Distinct Social Groups Research Articles

Dynamics of social, political, and economic institutions

Dynamics of social, political, and economic institutions

Ramsay MacMullen’s Portrait of Rome Begs the Question: Does the Ninety-Nine Percent have Parallels in History?

The social, economic, and political parallels with Ancient Rome are perhaps too numerous to include them all in this brief study. However, several characteristics identified by MacMullen seemed to accurately describe present conditions throughout the United States of America especially the populous movement called Occupy Wall Street. This study has described Rome’s political environment as having two distinct social groups that were aware of the other. MacMullen identified these two groups as urban and rural, and additionally provided their etymological connections. The term rural he argued, was geographically acquainted with resident peasants, and was believed to be akin to the word idiot. Moreover, this group was looked at by social elites (those higher on Rome’s social ladder) as outsiders. On page 5 of this study, the discussion intimates that farmers and shepherds alike were employed by rich landowners to oversee their affairs in lands significantly far from any of Rome’s urban centers. This picture is understandable since many of the roads leading to Rome’s rural areas and back to their neighboring cities abounded in abundant crime. Therefore, the task of tending these rural landholdings could only attract poor peasants destined to remain in poverty. As MacMullen pointed out, proximity from the city determined one’s lot and people of the day were content with a perfunctory existence, disinterest in challenging the status quo. Urbanites however, embraced a different set of values that were quite admirable even in today’s mores. They were thought of as favorable to society; and the term urban implied the idea of goodness and dignity. A reading of my introductory essay to this study titled “The Historical Model: The 99 Percent” may engender a more lucid understanding of the terms rural and urban. I liken them to what I call privilege and marginalized. They are akin to former presidential candidate John Edwards description of two Americas, and today’s idea which argues that there is a widening gulf between the haves and have not’s. Attention to this very real social condition is often classified by some in the “Haves” group, as class warfare. Nevertheless, as MacMullen has pointed out, rural and urban was just another name for “Haves and Have not’s”. He seems to tie the class of Have’s directly to the Empire’s ultimate demise by pointing to the relationship between patron and client. MacMullen suggests that greed and bribery eventually permeated, like an infection, all of the Roman Empire. We might understand his conclusions as somewhat identical to Crony-Capitalism along with a number of unscrupulous practices performed first by the ruling elite but which seemed to trickle down, eroding values of their constituents. However, as does many of the conclusion offered by historians since the decline of the Roman Empire, something is missing. MacMullen knew it; others have struggled with their own inadequate answers: “What was the primary cause for the downfall of the Roman Empire?” I believe the answer is quite simple, however, it could not have been understood until the emergence of the occupied movement; a movement that I will argue in Chapter Two, has its parallels with the period in Ancient Rome that began in 133 B.C. and ended around 31 B.C... I will argue in the second chapter of this study that the Empire served as the solution to the problem of mobs in the street as historians will arguably agree occurred during the Gracchi period. This period of Rome’s history is uniquely characterized by the assassinations of two leading political figures; two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus and has its parallels in the Kennedy Assassinations.

Landowners in Roman Palestine 100-300 C. E.: A Distinct Social Group

Landowners in Roman Palestine 100-300 C. E.: A Distinct Social Group

Inferring ecological and behavioral drivers of African elephant movement using a linear filtering approach

Understanding the environmental factors influencing animal movements is fundamental to theoretical and applied research in the field of movement ecology. Studies relating fine-scale movement paths to spatiotemporally structured landscape data, such as vegetation productivity or human activity, are particularly lacking despite the obvious importance of such information to understanding drivers of animal movement. In part, this may be because few approaches provide the sophistication to characterize the complexity of movement behavior and relate it to diverse, varying environmental stimuli. We overcame this hurdle by applying, for the first time to an ecological question, a finite impulse-response signal-filtering approach to identify human and natural environmental drivers of movements of 13 free-ranging African elephants (Loxodonta africana) from distinct social groups collected over seven years. A minimum mean-square error (MMSE) estimation criterion allowed comparison of the predictive power of landscape and ecological model inputs. We showed that a filter combining vegetation dynamics, human and physical landscape features, and previous movement outperformed simpler filter structures, indicating the importance of both dynamic and static landscape features, as well as habit, on movement decisions taken by elephants. Elephant responses to vegetation productivity indices were not uniform in time or space, indicating that elephant foraging strategies are more complex than simply gravitation toward areas of high productivity. Predictions were most frequently inaccurate outside protected area boundaries near human settlements, suggesting that human activity disrupts typical elephant movement behavior. Successful management strategies at the human-elephant interface, therefore, are likely to be context specific and dynamic. Signal processing provides a promising approach for elucidating environmental factors that drive animal movements over large time and spatial scales.

