Contemporary Social Transformations Research Articles

Introduction. Repenser l’espace public à l’aune des transformations sociales contemporaines

Le concept d’espace public a beneficie d’une large consecration pendant plusieurs decennies, principalement en sciences politiques et en sociologie. Si ce concept a connu une periode de latence ou un certain recul, sa mobilisation renouvelee par differentes disciplines interroge sa fecondite heuristique dans l’analyse des mouvements sociaux contemporains a travers le monde. En effet, le concept d’espace public revient en force dans les recherches actuelles sur les revendications sociales et p...

Three Points about Current German Anthropology

Comment on World Anthropology with an Accent: the Discipline in Germany since the 1970s, by Bierschenk, Thomas, Krings, Matthias, and Carola Lenz

DISCOURSE OF POWER AND DISCOURSE OF MASSES IN MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: CULTURAL, BIOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS

The aim of the paper is the identification of anthropological content of the power and mass discourses in contemporary social transformations. The theme of philosophical and anthropological meaning of discourse communication between mass and power in post-modern society acquires the significant relevance because of technologization of the governance processes and transformation of previously sacred power as a set of standard procedures. Methodology of the paper consists on the disclosure of cultural peculiarities and substantial forms of power discourse and mass discourse properties in major directions of philosophical anthropology of middle XX and at the beginning of the XXI century. Scientific novelty. The directions of the institutional sense expression in the discourse of power supply are disclosed and the process of mixing power and management and representative anthropology is fixed. The biological, cultural and religious levels of displaying the anthropological significance discourse of power are identified. The definition is given to the anthropic content of discursive power of speech activities and methods and philosophical reflection of the discursive self-expression of powerful masses. The specificity of the interaction of power and mass discourses of national and universal semantic spaces are defined. In conclusions it is indicated that the anthropic space of the contemporary mass human is narrowing significantly, because the individuals’ participation in technology of society management is finally excluded. On this basis even the key aspect of mass discourse breaks – the mass narrations about the power, because the power performs the direct intervention in the mass discourse structure of sense-creation by the way of suggestion.

Reconfiguring care and family in the era of the ‘outsourced self’

ABSTRACTThis paper theorizes a cultural shift in our understanding of the affective dimensions of care, dependency, family and mothering as represented in contemporary social transformations, namely, the trend towards the outsourcing of complicated feelings and emotions and new discourses around technology and care. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on sociology, policy studies, discourse analysis and a feminist ethic of care framework, the article argues that these developments alter prevailing understandings of what it means to care for infants, children, the sick and the frail elderly and, moreover, that these changes somehow alienate us from the weighty, embedded and often conflicted emotions that such caring engenders. At their most extreme, some of these developments risk transforming human intimacy and the role of the family in social reproduction.

The past sits in places: Locality, violence, and memory in Sardinia

The aim of this paper is to situate the Sardinian village within the flux of contemporary social transformations that stand poised to redefine it. Specifically, it examines the highland village of Orgosolo, understanding it as a site that concentrates a clear set of cultural self-definitions that stand opposed to perceptions of life beyond the locality. A key element of local discourse is a view of the collective historical experience that underscores the social, political, and cultural marginality of rural life in central Sardinia, and associates the village with a dissident identity that is reaffirmed by a social memory of violence suffered at the hand of powerful outsiders from Antiquity onwards. Yet, this perspective on the locality is not the sole one, and as such the village presents a contested site where the normative traditionalist vision holds little traction among an ascendant generation of urban-oriented youth who, for their part, reject the past and any definition of village identity explicitly associated with it.

Reordering (social) sensibilities: Balancing realisms in Neighbouring Sounds

Abstract This article treats the film O Som Ao Redor/Neighbouring Sounds (Mendonça Filho, 2012), one of the most innovative Brazilian films in recent years. The film is examined as an example of a Latin American film that renovates film form and contributes to new debates concerning conceptual and sensorial realism. The film intervenes at sensory thresholds, combining realist and surrealist strategies and a hypo-real soundscape to reflect on deep social disjunctions and an uncertain social landscape. Neighbouring Sounds appears to portray the everyday activities of residents in an upper-middle class neighbourhood in Recife but it subtly reveals feelings of ennui and fear to offer a broader reflection on tensions between interdependent social classes and debates concerning contemporary social transformation. In its reflection on changing social sensibilities, Neighbouring Sounds develops a particular aesthetic and political liminality and plays on tensions between the visible and invisible.

