Contemporary society

About: Contemporary society is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3991 publications have been published within this topic receiving 91755 citations.

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.

Boundary Spanning in Governance Networks: A study about the role of boundary spanners and their effects on democratic throughput legitimacy and performance of governance networks

Abstract: markdown____ The policy- and decision-making context has changed significantly in the last decades. In the contemporary age of late modernity, the classical modernistic institutions of policyand decision making are increasingly facing difficulties in realizing legitimate and effective political responses by themselves (Beck et al., 2003; Dryzek, 1990; Hajer, 2003a). A number of transformations in contemporary societies can be identified as important factors in this diagnosis. Without having the ambition to be all-encompassing, one could at least mention two major changes of particular interest for this thesis. One major change concerns the increasing complexity of public issues accompanied by a highly fragmented institutional landscape. The second concerns a changing societal context in which traditional political authority is increasingly questioned and citizens often demand more direct forms of political engagement when their interests are at stake. These changes and their implications for traditional government are further elaborated in the next sections of this introductory chapter.

Social Responsibility and the Corporation: Alternatives for the Future of Capitalism

Abstract: Why is there so much concern about the corporation's social responsibility in contemporary society? Why have public pressures for business to become active in solving social and ecological problems become a major phenomenon in recent years? Seldom answered are the plaintive question of corporative executives, "Why us?" and the corollaries, "What is social responsibility?" and "What corporate behavior really is expected by the public of the corporation?" The very term social responsibility is so vague and indeterminate that many economists and businessmen alike are reluctant to use it for fear of having to define it. Yet, ignoring the problem does not make the demands for socially responsible business behavior go away. What kind of behavior, indeed, does the term imply? A recent survey of 500 firms made at the Stanford Business School asked the question: "Should business take an aggressive role in solving social problems?" Of the 150 respondents, 20 percent of the firms recorded direct commitments of their resources to social action projects; 50 percent agreed in theory that business should become more heavily involved in solving social problems, but reported they had no specific programs. Another 25 percent believed that business carries out its

Religious Belief and Practice in Urban China 1995–2005

Abstract: Drawing on relevant data from surveys conducted in 1995 and 2005, this article explores the perceptible changes in religious beliefs and practices among the Han Chinese in urban areas during this ten-year period. Through analysing the survey data, the article attempts to examine these changes—the increasing awareness of religious others and the more revealing interaction between change and continuity—in the context of greater changes of society, economy, and politics. It concludes that, while commercialism and rationalism continue to dominate the ideological sky of urban China, spiritual beliefs and practices in various forms have also gained a strong footing in contemporary society and demonstrate a complex religiosity.

Popular Spiritualities: The Politics of Contemporary Enchantment

Abstract: This chapter examines the status of self-identity, death, and community, in highly technological, spiritually hybrid, post-traditional societies. Although the term 'spirituality' is used throughout this chapter, it is not used uncritically; this is partly because it inscribes a dualism and, by omission, a hierarchy between the material and the spiritual. If the spiritual signifies a notion of the sacred or a transcendent otherness beyond the sensible and intelligible, then one has to ask what relation this has to material existence. There will always be religious and/or spiritual cultures and practices while death continues to be part of the human condition. Priests and other religious persons do not have a monopoly on existential interpretations in contemporary society - they compete with other spiritual experts and often with secular experts such as counsellors and psychologists. Death is the great equalizer because it is 'general equivalence'.