Daily Social Practices Research Articles

Water Drops

This article examines how individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds in Norway participate in anti-racist activism via social media. It investigates the nature of digital activism compared to traditional paradigms, highlighting the varied forms of engagement enabled by digital technology. Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork among individuals in the arts and cultural sector, it reveals how seemingly minor actions on social media can spark organized activism, unveiling the political activism inherent in daily life and social media practices. The article argues that individuals not identifying as political activists still contribute to political change through everyday social media activities, suggesting that contemporary activism can exist without activists. Introducing the metaphor of ‘water drops’ the article conceptualizes everyday politics as small contributions that may collectively shape meaningful change. Small acts can be merely drops in a vast ocean without major significance. However, if sustained over time, efforts across disparate online spaces can coalesce to challenge and subvert dominant social narratives regarding difference, racism, discrimination, and exclusion. Thus, contemporary activism can thrive with ordinary people who contribute to collective social transformation through digital and mundane interactions.

Why Do We Fear The Robopocalypse? Human Insecurity in The Age of Technophobia

The paper aims to determine where exactly fear of intelligent machines is located in the narrative layers embedded in science fiction film stories based on the intelligence explosion hypothesis. The analysis departs from the assumption that the Robopocaliptic narrative, a science fiction narrative depicting the dystopian future of human–robot relationship, is constitutive of the irrational technophobic stance widespread in the public opinion of today’s postindustrial societies. As narration plays an essential part in our daily reflective and social practices, we are naturally inclined to look for narrative structure in popular culture, particularly in film, the most popular form of visual art, and the easiest one to consume. Nine science fiction films have been selected as relevant empirical evidence: The Invisible Boy (1957), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Westworld(1973), Futureworld (1976), Demon Seed (1977), Blade Runner (1982), The Terminator (1984), The Matrix (1999), Ex Machina (2015). The Robopocaliptic narrative interwoven with the themes of the analysed films uncovers four recurrent ideas or messages that create robotophobia: redundancy of the human race, moral indifference of robots, robots as emotional abusers, and the loss of control over one’s own mind and body. The author proposes that these four ideas or messages mirror four layers of fear, all pointing to a meta-fear: the fear of rejection to be recognised and treated as a morally worth human being. In conclusion, the author suggests that Axel Honneth’s concept of recognition opens a plausible avenue to clarify the roots of the fear of the Robopocalypse.

Benefits of implementing the 15-minute city concept in stimulating the potential of social urban resurgence

The issue presented in the article is a proposal to look at a specific vision of the sociospatial organization of the city, namely the concept of the 15-minute city. In this proposed approach, this concept can become a source of inspiration for urban development, as well as a stimulating factor for the social potential of the urban community, which form the basis for the resurgence of cities after the crisis. In the theoretical realm, the basis for the considerations presented in this text is a socio-spatial perspective, according to which the city is perceived as a socio-spatial structure that is reproduced through daily social practices, reflecting both institutionalized patterns and the material organization of space. This text contributes to the discussion about the potential benefits of applying the 15-minute city concept for the development and resurgence of cities in line with the idea of livable cities, ensuring a high quality of life for their residents.

Attitudes toward LGB peers and students’ citizenship competences: peer education for a double purpose?

Peer education regarding respect for LGB individuals can be understood as citizenship education with a specific content. Students who participate in an intervention to increase respect for sexual and gender minorities may also increase their general citizenship competences. Also, participation in such an intervention may strengthen students’ awareness of the relationship between reflections on citizenship and attitudes toward LGB people. A peer educator intervention on sexual and gender minorities was implemented in pre-vocational secondary education by peer educators and 13 to 17 years old students. We examined the impact on attitudes toward LGB peers with a one-group pretest post-test design, and also used this method to examine reflections on acting as a democratic citizen. We found one significant (positive) correlation between a positive judgment of LGB peers and reflection on acting in a socially responsible manner, which was one of the three democratic citizenship reflection scales we used. No effects were found on either attitudes toward LGB peers or reflection on acting as a democratic citizen. Peer education that is more integrated into the daily social practice of students may increase impact.

COVID-19 as a breakdown in the texture of social practices.

