Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harrigan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Labour ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
The Individual

The introduction explores the socio-economic, religious, and intellectual context of Caribbean slavery, in a frontier environment marked by demographic transformation. Slavery reflected on the understanding of society and the individual, and was understood through religious discourses and the heritage of antiquity. This book discusses, firstly, the importance to slavery of what French observers called condition; this can be illuminated through anthropological approaches, nuanced by acknowledging the transformative nature of slavery. Secondly, it explores what was new about corporeal labour in the plantation context. Thirdly, it discusses the use of strategies for purposes such as religious conversion or temporal gain, particularly the use of the script. This chapter highlights the fact that critics have focused little on the earliest Caribbean colonies and on the question of human labour. Interdisciplinary approaches from the fields of history, literature, and the social sciences are valuable, but a new approach is called for which both recognises what was shared in the thinking of colonial commentators, and what was heterogeneous in the strategies they used to obtain diverse forms of interest. The introduction ends by summarising the principal printed and manuscript sources analysed in this book.

The Everyday in a Time of Transformation: Exploring a Single South African Lifeworld after 20 Years of Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
P. Conrad Kotze ◽  
Jan K. Coetzee
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Epistemological Framework

Transformation has come to be a defining characteristic of contemporary societies, while it has rarely been studied in a way that gives acknowledgement to both its societal effects and the experience thereof by the individual. This article discusses a recent study that attempts to do just that. The everyday life of a South African is explored within the context of changes that can be linked, more or less directly, to those that have characterized South Africa as a state since the end of apartheid in 1994. The study strives to avoid the pitfalls associated with either an empirical or solely constructivist appreciation of this phenomenon, but rather represents an integral onto-epistemological framework for the practice of sociological research. The illustrated framework is argued to facilitate an analysis of social reality that encompasses all aspects thereof, from the objectively given to the intersubjectively constructed and subjectively constituted. While not requiring extensive development on the theoretical or methodological level, the possibility of carrying out such an integral study is highlighted as being comfortably within the capabilities of sociology as a discipline. While the article sheds light on the experience of transformation, it is also intended to contribute to the contemporary debate surrounding the current “ontological turn” within the social sciences.

Connecting With Kinesiology: Observations of an Outsider

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Jay Coakley
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
Sociology Department ◽  
Physical Activities ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Faculty Appointment ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
The Social

This article is organized around the idea that a person can be a part of kinesiology without being in kinesiology. Trained as a sociologist and never having a faculty appointment outside of a sociology department, I am an outsider in kinesiology. However, my participation in kinesiology and relationships with scholars in kinesiology departments have fostered my professional growth and my appreciation of interdisciplinary approaches to studying sports, physical activities, and the moving human body. The knowledge produced by scholars in kinesiology subdisciplines has provided a framework for situating and assessing my research, teaching, and professional service as a sociologist. The latter half of this article focuses on changes in higher education and how they are likely to negatively impact the social sciences and humanities subdisciplines in kinesiology. The survival of these subdisciplines will depend, in part, on how leaders in the field respond to the question, Kinesiology for whom?

New Outlines of Structural Sociology, 1945–70

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
J.P.S. Uberoi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Indian Point

This chapter presents a discussion of international intellectual trends in the social sciences, theoretical and empirical studies in India, the question of independence of mind or home rule in intellectual institutions. Following the swarajist project outlined earlier of viewing Europe and its systems of knowledge and practices from an independent Indian point of view, this chapter is in effect a research outline for a new structural sociology in India. We are introduced to structuralism as it exists in the world, its scope and definition and as a methodology for the social sciences. This is followed by the approach to structuralism as scientific theory, method and as philosophical world view. Finally discusses are the principles of structural analysis, structuralism in language, literature and culture, in social structure, with regard to society and the individual, religion, philosophy, politics, sociology and social-anthropology.

Introduction to the Special Issue on ‘Charisma’

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114
Author(s):  
Maren Freudenberg ◽  
Tim Weitzel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conceptual Debate ◽  
The Individual

The introduction to the special issue on ‘charisma’ offers a very brief overview of the development of the concept in the social sciences and various critiques and intersecting debates. It casts a close look at Max Weber’s sometimes contradictory use of the concept and the different ways he conceptualized it in his sociology of religion and his sociology of domination. It then examines alternative theoretical approaches to ‘charisma’ that emerge in the course of the twentieth century before outlining this special issue’s contribution to the conceptual debate and the individual articles’ operationalization of the term by viewing charisma as relational, communicative, procedural, as well as related to ideas, practices, and objects.

