Against most social constructivist accounts of hunting this paper seeks to identify an embodied account of hunting and angling as a means of understanding its paradoxical popularity in late modernity. It evaluates the significance of two pro-hunting and angling discourses, those of Isaak Walton and Neo-Darwinian writers and argues that the appeal of hunting and angling, as evidenced through their copious literatures, descends from Walton rather than Neo-Darwinian sources. In particular it is the development of a highly sensual relation with (...) the natural world that the Waltonian discourse encourages, in contrast with the visualism of touristic encounters, that may account for its enduring popularity. (shrink)

Drawing on a number of recent high-profile cases of corporate corruption, we develop a process model that explains the escalation of deception in corrupt firms. If undetected, an initial lie can begin a process whereby the ease, severity and pervasiveness of deception increases overtime so that it eventually becomes an organization level phenomenon. We propose that organizational complexity has an amplifying effect. A␣feedback loop between organization level deception and each of the escalation stages positively reinforces the process. In addition, moderators (...) are proposed that will halt escalation at various stages. By conceptualizing corporate deception as a social process, the paper contributes to a growing body of research that looks beyond 'bad' individuals for the causes of corporate illegality. (shrink)

Dance is addressed as making significance for what Elias terms the civilizing process of early modernity through its contribution to the ennoblement of warriors and the pacification of merchants. The grounds for this are drawn from McNeill's contention that expenditure of muscular energy rhythmically in dance, as in military drill, but with different sociocultural consequences, is a fundamental human device for consolidating community feeling by facilitating cooperation by arousing a warm sense of togetherness. The significance of dance as a sociocultural (...) practice in early modernity is discussed critically through contemporary writings from the 16th and 17th centuries, with particular consideration given to the description of dance as an allegory for moral order in Elyot's manual on the education of the ruler. (shrink)

Intergroup competition over resources is attested since the dawn of history. Written and archaeological evidence go back to at least the fourth millennium BC. According to accepted views, evolution has favored humans because of their ability to have cumulative cultures, which has made flexible adaptation possible. One major aspect of this adaptation has been the ability to handle power contests without engaging physical force. Instead, increasing prestige dynamics has allowed contest management by displaying symbolic assets. These have growingly been instrumental (...) in deterring external assaults, thus guaranteeing the possession – or expansion – of a group’s resources. However, while material assets are believed to create status by the evidence of their tangible usefulness (such as foods, husbandry and tools), symbolic assets are by definition subject to ongoing negotiation, entirely dependent on being socio-semiotically recognized as types of capital. Symbolic stock exchanges thus appear to have been determinative since antiquity in hierarchizing ethnic and political groups fighting over resources, prioritizing ones over the others. They have culminated in repertoires of more solid tangible and intangible assets, from impressive buildings, city gates, gardens and temples, to ideas such as freedom, quality of life and wealth, justice, personal security, or whatever values that have gained universal recognition. The article discusses the creation and expansion of such symbolic repertoires and their uncertain position in recent times. (shrink)

This article aims to do two things. The first of these is to introduce the concept of reflexive body techniques into the debate on body modification/maintenance. The value of the concept in relation to this debate, in part, is that it ensures that we conceive of the body as both a subject and an object, modifier and modified, and that we thereby avoid the trap of conceptualizing modification in dualistic (mind/body or body/society) terms. Second, the article seeks to explore the (...) pattern of distribution of practices of modification (conceived as reflexive body techniques) through society and to reflect upon the potential usefulness of multi-dimensional scaling as a tool for doing this. This aim is related to the first aim as it is argued that the concept of reflexive body techniques serves to identify and anchor practices ofmodification in a way that is amenable to both quantitative and qualitative forms of analysis, as well as theoretical investigation. (shrink)

