Showing papers on "Contemporary society published in 2001"

On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West

Abstract: In this major new book, leading cultural thinker Ien Ang engages with urgent questions of identity in an age of globalisation and diaspora The starting point for Ang's discussion is the experience of visiting Taiwan Ang, a person of Chinese descent, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, found herself "faced with an almost insurmountable difficulty" - surrounded by people who expected her to speak to them in Chinese She writes: "It was the beginning of an almost decade-long engagement with the predicaments of `Chineseness' in diaspora In Taiwan I was different because I couldn't speak Chinese; in the West I was different because I looked Chinese" From this autobiographical beginning, Ang goes on to reflect upon tensions between `Asia' and `the West' at a national and global level, and to consider the disparate meanings of `Chineseness' in the contemporary world She offers a critique of the increasingly aggressive construction of a global Chineseness, and challenges Western tendencies to equate `Chinese' with `Asian' identity Ang then turns to `the West', exploring the paradox of Australia's identity as a `Western' country in the Asian region, and tracing Australia's uneasy relationship with its Asian neighbours, from the White Australia policy to contemporary multicultural society Finally, Ang draws together her discussion of `Asia' and `the West' to consider the social and intellectual space of the `in-between', arguing for a theorising not of `difference' but of `togetherness' in contemporary societies

Critique of information

Abstract: This penetrating book raises questions about how power operates in contemporary society. It explains how the speed of information flows has eroded the separate space needed for critical reflection. It argues that there is no longer an 'outside' to the global flows of communication and that the critique of information must take place within the information itself. The operative unit of the information society is the idea. With the demise of depth reflection, reflexivity through the idea now operates external to the subject in its circulation through networks of humans and intelligent machines. It is these ideas that make the critique of information possible. This book is a major testament to the prospects of culture, politics and theory in the global information society.

Young Masculinities: Understanding Boys in Contemporary Society

Abstract: How do boys see themselves? Their peers? The adult world? What are their aspirations and fears? 'Young masculinities' centres on a study in which boys talked openly about these questions and many others. It will be of interest to students and researchers in psychology, sociology, gender and youth studies, as well as policy makers and other professionals.

Relative values : reconfiguring kinship studies

Abstract: The essays in Relative Values draw on new work in anthropology, science studies, gender theory, critical race studies, and postmodernism to offer a radical revisioning of kinship and kinship theory. Through a combination of vivid case studies and trenchant theoretical essays, the contributors—a group of internationally recognized scholars—examine both the history of kinship theory and its future, at once raising questions that have long occupied a central place within the discipline of anthropology and moving beyond them. Ideas about kinship are vital not only to understanding but also to forming many of the practices and innovations of contemporary society. How do the cultural logics of contemporary biopolitics, commodification, and globalization intersect with kinship practices and theories? In what ways do kinship analogies inform scientific and clinical practices; and what happens to kinship when it is created in such unfamiliar sites as biogenetic labs, new reproductive technology clinics, and the computers of artificial life scientists? How does kinship constitute—and get constituted by—the relations of power that draw lines of hierarchy and equality, exclusion and inclusion, ambivalence and violence? The contributors assess the implications for kinship of such phenomena as blood transfusions, adoption across national borders, genetic support groups, photography, and the new reproductive technologies while ranging from rural China to mid-century Africa to contemporary Norway and the United States. Addressing these and other timely issues, Relative Values injects new life into one of anthropology's most important disciplinary traditions. Posing these and other timely questions, Relative Values injects an important interdisciplinary curiosity into one of anthropology’s most important disciplinary traditions. Contributors. Mary Bouquet, Janet Carsten, Charis Thompson Cussins, Carol Delaney, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Sarah Franklin, Deborah Heath, Stefan Helmreich, Signe Howell, Jonathan Marks, Susan McKinnon, Michael G. Peletz, Rayna Rapp, Martine Segalen, Pauline Turner Strong, Melbourne Tapper, Karen-Sue Taussig, Kath Weston, Yunxiang Yan

