Social Environments of Pervasive Incarceration: Lessons from Australia’s Top End

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-221
Author(s):  
Bruce Western ◽  
Catherine Sirois
Keyword(s):  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Material Hardship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Penal Institutions

U.S. mass incarceration is characterized by pervasive imprisonment among black men with little schooling that is often viewed as the product of punitive criminal justice policy. This chapter argues that pervasive incarceration also arises under a specific set of social conditions that make police contact and detention overwhelmingly likely. This work explores the social conditions of pervasive incarceration in a significantly less punitive policy context, in Australia’s Northern Territory where social inequality is acute and incarceration is woven into everyday life. Interviews and field observation in this region show that pervasive indigenous incarceration emerges in a historical context of racial inequality marked by extreme material hardship, violent family conflict and alcohol abuse. Where violence is coupled to poverty, penal institutions respond expansively to myriad social problems — including serious violence.

scholarly journals Reconsidering Relational Autonomy. Personal Autonomy for Socially Embedded and Temporally Extended Selves

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Baumann
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Relational Autonomy ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

AbstractMost recent accounts of personal autonomy acknowledge that the social environment a person lives in, and the personal relationships she entertains, have some impact on her autonomy. Two kinds of conceptualizing social conditions are traditionally distinguished in this regard: Causally relational accounts hold that certain relationships and social environments play a causal role for the development and on-going exercise of autonomy. Constitutively relational accounts, by contrast, claim that autonomy is at least partly constituted by a person’s social environment or standing. The central aim of this paper is to raise the question how causally and constitutively relational approaches relate to the fact that we exercise our autonomy over time. I argue that once the temporal scope of autonomy is opened up, we need not only to think differently about the social dimension of autonomy. We also need to reconsider the very distinction between causally and constitutively relational accounts, because it is itself a synchronic (and not a diachronic) distinction.

scholarly journals archaeology of everiday racism

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-344
Author(s):  
Claire Smith ◽  
Jordan Ralph ◽  
Elspbeth Hodgins ◽  
Susan Arthure ◽  
Heather Burke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Inclusive Design ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Creation

This paper examines the role of material culture in replicating everyday racism in Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia. We argue that inclusivity is determined by inclusive design supported by inclusive behaviours and that archaeologists can inform the creation of a more equitable world by identifying how material culture acts to exclude certain groups and replicate inequalities that might otherwise go unnoticed. This paper is part of the social justice movement in archaeology that analyses material remains in both the past and the present to reveal relationships between racism, racial discrimination, and racial inequality.

Why Do We “Skip to My Lou,” Anyway? Teaching Play Party Songs in Historical Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-10
Author(s):  
Nancy L. Glen
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Classroom Teacher ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
General Music ◽  
Music Curriculum ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teaching ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Music Specialist

This article focuses on teaching play party songs in a general music curriculum, using their authentic form and historical context. The history of play party songs is discussed, as well as the social conditions in America during the time they were used in the late 19th to mid-20th century. Descriptions of the songs include variations in lyrics and movements, with three examples of popular play party songs discussed in detail. Tips for teachers who wish to teach play party songs in their original historical context are offered, and a case is made for using them as a component of interdisciplinary teaching between the music specialist and the classroom teacher. At the end of the article, a sample list of popular play party songs are presented, as well as a list of resources to support the music specialist in learning more about these songs.

scholarly journals The Writing of the History of Science from the Notion of Scientific Field

2020 ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Ivã Gurgel ◽  
Graciella Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Scientific Field ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Does science depend on its historical context? Does understanding science as a social construction demand us to abandon rationalist perspectives of knowledge? Based on these issues, this article aims to discuss epistemological questions concerning the problem of the historicity of sciences. In first part, we analyze how different philosophical systems conceptualize this problem and point out to tensions that emerge when one tries to reconcile a rationalist with a historicist perspective of knowledge. Then, we discuss the sociological epistemology of Pierre Bourdieu arguing that the field autonomy is a key concept to understand what the author denominates the “social conditions of the progress of reason”. Finally, we present criteria to delimit the most relevant contexts in a case study on the history of science.

Functionalism and after? Theory and Developments in Social Science Applied to the Health Field

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Frankenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Integration ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Theoretical Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Health Field

It is suggested that sociology could have a totalizing theoretical function in relation to medicine. Marx in his Capital put forward a theory of social integration in which incidentally illness is seen as arising out of social conditions and reflecting back on them. Sigerist, following this lead, sees the roles of physicians and the sick in an historical context, but his analysis is marred by an inversion of Marx's man-centered view. George Bernard Shaw's experience in local government led him to a critical understanding. Parsons and Freidson develop Sigerist's ideas but outside their historical context. It is argued that empirical work in the field, while useful, suffers from the inadequacy of attempts to apply sociologic theory to medicine. This arises out of the social position of sociologists, their elitist view of administration, and their illusory desire to influence doctors. The solution is seen in identification with patients and an honest acceptance of class conflict and contradiction. It is suggested that in this respect Mao Tse-tung might be seen as a successful medical sociologist. A parallel is drawn with problems of realism and naturalism in art.