The Case of the Disappearing Altar: Mysteries and Consequences of Revitalizing Chinese Muslims in Yunnan

This article takes the example of a disappeared altar in a Himalayan valley as revelatory of contradictions within the mechanics of a Hui Muslim revitalization project. The community example—a group of historically identifiable Muslims in China—centers on the disappearance of a gifted propitiation altar that once stood as an instantiation of community cohesion among ethnically varied populations in the valley. The investigation examines transformations of modernity and the erosion of the “social glue” that held valley communities together as the disappearance of this gift is revealed to be a telling instance of the large-scale productivities and corrosions effected by China’s contemporary renaissance of reemerging religious movements and community identifications, processes in which Chinese Muslims serve as a potential indicator for a long view of reform contemporary social transformation.

Existential searches of Baptist Churches believers in contemporary social transformations

The article highlights the essence of existential quest of modern Evangelical Christians Baptists, and shows features of the self-determination of Baptists in Ukraine.

Languages, Literatures, Pedagogies: The MLA, Africa, and Diaspora Studies

Languages, Literatures, Pedagogies: The MLA, Africa, and Diaspora Studies

Spirit Women, Church Women, and Passenger Women

As anthropologists increasingly study Christianity in Melanesia, data has become available which allow us to address comparative questions about its differential impact in various societies of the region. In this article, I look at how conversion to Christianity has transformed women's roles in one society in Papua New Guinea and one in Vanuatu. In particular, I examine what Christian values have meant for the construction of new gender roles. In addition, I compare changes in women's roles in these two Christianized societies to the situation in another rapidly changing Papua New Guinea society where Christianization is not a dominant social trend in order to explore how Christianity might be seen to align women with culturally dominant values in ways other kinds of cultural change do not. In the course of the article, I also consider what my analysis has to say about the value of comparing Christian societies across the Melanesian region for the broader project of theorizing the role of religion in shaping contemporary social transformations in this region and beyond.

A Reformist-Feminist Approach to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s <i>Purple Hibiscus</i>

Feminism has not received unanimous acceptance in Africa and women that associate themselves with this movement are regarded as radicals and going against African norms and traditions. The study has closely examined the exploitation and suppression of women, revealing the subjugating conditions that sometimes reduce women to mental wrecks. The research has also created awareness on the need for the entrenchment of societal reforms in order to improve the lot of women in patriarchal societies. The outcome of this study implicitly encourages the necessity of cooperation between men and women in contemporary social and political transformations on the continent. Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus can be regarded as radical, considering the method used by the protagonist to liberate herself. A reformist feminist analysis has been adopted as a theoretical framework for this academic quest. While it is true that women are oppressed, dehumanized and face various forms of cruelty in the hands of men, this feminist frame of reference equally recognizes certain positive aspects of patriarchal societies which foster peaceful coexistence between men and women. Thus, reformist feminism uses positive male characters to challenge men with oppressive tendencies towards women to change and regard women as complementary partners in progress. The study concludes that oppression of women by the men-folk is to the detriment of the family and the society at large.

The Diminished Importance of Cultural Sustainability in Spatial Planning: The Case of Slovenia

Formal spatial planning procedures tend to neglect the importance of socio-cultural elements that are inherently present as part of 'soft infrastructure' and are constituted from traditions, lifestyles, wishes, and the routines of individuals that form a local community. In contrast, the concept of cultural sustainability is closely linked with the socio-cultural heterogeneity of a local community. The inability of the formal spatial planning system in Slovenia to adequately engage with the social wishes and resistances of residents is highlighted in situations involving problematic confrontations between the members of the dominant 'common culture' and marginal groups. Two cases from Ljubljana are presented: the stigmatization of the Fužine neighbourhood and the problematic of mosque construction. The cases illustrate that the 'majority' of residents tend to perceive many subcultural representations in space as foreign, non-indigenous elements that could disrupt the everyday routine in a local community. They show how the deficiencies of the current spatial planning system in Slovenia are unable to address challenges posed by contemporary society's cultural, social, and economic transformations and can work quite the opposite way – by increasing the complexity (and level of difficulty) for possible implementation of measures supporting cultural heterogeneity in planning practice.

Development and Migration or Migration and Development: What Comes First?