At a time when fossil fuel burning, nationalism, ethnic and religious intolerance, and other retrograde steps are being promoted, the prospects for world peace and environmental systems stability may appear dim. Exactly because of this is it the more important to continue to examine the sources of conflict. A major obstacle to general progress is the currently dominant economic practice and theory, which is here called the economy-as-usual, or economics-as-usual, as appropriate. A special obstacle to constructive change is the language (...) in which economic matters are usually discussed. This language is narrow, conservative, technical and often obscure. The rapid changes in the environment are largely kept in a separate compartment. If, however, the partition is removed, economics-as-usual, with its dependence on growth and its widening inequality, is seen to be unsustainable. Radical economic change, for better or worse, is to be expected. Such change is here called economy change. The change could be for the better if it involved an expansion of the concept of economics itself, along the lines of oikonomia, a modern revival of a classical Greek term for management or household. In such an expanded view, not everything of economic value can be measured. It is argued that economics-as-usual is the source of much strife. Some features are indicated of a less conflictual economy—more just, cooperative and peaceful. These features include a dignified life available to all people as of right, the word ‘wealth’ being reconnected with weal, well and well-being, and ‘work’ being understood as including all useful activity. (shrink)

Legislators and Interpreters (1987), Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) and Modernity and Ambivalence (1991) are the foundational trilogy on which Zygmunt Bauman developed much of his later work (from postmodernity to liquid modernity and from “the Jew” to “the Stranger”). This article is a unique engagement with the trilogy and with the metaphorical thinking which relates the trilogy to Bauman's later work in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. The article is divided into three parts focusing broadly on (...) Warsaw, Leeds, and Jerusalem as contextual “windows” for Bauman's Jewishness under the sign of totalitarianism, exile, and globalism. This is the first account of Bauman's Jewishness in relation to his extraordinary life and work and includes, for the first time, his little known “Jewish” essays which are placed next to his more general theories of modernity. (shrink)

A sociologist who has to confront him/herself with social change cannot avoid running into subjectivity, which is seen as a clear indicator of the most recent tendencies that are going through contemporary society. The demand for subjectivity, generically considered as self-consciousness and the need for self-fulfilment, is undoubtedly a distinguishing feature of our age. The central role this concept has gained within recent sociological literature, however, coincides with the rise of a postmodern sociology, which tends to put forward a precise (...) image of subjectivity that I would call ?minimalist.? Through its call for subjectivity, postmodern sociology intends to celebrate indeed a radical freeing from the ethical, social, and relational constraints that would have oppressed human beings during modernity, which was characterized by a high degree of sociocentrism. Although I share all the contentions that aim at underlining the positive achievements of subjectivity over the constrictions and the de-personalizing forces that distressed the so-called homo sociologicus, I think we need nonetheless to distance ourselves from this new reductionism, which levels out subjectivity to its postmodern conception, and to underline instead the existence of a dual aspect in contemporary subjectivity. As a matter of fact, along with its minimalist and disengaged aspect, conceptualized in the homo psychologicus, another possible expression, called ?significant subjectivity? is emerging, which is a typical feature of the kind of human I propose to define civicus, a human who distinguishes him/herself because of the ability to become the bearer of an authentic form of responsible freedom. Consequently, we can identify two different aspects, at least, in contemporary subjectivity, notably a minimalist and a significant aspect. (shrink)

This article uses recent changes within the Austrian university system to illustrate some general features and dilemmas of organizational design and reform. We focus upon two recent layers of the sediments left by previous and current system reforms: that left by the events of 1968 on continental university systems, and Austria's late conversion to the path taken by the Anglo-American university system since the late 1970s/early 1980s; namely, towards what Marginson and Considine (2000) have called the "enterprise university". These two (...) reform waves are, we argue, neatly reflected in two university laws - UOG 1975 and UG 2002 - which capture with great clarity the spirit of these two policy moments. The Austrian case is thus of interest for two types of reason: first, because of the co-existence of deeply engrained traditions with more recent experiments in organizational democracy (co-determination); secondly, because of the rapidity with which current reforms seek to catch up with what are taken to be international developments in university management. Drawing on arguments advanced by Christopher Hood, Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, and by Albert Hirschman, we seek to draw general conclusions concerning the implications of organizational reform for the management of organizations generally, and of universities in particular. (shrink)

