ◽  
Over Time

Heart-felt opposition to the status and spread of English in the world at large and most particularly in China today. It can hardly be denied that England has given the world maritime law, contract law, and an international language. However, whether by accident or design, the effect of these ‘gifts’ over time has, we would argue, been the destruction of many ethnic customs, social structures, and other aspects of culture. There appears to be little or no dissent among linguists regarding the proposition that language and culture are inseparable: what affects one affects the other.This paper discusses how the global spread of English has affected – deleteriously – many languages and cultures, and currently engages too much time and too many resources in China today. Maritime and contract law may have been less problematic.

African Indigenous Religions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter E.A. van Beek
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Indigenous Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Other World ◽  
Indigenous Religions ◽  
The Village

There is not one African indigenous religion (AIR); rather, there are many, and they diverge widely. As a group, AIRs are quite different from the scriptural religions the world is more familiar with, since what is central to AIRs is neither belief nor faith, but ritual. Exemplifying an “imagistic” form of religiosity, these religions have no sacred books or writings and are learned by doing, by participation and experience, rather than by instruction and teaching. Belonging to specific local ethnic groups, they are deeply embedded in and informed by the various ecologies of foragers, pastoralists, and horticulturalists—as they are also by the social structures of these societies: they “dwell” in their cultures. These are religions of the living, not so much preparing for afterlife as geared toward meeting the challenges of everyday life, illness and misfortune, mourning and comforting—but also toward feasting, life, fertility, and togetherness, even in death. Quiet rituals of the family contrast with exuberant public celebrations when new adults re-enter the village after an arduous initiation; intricate ritual attention to the all-important crops may include tense rites to procure much needed rains. The range of rituals is wide and all-encompassing. In AIRs, the dead and the living are close, either as ancestors or as other representatives of the other world. Accompanied by spirits of all kinds, both good and bad, harmful and nurturing, existence is full of ambivalence. Various channels are open for communication with the invisible world, from prayer to trance, and from dreams to revelations, but throughout it is divination in its manifold forms that offers a window on the deeper layers of reality. Stories about the other world abound, and many myths and legends are never far removed from basic folktales. These stories do not so much explain the world as they entertainingly teach about the deep humanity that AIRs share and cherish.

Intégration sociale, déchristianisation et pastorale

1960 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Birou
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
Technical Society ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Final Value ◽  
A Value ◽  
Intégration Sociale ◽  
The World ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The One ◽  
Christian Society

A well-integrated society is a value, but not the final value of existence. There may be, from the Christian and human points of view, bad integra tions. It is therefore necessary to emphasize the dangers of technical civilization when it becomes man's highest value. This technical myth leads to materia lism for human relations which crystallize here into social structures are more and more dependent on material finalities. The man who is perfectly integra ted into this new universe is the one who is perfectly conditioned by technology. The « dechristianizing » force of this bad integration, which does away with the problem of God, cannot be underestimated. Is the pastoral reply within the aspiration toward a Christian society isolated from contemporary socie ty ? Or in a transformation of the technical society under evangelic ferment ? More emphasis must be given to the training of the Christian to be in the work without being of the world.

scholarly journals Introduction: Researching online worlds: challenging media and communication studies

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (47) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Kjetil Sandvik
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Asynchronous Communication ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media And Communication

Digital media and network communication technology have not changed this setup, but rather have opened the possibility for encountering and experiencing additional types of worlds and performing additional types of spatial practices. Being situated online and being globally networked with the possibility of both synchronous and asynchronous communication, digitally mediated worlds provide possible interactions between users which are radically more independent of time and place than the ones facilitated by older media. From this perspective, the concept of online worlds both challenges and broadens our understanding of how media shape the world and how the media technology creates new social structures.

scholarly journals A STUDY ON IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON TEACHING

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 29-32
Keyword(s):  
Online Teaching ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Online Classes ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Be The Change

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” The petrifying and severe impact of COVID-19 has shaken the world to its core. Later, most of the Governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In India, 320 million students have been affected by COVID-19 school closures, and though the government quickly recommended shifting to “online teaching.” Many of the government institutions are lacking of facilities to conduct online classes. Many teachers are to be updating them to challenge this situation otherwise leads to job threat. This paper with an objective to study out whether the faculties are ready to face challenges due to online teaching and to identify who among male and female are feeling more threat for their jobs due to online teaching.