The Social Construction of a Perfect Market: The Strawberry Auction at Fontaines-en-Sologne

2010 ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
M.-F. Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Per Se

The article examines social conditions and mechanisms of the emergence in 1982 of a «Dutch» strawberry auction in Fontaines-en-Sologne, France. Empirical study of this case shows that perfect market does not arise per se due to an «invisible hand». It is a social construction, which could only be put into effect by a hard struggle between stakeholders and large investments of different forms of capital. Ordinary practices of the market dont differ from the predictions of economic theory, which is explained by the fact that economic theory served as a frame of reference for the designers of the auction. Technological and spatial organization as well as principal rules of trade was elaborated in line with economic views of perfect market resulting in the correspondence between theory and reality.

Race and the Epigenetics of Memory

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Soto Laveaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Dna Analysis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Neural Function ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Race Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
Lasting Change

In my brief response to Terence Keel’s essay “Race on Both Sides of the Razor,” I focus on something as pertinent as alleles and social construction: how we write history and how we memorialize the past. Current DNA analysis promises to remap our past and interrogate certainties that we have taken for granted. For the purposes of this commentary I call this displacing of known histories the epigenetics of memory. Just as environmental stimuli rouse epigenetic mechanisms to produce lasting change in behavior and neural function, the unearthing of forgotten bodies, forgotten lives, has a measurable effect on how we act and think and what we believe. The act of writing history, memorializing the lives of others, is a stimulus that reshapes who and what we are. We cannot disentangle the discussion about the social construction of race and biological determinism from the ways in which we have written—and must write going forward—about race. To the debate about social construction and biological variation we must add the heft of historical context, which allows us to place these two ideas in dialogue with each other. Consequently, before addressing the themes in Keel’s provocative opening essay and John Hartigan’s response, I speak about dead bodies—specifically, cemeteries for Black bodies. Three examples—one each from Atlanta, Georgia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Mexico—illustrate how dead bodies must enter our current debates about race, science, and social constructions. 

Naturalizing Moral Regression

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Group Threat ◽  
Epistemic Practices ◽  
Harsh Conditions ◽  
Development And Evolution

This chapter proposes a theory of moral regression, arguing that inclusivist gains can be eroded not only if certain harsh biological and social conditions indicative of out-group threat actually reappear but also if significant numbers of people come to believe that such harsh conditions exist even when they do not. It argues that normal cognitive biases in conjunction with defective social-epistemic practices can cause people wrongly to believe that such harsh conditions exist, thus triggering the development and evolution of exclusivist moralities and the dismantling of inclusivist ones. Armed with detailed knowledge of the biological and social environments in which progressive moralities emerge and are sustained, as well as the conditions under which they are likely to be dismantled, human beings can take significant steps toward transforming the classic liberal faith in moral progress into a practical, empirically grounded hope.

The politics of welfare

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110080
Author(s):  
Lois McNay
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Collective Activism ◽  
Historical Model ◽  
Valuable Role

Steven Klein’s excellent new book The Work of Politics is an innovative, insightful and original argument about the valuable role that welfare institutions may play in democratic movements for change. In place of a one-sided Weberian view of welfare institutions as bureaucratic instruments of social control, Klein recasts them in Arendtian terms as ‘worldly mediators’ or participatory mechanisms that act as channels for a radical politics of democratic world making. Although Klein is careful to modulate this utopian vision through a developed account of power and domination, I question the relevance of this largely historical model of world-building activism for the contemporary world of welfare. I point to the way that decades of neoliberal social policy have arguably eroded many of the social conditions and relations of solidarity that are vital prerequisites for collective activism around welfare.

A syndemics approach to exercise is medicine

2021 ◽  
pp. 136345932110214
Author(s):  
Caitlin Vitosky Clarke ◽  
Brynn C Adamson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Exercise Interventions ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
The Social ◽  
Exercise Promotion ◽  
The Impact

This paper offers new insights into the promotion of the Exercise is Medicine (EIM) framework for mental illness and chronic disease. Utilising the Syndemics Framework, which posits mental health conditions as corollaries of social conditions, we argue that medicalized exercise promotion paradigms both ignore the social conditions that can contribute to mental illness and can contribute to mental illness via discrimination and worsening self-concept based on disability. We first address the ways in which the current EIM framework may be too narrow in scope in considering the impact of social factors as determinants of health. We then consider how this narrow scope in combination with the emphasis on independence and individual prescriptions may serve to reinforce stigma and shame associated with both chronic disease and mental illness. We draw on examples from two distinct research projects, one on exercise interventions for depression and one on exercise interventions for multiple sclerosis (MS), in order to consider ways to improve the approach to exercise promotion for these and other, related populations.

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