‘A lot of things need to be repaired and a lot of relationships are in need of a knowledgeable mending. Can we start to talk/write about them?’ This invitation — sent by one of the authors to the others — led us, as feminist women in academia, to join together in an experimental writing about the effects of COVID‐19 on daily social practices and on potential (and innovative) ways for repairing work in different fields of social organization. By diffractively intertwining our embodied experiences of becoming together‐with Others, we foreground a multiplicity of repair (care) practices COVID‐19 is making visible. Echoing one another, we take a stand and say that we need to prevent the future from becoming the past. We are not going back to the past; our society has already changed and there is a need to cope with innovation and repairing practices that do not reproduce the past.

Cultural Hegemony and Victimisation of Bedia Women in Central India

Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci first coined the term “hegemony” and also elaborated on cultural hegemony. It is a common perception that cultural powers and organisations are hegemonic-centred, resulting in a network of invisible powers. Hegemonic power processes are an integral part of daily social and cultural practices that help to perpetuate power relations. The repercussions of hegemony can be seen in various aspects of society, such as caste, class, ethnicity, occupation, gender, tradition, etc. This paper enlightens on the gendered hegemonic cultural practice of prostitution (sex work) as a traditional institution in the Bedia community. The intensive fieldwork in Habla hamlet, a sub-village of Luhari village (village assembly) of the Bedia community in Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, India, was conducted to reveal the hegemonic practices in the community. Forty people aged between 50 to 60 years have been interviewed for this study. Twenty females and twenty males were selected for data collection, and observations had been made in the hamlet to understand hegemony through social institutions.
 Moreover, we have found that the male members are alert to the preservation of the purity and chastity of their wives but compelled their sisters and daughters, with the support of social institutions, to remain unmarried and take up prostitution (sex work). In particular, Bedias' hegemonic traditional cultural behaviour plays an essential role in the continuation of discrimination against Bedia women. Additionally, we explore the mechanism of this hegemonic power through the role of gender, patriarchy, false consciousness, emotions, power of common sense, ideology, and history, which have been responsible for the victimisation of Bedia women for a long time.

Teachers’ Views on the Digital Divide in Greece: A Qualitative Approach

The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers’ views on the digital divide and its implications in the field of Primary education in Greece. The research questions were related to the conceptualization of the digital divide by teachers, its consequences and the role of teachers. A total of 22 elementary school teachers were selected out of which 8 were male and 14 were female. The semi-structured interview was used as a research tool and an interview guide was developed that had four themes. The first theme concerned teachers' conceptualizations on the digital divide, the second theme was related to the use of ICT in education, The third theme was about the consequences of the digital divide and the fourth theme included questions about how to deal with the digital divide. The results conclude that the teachers: a) signify the digital divide in a comprehensible way, distinguishing its forms, the factors that influence it, and their implications in their daily social life and educational practice, b) refer to the social inequalities being created in the social environment and c) education policy in Greece is often not supportive of teachers’ work.

Men’s health across the life course: A gender relational (critical) overview

ABSTRACT The advances made in incorporating a gender approach into public health policies have stimulated growing interest in the social mechanisms of the study of men’s health. Therefore, a more experiential, gender-based analysis that allows for a better understanding of how ill-health processes and exposure to risk factors are related is required. In this paper, based on a rapid review, we focus on the daily circumstances, critical events and social practices in which masculinities become (re)defined during different stages of the life cycle. Our results highlight the dynamics between workplace and family contexts, calling attention to the impact of the male breadwinner model, which acts as a gendered social structure with implications for other factors (including age, social class, disability and marital status) that characterize the dynamics of life-cycle transitions and the key vulnerabilities that transcend occupational health. These findings lead us to consider the possibility that ill-health processes in males and females are intrinsically interwoven, such that the development of relationships reflects limitations and opportunities for both. Our analysis provides greater insights into explanations for gendered patterning in morbidity and mortality as well as how a gender order instigates social vulnerabilities and inequalities in health.

