Showing papers on "Contemporary society published in 1997"

The network society

Abstract: The Network Society is now more than ever the essential guide to the past, consequences and future of digital communication. Fully revised, this Third Edition covers crucial new issues and updates. This book remains an accessible, comprehensive, must-read introduction to how new media function in contemporary society.

Anthropology of policy : critical perspectives on governance and power

Abstract: Arguing that policy has become an increasingly central concept and instrument in the organisation of contemporary societies and that it now impinges on all areas of life so that it is virtually impossible to ignore or escape its influence, this book argues that the study of policy leads straight into issues at the heart of anthropology.

Capitalism in the Age of Globalization: The Management of Contemporary Society

Abstract: * Foreword by John Bellamy Foster * Preface to the critique influence change edition * Introduction * 1. The Future of Global Polarization * 2. The Capitalist Economic Management of the Crisis of Contemporary Society * 3. Reforming International Monetary Management of the Crisis * 4. The Rise of Ethnicity: A Political Response to Economic Globalization * 5. What are the Conditions for Relaunching Development in the South? * 6. The Challenges Posed by Economic Globalization: The European Case * 7. Ideology and Social Thought: The Intelligentsia and the Development Crisis

Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer

Abstract: Stories of cancer are full of monster and marvels; the monstrousness of the disease and the treatments, the marvels of the cures and the saved lives. Still one of the most dreaded diseases to haunt our imaginations, cancer is more than an illness - it is a cultural phenomenon. People who have cancer are bombarded with competing explanations of their conditions: it is genetically inherited; it is environmentally produced; it is the result of their personality. Teratologies - A Cultural Study of Cancer investigates how this disease is perceived, experienced and theorised in contemporary society. It explores changing beliefs about the causes of, and the cures for, cancer in both biomedicine and its increasingly popular alternative counterparts. Analysing conventional and alternative medical accounts, self-help manuals and patients' personal stories, Jackie Stacey takes a critical look at the place of heroes, metaphors, the self and the body in these competing bids to produce the authoritative definition of the meaning of cancer today. Interspersed with these detailed textual investigations are discussions of broader issues such as the feminist debates about the history of science, the place of consumer culture in health practices and the status of patients and of health professionals in postmodern society. Combining authobiographical narratives with contemporary theoretical debates, the author carves out a specifically feminist analysis of the cultural dimensions of cancer. She brings accounts of her own illness under the critical lens of academic scrutiny and situates these personal stories within a discussion of contemporary cultural change.

Face the nation : Race, immigration, and the rise of nativism in late twentieth century America

Abstract: This article examines the rise of nativism directed at Asian and Latino immigrants to the United States in contemporary American society. By focusing on the Los Angeles riots and other evidence of the rise of anti-immigrant feelings among the population, this study reveals that a racial nativism has arisen which intertwines a new American racism with traditional hostility towards new immigrants in a variety of ways. Both recent scholarship on race and John Higham's classic work on nativism are utilized to provide a conceptual framework for understanding our multiracial contemporary setting. Tellingly, this new racial nativism emerges from both sides of the political spectrum, and is evident in attempts to keep discussions of race focused on solely white/black national construction. Finally, the study explores how immigrants themselves have responded to these attacks by increasing naturalization rates and political activity, forming a newfound ambivalent Americanism

Architecture of fear

Abstract: Examining the ways in which the contemporary landscape is shaped by a preoccupation with fear, this volume looks at home design, security systems, gated communications, semi-public spaces, zoning regulations and cyberspace. The text asserts that this fixation also manifests itself in efforts to provide public parks but control the problem of homelessness. The essayists in this volume seek to explain that such disjointed efforts exacerbate rather than eradicate the sources of fear and insecurity. The contributors offer suggestions for proaction, not reaction, to counter both real and perceived problems in contemporary society.

`Wham Bam, am I a Man?': Unemployed Men Talk about Masculinities

Abstract: In contemporary society, being powerful is typically associated with, among other things, being male, middle class and employed. The cultural ascendancy of these characteristics is supported by specific structural and discursive patterns. However, there are a number of ways in which these cultural yardsticks can be challenged. In this paper we summarize the discursive patterns constructed by a group of working-class men experiencing long-term unemployment in a region of the English West Midlands. These men talked about a conflict between discourses concerning domestic provision and public consumption, leading to a sense of disempowerment and emasculation. Despite the potential challenge posed by long-term unemployment to traditional versions of masculinity, these men's accounts retained their positions within hegemonic discourses of masculinity. Finally, we examine the political implications of such discursive patterns.