For a Critical Cultural Political Economy

Abstract: This paper argues that, if cultural political economy is to be worthwhile, it needs to be critical of its object. In order to develop its critical understanding of contemporary society, it needs to do at least three things. Firstly, while the cultural turn has corrected and sometimes inverted economic reductionism's dismissive treatment of culture and the lifeworld, it needs to avoid reducing economic systems to the lifeworld in which they are embedded, so that the extent to which systems are responsible for economic and cultural effects-good or bad-is not obscured. Secondly, it needs to take a more critical look at the social and cultural embedding of economic activities, and at the way system mechanisms of capital accumulation and uneven development have powerful disembedding and disruptive effects. Thirdly, it needs to reconsider, rather than ignore, classical political economy, which was always cultural and is still of relevance today, even though it failed to anticipate new issues of cultural and political significance, such as the politics of identity.

Um breve balanço da pesquisa sobre violência escolar no Brasil

Abstract: The article surveys the research on the relationships between violence and school in Brazil after 1980. It examines the rare quantitative diagnostics about the issue, and the theses and dissertations produced in graduate programs in Education in the same period. Although still incipient those studies already draw an important picture of the phenomenon in Brazil, displaying the leading modes of violence: acts against property - vandalism, graffiti - and interpersonal aggression, mainly among the pupils. During this period, violence at school has been examined both as a consequence of a significant set of inadequate school practices, and as one of the aspects that characterizes the violence of contemporary society. Under the latter viewpoint, some of the works have investigated the dynamics of the workings of schools located in areas influenced by drug traffic or organized crime, and a small subset tried to understand the behavior of pupils as a socialization marked by aggressions and petty crime, characterized as incivility originated in the crisis of civilizatory process of contemporary society.

The kin in the gene : The medicalization of family and kinship in American Society. Commentaries. Author's reply

Abstract: In the past several decades there has been an explosion of research in genetics and on genetic inheritance. This new genetics is part of contemporary biomedicine and forecasts great advances in alleviating disease and prolonging human life. It also encompasses notions about biological family and kinship relations. I propose that with the advent of the new genetics, family and kinship are being medicalized. I explore the ways in which explanations of the inheritance of genetic disease influence people's understandings of family and kin and both reflect and conflict with broader current sociocultural processes. The discussion includes a brief overview of the anthropological study of kinship, the meaning of family and kinship in contemporary society, and the concept of medicalization and its implications for people's lives as seen through narratives and concludes with an analysis of the significance of the medicalization of family and kinship in present-day society.

The ‘Cultural Turn’ in Social Theory: Towards a Theory of Cultural Politics

Abstract: There has been a well-documented ‘cultural turn’ in social theory. This takes two forms: the ‘epistemological’ case in which culture is seen as universally constitutive of social relations and identities; and the ‘historical’ case in which culture is seen as playing an unprecedented role in constituting social relations and identities in contemporary society. In this paper I take it that both cases overlap in studies of contemporary society and that the stronger case is justified. I argue that a model of cultural politics is necessary to fully develop the impetus of the ‘cultural turn’ away from structural determinism, and that relations between the state and society should no longer be taken as the central focus of political sociology. I propose that the understanding of politics developed by Foucault in his later work on power and domination can provide the basis of a ‘cultural turn’ in political sociology. Finally, I offer some suggestions about how those working in the field of political sociology are already beginning to develop the theme of cultural politics – albeit without naming it as such – and how this might be extended.