Socio-economic change and human mobility are constantly interactive processes, so to ask whether migration or development comes first is nonsensical. Yet in both popular and political discourse it has become the conventional wisdom to argue that promoting economic development in the Global South has the potential to reduce migration to the North. This carries the clear implication that such migration is a ‘bad thing,’ and that poor people should stay put. In other words, the idea is that encouraging international migration now may help create conditions conducive to eliminating – or at least reducing – it in the future. This belief in the positive consequences of migration for development represents a reversal of dominant views prior to the 1990s, according to which migration represented a loss of labor and human capital likely to hold back development of origin countries. This article explores the processes and reasoning behind changing views on migration and development in the European Union and Asia, arguing that social-scientific and political discourses are often closely linked, and that this can have negative consequences both for the advancement of knowledge and for policy development. The article proposes an alternative view of human mobility as a normal part of social transformation processes. Migrating in search of better opportunities and greater human security is a way in which people can exercise agency to improve their livelihoods. Embedding migration studies in an analysis of contemporary social transformation processes can help overcome the frequent separation between migration research and mainstream social theory, and may contribute to improved international cooperation in the migration field.

Addiction to Cosmetic Surgery: Representations and Medicalization of the Body

Contemporary social transformations of the body are essentially mediated by medical discourse. With the body conceived of as “soft and modifiable,” we are witnessing an unprecedented rise in recourse to medicine in order to validate primarily social conditions. In this context, plastic surgery functions as a modality of social control and management, not only of the physical body as such, but at the social level as well. Physical, because plastic surgery allows one to modify the external and visible organs (face, breasts, legs, nose, etc.), and social, because it proposes a social model of the ideal body that goes beyond the one inherited from the biological parents. If the past sheds light on the present, one might wonder whether there are any representations of the body in history that can help us understand better the contemporary phenomenon of cosmetic surgery. What do we mean by the medicalization of bodies? How does a psychosocial condition change from having a social status to a medical one? How can we explain the extraordinary popularity of plastic surgery as a socially acceptable, and desirable, behavior? To answer these questions, based on a review of the literature, this article analyzes the social trend towards the medicalization of bodies via plastic surgery. To that end, four main aspects will be examined: (1) a brief overview of the body’s representation throughout history; (2) a reminder that medicalization is a mode of social control; (3) psychosocial factors that influence the recourse to plastic surgery; (4) cultural examples that demonstrate how important cultural values are in shaping the different trajectories regarding plastic surgery. In conclusion, the author suggests considering social ties as a major component in the social intervention process.

Um projeto para o Serviço Social crítico

As transformações sociais contemporâneas, operadas pela programática neoliberal sob o comando do capital financeiro, trazem novos desafios ao conjunto de cidadãos e de homens e mulheres que vivem da venda de sua força de trabalho. Os assistentes sociais, individual e coletivamente, não são alheios a esta realidade. A profissão já se caracterizou por enfrentar estes desafios, questionando e problematizando seu papel na sociedade, tentando assumir perfis mais críticos e comprometidos com os interesses dos trabalhadores e dos setores subalternos. Exemplo disso são o "Movimento de Reconceptualização" e a posterior tentativa de definir um "Serviço Social Alternativo" preocupado com o sentido de sua prática, com o processo de conhecimento crítico, com a crítica ao capitalismo e às situações de injustiça social. Os desafios atuais levam a, superando anteriores debilidades, construir coletivamente um projeto ético-político profissional que possa enfrentar com competência e compromisso, no interior das forças sociais progressistas, as condições nas quais vivem os trabalhadores (com e sem emprego) e os demais setores subalternos.

Destroying the Remembered and Recovering the Forgotten in Chai

Beijing is currently undergoing a host of dramatic changes, as reflected in the popular symbol chai (see pdf for characters). Chai means destruction; but it also refers to antiquated things or ideas that should be destroyed. By presenting chai, one is able to arouse into memory certain forgotten things that previously rested in the background. However, the reconstructed forgotten memories that one actually remembers differ from the actually forgotten. In this way prevailing Chinese conceptions of contemporary social transformations can be configured into recollections of constructed images of the past; and the past can be lost while being remembered. In this article, this process of creative remembering and forgetting will be illustrated by reference to changes in customs and residential ownership. We shall argue that traditionalism and modernity in contemporary China should be seen as circular transformations between remembering and forgetting.