Implicit religion in contemporary society

Abstract: The book reports three studies that were undertaken of what "moves" people - firstly as individuals, through verbal interviews; secondly in a public house, through working behind the bar; and thirdly in a residential community, through being the Rector of a parish. In each case it poses the question, whether our understanding of the human reality revealed in the situation, can be progressed by comparing it with what is known about religion. In other words, can Religious Studies help us to understand secular life, in the way that Social-scientific Studies have helped us to understand the religious life? The Implicit Religion that is looked for in the three studies is defined in terms of people's commitments or integrating foci, or intensive concerns with extensive effects. The first study revealed an all-but-ineffable apprehension and valuation of the Self. The second revealed a context in which Selves can "hold their own" with other Selves. The third unexpectedly revealed a commitment, which was as ultimate as it was intimate, to what was called "Christianity". The content of this belief is analysed, and compared with historical forms of Christianity. This attention to intentionality may be seen as the particular contribution that the study of Religion, and of Religions (as type-cases), can make to the social-scientific understanding of human behaviour and human being. In the three decades that have passed since Dr. Bailey began to test this approach, much "post-modernity" theory has moved in a similar direction. This volume constitutes the firts full-lenght report, of the first systematic tests to have been made, of a concept that has come to be accepeted in both academic and religious circles.

The Calling of Education: "The Academic Ethic" and Other Essays on Higher Education

Abstract: Foreword by Joseph Epstein Introduction by Steven Grosby The Academic Ethic The Criteria of Academic Appointment Do We Still Need Academic Freedom? The Eighth Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities: "Render unto Caesar..." -Government, Society, and the Universities in Their Reciprocal Rights and Duties The Idea of the University: Obstacles and Opportunities in Contemporary Societies The Modern University and Liberal Democracy Index

Life Lines: Community, Family, and Assimilation among Asian Indian Immigrants

Abstract: Asian Indians figure prominently among the educated, middle class subset of contemporary immigrants. They move quickly into residences, jobs, and lifestyles that provide little opportunity with fellow migrants, yet they continue to see themselves as a distinctive community within contemporary American society. In Life Lines Bacon chronicles the creation of a community - Indian-born parents and their children living in the Chicago metropolitan area - bound by neither geographic proximity, nor institutional ties, and explores the processes through which ethnic identity is transmitted to the next generation. Bacon's study centres upon the engrossing portraits of five immigrant families, each one a complex tapestry woven from the distinctive voices of its family members. Both extensive field work among community organizations and analyses of ethnic media help Bacon expose the complicated interplay between the private social interactions of family life and the stylized rhetoric of "Indianness" that permeates public life. This inventive analysis suggests that the process of assimilation which these families undergo parallels the assimilation process experienced by anyone who conceives of him or herself as a member of a distinctive community in search of a place in American society.

A Question of Narration: The Voice in International Human Rights Law

Abstract: The two epigraphs that preface this article (the first taken from the field of contemporary literary and philosophical theory and the second from that of the international human rights law community) point to a central, but often underexamined, conception of human rights in contemporary society. Where Homi Bhabha identifies the production of human subjectivity as a psycho-metaphysical process of "assuming" an image of identity,3 Rita Maran suggests that international consensus, as codified in international human rights law, constructs a juridical subjectivity based on the premise of

Cracks in the Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood

Abstract: The ways in which the American film and television industry - the multifaceted, male-dominated institution known as Hollywood - has responded to the feminist cultural revolution of the past 25 years are analysed in this book. The focus is on the treatment of those ideals and institutions, especially "the family", within which prevailing notions of gender and sexuality are embedded and take on active life. The author pursues two interrelated themes. In the first part of the book, he looks at the strategies Hollywood has employed to deflect or absorb the ideological challenges posed by the feminist critique of contemporary American society. He attempts to demonstrate the ways in which mainstream movies and television programmes, no matter how unconventional or "subversive" they may appear, produce and reproduce familiar images of sexuality and gender identity. In the second part, Green highlights instances in which reproduction of the dominant ideology is less successful by examining several recent cinematic genres - the female action movie, the rape-revenge cycle, and the new film noire - that portray the real ambiguities of a social order in upheaval.

