Social change

About: Social change is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 61197 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1797013 citations.

Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt

Abstract: Once lauded as the wave of the African future, Zambia's economic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s was fueled by the export of copper and other primary materials. Since the mid-1970s, however, the urban economy has rapidly deteriorated, leaving workers scrambling to get by. "Expectations of Modernity" explores the social and cultural responses to this prolonged period of sharp economic decline. Focusing on the experiences of mineworkers in the Copperbelt region, James Ferguson traces the failure of standard narratives of urbanization and social change to make sense of the Copperbelt's recent history. He instead develops alternative analytic tools appropriate for an 'ethnography of decline'. Ferguson shows how the Zambian copper workers understand their own experience of social, cultural, and economic 'advance' and 'decline'. Ferguson's ethnographic study transports us into their lives - the dynamics of their relations with family and friends, as well as copper companies and government agencies. Theoretically sophisticated and vividly written, "Expectations of Modernity" will appeal not only to those interested in Africa today, but to anyone contemplating the illusory successes of today's globalizing economy.

The grammar of society: the nature and dynamics of social norms

Abstract: In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies.

In Praise of Paradox: A Social Policy of Empowerment over Prevention

Abstract: The thesis of this paper is that the most important and interesting aspects of community life are by their very nature paradoxical; and that our task as researchers, scholars, and professionals should be to “unpack” and influence contemporary resolutions of paradox. Within this general theme I will argue that in order to do so we will need to be more a social movement than a profession, regain our sense of urgency, and avoid the tendency to become “one-sided.” I will suggest that the paradoxical issue which demands our attention in the foreseeable future is a conflict between “rights” and “needs” models for viewing people in trouble.

Cognitive development : its cultural and social foundations

Abstract: Alexander Romanovich Luria, one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, is best known for his pioneering work on the development of language and thought, mental retardation, and the cortical organization of higher mental processes Virtually unnoticed has been his major contribution to the understanding of cultural differences in thinkingIn the early 1930s young Luria set out with a group of Russian psychologists for the steppes of central Asia Their mission: to study the impact of the socialist revolution on an ancient Islamic cotton-growing culture and, no less, to establish guidelines for a viable Marxist psychology Lev Vygotsky, Luria's great teacher and friend, was convinced that variations in the mental development of children must be understood as a process including historically determined cultural factors Guided by this conviction, Luria and his colleagues studied perception, abstraction, reasoning, and imagination among several remote groups of Uzbeks and Kirghiz from cloistered illiterate women to slightly educated new friends of the central governmentThe original hypothesis was abundantly supported by the data: the very structure of the human cognitive process differs according to the ways in which social groups live out their various realities People whose lives are dominated by concrete, practical activities have a different method of thinking from people whose lives require abstract, verbal, and theoretical approaches to realityFor Luria the legitimacy of treating human consciousness as a product of social history legitimized the Marxian dialectic of social development For psychology in general, the research in Uzbekistan, its rich collection of data and the penetrating observations Luria drew from it, have cast new light on the workings of cognitive activity The parallels between individual and social development are still being explored by researchers today Beyond its historical and theoretical significance, this book represents a revolution in method Much as Piaget introduced the clinical method into the study of children's mental activities, Luria pioneered his own version of the clinical technique for use in cross-cultural work Had this text been available, the recent history of cognitive psychology and of anthropological study might well have been very different As it is, we are only now catching up with Luria's procedures"