\u2018Small stories of closing loops\u2019: social circularity and the everyday circular economy

There is now no doubt that current global production-consumption-disposal systems are threatening the fundamental conditions of existence on this planet. In response, the pressing need for total system transformation has gained civic and political traction, feeding into long-standing debates and interventions that are aimed at recalibrating prevailing economic and social practices. One such debate and intervention is that of the circular economy (CE). Here, advocates argue that current linear resource and energy use systems must be reconfigured into loops of re-use, repair, refurbishment, and recycling, displacing primary production and lessening greenhouse gas emissions in the process. This agenda has potentially profound implications for aspects of daily social practices. Yet, to date, little attention has been paid (politically and in research) to how the CE does and will interact with everyday habits, norms, and meanings. In response, this paper explores some of the conceptual assumptions underlying the CE ‘consumer’. It argues that mainstream CE debates are underscored by an impoverished view of our relationships with complex material cultures, which in turn is creating barriers to transformation. Drawing on empirical research into responses to the CE in the UK and the Netherlands, this paper contrasts the challenges of inciting consumers to take up new, resource-efficient business models in contexts of hyper-consumerism, with a more hopeful ‘small story’ of overt, small-scale circular spaces, that nevertheless embed the CE and its underlying impetuses more clearly into the everyday.

Learning punk through its products: Combining fashion merchandising practices and pedagogy to develop a subculture of resistance

Punk is a lifestyle, ethos and perspective that deals with social unrest and personal discontent. Learning models are applied as framework in this research to contemplate how punk is learned and enacted as a lifestyle by going through daily fashion merchandising and social practices, such as how punks engage with artefacts and the rules of their scene. The punk subculture uses a pedagogy to their fashion production and consumption, employing the garments of their sartorial style with community interactions to create and symbolize their ethos. The community interacts in unision as newcomers to the scene learn from established participants, take in the knowledge available to them, and shift to self-produced ideas to develop their individualized punk ethos. This study used qualitative online surveys, in-person interviews and social media discussions from self-identified punks in the United States and Canada, as well as archival visits to punk-themed collections in order to analyse the experience of individuals who produce, consume and communicate their punk ethos through their garments.

Teaching self-care: The utilization of self-care in social work practicum to prevent compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma

ABSTRACTField practicum is paramount to social work pedagogy in the preparation of emerging direct practice professionals. Field students integrate foundational knowledge as they implement practice skills learned in the classroom during the social work practicum experience. Working with clients who are suffering is inevitable in direct social work practice and field practicum students can be exposed to a broad range of intense emotional experiences as they assist clients in need. Integrating self-care skills, techniques and strategies into daily social work practice becomes essential to prevent compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma. Incorporating self-care skills into the field practicum enhances opportunities for transformative student learning and helps to strengthen professional socialization during this critical educational experience. This article highlights the implementation of professional self-care instruction, use of activities and written student critical reflection assignments designed to enhance the practice experience through incorporating self-care education and strategies among undergraduate students within the field practicum seminar.

Fundamentos teórico-conceituais da pesquisa em práticas sociais e processos educativos

This article aims to contribute to the deepening of the theoretical and conceptual discussions held about the research in the social and educational processes practices, placing it in the context of academic studies of the area of Education. By conducting a literature review covering the texts of Paulo Freire, Ernani Maria Fiori, Enrique Dussel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Boaventura de Sousa Santos we sought to expand our understanding of conceptual aspects that emerge as constituent elements of two main analytical categories of this epistemological research perspective in Education, namely: social and educational processes practices. To this end, we discuss the two categories and argue in favor of taking the daily social practices experienced by human beings as essentially inter-subjective praxis, generating educational processes that project in time-space from gnosiological problem-solving situations of social reality. Keywords: educational processes, social practices, research on education.

Academic domains as political battlegrounds

This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars’ reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political ‘actors’, just like their human counterparts, having ‘agency’ – which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) ‘battlefields’ wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi: 10.1177/0266666915622044.

Assessment of diet and recognition of nutritional deficiencies in paleopathological studies: A review.

An essential part of paleopathology is the study of diet and nutrition as well as inferring aspects of diet and nutrition from the skeletal pathology. Interpretation of nutritional and metabolic disease-related pathologies often provides additional insight into the daily social and cultural practices of people. However, precise diagnoses of specific vitamin-related deficiencies in archaeological skeletal remains are still quite problematic and specific diagnoses are rarely possible. This partly stems from the fact that many nutritional or metabolic diseases do not necessarily result in an osteological response and when they do, the comorbidity and analogous osteological responses to vitamin deficiencies may hamper the definite diagnosis of nutrition-related disease. Clin. Anat. 29:862-869, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The influence of visual representations of “the Other” in the system of modern sociocultural communications