The Psychoanalysis of Race: An Introduction

Abstract: Every citizen of Europe and North America is haunted by the specter of racism.1 Despite our concern to restrict this specter to traumatic chapters of history, it revisits contemporary society in shocking and surprising forms. Is it enough to criticize increasingly conservative strains in our political climate to understand this phenomenon, or to reclaim the past in an attempt not to repeat it? What in fact can we learn from the past? This collection interprets "the tenacity of prejudice," to borrow Gertrude Selznick and Stephen Steinberg's phrase, in several literary and cultural texts. By unraveling conscious and unconscious dimensions of racism, these essays engage critically with the fantasies organizing the meaning of racial and ethnic identities. Overall,

The Crisis of the Identification Process

Abstract: This paper considers the crisis of the identification process from the social-historical standpoint, for it cannot be understood when divorced from the social totality. Attempts to explain the current crisis in terms of particular institutions such as changes in habitat, a crisis in the family, etc. fail to account for it, since it also manifests itself in milieux and individuals not experiencing these changes directly. The crisis the identification process is undergoing must be seen as a crisis of the central imaginary significations that in the past have held society together. The crisis consists in the fact that contemporary society no longer produces the types that had made it viable as a society wanting itself. The author concludes that there cannot not be a crisis of the identification process, since there is no longer a cathected self-representation of society as the seat of meaning and of value and of a significant past and of a time to come.

Beware of False Dichotomies: Revisiting the Idea of "Black-Focused" Schools in Canadian Contexts

Abstract: Beware of False Dichotomies: Revisiting the Idea of "Black - Focused" Schools in Canadian Contexts GEORGE J. SEFA DEI This paper utilizes the narrative accounts of Black youth and "dropouts" about schools and off - school experiences in a Canadian inner city to advance the argument for a "Black - focused/African - centred" school in Euro - Canadian/American contexts. It is argued that the school should be pictured as an alternative educational site for those youths who, for vaned reasons, do not appear to perform well, academically (or socially, in the mainstream school system. It is argued that such schools could be established on an experimental basis, at both the elementary and secondary levels, with direct consultations and partnerships with students, educators, administrators, parents and local communities. Dealing with race and social difference in contemporary society requires methods of understanding and explaining social actions and practices grounded in the historical realities and lived experiences of all peoples. A critical knowledge and understanding of the multi - layered complexities of human experiences constitute a valid frame of reference for the education of youth. A continuing debate about the schooling and education of Black youths in North America concerns the efficacy of "Black - focused" or what may appropriately be termed "African - centred" schools. Particularly among African(f.1) peoples, burgeoning academic debates and political arguments demand the "reclaiming" of the sources and sites of individual and collective agency in order to improve the educational and social success of Black youths. Many educators. students, parents and community workers have drawn attention to the need for alternative pedagogic tools, and the development of inclusionary instructional practices to deliver education to the youth (see Asante, 1991; Ratteray, 1990; Hilliard, 1992; Henry, 1992; Calliste, 1994; Shujaa, 1994; Ladson - Billings, 1995; Brathwaite, 1989; OPBC, 1993; BEWG, 1993; and Dei, 1996, among many others). These groups and individuals continue to articulate powerfully the epistemological basis for African - centred schools as alternative educational sites to enhance Black students' academic and social achievement. This paper contributes to the debate by exploring the social, political and philosophical grounds for African - centred schools in Euro - Canadian/American contexts. The discussion is situated within a critique of conventional approaches to delivering education in Ontario. The case for African - centred schools at the elementary and secondary school levels rests on the idea that education must be able to respond to the material, political, cultural, spiritual and social conditions of peoples of African descent living on the margins of a White - dominated society. The paper employs an anti - racist theoretical/discursive framework to understand concerns of Black youth about education in Canada and the emerging call for African - centred schools. As examined elsewhere (Dei, 1995), the anti - racism discursive framework acknowledges the reality of racism and other forms of social oppression (class, sex, gender oppression) in all aspects of mainstream schools, and also considers the potential for change. Anti - racism questions White power and privilege and the accompanying rationality for dominance in the schooling process. Anti - racism problematizes the marginalization and the delegitimization of subordinate groups, and their voices, knowledge and experience in the educational system. An anti - racist discursive framework, understanding the processes of public schooling, critically examines the role of the educational system in producing and reproducing inequalities in society, linking issues of identity with schooling, and particularly with the processes of producing knowledge. The anti - racism discourse acknowledges the pedagogic need to confront the challenge of diversity in society, recognizing the urgency for an educational system that should be both inclusive and responsive to minority voices. …

