The article compares the conceptualizations of the realm of the material or non-cultural in different versions of 20th-century cultural theory. It distinguishes between three phases of historical development: First, the classical sociology of knowledge-in the works of Mannheim and late Durkheim-understands the material as a separate realm of social structures, which acts as the foundation for the realm of symbolic orders. The instabilities of this theoretical option of a materialist-culturalist double are resolved in radical culturalism, which appears in different versions in (post-)structuralism, phenomenology, constructivism etc. and which interprets the non-cultural as objects of knowledge or symbolic objects. The problematic neo-Kantian subject-object-distinction in these approaches is the target of a third, novel culturalist option of dealing with material entities: In the work of Bruno Latour, these entities are rehabilitated as artefacts or things that are necessary, effective components of social practices or networks. Latour's approach should be embedded in the wider framework of a post-Wittgensteinian theory of social practices as it is formulated above all by Theodore Schatzki.

https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2015/SOC757/um/3b_Reckwitz.pdf

The Status of the “Material” in Theories of Culture: From “Social Structure” to “Artefacts”

This article aims at bringing together various lines of analysis that have been kept more or less separate until now, that is, studies on the body, motricity, perception, agency, material culture, the subject, unconscious drives, and power systems. By drawing on the work of Mauss, Schilder, Tisseron, Parlebas and Foucault, it discusses how the subject and its drives are invested in sensori-motricity in a material world. When it is socially validated and coded, such an investment amounts to what Foucault called the ‘techniques of the self’. The subjectivation thus achieved may be consistent or at odds with corresponding representations. The notions provided by praxeology, the science of sensori-motricity, may help in producing an ethnography of subjectivation in a material world.

A Praxeological Approach to Subjectivation in a Material World

Critical research in information systems is based on and inspired by ethics and morality. In order to support this proposition, this paper will suggest a way of classifying critical research that differs from definitions common IS research. According to the current definition, research is critical when it is moti- vated by the intention to change social realities and promote emancipation. Based on this critical intention, critical research is furthermore characterized by critical topics, critical theories, and critical methodologies. Using these criteria of critical research, the paper argues that critical research is ethical in nature. To support this view, the paper introduces the concepts of ethics and morality by analysing two traditions of moral philosophy, here called the 'German tradition' and the 'French tradition'. Using three examples of current critical research in information systems, the paper will show that ethics and morality strongly influence critical intention, topics and theories. Having thus established the ethical nature of critical research, the paper concludes by discussing the weaknesses of critical research from the point of view of ethics and morality.

The ethical nature of critical research in information systems

This article resituates the Panopticon in Foucault’s work, showing how it emerged from research on social medicine in the early to mid 1970s, and relating it to discussions of the plague and the police. The key sources are lectures and seminars from this period, only partly translated in English. What is of interest here is how Foucault’s concerns with surveillance interrelate with concerns about society as a whole – not in the total institution of the prison, but in the realm of public health. This is pursued through detailed readings of Foucault’s analyses of urban medicine and the hospital. The article closes by making some general remarks about situating Foucault’s books in the context of his lecture courses, and about how the analysis of medicine may be a more profitable model for surveillance than the Panopticon.

https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/download/3339/3301

Plague, Panopticon, Police

This book traces the history and development of the port of Benguela, the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa, from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Benguela, located on the central coast of present-day Angola, was founded by the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century. In discussing the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African societies, Mariana P. Candido explores the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states and the emergence of new states. Placing Benguela in an Atlantic perspective, this study shows how events in the Caribbean and Brazil affected social and political changes on the African coast. This book emphasizes the importance of the South Atlantic as a space for the circulation of people, ideas and crops.

An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland

(primeiro paragrafo do texto) O primeiro de uma serie anunciada de 6 volumes (seguir-se-ao La chair et le corps, La croisade des enfants, La femme, la mere et l'hysterique, Les pervers,  Population et rates), este tomo apresenta-se como uma introducao as analises que se vao suceder. Como geralmente acontece nas obras de Michel Foucault, comeca-se por apresentar as teses vigentes, aquelas que gozam de maior prestigio que parecem mais firmemente estabelecidas, para em seguida o autor desmoronar esse saber adquirido. Neste caso, a tese gloriosa seria a seguinte: a uma sexualidade livre ate ao seculo XVII seguir-se-ia uma sexualidade reprimida, muda, hipocrita, enfim "vitoriana". Este discurso sobre a moderna repressao do sexo apresenta-se solidamente enraizado, tanto mais que uma caucao politica protege: "Fazendo surgir a epoca da repressao no seculo XVII, depois de algumas centenas de anos de ar livre e de livre expressao, fazem-na coincidir com o desenvolvimento do capitalismo: estaria indissociavelmente ligada a ordem burguesa" (p. 12). Porque? Os defensores dessa tese nao tem a menor dificuldade em explica-la: se o sexo e reprimido com tanto rigor, e porque e incompativel com uma forma de trabalho geral e intensa. Numa epoca em que se explora sistematicamente a forca de trabalho, poder-se-ia tolerar que ela se desperdicasse em prazeres, excetuados aqueles, e mesmo assim reduzidos ao minimo, que lhe permitem reproduzir-se? A causa do sexo e da sua liberdade assume assim as honras de uma causa politica. "A ideia do sexo reprimido nao e portanto apenas uma questao de teoria". E tambem uma atitude politica de combate a "hipocrita burguesia".

/pdf/resenha-do-livro-histoire-de-la-sexualite-i-la-volonte-de-1whn6e0uv3.pdf

Resenha do livro: 'Histoire de la sexualité. I - La volonté de savoir'

História da família no Brasil colonial

Dicionário da história da colonização portuguesa no Brasil

/pdf/cultura-e-sociedade-no-rio-de-janeiro-1808-1821-1g0l4diyhr.pdf

Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva

Papers

Resenha do livro: 'Histoire de la sexualité. I - La volonté de savoir'

História da família no Brasil colonial

Dicionário da história da colonização portuguesa no Brasil

Cultura e sociedade no Rio de Janeiro: 1808-1821

Vida privada e quotidiano no Brasil : na época de D. Maria I e D. João VI