Landowners in Roman Palestine 100–300 C. E.: A Distinct Social Group

The article exposes an extensive population who were a middling group between the rich and poor in Jewish society in Roman Palestine in the first to third centuries C. E. The Hebrew expression ba‘al habayit and the Greek parallel οἰκοẟεσπότηζ initially refer simply to a “householder.” Analyses of literary and archaeological sources from this period demonstrate that these concepts developed a new meaning, against the backdrop of historical events that led to changes in the socio-economic order, and came to refer to the small landowner in Jewish society. The sources describe various features of this group, such as the cooperation between its members. This article also contributes to the debate concerning the existence of middling groups in the society of the Roman Empire.

Storage and relative surplus at the Mississippian site of Moundville

Theories of the development of complex societies often equate the production of surpluses with centralized political economies. Most descriptions of economic intensification within Mississippian societies of Eastern North America have placed analytical explanation upon a shift from domestic autonomy to elite oversight early in the Mississippian period. This study examines storage locations, through examination of a newly recognized type of oversized ceramic storage technology, within the Moundville region. Data from this research are used to show that surplus production is not best explained using models of economic centralization. Rather, surplus production at early Moundville was organized by various distinct social groups storing and utilizing agricultural resources. Through time, some groups may have enjoyed greater success than others at producing surpluses. Evidence for storage is widely distributed, yet some differences in storage capacities are present. These spatial differences broadly mirror general patterns in the amount of labor invested in mound construction and the diachronic use of mounds across the site. These results allow us to consider the relationship between storage and relative surplus production, as well as the dynamic political-economic relations between distinct social groups through time in early complex agricultural societies.

Use of proximity loggers and network analysis to quantify social interactions in free-ranging wild rabbit populations

Context Social structure of group-living animals has important implications for processes such as gene flow, information transfer, resource utilisation, and disease spread. However, due to the difficulties associated with measuring relationships among wild animals and deriving meaningful estimates of social structure from these interactions, quantifying sociality of evasive species can be challenging. Aims Our aim was to quantify the pattern of social interactions among free-ranging European wild rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in a temperate region of Australia. Methods We used proximity logging devices to collect data on the dyadic interactions among two populations of rabbits. We then applied recently developed social structure and network analytical techniques to infer estimates of sociality and contact networks from recorded interactions. Key results We found large heterogeneities in the strength of association indices and network centrality measures within but not between populations. Network analytical techniques revealed clustering of rabbits into distinct social groups. Conclusions Most associations within social groups were strong and highly stable over time whereas interactions between groups were rare and transient, indicating low levels of inter-group mixing. Despite the apparent differences in habitat quality between sites, the network characteristics were extremely similar between the two populations. Implications Our results highlight the importance of heterogeneities in individual behaviour in determining the dynamics of directly transmitted diseases at the population level.

The Sarmatian Necropolis from Foeni (Timiş County) / Necropola sarmatică de la Foeni (jud. Timiş)

