Showing papers by "School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences published in 2022"

Reverse Engineering Language Acquisition with Child-Centered Long-Form Recordings

Abstract: Language use in everyday life can be studied using lightweight, wearable recorders that collect long-form recordings—that is, audio (including speech) over whole days. The hardware and software und...

Modeling the propagation of riots, collective behaviors and epidemics

Abstract: This paper is concerned with a family of Reaction-Diffusion systems that we introduced in [ 15 ], and that generalizes the SIR type models from epidemiology. Such systems are now also used to describe collective behaviors. In this paper, we propose a modeling approach for these apparently diverse phenomena through the example of the dynamics of social unrest. The model involves two quantities: the level of social unrest, or more generally activity, $ u $, and a field of social tension $ v $, which play asymmetric roles. We think of $ u $ as the actually observed or explicit quantity while $ v $ is an ambient, sometimes implicit, field of susceptibility that modulates the dynamics of $ u $. In this article, we explore this class of model and prove several theoretical results based on the framework developed in [ 15 ], of which the present work is a companion paper. We particularly emphasize here two subclasses of systems: tension inhibiting and tension enhancing . These are characterized by respectively a negative or a positive feedback of the unrest on social tension. We establish several properties for these classes and also study some extensions. In particular, we describe the behavior of the system following an initial surge of activity. We show that the model can give rise to many diverse qualitative dynamics. We also provide a variety of numerical simulations to illustrate our results and to reveal further properties and open questions.

The Swedish Experiment

Abstract: With Sweden traditionally hailed as a social and economic model it is no wonder that its response to the novel coronavirus in 2020 raised a lot of questions – and eyebrows – around the world. The book shows that this response is, in fact, quite coherent with how the Swedish political and administrative system is built up and with the kind of dominant values that are shared in this country. But it is also paradoxical in many ways, for instance in light of the history of epidemic response or because politicians stood in the background compared to other countries. The Swedish model still has such symbolic traction as a synonym of welfare and economic progress that the particular Covid-19 response triggered intense controversies abroad but also at home. To some extent they turned the traditional patterns of support for the model upside down, with conservatives and libertarians hailing the respect for freedom and responsibility. Sweden played the role of the outlier to which other strategies could be compared. The book investigates how the justifications of this approach also made use of the flexible notion of Swedish exceptionalism in ambiguous ways, fuelling tensions and rivalries with the rest of the Nordic countries. The patterns of mortality, especially in nursing homes, have raised questions as to the vulnerabilities of an ageing society, the impact of decades of welfare state reforms and as to the capacity to reinvent the formula for social democratic progress.

The First Wave

Abstract: This chapter reviews the initial phases of the Swedish response to the epidemic emergency. The ‘slow’ and ‘delayed’ response Sweden was criticized for is accounted for in all its complexity. It is important to try to explain why Sweden deviated so much from the rest of Europe, in comparison with its direct neighbours, but also by contrast to its own history of handling epidemic crises. This response met with a lot of astonishment, especially in light of the fact that Sweden has one of the lowest hospital bed capacity in the OECD and could have been expected to react very differently. While the role of FHM, the Public Health Agency, and of its chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, corresponded to a traditional form of administrative independence and heeding of expertise, it went much further than what is generally expected, and other factors must be taken into account to make sense of their unprecedented influence. The lack of certain legal instruments is also important in this regard. The most controversial debate around ‘herd immunity’ and whether Sweden strived to achieve and even more or less openly promoted are some of the issues discussed in this chapter.

Perception des inégalités et de la pauvreté dans les quartiers riches les plus ségrégués

Abstract: Les habitants des quartiers riches les plus ségrégués insistent sur les avantages de l’entre-soi et expriment souvent une claire volonté de tenir à distance les couches de la population les plus menaçantes pour leur tranquillité et le maintien de leurs privilèges. La perception des inégalités et de la pauvreté apparaît dès lors comme une dimension explicative de la ségrégation urbaine.

From the Iron Laws of Capitalism to the Successive Regulation Modes

Abstract: No invisible hand is warranting a soft unfolding of accumulation since each institutional form is only organizing a coordination limited to a specific domain of the economy. Therefore, a regulation mode is inherently problematical, and this contradicts the existence of any general law concerning for instance the rate of profit. This is the interest of an intermediate level analysis. Long-run historical analysis confirms the succession of contrasted regulation modes from the eighteenth century until the early 2000s: old style, competitive, administered, finance-led configurations do show the long-term transformation of capitalist economies.

Riding the Waves: Reckoning and Strategic Adjustments

Abstract: The slower resurgence of contaminations in the autumn of 2020 seemed to give credit to the Swedish approach and showed a temporary return to grace in international media. While the experts still enjoyed a high level of trust, some cracks started to appear with inquiries into the failure to protect vulnerable elderly populations. The idea that democracy and political responsibility had been undermined by excessive trust in expertise and bureaucracy became more widely discussed. Some unusual criticism was even voiced in Norway and Denmark and, with the return of the virus, there were indications of a strategy shift with stricter measures and new pandemic legislation by the end of 2020. Nevertheless, it all took place in the same pragmatic and calm fashion that had characterized the management of the epidemic so far. Although still criticized for its higher mortality compared to its neighbours, Sweden carried on with a vaccine roll out in 2021, escaping most controversies in this respect until the implementation of a vaccine pass. The crisis is not over and further consequences are to be expected from the inquiries into the national strategy and its potential failures.