Beyond the reaches of scholarly debates about how to define and value civility properly, social actors across various institutional domains routinely demarcate civil from uncivil behavior. Yet this everyday classification process remains understudied and undertheorized, despite being widespread and having significant stakes for the individuals and groups involved. This article begins to fill this gap by developing the concept of civility contests—practical efforts to draw symbolic boundaries between civil and uncivil individuals, groups, or behaviors. Through a focus on the realm (...) of political protest in the United States, this article demonstrates that civility contests involve a wide range of political actors (including institutionalized power holders, opposing movements, and the media) who engage in this boundary-work in order to justify the control or (de)legitimation of protest. It then highlights patterned disparities in the outcomes of these contests, demonstrating that the likelihood of being marked as uncivil and the extent to which this prompts negative social sanction is shaped by one’s social position. Overall, the article seeks to stimulate and guide future empirical research on civility contests and to deepen theoretical understandings of the relationship between symbolic and social boundaries and the role of symbolic boundary-work in the reproduction of political inequality. (shrink)

This article considers `critique' as performative, being on the one hand a reiterative performance, that enacts the `critic' through the act of critique, and on the other hand reflecting the constitution of the subject. While this approach takes on the conceptual framework of Judith Butler's work, it differs by refusing critique — or its correlates; parody, subversion or similar — any special status. Like any other performance critique is taken here as a cultural practice, as a Foucauldian `technique of self', (...) though the complex genealogy of such a technique lies outside the scope of this article. In order to illustrate this argument I interpret a number of Butler's prefaces, interviews and digressions which diverge from her own theoretical framework, and argue that these `fictions' arise from critical `disavowals': that is, a `self-transformative' turn against power. The subjective `crisis' that prompts critique is then elaborated by comparison to Girard's work on imitation and sacrifice. (shrink)

Inclusion of the humanities in undergraduate medicine curricula remains controversial. Skeptics have placed the burden of proof of effectiveness upon the shoulders of advocates, but this may lead to pursuing measurement of the immeasurable, deflecting attention away from the more pressing task of defining what we mean by the humanities in medicine. While humanities input can offer a fundamental critical counterweight to a potentially reductive biomedical science education, a new wave of thinking suggests that the kinds of arts and humanities (...) currently used in medical education are neither radical nor critical enough to have a deep effect on students’ learning and may need to be reformulated. The humanities can certainly educate for tolerance of ambiguity as a basis to learning democratic habits for contemporary team-based clinical work. William Empson’s ‘seven types of ambiguity’ model for analyzing poetry is transposed to medical education to: (a) formulate seven values proffered by the humanities for improving medical education; (b) offer seven ways of measuring impact of medical humanities provision, thereby reducing ambiguity; and (c) --as a counterweight to (b) – celebrate seven types of ambiguity in contemporary medical humanities that critically reconsider issues of proof of impact. (shrink)

Much of the extant popular culture literature points to the nihilistic and present-centred philosophies of material/image consumption common among North American youth enclaves. Few researchers, however, inspect how ascetic youth subcultures on the continent reject mainstream pressures to consume, and perform moral reformist work through the body. In this article, participant observation-based data collected on eastern Canadian practitioners of an ascetic lifestyle called ‘Straightedge’ are utilized to illustrate how social discipline and moral commentary is interactively displayed via ‘restrained’ body ritual. (...) Practitioners of Straightedge express a quasi-religious conviction or sense of ‘calling’ to their rather Puritanical way of life, and view commitment to Straightedge as an ongoing marker of self-control and efficacy. Straightedge narratives suggest how the desire to pursue asceticism springs from a learned cultural habitus, and how the practice may be ‘read’ by others as a form of social protest. Practitioners stress how the calling to asceticism serves as a means of personal salvation, and how performing Straightedge encourages ‘civilized’ corporeal practice. (shrink)