The paper deals with the way and the form of modern humanitaristics understanding of the problem of visual representation of “the Other”. The authors’ tasks were to comprehend the nature and dynamics of visualization, to give a distinct working definition of visual competence. Besides, the purpose of the paper was to state the components of visual competence, its criteria, estimation methods and in this context to interpret the image of “the Other” decoded in scientific philosophic and cultural literature and in daily cultural practices. And the final task was to reduce the visual message to the verbal one. The doctrine that the image may be read is the common prejudice, which prevents the formation of a new approach to visuality. The first step towards the solution of problem is to describe the techniques, which help in potential understanding of the visual structure. Understanding the image diversity and its possible text analogues should help in establishing the specific requirements, which can be and must be applicable to visual representation of “the Other”. Representations in the visual culture (photography, cinematography, media, painting, advertisement) influence the social image, affects the daily social practices and communications. Visual representations are of interest for social theorists as well as cultural texts, as they give an idea on the context of cultural production, social interaction and individual experience.

Another Year Finds Me In Texas: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Pier Stevens ed. by Vicky Adams Tongate

Reviewed by: Another Year Finds Me In Texas: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Pier Stevens ed. by Vicky Adams Tongate Robert N. Nelson Another Year Finds Me In Texas: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Pier Stevens. Edited by Vicky Adams Tongate. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. 376. Map, photographs, notes, bibliography, index.) Lucy Pier Stevens’s Civil War diary covers the period from January 1863 through May 1865. Lucy, a native and resident of Milan, Ohio, had arrived in Texas on December 25, 1859, at the age of twenty-one. She came to visit the family of her maternal aunt, Lu Merry Pier, who had moved to Texas in 1835 with her husband, James Bradford Pier. Still in Texas in 1861, Lucy found that the advent of war and blockade of the Texas coast left her with no safe means of travel back to Ohio and no way to communicate with her family there. At home in Ohio, Lucy was the fifth of six siblings, and in Texas she lived in a similarly sized family with her aunt, uncle, and three cousins (two of whom were younger than Lucy). Her uncle, a veteran of the Texas Revolution, lived in the vicinity of Travis, a town in present-day Austin County, where he settled in 1835. By 1860, when Lucy had joined his household, he owned eleven slaves, and he increased his holding to fourteen before emancipation, placing him in the small planter class. Lucy had been living in Travis long enough before secession and the war to have found a place in the family and in the community. The diary she began in 1863 demonstrates the degree to which she had formed bonds with her extended family, her neighbors, and the wider community. She records the daily social practice of visiting, occurrences of church meetings, her time teaching children, births, deaths, the weather, and news of local men who were serving in the army. Her journal is remarkable in that it makes plain how distant the war was from most of Texas, and the degree to which everyday life continued in Austin County. It also demonstrates how war reports came to the area, as well as how often those reports were initially wrong. The volume is well edited, with useful reference materials such as dramatis personae in the front matter as well as informative footnoting throughout. Vicky Adams Tongate’s introduction provides a helpful starting point for getting to know Lucy and her family, as well as the rural community in which they lived. This is further aided by Tongate’s familiarity [End Page 119] with the diaries of Lucy’s Aunt Lu and Cousin Sarah, which cover similar periods to some of Lucy’s diaries. Tongate’s work provides a valuable look at the daily lives of women, of a Texas community, and of the Civil War home front. Robert N. Nelson Stephen F. Austin University Copyright © 2015 The Texas State Historical Association

Online Social Networking in Adolescence: Patterns of Use in Six European Countries and Links With Psychosocial Functioning

Online communication tools, such as social networking sites (SNS), have been comprehensively embraced by adolescents and have become a dominant daily social practice. Recognizing SNS as a key context of adolescent development, this study aimed to investigate associations between heavier SNS use, and adolescent competencies and internalizing problems. Data was collected in six European countries: Greece, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Romania, and Iceland. Participants were 10,930 adolescents aged 14-17 years (F/M: 5,719/5,211; mean age 15.8 ± .7 years); 62.3% were aged 14-15.9 years and 37.7% were aged 16-17.9 years. Participants reported on their use of online communication tools, and their general competencies and internalizing problems (Youth Self Report). SNS are both ubiquitous--used by 70% of adolescents--and engaging, given that 40% of users spend 2 or more hours daily on SNS (labeled heavier SNS use). Heavier SNS use was associated with more internalizing problems, and the relation was consistently more pronounced among younger adolescents. Moreover, heavier SNS use was associated with lower academic performance and lower activities scores, especially for younger adolescents. In contrast, among older adolescents heavier SNS use was positively associated with offline social competence. Although heavier SNS use is associated with higher social competence for older adolescents, it is also associated with increased internalizing problems and diminished competencies in academics and activities, especially for younger adolescents. Age, capturing developmental differences in social and regulatory skills, appears to moderate the effects of heavier SNS use on adolescent functioning.