The cultural territories of race : black and white boundaries

Abstract: Even as America becomes more multiracial, the black-white divide remains central to understanding many patterns and tensions in contemporary society. Since the 1960s, however, social scientists concerned with this topic have been reluctant to discuss the cultural dimensions of racial inequality - not wanting to "blame the victim" for having "wrong values." This text redirects this research tendency, employing today's more sophisticated methods of cultural analysis toward a new understanding of how cultural structures articulate the black/white problem. These essays examine the cultural territories of race through topics such as blacks' strategies for dealing with racism, public categories for definition of race, and definitions of rules for cultural memberships. Empirically grounded, these studies analyze divisions among blacks according to their relationships with whites or with alternative black culture; differences among whites regarding their attitudes toward blacks; and differences both among blacks and between blacks and whites, in their cultural understandings of various aspects of social life ranging from material success to marital life and to ideas about feminism. The essays teach us about the largely underexamined cultural universes of black executives, upwardly mobile college students, fast-food industry workers, so-called deadbeat dads, and proponents of Afrocentric curricula.

Learning to be an anthropologist and remaining "Native" : selected writings

Abstract: This prodigious volume represents a landmark assemblage of the significant work of the legendary anthropologist and Native American intellectual Beatrice Medicine. For half a century, Dr. Medicine has defied stereotypes, racism, and sexism in her life and work while combating the reductive, patronizing views of Native Americans perpetuated by mainstream anthropologists. This retrospective collection reflects her unswerving commitment to furthering Native Americans' ability to speak for themselves and deal with the problems of contemporary life. "Learning to Be an Anthropologist and Remaining "Native"" includes Medicine's clear-eyed views of assimilation, bilingual education, and the adaptive strategies by which Native Americans have conserved and preserved their ancestral languages. Her discussions of sex roles in contemporary Native American societies encompass homosexual orientation among males and females and the "warrior woman" role among Plains Indians as one of several culturally accepted positions according power and prestige to women. The volume also includes Medicine's thoughtful assessments of kinship and family structures, alcoholism and sobriety, the activism implicit in the religious ritual of the Lakota Sioux Sun Dance, and the ceremonial uses of Lakota star quilts. "The Native American is possibly the least understood ethnic minority in contemporary American society", Medicine observes. Her decades of deliberate, generous, dedicated work have done much to reveal the workings of Native culture while illuminating the effects of racism and oppression on Indian families, kinship units, and social and cultural practices.

Resistance to Exercise: A Social Analysis of Inactivity

Abstract: Part 1: sedentary living in contemporary society trust and social institutions physical activity and health in 20th-century perspective Part 2: the changing American family school physical education in crisis modifying workers, not work prevention and the health care system Part 3: building active communities recentering social institutions and the transformation to a physically active society

The Changing Nature of “Faith” in Faith‐Based Organizations: Secularization and Ecumenicism in Four AIDS Organizations in New York City

Abstract: This study discusses the changing meaning of faith in four AIDS organizations in New York City. Although all four organizations continue to honor their religious roots and have a place for spirituality, the original meaning of religion has changed. Two organizations became secularized, and the two others incorporated a highly ecumenical and personalized form of faith that reflects trends in the nature of religion in contemporary American society. The sources of change are more complex than mere receipt of government funds, and they include lack of funding for religious activities, changes in client populations, and shifts in leadership and stakeholders.

Maintaining Power: Male Constructions of ‘Feminists’ and ‘Feminist Values’:

Abstract: Research in the past decade has identified a trend in which feminist values are given support while feminists themselves are constructed negatively. It is argued that the incorporation of feminist values into the mainstream and simultaneous rejection of those associated with the ‘movement’ itself can be understood through analysing related discursive practices. Although significant changes in gender relations have occurred, the decoupling of feminist values from feminists, as identified in interviews with 46 professional Scottish men, can be read as a strategy that functions to minimize the impact of gender politics on contemporary society; the historical role men have played in women’s oppression; and the related privileges men receive. Finally, it allows users to claim feminist values for themselves, enabling them to redefine these values. The gender-neutral approach is identified as such a reformulation, which functions to marginalize any continued feminist voice and thus further initiatives for social...