In constructing his renowned theory of practice, Pierre Bourdieu claimed to have integrated the key insights from phenomenology and successfully melded them with objectivist analysis. The contention here, however, is that while his vision of the social world may indeed be generally laudable, he did not take enough from phenomenology. More specifically, there are two concepts in Alfred Schutz 's body of work, which, if properly defined, disentangled from phenomenology, and appropriated, allow two frequently forwarded criticisms of Bourdieu's perspective to (...) be overcome: on the one hand, a particular interpretation of the concept of lifeworld can remedy identified weaknesses on the problem of individuation; while on the other hand, Schutz 's notion of the stock of knowledge can rectify Bourdieu's overly nonconscious depiction of agency. Given my overall support for Bourdieu's scheme and the fact that the extant criticisms on these two grounds are often excessive and obfuscatory, both the suggested elaborations will be prefaced by a clarificatory partial defense of his position. (shrink)

It is no longer necessary to defend current historiography of psychology against the strictures aimed at its early text book incarnations in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, Robert Young and others denigrated then standard textbook histories of psychology for their amateurism and their justifications propaganda for specific standpoints in current psychology, disguised as history. Since then, at least some textbooks writers and working historians of psychology have made such criticisms their own. The demand for textbook histories continues nonetheless. (...) Psychology, at least in the United States, remains the only discipline that makes historical representations of itself in the form of “history and systems” courses an official part of its pedagogical canon, required, interestingly enough, for the license in clinical practice.1In the meantime, the professionalization of scholarship in history of psychology has proceeded apace. All of the trends visible in historical and social studies of other sciences, as well as in general cultural and intellectual history, are noe present in the historical study of psychology. Yet despite the visibility and social importance of psychology's various applications, and the prominence of certain schools of psychological thought such as behaviorism and psychoanalysis in contemporary cultural and political debate, the historiography of psychology has continued to hold a marginal position in history and social studies of science. (shrink)

Fifty Key Sociologists: The Contemporary Theorists covers the life, work, ideas and impact of some of the most important thinkers in this discipline. Concentrating on figures writing predominantly in the second half of the twentieth century, such as Zygmunt Bauman, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault and Claude Le;vi-Strauss, each entry includes: · full cross-referencing · a further reading section · biographical data · key works and ideas · critical assessment. Clearly presented in an easy-to-navigate A-Z format, this accessible reference (...) guide is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology, cultural studies and general studies, as well as other readers interested in this fascinating field. (shrink)

The proposed transdisciplinary field of ‘complexics’ would bring together allcontemporary efforts in any specific disciplines or by any researchersspecifically devoted to constructing tools, procedures, models and conceptsintended for transversal application that are aimed at understanding andexplaining the most interwoven and dynamic phenomena of reality. Our aimneeds to be, as Morin says, not “to reduce complexity to simplicity, [but] totranslate complexity into theory”.New tools for the conception, apprehension and treatment of the data ofexperience will need to be devised to complement existing (...) ones and toenable us to make headway toward practices that better fit complexictheories. New mathematical and computational contributions have alreadycontinued to grow in number, thanks primarily to scholars in statisticalphysics and computer science, who are now taking an interest in social andeconomic phenomena.Certainly, these methodological innovations put into question and againmake us take note of the excessive separation between the training receivedby researchers in the ‘sciences’ and in the ‘arts’. Closer collaborationbetween these two subsets would, in all likelihood, be much moreenergising and creative than their current mutual distance. Humancomplexics must be seen as multi-methodological, insofar as necessarycombining quantitative-computation methodologies and more qualitativemethodologies aimed at understanding the mental and emotional world ofpeople.In the final analysis, however, models always have a narrative runningbehind them that reflects the attempts of a human being to understand theworld, and models are always interpreted on that basis. (shrink)