A Sociological Perspective on Social Issues

Abstract: Arguably, social life in these last few years of the twentieth century has reached a new level of complexity. Our population continues to grow, with worrisome consequences for the environment. A larger percentage of the world population is attaining higher levels of education. Advances in medical science have pro duced a longer life expectancy and raised ethical questions unimaginable even at mid-century. Long entrenched political systems are breaking down and being replaced by nationalistic and religiously organized governing bodies. The tech nological revolution changes life on a daily basis with a long-term effect that cannot, as yet, be anticipated. What is our response, as sociologists, to these social changes? What tools are at our disposal to help us understand and interact with contemporary society? While the study of social issues is at the heart of sociology, sociologists seldom reflect self-consciously on how we interact with these problems and issues. Consequently, it may be useful to consider what should be, and can be, a sociologist's stance toward current events. In an informative new book entitled^ Tour of the Calculus, Berlinski (1995) comments on the beauty and elegant parsimony of the calculus and the world it describes. The calculus emerged from a belief that symbolism could reveal the "essence" of the world. The ability of mathematical equations to describe mo tion and direction seemed to provide the requisite tool to this understanding of the world. While no one loves calculus any less today than they did in Leibniz' time, it seems evident that this view is no longer popular. Berlinski argues "No one believes any longer that physics or anything like physics is apt to provide contemplative human beings with a theoretical arch sustaining enough to pro vide a coherent system of thought and feeling." Thus, before the sociologist even begins to reflect on contemporary society,

New Media and the Quality of Life

Abstract: We are currently in the middle of a revolution. This revolution, sometimes called the digital revolution, is the revolutionary transformation brought about in the information and communication structure of society by the advent of the digital computer, with most of the major transformations having taken place in the past thirty years. Digital computing technology has generated the mainframe and personal computer, the multimedia computer, and computer networks. It has also transformed the telephone system and the monetary system, it is transforming all kinds of conventional products ranging from washing machines to automobiles, and it is on its way to change television as well. More than ever, contemporary society is an Information Society, in which the importance of information and communication is much greater than in past societies, and of which technologies that facilitate information and communication processes are a central societal feature. In this paper, I want to evaluate the implications of contemporary information and communication media for the quality of life, including both the new media from the digital revolution and the older media that still remain in use. My evaluation of contemporary media will proceed in three parts. In the section to follow, the benefits of contemporary media will be discussed, with special emphasis given to their immediate functional benefits. The section thereafter is devoted to a discussion of four potential threats posed by contemporary media. In a final major section, I look at the future of digital media and the possibilities available to us in shaping that future. A short concluding section ends the paper.

Civil Society: Adventures of the Concept before and after 1989

Abstract: Respecting the perspective that 'civil society' has recently been revived not by academics as a purely theoretical concept but rat er by social and political actors as a practical political idea, the article seeks to follow the metamorphoses that the idea's content and meaning have undergone in changing historical circumstances over the past two decades, especially as eflected in the Czech (and Slovak) discussion. In a historical sequence, it identifies three different political and social contexts that have endowed the idea with specific contents and meanings, and it distinguishes t ese as three major stages of the metamorphoses. It labels the stages as 'moral defence before the state' (before 1989), 'mobilising the polity' (1989-1991), and 'balancing the state's institutional arrangement' (since 1994). As it is the last meaning that is contested today in the Czech discussion, some typical problematic points of t is case are raised. Finally, a way is suggested in which critical social theory could reflect upon some deficits of the notion of civil society as employed today, so that the latter can still be retained as a normative idea. Czech Sociological Review, 1997, Vol. 5 (No. 1:3-22) Whether or not we deem the term 'civil society' adequate for labelling certain social and political practices in our contemporary societies, the fact is that it has been frequently employed by theorists and political actors over the past decade. We can even say without much exaggeration that the revitalisation of the idea of civil society has become one of the most significant events in reflecting on what is at stake in public life today. The story is well-known. Initiated by the shifting trends in social and political participation in the West especially in connection with the rise of "new social movements" in the 1970s the revitalisation process was accelerated by the historical events of transitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes of political rule in Latin America and East Central Europe.1 The variety of historical (social-political) contexts within which this event has taken place suggests that the concept of civil society has not been endowed with just one fixed meaning. At the same time, the names of those who have come to participate in the theoretical revival of the concept in the West ranging from Norberto Bobbio and John Keane, through Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen, Michael Walzer and Charles Taylor, to Edward Shills and Daniel Bell2 indicate that the notion in question has been appropri*) This work has been supported by the Research Support Scheme of the Higher Education Support Programme, grant No.: 90/1995. **) Direct all correspondence to: PhDr. ing. Radim Marada, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, Arne Novaka 1, 660 88 Brno, Czech Republic, phone + 420 5 41 32 12 58. n) For a detailed account of the concept's revival in this very context see for example Chapter I.I of [Cohen and Arato 1992]. z) Recent literature on civil society has already grown abundant. With reference to these authors, see for example [Bobbio 1988, Keane 1988b, Cohen and Arato 1992, Walzer 1992, Taylor 1990, Bell 1988, Shills 1991].