Remembering Generations: Race and Family in Contemporary African American Fiction

Abstract: African American writers explore the enduring effects of slavery on American society Slavery is America's family secret, says Ashraf Rushdy, a partially hidden phantom that continues to haunt our national imagination. Remembering Generations explores how three contemporary African American writers artistically represent this notion in novels about the enduring effects of slavery on the descendants of slaves in the post-civil rights era. Focusing on Gayl Jones's Corregidora (1975), David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident (1981), and Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979), Rushdy situates these works in their cultural moment of production, highlighting the ways in which they respond to contemporary debates about race and family. Tracing the evolution of this literary form, he considers such works as Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family (1998), in which descendants of slaveholders expose the family secrets of their ancestors. Remembering Generations examines how cultural works contribute to social debates, how a particular representational form emerges out of a specific historical epoch, and how some contemporary intellectuals meditate on the issue of historical responsibility - of recognizing that the slave past continues to exert an influence on contemporary American society.

Religion and film in American culture: the birth of a nation

Abstract: This research addresses an emerging scholarship examining relations between media, religion, and culture in contemporary society Whilst it acknowledges the value of this growing body of work, the study is based on a recognition that an overwhelming concern with the contemporary scene has resulted in a neglect of the history responsible for the conditions of the present Given the prominence of America as both a source and an object of this scholarship, moreover, the particular national context in which the institutions and practices of the US media have developed has been taken for granted somewhat Oriented towards these perceived lacunae, this thesis examines the interaction between religion and film as an influence upon the development of American culture in the twentieth-century The dissertation is divided into two main parts The first of these is devoted to an extended discussion of the scholarly background to the research, and argues that the historical dimension of the interrelationship between religion and film in America is worthy of more attention than it has hitherto received In particular, it stresses the fundamental importance of religion within the discourse of national identity in the United States, and posits the notion of a non-denominational American civil religion as a useful theoretical tool with which to examine Hollywood as a distinctively 'American' form of cinema Part Two develops this position through a case study of The Birth of a Nation, directed by DW Griffith, and one of the most famous films of all time Discussing the picture as a response to a crisis in American Protestantism, the study argues that the race controversy prompted by its Southern viewpoint was, to some extent, a function of Griffith's ambitions to revive the traditional religious bases of US national identity via the medium of film Furthermore, it suggests that the impact of Birth helped enact a broader transformation of American culture, wherein the cinema became instrumental in sustaining the belief that the United States was a nation uniquely favoured by Providence

Critical Race Theory

Abstract: Critical race theory is a body of work that first emerged in American legal scholarship in the late 1980s and has since spread to other disciplines. It investigates a paradox: How does racism persist despite its nearly universal condemnation by state policy and by the norms of polite society? Rejecting the conventional liberal position that racism survives only as a relic from a less-enlightened time or as a characteristic of poorly educated or troubled individuals, critical race theorists take the position that racism is ordinary and normal in contemporary society, indeed perhaps integral to social practices and institutions.

Complex Systems: The Interplay of Organizations and Markets in Contemporary Society

Abstract: This is the keynote address at the annual Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems Conference, July 2000. In this keynote, the nature of organizations and markets as complex systems is discussed.

Markets: Anthropological Aspects

Abstract: Anthropological perspectives on markets, both in historical and contemporary societies, focus on the varied institutional, political, social, and cultural forces that create and sustain market activity, and the ways in which economic life itself is inherently embedded in social and cultural relationships, that are often ignored in conventional economic analyses of market behavior. Anthropological interests in markets, often pursued through ethnographic research, examine commonalities in the principles and practices of exchange in subsistence and peasant societies as well as in centers of advanced capitalist finance. At the same time, questions about the nature of exchange and markets in societies at varied levels of complexity link ethnographic concerns with contemporary markets to historical interest in the development of markets and their impact on social and cultural development.