The graves described in this study were discovered by members of the Banat Museum Timișoara and theInstitute of Archaeology and Art History, Cluj Napoca, in the area of the Foeni (Timiș County) archaeologicalsite, “Orthodox Cemetery”. The research took place between 1991 and 2007, and reported mainly prehistoricdiscoveries (from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages). However, in the excavations of 1991–1994, 1995–1998 and2001-2002, archaeologists discovered 18 inhumations graves characteristic of the Sarmatian population. Thesegraves appear to be only a small part of a larger necropolis, largely destroyed by current orthodox cemetery. Ofthese graves, only those excavated during the years 1992–1993 have been published. We consider it importantto revisit the topic in the present study in order to provide an overview of the necropolis, and to complete theprevious study published in 2000, with drawings of the graves. The graves unpublished and discovered in the years1991–1992, 1995–1998 and 2001–2002 have also been included in this study, making it possible to discuss therole of grave-goods and the funerary rite and ritual in the Sarmatian necropolis from Foeni.The graves discovered at Foeni could be dated precisely only in a few cases (M2, M4, M6, M14). K e dating wasbased on brooches discovered in the grave. The impossibility of dating the remaining graves is not due to lack ofarchaeological inventory, but rather to grave robberies. Based on the preserved funerary inventory, the graves of theFoeni necropolis date to the 2nd century – first half of the 3rd century AD, the second period of the Sarmatian age,after the M. Párducz chronology (years 180–270 AD)1. However, without further excavations, we cannot assertthat this timespan applies to the entire necropolis.In addition to the important chronological data, the Foeni necropolis gives us information about the complexityof the Sarmatian burial rites and rituals, aspects of the culture seldom discussed in relation to the Banat region.An attempt was made to identify the distinct ethnic or social groups of the necropolis. Unfortunately, the smallnumber of graves discovered to this day only allows us to formulate hypotheses supported by the analogies withthe Sarmatian area of the Great Hungarian Plain. However, it is our hope that future anthropological analyses willanswer any remaining questions and will confirm, at least in part, our hypotheses.

Divergencias y encuentros locutivos en el habla de dos grupos sociales

It is a well known fact that people who belong to a particular linguistic community do not speak at a similar way. In this sense, different studies have considered a lot of differences, for which reason, they look for its origin in differents factors : social characteristics of the speaker (like being man or woman, young or adult, and so forth), social characteristics of the interlocutors (for example, to have more or less status that the speaker), the geographic enviroment in which the interaction is developed, and so on. Whithin this framework, this investigation tries to analyze the differences and similarities of phraseological type that exist in the form of speaking of two distinctive social groups of the Fifth Region of Chile. For that reason, two groups of secondary school, one of them belonging to a municipal institution and the other one to a state-subsidiezed institution, were respectively compared. Consequently, a level of sociolinguistic variation is proposed that, apparently, it has not attracted too mucsh attention: the level of phraseological variation.

Assisting the Elderly in Remaining Politically Active: A Focus on Russia and its International Legal Obligations

AbstractThis article focuses on the potential of the elderly as a distinct social group capable of changing the direction of state policies. As far as the elderly have special rights and, also, expectations that these rights will be protected, they are capable of generating their own political preferences. In effect, they can be identified as a special group empowered to take part in the conduct of public affairs. It is a known fact that the political views of citizens are formulated long before individuals come to vote at polling stations. The author will examine which opportunities are provided for the elderly by the Russian state, so that these people can freely discuss public policies and remain politically active for an extended period of time. These issues are dealt with in the context of Russian international legal obligations. This study is based on the praxis of international treaty-monitoring bodies. Russian statutory law and its application by courts and administrative organs are also explored.

Property-driven Urban Change in Post-Socialist Shanghai: Reading the Television Series Woju

In late 2009, the television series Woju ([Formula: see text]) received extremely high audience ratings in major Chinese cities. Its visual narratives engage the public and comment on social developments by presenting detailed pictures of urban change in Shanghai and the everyday lives of a range of urban characters who are involved in and affected by the urban-restructuring process and represent three distinct social groups: “white-collar” immigrants, low-income local residents, and powerful officials. By analysing the visual narratives of these characters, this article highlights the loss of the city's historical identity and shows how the reorganization of urban space translates into a reallocation of resources, power and prestige among the social groups. The article also shows that Woju represents a new development in literary and television production in the age of the Internet and globalization; its imaginative construct of the city was based on transnational and virtual rather than local and neighbourhood experience. This also testifies to the loss of the city's established identity in cultural production.

The Social Productivity of Farming: A Case Study on Landscape as a Symbolic Resource for Place-making in Southern Alentejo, Portugal

This paper deals with landscape in relation to the production of place and of social identities perceived as ‘local’. It offers an interpretation of why residents in a particular village in southern Portugal (Alentejo) perceive landscape change the way they do. Drawing on ethnographic data, the paper argues that residents of Aldeia mobilize landscape as a symbolic resource when facing changes in land-use that question established farming practices as the best use for the land. The argument is developed through a processual approach to place-making. After an introduction to the case study, attention is paid to narratives regarding village life and the role that farming and kinship play in it. For residents in Aldeia, landscape is related to two contrasting forms of social conduct, which are evaluated morally according to their distinct impacts on village life and epitomized in references to two distinct social groups, the local villagers and the non-local large landowners. These conceptions reveal the symbolic boundaries that organize spatial and social differentiation in the case presented and that are embodied in the appearance of the land. As a conceptual tool, landscape is of interest here for its emphasis on form and its capacity to render intangible values manifest.