Postface – analysing violence

Abstract: This postface suggests that the entire volume is an invitation to think about complexity and ambivalence, since the various situations analysed in the chapters are always sociologically and historically hybrid. It stresses the intellectual challenge of conceptualizing family and violence while avoiding both relativism and ethnocentrism. It argues that the Western family studied by sociologists has undergone deep transformations and has started to become a slightly obsolete category, whereas the classic dichotomy between family and kinship, which has been so important to anthropologists, is no longer relevant in contexts like the Pacific Islands where hybridization and the mixing of models are the rule rather than the exception. The postface also reflects on the dual nature of violence, which is both subjective and objective, and ends by discussing the question of whether the project of conceptualizing violence can be saved.

Diversity and Renewal of the Different Forms of Capitalism

Abstract: AbstractWithin regulation analytical framework, there are no reason for any convergence of all economies toward a canonical and superior form of capitalism. There are many theoretical and historically observed mix of market, firm, state and community logics. The primacy of political coalition in the design and architecture of institutional forms is another source of diversity across nations. Furthermore, two key processes govern the evolution of capitalisms, respectively endometabolism and hybridization. Creative destruction is not only the outcome of competition, but of these other processes. The diversity of past and present capitalisms is a major stylized fact and display contrasted mix of short run flexibility, dynamic efficiency and social justice objectives. China is a good example of adaptability of capitalist relations to a quite different society. Contrary to a common intuition, internationalization has polarized contrasted trajectories across the four continents.KeywordsDiversity of capitalismsChinese capitalismEndometabolismHybridizationLatin AmericaEuropeAsian capitalismsSoviet Regime

Creating a Literary Space to Debate the Mao Era

Abstract: Since the scar literature of the early 1980s, fiction and fictionalized autobiography have played an important role in bringing to light the mass violence of the Cultural Revolution. However, these texts remained within a well-defined framework, in which the political system itself was not questioned. Over the last decade, by contrast, the Chinese literary field has focused more specifically on the 1950s, with works like Yang Xianhui's Chronicles of Jiabiangou (2002), and Yang Jisheng's Tombstone (2008). This chapter focuses on Yan Lianke's Four Books (2010), a full-fledged fictionalization in a fantastic mode of the famine of the Great Leap Forward in a village on the Yellow River. Considering literature in the context of theories of the public sphere, it suggests that Yan's book aims to broaden decisively the discussion on certain previously out-of-bounds aspects of the Mao era, an aim which was only partially thwarted by its failure to be published within mainland China. Four Books, like Yang Jisheng's and Yang Xianhui's works, thus represent an attempt to call into question the original legitimacy of the PRC polity and to create a debate within the Chinese-speaking public sphere on the foundations of the current regime.

Beyond mediation

Abstract: Mediation has been a keyword in the sociology of music over the last few decades, allowing for new appraisals of the agency of music, and of the role of technical and social intermediaries between producer and receptor. The concept of mediation becomes salient in music studies in France in the 1980s, with Antoine Hennion’s ethnography of the work of music professionals, such as artistic directors, whose role in the production of pop songs he describes in the article ‘Une sociologie de l’intermédiaire’. The ‘countless mediations’ mentioned in Introduction to the Sociology of Music herald an unbounded diversity of potential referents and meanings. Indeed, the passage alludes to the epistemological challenge their very multiplicity entails, as a concession in the way of stressing the primacy of ‘production’. Now, Adorno’s interest for an expression with no aesthetic mediation suggests a culture lying outside the realm of hermeneutics so to speak.

Music in Lockdown

Abstract: Starting with a section on The Decameron and Boccaccio’s vision of resilience through storytelling and musicking, this chapter explores the new musical spaces (apartments, windows, balconies, balconies-as-viewed-online, deserted concert halls, streaming events from homes, split-screen videos, and so on) that emerged during the first COVID-19 lockdown. It discusses the literature on how people listened to music in their private spaces to cope with the pandemic, and opposes it to media representations of music as a public remedy for an ailing social bond. It addresses the quarantined musicians’ self-expression through dedicated music videos and streaming concerts, and interrogates the prevalence of humour and optimism, in the context of the suffering and death caused by the disease. It also suggests the disruptive effect of the pandemic on traditional ontologies of music, given the difficulty of saying where all these practices were actually located.

Open Access: an opportunity to redesign scholarly communication in history

Abstract: While the adoption of open access to academic publications was slower and more difficult in the humanities and in particular in history than in the scientific and technical disciplines, it is today more and more widely accepted by the community of historians. The number of open access peer-reviewed journals is growing, thanks to the support of multidisciplinary platforms and tools, such as OpenEdition, Scielo and OJS. However, many journals still adopt an embargo period to protect the sales of their print edition. Research monographs in history are also more frequently available in open access. It is interesting to see that new academic presses, purely digital and adopting completely open access, such as UCL Press, Ubiquity Press and OBP were created in recent years to address the growing need of researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Finally, in the context of open science, which is larger than open access to publications, new forms of communication are experimented, that combine with open data (e.g. data journals) or with new ways of interacting with society (e.g academic blogs). These more recent explorations in open scholarly communications are promising perspectives for historians, in particular when they are involved in public history.