Tourist Historical Products: Packaged Pasts of Denmark and Singapore

Abstract: Many tourists are oblivious to, or are ignorant about, the rich meanings and significance of historical products. Mediators need to select and package these intangible elements to help tourists access and consume them. This paper examines the role and influences of history mediators in packaging the past in the Golden Days in Copenhagen Festivals and the National Museums of Singapore. In using the concepts of "chronotopes" and "packaged pasts", this study shows how these festivals and museums creatively present history. While packaged histories express what happened in the past, the stories also reflect interpretations and visions of contemporary society. For instance, the presentday interpretation of society is tacitly accentuated when the Golden Days Festivals portray early 19th-century Denmark as an egalitarian, democratic and mono-cultural society, or when the National Museums of Singapore divide Asia into three main civilizations, according to the state's social engineering program. The packaging of ...

Inget landskap är en ö : dialektik och praktik i öländska landskap

Abstract: The complex character of rural landscapes implies a constant interaction between mind and matter as well as between nature and society. In landscapes, the established division of reality into nature and culture appears all but natural. This book points to the possibilities of regarding landscape as a dialectical process. Landscape is here used as an analytical device to examine nature-culture relations, in order to understand the ways in which this dichotomy works in contemporary society. This sheds light on the contradictory qualities of rural landscapes - in many respects culturally constructed, and yet at the same time often conceived of as nature. The book is based on examples from the island of Oland. Agriculture, grazing cattle and other kinds of usage have formed this rural landscape through history, and still do so. Today's visitors have various motives for regarding the landscapes of Oland as interesting and valuable. Contemporary landscapes are often used and experienced in many different ways, which sometimes leads to conflicts between divergent ways of appreciating the same piece of land. If landscapes are characterised by their processual and dialectical qualities, indeed if landscape is process rather than prospect or property, it might seem somewhat problematic to conserve such ever-changing landscapes. The inscription of Sodra Olands Odlingslandskap (The Cultural Landscape of Southern Oland) on Unesco's World Heritage List is here analysed as one example of an emergent re-thinking of conservation strategies in agricultural landscapes. The increasing interest in rural landscapes expressed by authorities, scientists and tourists alike, has in many cases been characterised by a nostalgic looking back towards presumed idylls in rural communities of past times. The author of this book argues for a more future-oriented interest in landscapes, and states that reflections about sustainable relations between nature and society should benefit from an awareness of the dialectical qualities of landscapes. No landscape is an island, entire of itself, neither in space nor in time. Landscapes must be regarded as an integral part of society, rather than as a static background for social life.

Milk ties : a commodity chain approach to Greek culture

Abstract: The thesis explores aspects of contemporary Greek culture as it emerges from the study of production, distribution and consumption of dairy products. Contrary to views of commoditisation as cultural homogenisation, this research is based on the premise that commodity chains constitute a central mechanism for the negotiation of cultural meaning and the construction of social relations in contemporary societies. As part of material culture studies, the research draws on insights provided by a variety of disciplines, such as social anthropology, human geography, cultural studies and marketing. In its totality, the thesis allows for a study of the transition to a highly marketised economy, considering simultaneously multiple levels of meaning formation and identity construction related to food. With particular focus on representations of time and space, the traditional and the modern, a variety of sites are explored, where cultural meaning is produced and negotiated: the marketing department of dairy companies, advertising agencies, small food stores, supermarkets and consumer households, while special reference is made to a rural-urban network of food provisioning established as a result of extensive internal migration. Fieldwork within those contexts is complemented with a consideration of global processes, such as the EU regulation on geographical indications and scientific claims about the Mediterranean model of diet. Dairy products are approached as the link between the various contexts of meaning that emerge through their circulation in society, and as mediators in the construction of social relations.