scholarly journals Dinâmica de classes no acirramento da crise mundial do capitalismo: lutas de resistência das classes subalternas no enfrentamento de alternativas capitalistas no Brasil contemporâneo | Class dynamics in the escalation of the world crisis of capitalism: the struggle of subaltern classes in the confrontation of capitalist alternatives in contemporary Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (43) ◽  
Author(s):  
Franci Gomes Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
World Crisis ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The World

O artigo expõe uma reconstrução histórico-conceitual, utilizando categorias ontológicas e intelectivas já utilizadas em pesquisas realizadas durante trajetória acadêmica, a partir de tese de doutoramento. Tal reconstrução tem sua centralidade nas “lutas de resistência das classes subalternas às alternativas capitalistas no Brasil contemporâneo”, mediadas por outras categorias que lhe dão materialidade e dinamismo: ideologia e hegemonia. Com interesse de análise centrado na política, o estudo parte das seguintes premissas, inspiradas no pensamento gramsciano: 1 – a ideologia tem papel ativo em processos históricos determinados e se realiza resultando do movimento da estrutura social; 2 – na dinâmica de classes, no capitalismo, é exigência histórica do processo de transformação social a ruptura, pelas classes subalternas, com a ideologia dominante e a construção de uma concepção de mundo própria como base de ações vitais; 3 – as lutas sociais que se inserem na sociedade capitalista são determinadas pela dinâmica da realidade social, como totalidade histórica. Essas premissas constituem os eixos condutores para a reconstrução do objeto deste estudo.Palavras-Chave: lutas de resistência; classes subalternas; alternativas capitalistas; ideologia e hegemonia. Abstract – The article exposes a historical-conceptual reconstruction, using ontological and intellectual categories already used in research carried out during my doctoral thesis. This reconstruction has as its center the “struggle of subaltern classes to capitalist alternatives in contemporary Brazil,” mediated by other categories that give it materiality and dynamism: ideology and hegemony. This study’sanalytical focus lies in politics, and it is based on the following premises, inspired by Gramscian thought: 1 – ideology plays an active role in determined historical processes and is carried out as a result of the movement of social structures; 2 – in the dynamics of classes, in capitalism, the process of social transformation demands both the rupture with the dominant ideology by subaltern classesand the construction ofits own world notion as the basis of vital actions; 3 – social struggles that are part of capitalist society are determined by the dynamics of social reality as a historical totality. These premises are the guiding axes for the reconstruction of the object of this study.Keywords: resistance movements; subaltern classes; capitalist alternatives; ideologyand hegemony.

Desperately seeking the good society

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 636-654
Author(s):  
Gill Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Good Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Northern City

Working towards the ‘good society’ is an important aspiration to hold, but equally its subjectivity complicates the realisation for all – each person’s view of what ‘good’ means in relation to society differs. The notion is also open to statutory appropriation and mainstreaming using rhetoric to suggest its centrality to governmental thinking, but the reality reveals policy and practice, which undermines the accomplishment of social justice and thus a good society. This paper seeks to explore this complexity through dissecting the processes of representation of the ‘good society’ in theory and in practice. The paper will argue that the ‘good society’ might be termed a doxic construct. Bourdieu used ‘doxa’ to explain how arbitrariness shapes people’s acceptance of their place in the world, the covert process is ‘internalised’, seemingly objectively, into the ‘social structures and mental structures’, producing a universal and accepted knowledge of something (Bourdieu, 1977 ). The possibility of difference is undermined; thus, the varied needs and contexts of people’s lived realities are consumed within prevailing normative narratives. Foucault (cited in Simon, 1971 : 198) referred to a ‘system of limits’ and Bourdieu (1977: 164) ‘ sense of limits’, both authors will assist in seeking to uncover how such invisible practices limit and constrain the imagining of possibilities beyond the taken-for-granted. The paper argues that community development can be a catalyst to challenge this invisibility by utilising Freire’s ( 1970 ) conscientisation, enabling people to recognise structural oppression to challenge the status quo. This paper will draw on examples offered within a northern city to build on Knight’s, 2015 research, which posed the question ‘[w]hat kind of society do we want?’, identifying, when asked, a hunger for change. The paper explores whether there is a desire to overturn the predominant individualism of the neoliberal era to reignite the notion of the common good.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document