WAR FANTASIES: MEMORY, TRAUMA AND ETHICS IN ARI FOLMAN'S WALTZ WITH BASHIR

This paper explores the relationship between memory, trauma and ethics in the Israeli war film Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008). I argue that Waltz with Bashir highlights a traumatic rupture between history and memory, and points to the decline of national collective memory in Israel. In the film, the war is represented as the private memory of a distinct social group—soldiers who fought in the First Lebanon War—and is no longer a collective memory, a lived and practised tradition that conditions Israeli society. The film is constructed as a kind of lieu de mémoire that houses repressed traumatic events that have been denied entry into the nation's historical narrative, and which the protagonists feel duty bound to remember. This detachment from the national collective memory draws the film into a timeless world of dreams, hallucinations and fantasies. The film does not aspire to reveal the true details of the war. Rather, it is concerned with memory and the very process of remembering, as well as with the ethical questions that they pose to both the film's protagonists and its viewers. These questions are reflected both in the film's narrative and in its unique aesthetics.

Structure of Social Networks in a Passerine Bird: Consequences for Sexual Selection and the Evolution of Mating Strategies

The social environment is a critical determinant of fitness and, in many taxa, is shaped by an individual's behavioral discrimination among social contexts, suggesting that animals can actively influence the selection they experience. In competition to attract females, males may modify sexual selection by choosing social environments in which they are more attractive relative to rivals. Across the population, such behaviors should influence sexual selection patterns by altering the relationship between male mating success and sexual ornament elaboration. Here we use network analysis to examine patterns of male social behavior in relation to plumage ornamentation and mating success in a free-living population of house finches. During the nonbreeding season, less elaborate males changed associations with distinct social groups more frequently, compared to more elaborate males that showed greater fidelity to a single social group. By the onset of pair formation, socially labile males effectively increased their attractiveness relative to other males in the same flocks. Consequently, males that frequently moved between social groups had greater pairing success than less social individuals with equivalent sexual ornamentation. We discuss these results in relation to conditional mating tactics and the role of social behavior in evolutionary change by sexual selection.

Relations between attachment styles, ageism and quality of life in late life

This study is the first to explore the relations between attachment styles, ageism, and quality of life (QoL) among elderly people. The attachment theory describes how human beings relate to each other, according to their attachment style. Previous studies have examined the connection between attachment styles and prejudice toward distinctive social groups and minorities. Ageism as a form of prejudice is a way of relating negatively to people because they are old. QoL among the elderly was found to be associated with negative age-perceptions. It was therefore hypothesized that QoL, attachments styles, and demographic characteristics can explain ageism among the elderly. Four questionnaires were administered: Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA), which comprises four scales (separation, affective, stereotype, and intergeneration); Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, which measures four attachment styles (secure, dismissive, fearful, and preoccupied); SF-36 health status inventory (eight scales); and sociodemographic questions. Ninety-four elderly men and women aged 64-85 years living in the community completed the questionnaires. MANCOVAS indicated that securely attached individuals score lower [corrected] than fearfully attached individuals, and that securely and dismissively attached individuals score higher than fearful and preoccupied individuals on seven QoL scales. Multiple regression analyses showed that attachment styles, age, gender, and some QoL scales contribute to the explained variance of ageism. Secure attachment in late life seems to be related to less ageism and a better QoL. The enhancement of a secure attachment base in elderly people may assist in moderating ageism and improving older people's QoL.

GENEALOGY OF THE SIBERIAN BUKHARIANS: THE IMYAMINOV CLAN

This study was intended as a verification of original Arabic sources (genealogies) by comparing them with census materials relating to Siberian Tatars of the 18th–19th centuries and with modern genealogies. The article presents a case study of the Imyaminovs – one of the famous families of Siberian Muslims – and traces the history of the Bukharians (Bukhara emigrants), who have settled in Siberia since the 16th century. In the 18th century they became a distinct ethnic and social group, and in the 20th century they were included among Siberian Tatars.