Postmodernizmas ir epistemologinio reliatyvizmo spąstai

This essay is an excerpt from the forthcoming book - Critical Discourse in Sociology. Between Positivism and Postmodernism. The essay deals with the dilemmas of relativism. The sociological concept of relativity of last decades was formulated as the integral part of sociological inquiry, aimed at the methodological complexity and some critical character of sociological thought. The intellectual transformation of recent sociology has been accompanied by a proliferation of alternative theories and concepts. Given the acute understanding of socially determined and arbitrary character of knowledge, the new sociological identity is being shaped by the pluralist context of latter-day sociological inquiry. This essay attempts an appraisal of differences in alternative modes of knowledge by exploring critically its various thematic features. As sociology‘s ongoing internal struggles continue, it is appropriate to ask whether the multidimensional approach is able to employ its own relativistic elements and maybe analytic techniques in the process of keeping itself more useful to the social sciences. It is possible to identify some postmodern trends in contemporary sociology that are becoming quite diverse internally. It is clear, however, that sociologists attach a little deal of significance to these differentiating changes as one of the crucial criteria of the arrival of new and the more complex forms of theorizing. Sociologists devote also too little attention to the relationship between contemporary social transformations and the restructuring some basic concepts in sociology. Furthermore, the current debates on relativism in sociology do not account for the fact that “postmodernism”, as a distinct and multiparadigmatic intellectual activity, is unequally distributed throughout the history of the social sciences.
 The paper examines the problematic relationship between positivistic and postmodern sociology, using the recent development of the social sciences in Lithuania as a case study and discussing the alternative models of sociology and their implications for intellectual reflexivity and critical reconstruction in social sciences. The dilemmas of relativism are clear in Lithuanian social scientists’s treatment of what they calls “postmodernism”. The aim of this essay is to explore the dual relations between the positivistic and postmodern trends in sociology by specifying the historical aspects of its contemporary development. As a consequence of one-sided, undifferentiating understanding of postmodernism, the more narrow, monist and “purist” concept of science is shaped. The central thesis is that pursuit of a „pure” science model restricts the potentiality of sociological enterprise. The paper argues specifically for the differentiation of the concept of postmodernism and suggests a need for sociology to more thoroughly integrate postmodern insights into its theory and practice while highlighting such key aspects of the sociological tradition as the need to ground its discoursive forms in dialogical, conventional and communicative attempts. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate and make explicit some positive connections between explanatory and discursive forms of sociology examined from the perspective of critical social theory.

History Is Not a Matter of Generations: Interview with Harun Farocki

Translation by Sabine CzylwikRandall Halle received his degree in German Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Rochester. He has published on topics ranging from antihomosexuality in the Frankfurt School to queer film analyses of contemporary German film. Current projects include a volume on German popular film coedited with Margaret McCarthy and the book manuscript of “Queer Readings in German Social Philosophy from Kant to Adorno.” He is currently researching and presenting his work for Frames of Belonging: German Film from National to Transnational Productions. This work examines the effects of contemporary social transformations on the themes and production of film in Germany.

Actualité ethnologique des phénomènes industriels. Une perspective programmatique

Laurent Bazin, Ethnological Reality and Industrial Phenomena : A Programatic Perspective Although a solid tradition of industrial and urban anthropology exists in the development of ethnology concerning far-flung cultures, the ethnology of France is marked by its folklorist origins. Consequently, it tends to fall back on description at the expense of analysis. Study of Northern mining regions reveals how an anthropological approach capable of analyzing contemporary social and cultural transformations could be elaborated

CONTESTED BOUNDARIES AND EMERGING PLURALISM

The rise and fall, construction and deconstruction of different types of boundaries - biological, psychological, geographical, cultural, social, political, economic - make up the very story of human civilisation and of contemporary social transformation. Drawing from a wide variety of contexts, this paper shows how new boundaries do not replace the old ones but rather they tend to co-exist. This co-existence is sometimes harmonious but often tension-prone. Life in a society without boundaries will be nasty, brutish and short. On the other hand, societies with a proclivity to maintain boundaries that ignore the pulse of the times will be condemned to stagnation and decay. Thus, boundaries are constantly contested and hence the real challenge is to abolish obsolete boundaries and build desirable new ones which is the essence of pluralism.