Information, urbanism and identity: perspectives on the current work of Manuel Castells

Abstract: Manuel Castells: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Volume II, The Power of Identity. Blackwell, 1997.

Access to assisted human reproduction services by minority groups.

Abstract: EDITORIAL COMMENT: We accepted this paper for publication because it addresses an important issue in contemporary society – namely the rights of access to modern assisted reproduction technology by women who are single, lesbian and/or postmenopausal. Summary: This paper looks at the claims of lesbian and single women to have access to Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) in New Zealand, discusses legislation, rulings and regulations, as well as the opinions of people who have been involved in this issue. These include clinics and health professionals who provide these services, ethics committees and other bodies, and public opinion. Some implications for policy development are also discussed.

Education for European Citizenship: Issues in History Education

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to review the potential of history for education for European citizenship with special reference to the debates in values education. The arguments are based on a number of research projects undertaken in England over a number of years and on literature from the fields of history education, values and moral education, and education for European citizenship. It is argued that education for citizenship generally is not in a very strong position, and that history teachers in England may be well placed to undertake good work. However, before this potential of history education can be realised it will be important for significant hurdles to be overcome. Comments are made about the National Curriculum. Teachers may need to be wary of failing to give explicit attention to political issues, while concentrating too greatly on the importance accorded to academic narrative in a study of the past rather than contemporary society. Europe needs to be studied in a way which can be understood ...

The conquest of magic over public space: Discovering the face of popular magic in contemporary society

Abstract: Although magic is today visible in many new forms and is expressed differently in different social groups, it is not, however, a novel element in contemporary Western society. Magic as a form of knowledge‐control of reality has never completely disappeared, and maintains today, at a symbolic level, a close link between past and present in local cultures. Although magic refers to meaning and beliefs that are restricted to the select few, some mysteries are revealed to a large number of people, a process through which its clandestine nature is profoundly altered and its character sui generis is strengthened, especially in times of rapid social change. Where magic assumes a less fragmentary and more visible character, stepping out of the private sphere to occupy public space, its social presence is extended not only to the ‘in‐between spaces’, but also to more institutionalised environments. Magic is as present in the daily interaction between individuals as it is in wider contexts, such as the fash...

The theory of the firm: An epistemological analysis

Abstract: Is the theory of the firm equipped to answer questions about contemporary society? By a systemic examination of the nature of laws and facts assumed in the theory of the firm, we find that while the theory of the firm has found its Descartes and its Hume, it is not yet clear whether it has found its Kant. We speculate that a pragmatism-inspired theory of the firm, which incorporates the science of ethical management, is needed for the theory to become relevant for contemporary society.

Where do we go from here? researching and interpreting the African-American experience

Abstract: Museums are striving to improve or incorporate the experiences of African Americans into their interpretations. In doing so, they are challenged to answer questions that relate to issues of historical relevance to the contemporary society, historical ownership, and perspective. Answering these questions requires that consideration be given to the community that is served by the institution, current exhibition, and interpretive trends. Recent scholarship and a steadfast desire to “tell it like it was” are extremely important in a climate where the misinformed often have loud voices. Colonial Williamsburg has had to grapple with these and other issues during the last 15 years as we have helped advance the interpretation of slavery and the early African-American experience at historic sites.

The Disruptive College Student

Abstract: In recent years there has been a disquieting rise in the numbers and gravity of disruptive incidents involving college students. This trend reflects and closely parallels in character the upsurge of violence and disruption that we regularly witness throughout contemporary society. This article first identifies some of the more common forms of student disruptiveness and then provides practical advice to college personnel for dealing with the formidable challenge of student misconduct.

Is this the information age

Abstract: What is the nature and role of information in our epoch? Who are the main agents for change? Manuel Castells’ trilogy, The Information Age, is central to the attempt to answer these questions. Frank Webster, whilst acknowledging this, sets out a critique of some key elements of Castells’ analysis.