Sociabilidade e envelhecimento feminino nos bailes de dança de salão em Fortaleza.

Este artigo traz dados de uma pesquisa antropológica. Descreve a sociabilidade entre homens e mulheres de grupos etários e sociais distintos nos bailes de dança de salão em Fortaleza, Ceará. considera-se os bailes como espaços de sociabilidade, bem como, analisa-se as experiências femininas suscitadas a partir da escolha da dança de salão como forma de lazer e as percepções relacionadas ao corpo e aos afetos. Compreender como as mulheres envelhecem em Fortaleza possibilita pensar sobre como o caminhar para esta fase da vida traz consigo um processo mais amplo de individualização e autonomia. Este artigo traz dados de uma pesquisa antropológica. Descreve a sociabilidade entre homens e mulheres de grupos etários e sociais distintos nos bailes de dança de salão em Fortaleza, Ceará. considera-se os bailes como espaços de sociabilidade, bem como, analisa-se as experiências femininas suscitadas a partir da escolha da dança de salão como forma de lazer e as percepções relacionadas ao corpo e aos afetos. Compreender como as mulheres envelhecem em Fortaleza possibilita pensar sobre como o caminhar para esta fase da vida traz consigo um processo mais amplo de individualização e autonomia.

A conservação ambiental como critério de relações entre grupos e valores: representações e conflitos no entorno do Parque Nacional das Emas, Goiás

Este artigo trata do conflito ambiental em torno do Parque Nacional das Emas e das representações sociais sobre conservação feitas pelas populações de seu entorno. Após observação direta, pesquisa documental, aplicação de técnicas de associações livres de palavras e entrevistas semi-estruturadas, conclui-se que estão em disputa sentidos culturais, pautados não apenas por interesses objetivos, mas também pelos significados que os distintos grupos sociais projetam para a construção comum do mundo ao seu redor.

'For the Times They are a Changin': Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Justices' Voting Through Identification of Micro-Publics

In assessing how the social forces of public opinion shape U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decision making, scholars have traditionally considered public opinion as somewhat of a monolith. In other words, it has been presumed that there is one, singular public opinion and that it affects the individual justices in largely the same fashion. We suggest that it is more likely the case that justices’ world views are informed and shaped by a myriad of social concerns and group identities upon which these individuals structure and process their experiences and develop and refine their personal schemas. While some have already begun to question the proposition of a monolithic public opinion influence on judicial behavior and have begun to think carefully about what we term the “micro-publics” that may inform Supreme Court justices’ decision making, the more tangible questions of whether justices respond to publics that are distinguishable from broad-based national public opinion and what those micro-publics might be remains largely unanswered. In this paper we offer useful insights toward addressing this important puzzle in judicial decision making by providing a direct empirical test of the proposition that justices' case voting behavior is influenced by distinct social groups or micro-publics with which they identify. Our study focuses on the potential influence of localized and personal micro-publics and the possibility of partisan based elite influence on judicial behavior. We test our hypotheses by analyzing Supreme Court justice voting on civil liberties cases from 1977 to 2000 and find encouraging initial support for our theory.

The legacy of ‘normalisation’: The role of classical and contemporary criminological theory in understanding young people's drug use

Since it began in the mid-1990s, the debate surrounding the normalisation of adolescent recreational drug use has attracted considerable attention and has tended to polarise opinion within the field. In this article two of the main protagonists in the debate come together to discuss its legacy. Focusing on the twin themes of continuity and change the authors begin by considering the relevance of early developments in the sociology of drug use, noting that this earlier work anticipated much that has recently been written on the subject, including the emphasis on hedonism and consumption in leisure lifestyles. From here they go on to critically reflect on the role that structure and agency have played in the normalisation debate, suggesting that the original thesis underplayed the role of structural influences in favour of a rational action model of adolescent drug use. In their more recent work, both authors have come to emphasise how drug use is shaped by an interplay between social structure and human agency. While some areas of disagreement remain, they agree that normalisation is best understood as a contingent process negotiated by distinct social groups operating in bounded situations.