Problem setting. Latin America and the Caribbean traditionally referred to as a large and ambiguous region in an out-side territorial scientific environment. A whole stratum of problems of identities, peculiarities of self-awareness, civilization affiliations of messianic ’appointments ’ in the history of the region and the world, the development of ways of cultural and historical development corresponding to them, the affirmation of the tendencies of state formation is in a scientific researcher focus. Among the many aspects that conceptualize the demandfor (...) research in the region and its implementation, we would like to highlight the following: 1) Latin America and the Caribbean are, to some extent, «a territory of historically significant validation of modern trends» in their speculative lengthening, the field ofdeveloping new ones political and economic novations, including regarding various projections of the correlation of socio-political practices, institutional design and legal technologies, derived from the understanding of nature and the purpose of law. 2) The region ’provides ’ a wide range of heterogeneous materials for analytical work, both concatenate-linear in nature, and combining poly-meaningful multidimensionality, multifaceted coexistence of values generated by contemporary media, the glare of meanings, signs, intentions of conscious transformations, random «breakthroughs» of network travel followers. In the discovery literature thatfollows only the analysis of statistical indicators, it is often noted that Latin America and the Caribbean is a region of polarization. 3) Considering the full amount of opportunities and perspectives available, Latin America in general, in some associative formulation, is clearly «boxing at levels below its weight and its impact on international canvases», that is, there are some reasons for internal and external character that significantly reduce the region’s role in the world, affecting accents of processes of political, legal and economic worsen the work «for the common good», underestimate «the bar of tasks and results» do not meet the expectations of the significance of the region. Recent research and publications analysis. The paper uses an interdisciplinary approach involving the research of representatives of various sciences. Concerning the approach to certain aspects of the constitutional process in the countries of Latin America and the Carribien was used the researches of Ukrainian authors Yu. M. Todyka, V. P. Kolisnyk, Yu. G. Barabash, M. P. Orzikh, T. M. Slinko, A. G. Kushnirenko, pertaining to in relation to consideration ofpeculiarities ofdevelopment andfunctioning of the model of the presidential state was launched analytical andfunctionality materials I. V. Protsiuk. On the conceptualization within the political science tradition in connection with the problems of the political regimes, their development in the conditions of conflict of the present, in the face of threats and challenges of a multifaceted nature are included the materials of methodological and theoretical importance M. P. Trebin, I. O. Polishchuk, D. Denisenko, G. M. Kutz, O. A. Fisun, M. A. Polovyi and, in the context of regional- geopolitical dimensions, V. Yu. Karasev. Among the foreign authors on the subject area of the study, we note the conceptual vision of the combination ofeconomic cycles and political and legal processes of the present Daniela Campello, the development of the author of the theory of «path dependence effect» by J. Mahoney and researchers of modifications of the development of neo-patrimonialism in Latin America and Karsten Bachle. Focused on the trends and innovations of the constitutional process in the countries of the region are the scientific orientations of Rogelio Nu'nez and P. I. Kostogryzov. A broad analytical and research base on the transformation of political regimes in Latina America and the Caribbean and the peculiarities ofpolitical processes in individual countries are provided by the works of B. Geddes, G. O’Donnell, L. Diamond, D. Ziblatta, S. Levitsky, Z. V. Ivanovsky, T. A. Vorotnikova, P. P. Yakovlev, D. V. Morozov, and others. Paper objective. The purpose of this work is to find out the broad contexts of the relationship between economic and political and legal processes in Latin America and the Carribien countries with attention to the peculiarities of the rule of law formation. The tasks are to analyze a set of approaches to finding the causes of the difficulties of socio-political and institutional-legal development in the region with the involvement of interdisciplinary scientific experience and to identify some essential features of meaning- forming and socio-constructing phenomena in the contextual contours. Paper main body. One of the options for designating the specificity of the current state of affairs is framed in the concept of the so-called «curse of volatility» - the dependence of local, mainly commodity and export-oriented with low internal economy savings from cycles, fluctuations of the world economy. This dependence is a definite structural factor and has been forming for a long time. Also, macroeconomic indicators within the framework of a certain political economy methodology in the projection for the sum ofpolitical and legal events allow us to see the spread of ideology, whether left or right, the rise of populism, the tendency for further democratization of the way of life or vice versa from democracy, the relative calm of the political process or the turbulence ofpolitical events are, after all, tied to basic economic indicators, and often more or less relevant to us and corresponding to figures about the level of safety of life. The trajectory of development was laid down by some decisions at a time of critical juncture when privatization created the basis of the local economy as a structural part of the world capitalist system with its dynamics of development that facilitated the formatting and reproduction of the reactive sequences caused by different types of liberal reforms. Conclusions of the research. The particular attention in Latin America and the Caribbean countries on the expectations and responsibilities of building the future is focused on the development of Constitutional law as a leading sphere in the system of national law. Hence the numerous constitutional changes in the countries of the region, the constitutional reforms of different grades, which are intensively continued today. The lifestyle liberalization, resolving key property issues, attempts at democratization in Latin America and the Carribien countries took place in different ways, but after the foundations ofpublic law that were borrowed in outline in the USA. Between enshrined key provisions in the Constitutions and the coexistence of essentially diverse mass consciousnesses and aspirations on different ’floors’ of the society, has raised multi-dimensional discord, that is emerging from the institutionalization of the liberal-democratic model of the state, generated in the context of understanding freedom as a key concept. Therefore the aspect ofan all-public agreement on coexistence rules does not appear to be fully realized, which gives rise to a search for a constitutional character. The focus remains on the relationship between multiple interests and ideas about the common good, by means of the formation of the general will in the structure and practice of constitutional-democratic regimes. It is inextricably linked to the transformation of the concepts of representation and citizenship. Democratic legitimation is correlated with ideas about the rule of the masses, the will of the majority in the living creation of the norms of life, and with the accompanying active and continuous participation in the political process of large groups, sectors of the population. The constitutional creativity of the countries of the region shows the element of an assertion of messianism, the designation of the special role of the country, its leader, ideology, the Constitution in the processes of historical implementation at the level of regional or the world. This moment of national pride for the country and its contribution to the cultural and civilizational space of history is realized in experimental projects of various expressions. (shrink)