Contemporary spiritualities : social and religious contexts

Abstract: Section 1 Influential writers and thinkers: influential writers and thinkers - a retrospective reconsideration and a contemporary contextualisation, Clive Erricker mysticism and contemporary society - some Teihardian reflections, Ursula King Bede Griffiths and the one universal reality, Shirley du Boulay Thomas Merton -monk for the contemporary world, Danny Sullivan Jiddu Krishnamurti and the open secret, Clive Erricker the Dalai Lama - dimensions of spirituality, Geshe Thupten Jinpa Carole Christ's "Narrative Theology", Ruth Mantin. Section 2 Faith communities: faith communities - spiritual diversity, hope and tension in the modern world, Clive Erricke in the realm of the deathless -the Buddhist Forest Retreat Order, Clive Erricke a society in transition - ISKCON's spiritual path, Anna King the Amish - case study of a religious community, Richard Stevick "until the power of the Lord comes down" - African American Pentecostal spirituality and Tarrying, David D. Daniels III Taize - a global and post-colonial theology of community, Liam Geron the Diaspora of the Khoja Shi'a Ithnasheeries, Clive Erricker street spirituality - a narrative case study of a street community, Jane Erricker.

The Internet and grassroots politcs: Nike, the athletic apparel industry and the anti-sweatshop campaign

Abstract: Carty examines ways in which the Internet has been employed to enhance political struggle in contemporary society. A case study of Nike Corp highlights the power and autonomy of transnational companies.

Lifelong education in Japan, a highly school-centred society: educational opportunities and practical educational activities for adults

Abstract: In Japan the use of the term lifelong education has become widespread throughout the 1990s and is central to educational policies, which actively tackle crucial subjects that take place in a wide area of education in a drastically changing contemporary society This paper examines in detail the present situation of the development of lifelong education, in particular concerning adults, relating to the traditional ideas and systems on education called a highly school-centred society These traditional ideas and systems, even today in Japan, have still functioned to greatly value school credentials and disturb the widening of the participation of adults in lifelong education, nevertheless adults have stood in need of continuously studying up-to-date knowledge and skills in a wide range of areas and at a different level throughout their working lives

AGENCIAMENTOS DO CORPO NA SOCIEDADE CONTEMPORÂNEA: uma abordagem estética do conhecimento da Educação Física

Abstract: This is a reflexive Introduction in the Education Physical knowledge, regard in the production of by body agency and know in the contemporary Society.

Social capital and the city

Abstract: Recent discussion about the role of civil society in democratic governance around the world and the decline of social capital in the US has raised pressing theoretical and empirical questions about the character of contemporary societies and the social and institutional correlates of sound and dynamic democracies. This debate has reached a North American and European audience that extends well beyond academia. The predominant refrain in the debate, following Alexis de Tocqueville's 160-year-old analysis of democracy in America, attaches tremendous importance to the role of voluntary associations in contemporary democracies. Participation in such groups is said to produce social capital, often linked to high levels of social trust. Social capital in turn is conceived as a crucial national resource for promoting collective action for the common good. Beyond Tocqueville presents 21 varied essays on how civic engagement and political and economic cooperation are generated in contemporary societies, linking theoretical discourse with public policy and actual behaviors

Usable Pasts: Caregiving as a Public, Physical Matter

Abstract: In this working paper, I argue that caregiving is a public, physical matter, as well as a personal and social need. The principal example is a ten-acre site in North Oakland that the Ladies’ Relief Society developed into an important node in the city’s landscape of charity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I review the history of the site and discuss present-day controversies concerning the restoration of the Studio One Arts Center to show that we have a “usable past” concerning caregiving. Attending to the changing landscapes of urban architecture gives a useful insight into the state of social and civic infrastructures designed to meet the needs of contemporary working families. On this large parcel of urban land, material culture — the architecture of the place – instantiates and celebrates public solutions to private needs. Taken together, the buildings in this setting meet a variety of needs associated with the life cycle of contemporary working families, drawing people from all walks of life to a place that was once segregated along racial lines. Nevertheless, the buildings reveal the contours of class, gender, race, and other social relations that continue to affect caregiving in the present day (as they did historically). The history of the site, particularly the story of Studio One, also sheds light on the causes and potential solutions to the much-touted decline of civic infrastructures in contemporary American society.