How To Make No Sense of Marx

1989 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 105-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Mandel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Individual Action ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intentional Explanation ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Methodological Collectivism

Professor Jon Elster advances the proposal that Marx – and Marxists–really stand for ‘methodological individualism,’ as opposed to ‘methodological collectivism.’ He defines ‘methodological individualism’ in the following terms: Social science explanations are seen as three-tiered. First, there is a causal explanation of mental states, such as desires and beliefs … Next, there is intentional explanation of individual action in terms of the underlying beliefs and desires … Finally, there is causal explanation of aggregated phenomena in terms of the individual actions that go into them. The last form is the specifically Marxist contribution to the methodology of the social sciences.1

Carl Menger's theory of invisible-hand explanations

2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Haller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Individual

Carl Menger's theory of invisible-hand explanations is rooted in his methodology of the social sciences. Contrary to his 18th-century Scottish forerunners he explains both the emergence and the persistence of unplanned social institutions exclusively by the individual pursuit of perceived self-interest. Contrary to Hayek's evolutionary functionalism, Menger's theory is not confined to the explanation of efficient or beneficial institutions. And contrary to Buchanan and Vanberg's constitutional contractualism, it does not require that people form stable preferences over rules.

Interdisciplinarity: Its Meaning and Consequences

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond C. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Formal Concept ◽  
Approaches To Teaching ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reflective Study ◽  
Proper Response

Interdisciplinarity is an analytically reflective study of the methodological, theoretical, and institutional implications of implementing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and research. Interdisciplinary approaches in the social sciences began in the 1920s. At a minimum, they involve the application of insights and perspectives from more than one conventional discipline to the understanding of social phenomena. The formal concept of interdisciplinarity entered the literature in the early 1970s. The scholars responsible all shared the thought that the scientific enterprise had become less effective due to disciplinary fragmentation and that a countermovement for the unification of knowledge was the proper response. However, not all interdisciplinarians believe that the unification of existing knowledge is the answer. There are many ways of differentiating between types of interdisciplinary approaches. One classification distinguishes between multidisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. Multidisciplinary approaches involve the simple act of juxtaposing parts of several conventional disciplines in an effort to get a broader understanding of some common theme or problem. Crossdisciplinary approaches involve real interaction across the conventional disciplines, though the extent of communication; thus, combination, synthesis, or integration of concepts and/or methods vary considerably. Transdisciplinary approaches, meanwhile, involve articulated conceptual frameworks that seek to transcend the more limited world views of the specialized conventional disciplines. Even though many believe that interdisciplinary efforts can create innovative knowledge, the power structure of the disciplinary academy resists interdisciplinary inroads on its authority and resources.

ANALYZING THE AGENT-BASED MODEL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

2003 ◽  
Vol 06 (03) ◽  
pp. 331-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUTAKA I. LEON SUEMATSU ◽  
KEIKI TAKADAMA ◽  
NORBERTO E. NAWA ◽  
KATSUNORI SHIMOHARA ◽  
OSAMU KATAI
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Agent-based models (ABMs) have been attracting the attention of researchers in the social sciences, becoming a prominent paradigm in the study of complex social systems. Although a great number of models have been proposed for studying a variety of social phenomena, no general agent design methodology is available. Moreover, it is difficult to validate the accuracy of these models. For this reason, we believe that some guidelines for ABMs design must be devised; therefore, this paper is a first attempt to analyze the levels of ABMs, identify and classify several aspects that should be considered when designing ABMs. Through our analysis, the following implications have been found: (1) there are two levels in designing ABMs: the individual level, related to the design of the agents' internal structure, and the collective level, which concerns the design of the agent society or macro-dynamics of the model; and (2) the mechanisms of these levels strongly affect the outcomes of the models.

Epidemiology and the Scientific Method

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan F. Chalmers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Made In

This article refutes the claim that the field of epidemiology and community health would benefit from the application of the scientific method. It is argued that the methods of physics are not appropriate for other disciplines. When applied to the social sciences, positivism is a conservatizing force, causing theory to become based on a mere description of social phenomenon. Since it cannot lead to a deep understanding of social phenomena, positivism is incapable of revealing ways in which society could be radically changed. Moreover, such theory is far from neutral. Rather, it is formed and influenced by the forms of life experienced and practiced in the society. This is illustrated by an analysis of the origin of modern physics at the time when society was changing from a feudal to capitalist form of organization. It is concluded that advances will be made in epidemiology and community health when this field breaks from its focus on the individual and incorporates class into its analysis. However, given the interconnection between social structure and social theory, resistance to such a radical change can be expected.

Recentering the World: The Quest for ‘Elective’ Centers in a Secularized Universe

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 320-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Cohen ◽  
Nachman Ben-Yehuda ◽  
Janet Aviad
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Comparative Framework ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

The various ‘quests for meaning’ of the ‘decentralized’ contemporary Western youths are interpreted as so many attempts to ‘recenter the world’ around new ‘elective centers’. Rather than being centers of the contemporary world into which the individual is born, such centers are located outside it, and freely chosen by the seekers. Four such elective centers are discussed: (1) traditional religious conversion, (2) the occult, (3) science fiction, and (4) tourism. Each of these elective centers is first briefly described and then analysed in a comparative framework, focused on six principal questions: (a) the social and cultural conditions which engender the contemporary ‘quest for a center’, (b) the nature of elective centers, (c) mechanisms of election and rejection of alternative elective centers, (d) extent of involvement with elective centers, (e) elective centers and the wider social framework, (f) the institution-building potential of the elective centers.

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