http://www.iowaaces360.org/uploads/1/0/9/2/10925571/relationship_of_childhood_abuse_and..._1998.pdf

Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study

Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action. The reigning model used to understand culture's effects on action is fundamentally misleading. It assumes that culture shapes action by supplying ultimate ends or values toward which action is directed, thus making values the central causal element of culture. This paper analyzes the conceptual difficulties into which this traditional view of culture leads and offers an alternative model. Among sociologists and anthropologists, debate has raged for several academic generations over defining the term "culture." Since the seminal work of Clifford Geertz (1973a), the older definition of culture as the entire way of life of a people, including their technology and material artifacts, or that (associated with the name of Ward Goodenough) as everything one would need to know to become a functioning member of a society, have been displaced in favor of defining culture as the publicly available symbolic forms through which people experience and express meaning (see Keesing, 1974). For purposes of this paper, culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of meaning, including beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal cultural practices such as language, gossip, stories, and rituals of daily life. These symbolic forms are the means through which "social processes of sharing modes of behavior and outlook within [a] community" (Hannerz, 1969:184) take place.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2095521.pdf

Culture in action: symbols and strategies*

The growing technical uncertainties and complexities of problems of global concern have made international policy coordination not only increasingly necessary but also increasingly difficult. If decision makers are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of a specific problem, how do they define state interests and develop viable solutions? What factors shape their behavior? Under conditions of uncertainty, what are the origins of international institutions? And how can we best study the processes through which international policy coordination and order emerge? While a variety of analytic approaches have been used to address the problems of international cooperation, the approaches have yielded only fragmentary insights. At its core, the study of policy coordination among states involves arguments about determinism versus free will and about the ways in which the international system is maintained and transformed. Among the overlapping topics of debate are whether national behavior is determined or broadly conditioned by system-level factors, unit-level factors, or some complex interplay between the two; whether state policymakers can identify national interests and behave independently of pressures from the social groups they nominally represent; and whether states respond consistently to opportunities to create, defend, or expand their own wealth and power, to enhance collective material benefits, or to promote nonmaterial values.' A related question of

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Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination

This paper sets out an approach to the analysis of political power in terms of problematics of government. It argues against an overvaluation of the 'problem of the State' in political debate and social theory. A number of conceptual tools are suggested for the analysis of the many and varied alliances between political and other authorities that seek to govern economic activity, social life and individual conduct. Modern political rationalities and governmental technologies are shown to be intrinsically linked to developments in knowledge and to the powers of expertise. The characteristics of liberal problematics of government are investigated, and it is argued that they are dependent upon technologies for 'governing at a distance', seeking to create locales, entities and persons able to operate a regulated autonomy. The analysis is exemplified through an investigation of welfarism as a mode of 'social' government. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of neo-liberalism which demonstrates that the analytical language structured by the philosophical opposition of state and civil society is unable to comprehend contemporary transformations in modes of exercise of political power.(1).

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Political power beyond the State: problematics of government

The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists-is here examined as a practical problem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work" describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public image for science by contrasting it favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternative sets of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied. However, selection of one or another description depends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcation in a way that justifies scientists' claims to authority or resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundaries are drawn and redrawn inflexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways.

Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists

Acknowledgements Preface 1. Scientists' discourse as a topic 2. A possible history of the field 3. Contexts of scientific discourse 4. Accounting for error 5. The truth will out 6. Constructing and deconstructing consensus 7. Working conceptual hallucinations 8. Joking apart 9. Pandora's bequest Notes Index.

Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse

The major contributors to the sociology of knowledge have agreed that the conclusions of science depend on social action only in a very limited sense. This view is examined critically and it is argued that scientific knowledge should be included fully within the scope of sociological analysis. The production of scientific knowledge is depicted as a process of negotiation, the outcome of which depends on participants' use of resources which are both technical and social. It is shown how cultural resources are taking over from the broader cultural milieu and incorporated into the body of certified knowledge; and how, in the wider political context, scientists' claims are conditioned and affected by their social allegiances.

Science and the sociology of knowledge

For many years, the scientific research community within the modern Western academic setting was depicted by sociologists as being predominantly openminded, impartial and objective. These features, it was claimed, although they were not unique to the scientific community, were present there to a degree unrealised in other fields of intellectual endeavour. This supposed fact could not be explained in terms of the special characteristics of scientists as individuals, because it was recognised that the motives, interests and qualities of individual scientists were quite diverse and by no means always in accord with the special attributes of their professional community. It seemed preferable, therefore, to regard these attributes as characteristics of the community as such, that is, as norms which defined the social expectations to which scientists were generally obliged to conform in the course of their professional activities 1. As a result of this line of reasoning, a long list of putative norms or normative principles has been developed, among which the most important are

Michael Mulkay

Papers

Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse

Science and the sociology of knowledge

Norms and ideology in science

Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science

Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science