As "artes do fazer" gestão na escola pública: uma proposta de estudo

Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar uma proposta teórico-epistemológica de estudo das "artes do fazer" gestão na escola pública, contemplando o nível meso de análise. A ideia é compreender como se (re)constroem as "artes do fazer" gestão no cotidiano das práticas sociais do diretor escolar e sua comunidade escolar. Para tanto, é sugerida a abordagem de Certeau (2008), a partir da ideia de cotidiano, nele inseridos seus conceitos de "lugar", "espaço", "próprio", "outro", "estratégias" e "táticas". Como proposta metodológica, optou-se pela pesquisa "no/do/com o" cotidiano (ALVES e GARCIA, 2002; FERRAÇO, 2007; GARCIA, 2003), baseada nos trabalho de Certeau (2008) e que ressalta um necessário "mergulho" no cotidiano estudado pelo pesquisador. Essa concepção epistemológica busca romper com o distanciamento sujeito-objeto na relação de pesquisa, bem como contribuir para um avanço da estratégia etnográfica, para além da descrição densa "sobre" o outro, mas, sim, elaborando uma descrição "com" o outro, neste caso também sujeito e não só objeto de pesquisa. Espera-se como resultado contribuir para o avanço dos estudos sobre a gestão como prática, aqui tratada como "artes dos fazer" na vida cotidiana das organizações.

Take the lead: analise de uma proposta de empoderamento via atividade extra-curricular

O principal objetivo deste trabalho é fazer uma análise do filme Take the leadsob uma perspectiva sócio-histórica de aprendizagem, além de valorizar o uso de ferramentas extra-curriculares para oferecer aos alunos conhecimentos valiosos em sua prática social diária. Nele são discutidos alguns conceitos de constituição do sujeito e como a perspectiva sócio- histórica o compreende (FREITAS, 2002), além de levantar o termo apprenticeship (LAVE, 1996), e sua importância para que se possa compreender a aquisição de valores éticos e morais relevantes a comunidade de prática ao qual o sujeito está inserido.

A Educação Ambiental frente aos desafios apresentados pelos discursos contemporâneos sobre a natureza

A noção de natureza tem tido papel importante na filosofia e também na Educação Ambiental. Filósofos contemporâneos como Gianni Vattimo e Newton Aquiles von Zuben afirmam que uma noção única de natureza contribuiu para a difusão da metafísica dogmática, que por sua vez, solidificou totalitarismos políticos e religiosos. A Educação Ambiental latino-americana tem constituído um campo teórico e espaço público privilegiado para a difusão de noções de natureza, não dogmáticas, nem totalitárias, em estreitas relações com a diversidade cultural e social. Num primeiro momento da Educação Ambiental a noção de natureza estava relacionada aos recursos naturais. Desde que temas específicos relacionados com os discursos contemporâneos sobre a natureza, como a biodiversidade e os transgênicos ganharam o espaço público, argumentamos que a Educação Ambiental se viu diante de novos desafios teóricos, políticos, ecológicos, sociais, culturais e pedagógicos. Neste artigo procuramos identificar e analisar alguns desses desafios tendo como apoio teórico o pensamento do filósofo italiano Gianni Vattimo e do filósofo brasileiro Newton Aquiles von Zuben, nos aspectos relacionados à bioética e ao papel político da educação, na formação de cidadãos e cidadãs. Concluímos que a abordagem dos discursos contemporâneos sobre a natureza possibilita que o diálogo entre a Educação Ambiental e a bioética tende a se ampliar e a se concretizar em práticas sociais e pedagógicas cotidianas, apresentando-se, assim, como alternativa concreta para que cidadãos e cidadãs possam enfrentar os desafios trazidos com a biodiversidade e com os transgênicos, com argumentos científicos, éticos e políticos.