Körper | Kultur | Konflikt

Society's view of dying and death no longer corresponds to the fixed images with which the corresponding areas of knowledge were associated until a few years ago. For a long time, the supposedly ›unambiguous‹ levels of meaning of this complex issue were stable enough to paralyse social scientific research. For some time now, however, discourses have been emerging that (re)question the normative elements of funeral culture, the treatment of dead bodies and cremation ashes, the labelling of medical diagnoses, and the determination of the boundary between life and death. Today, there is a—quite productive—tension between real practices and cultural guidelines.

How the COVID-19 pandemic impacts social scientific research on sustainability: questions of methodology, ethics and justice: comment on Santana et al. 2021

In a highly relevant contribution, Santana et al. (2021) outlined the challenges for qualitative enquiries during the pandemic. We agree that overcoming these challenges is very important since qualitative research is vital for understanding both the impacts of COVID-19 on human communities around the globe and its significance for sustainable futures. However, we argue that a more fundamental approach is needed to address problems within scientific organisations, thinking and practices that directly affect qualitative research capabilities. In this comment, we focus on justice, research organisation, the ways social scientists position themselves and changed understandings of social worlds.

Humanizing Refugee Research in a Turbulent World

This essay adopts a critical perspective of the idea of humanizing refugee research. It argues that much social scientific research is intrinsically dehumanizing, as it simplifies and reduces human experience to categories and models that are amenable to analysis. Attempts to humanize research may productively challenge and unsettle powerful and dominant hegemonic structures that frame policy and research on forced migration. However, it may replace them with new research frameworks, now imbued authority as representing more authentic or real-life experiences. Rather than claiming the moral high ground of humanizing research, the more limited, and perhaps more honest, ambition should be to recognize the inevitable dehumanization embedded in refugee research and seek to dehumanize differently.

The Black Pill: New Technology and the Male Supremacy of Involuntarily Celibate Men

Involuntary celibates, or “incels,” are people who identify themselves by their inability to establish sexual partnerships. In this article, we use analytic abduction to qualitatively analyze 9,062 comments on a popular incel forum for heterosexual men that is characterized by extensive misogyny. Incels argue that emerging technologies reveal and compound the gender practices that produce involuntarily celibate men. First, incels argue that women’s use of dating apps accelerates hypergamy. Second, incels suggest that highly desirable men use dating apps to partner with multiple women. Third, incels assert that subordinate men inflate women’s egos and their “sexual marketplace value” through social media platforms. We argue that incels’ focus on technology reinforces essentialist views on gender, buttresses male domination, dehumanizes women, and minimizes incels’ own misogyny. We discuss findings in relation to theories of masculinity and social scientific research on the impacts of emerging technology.

Social Scientists on Crime in the 20th century

Social scientific research on crime in the 20th century

Methodological Afterword

This final section of the book is aimed at those readers who are interested in the methodological processes that led to the three-part analysis I have presented in this book. To some, dividing the post-Fordist work ethic into three categories or types may appear anachronistic. After all, sociologists are increasingly being encouraged to attend to ‘mess’ in social scientific research (...

Hypotheses

This chapter addresses hypotheses. Empirical social scientific research often entails an interaction between observations and theory (a logical and precise speculation about an answer to a research question). In the application of deductive reasoning, a specific theory will inform a set of hypotheses that are then tested through empirical observations. Accordingly, hypotheses can be defined as ‘testable propositions entailed by the logic of the theory’. The chapter then details five basic principles to build a theory. Although critics have pointed out that these principles are unsuitable for the investigation of a small-Number of cases due to the reliance on random selection and generalization, it remains an important work in developing procedures for avoiding bias and making reliable inferences. The chapter also discusses the formulation of a good hypothesis.

Life Sentences and Perpetual Confinement

The past 40 years have been a time of great change in life sentencing, during which the use of life sentences has dramatically grown and the quality of life sentences has markedly hardened. The rise of life without parole in the United States is a particularly recognizable development, but life sentencing has increased worldwide, and the use of other forms of punishment that hold people in prison until death has also intensified. This article focuses on these transformations by examining several important areas in which thinking and scholarship on life sentencing have been altered and spurred by recent developments. The review concludes by pointing to gaps in the field of research and highlighting issues on which social scientific research on life sentencing has more to contribute going forward.

U-Turn if You Want to: Missional implications of Viewing Conversion as a Process

ZusammenfassungDieser Aufsatz untersucht den Bekehrungsprozess aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, um dessen Auswirkungen für die Praxis der Mission verständlich zu machen. Im ersten Abschnitt wird der Bekehrungsprozess einer kritischen Analyse unterzogen. Zuerst betrachtet der Verfasser die Bedeutung von Bekehrung aus evangelikaler Perspektive, dann wird die Form der Bekehrung innerhalb der christlichen Theologie und gegenwärtigen sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung erörtert. Diese Analyse wird dann verwendet, um daran praktische Auswirkungen für die Mission der Ortsgemeinde festzumachen. Die unterbreiteten Vorschläge konzentrieren sich auf die Resultate, die für die strategischen Ziele der Gemeinde und ihren Bedarf an kontextueller Wahrnehmung relevant sind. Dies geschieht zu dem Zweck, dass die Gemeindeglieder gestärkt und ausgerüstet werden, Fürsprecher für den Glauben zu sein und für die Botschaft, die sie vertreten, sowie die Aktionen, die sie vornehmen.RésuméL’auteur considère le processus de conversion sous des perspectives diverses afin d’en tirer des implications pour la pratique missionnaire. Dans la première partie, il analyse de façon critique le processus de conversion. Ayant établi le sens de la conversion d’un point de vue évangélique, il considère la structure de la conversion en théologie chrétienne et dans la recherche socio-scientifique contemporaine. Cette analyse sert souvent à dégager des implications pratiques pour la mission de l’Église locale. Les propositions se concentrent alors sur les implications pour la stratégie de l’Église, la nécessité d’une prise en compte du contexte culturel afin d’équiper les membres d’Église pour défendre la foi, et sur le message proclamé et les actions mises en oeuvre.SummaryThis article examines the conversion process from multiple perspectives in order to understand its implications for the practice of mission. In the first section the conversion process is critically analysed. Having considered the meaning of conversion from an evangelical perspective, the structure of conversion within Christian theology and contemporary social-scientific research is discussed. This analysis is then used to identify specific practical implications for the mission of the local church. The proposals advanced focus on the implications for the strategy of the church, its need for contextual awareness, for empowering and equipping church members to be advocates for the faith, and the message and actions it employs.

Medicalization and Naturalization

This article offers a naturecultural intervention to the abortion literature, which characterizes abortion as a standard procedure, from the perspective of both biomedical and social scientific research. In contrast, by examining interviews with feminists and pro-choice people about their recent abortions (n=27) and my own experiences as an abortion counselor, I find that no singular “abortion” exists; rather, there are many embodied abortions. I discuss how participants negotiate medical and natural ideologies, arguing that these ideologies produce the conditions under which people come to experience abortion in the United States. I also discuss the material consequences of defining abortion as a standard event. I find that universalizing abortion leads to the underrepresentation of marginalized stories, a lack of personalized support, and racialized and classed disparities in who can achieve their desired biosocial state (“normal” or “natural”).