Thesis (Doctorate) - La Trobe University, 2012.

La idea de progreso es una de las nociones más influyentes, pero también más polémicas, del mundo moderno. Ello se debe en buena medida al carácter ideológico que subyace a su empleo en diferentes contextos. En este artículo se examinan cuatro paradojas que ha generado la aplicación de la idea de progreso, cuyos efectos negativos se hacen sentir cada vez con más fuerza hoy en día. Se muestra también cómo esta idea, pese al creciente descrédito que la rodea, continúa ejerciendo (...) una poderosa influencia en la vida contemporánea. The idea of progress is one of the most influential and at the same time most controversial notions in the modern world. To a great extent, this is due to the ideological nature underlying its use in different contexts. The article examines four paradoxes generated by the application of the idea of progress, whose negative effects are increasingly felt today, and shows how that idea continues to have a powerful influence on contemporary life, despite the fact that it has been somewhat discredited. A ideia de progresso é uma das noções mais influentes, mas também mais polêmicas, do mundo moderno. Isso se deve, em boa parte, ao caráter ideológico que subjaz a seu emprego em diferentes contextos. Neste artigo, examinam-se quatro paradoxos que vêm gerando a aplicação da ideia de progresso, cujos efeitos negativos se fazem sentir cada vez com mais força hoje em dia. Mostra-se como essa ideia, embora o crescente descrédito que a rodeie, continua exercendo uma poderosa influência na vida contemporânea. (shrink)