Alienation Of People Research Articles

Louis Bromfield, Malabar Farm, and Faith in the Earth

Louis Bromfield (1896-1956) produced at least two books whichshould be included n the canon of environmental writing and placehim among the ranks of notable literaryenvironmentalists— Pleasant Valley (1945) andMalabar Farm (1948). These books, as well as five other nonfiction works on sustainable agriculture and ecology, deserve to be placed in the literary tradition of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. Bromfield himself should be considered to be a forerunner of the philosophies of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, and Wes Jackson. Bromfield's great success at popular fiction has caused him to be slighted not only by literary critics but also by environmentalist scholars; however, several recent critics have asserted that his fiction—much of which is concerned with environ-mental themes such as encroaching industrialism, despoilation of nature, and alienation of people from the land—as well as his nonfiction, should be reassessed. Placing him in the tradition of Sherwood Anderson, they believe that he has made a substantial contribution to the American literary canon.

Challenges for Cultural Studies Under the Rule of Global War

Based on a lecture delivered not long after the US launched its so-called war on terror in Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11, the paper addresses the challenges for cultural studies in the midst of “the emergence of a global network of quasimilitary states in tributary relations to the US super security state” and “the emergence of a global counter public or constituency.” With a note of urgency and particular attention to the Philippine context, the paper expresses the need “to interpret, articulate, and participate in the social struggles taking place in and through cultural practice” which begins with the recognition of “the continual subsumption of people’s labor—physical, mental, experiential, and psychical—into systems of domination and exploitation.” It asserts that “the realms of freedom” are “getting smaller” even as “small spaces of creativity and freedom are won,” thus, the challenge is “to locate and extend these spaces as well as their political potential and to extricate these cultural practices … from those that contribute to the containment, expropriation, and alienation of people’s labor, processes which operate everywhere, even in the most politically radical sectors.” In these spaces, cultural practice becomes “not only the means of a transformation” but “part and parcel of that very transformation we hope and strive for.”

Changing the Environment of Schizophrenia at the Community Level

Objectives: One may categorise environmental factors as operating at the individual, domestic or community level. This paper reviews important factors influencing schizophrenia at the community level: the availability of work, economic disincentives to work and stigma and discrimination.Conclusions: Work helps decrease the alienation of people with schizophrenia and aids recovery. In much of the developed world, however, few people with serious mental illness are employed. To improve the employment of people with schizophrenia, we could (a) create small enterprises to provide opportunities for people with schizophrenia to work in a mixed workforce; and (b) look within the mental health service budget for possible contracts for consumer-employing business.People with schizophrenia are subject to prejudice, discrimination and stigma. Modern communication technology, however, can be harnessed to fight stigma and prejudice. At the local level, we can lobby the entertainment and news media and develop targeted...

UK and Romanian Students' Perceptions of Democracy and Political Issues: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

This article compares UK and Romanian students' perceptions of the concept of democracy and their attitudes to politics and political issues. One of the aims of the study was to compare the students' different levels of political literacy and to explore some of the possible contributory factors to young people's alienation and disengagement from politics. The analysis develops the view that, if citizenship education is to make a genuine contribution to the creation of a vibrant, participatory democracy in which young people are fully involved, then careful consideration needs to be taken account of how the subject is implemented and delivered. The research suggests that the Romanian students' greater political literacy has evolved through experiences that were relevant and personal to them. This highlights the importance of engaging students' interest and enthusiasm in teaching through citizenship education and not just teaching about citizenship.

Perceived Instrumental Support Exchanges in Relationships between Elderly Parents and Their Adult Children: Normative and Structural Explanations

If the norm of filial responsibility is apparent, children should give relatively more instrumental support to their parents. Structural circumstances of adult children, such as being employed or having young children, and of their parents, such as having small families, influence the amount of instrumental support the parents receive. Data are from a sample of 365 adults and 634 of their children. The higher the filial responsibility of both parent and children, the more support the parent received. Mothers, old parents, parents in need of support, and parents without a partner received relatively more support. The structural circumstances of the children do not have any effect on the support that parents receive. Reciprocity is an important determinant of the support that the parent receives. Key Words: aged, intergenerational relations, parent-child relations, reciprocity, social support networks. Previous research (e.g., Mancini & Blieszner, 1989) has proved that the alienation of people from their family may be fiction. Actually, there are a number of support exchanges between parents and their adult children (Dykstra & Knipscheer, 1995). The amount of support exchanged in this type of relationship is generally greater than the amount of support exchanged between any other kin (Hanson & Sauer, 1985). Moreover, when people become old and need support, it is generally their children who provide support, particularly if the level of support provided by the partner is insufficient (Stoller, 1994) or if there is no partner. In this study, we focus on norms and structures in parent-child relationships. We examine the influence that they exert on instrumental support exchanges. The framework of intergenerational solidarity is a way to understand relationships between parents and their children (Lee, Netzer, & Coward, 1994). We use three dimensions of intergenerational solidarity (Bengtson & Roberts, 1991): the functional dimension (exchange of instrumental support), the normative dimension (expectations of individual obligations to the family), and the structural dimension (opportunities for family interaction). As Lee et al. have noted, the framework of intergenerational solidarity has rarely been applied to support exchanges, and associations between the functional and normative dimension have not been examined. Although Bengtson and Roberts treat all dimensions equally, we examine whether the normative and structural dimensions determine the amount of instrumental support that is given. Our main question is: Are adult children's and parents' norms and the structural circumstances of adult children determinants of the instrumental support given to parents? We hypothesize that norms determine the number of instrumental support exchanges in relationships between parents and their children. According to Hanson and Sauer (1985) and Stein (1993), children and parents have expectations about filial responsibilities and share the view that children are obligated to provide support if their parents need it. This view is based, in part, on the fact that parents gave support to their children in the past and the children should now offer support in return (Dwyer, Lee, & Jankowski, 1994). Seelbach (1984) argues that young and middle-aged children are expected to help their aging parents and give priority to their parents' needs over their own. However, the results of a study conducted by Brody, Johnsen, and Fulcomer (1984) among women of three generations show that they sharply distinguish among the services they expect children to perform for their parents. There is a strong commitment on the part of children to help their parents if the parents need support. However, a situation in which various generations live together is not preferred by either generation. Nor does the older generation prefer help from their adult children with expenses. Nor do they expect that children adjust their family activities, probably because of the widespread desire not to be a burden. …

Liberating physical education: contributions of the theology of libertation

As preocupações com o sentido último da existência humana têm feito parte da nossa história. As teologias tradicionais têm associado tais preocupações à alienação das pessoas às realidades de suas vidas. O movimento chamado Teologia da Libertação surgiu como reação a essa teologia vigente, acreditando somente ser possível o desenvolvimento e realização das potencialidades históricas humanas, se esse ser humano for livre: consciente das possibilidades reais existentes e esforçar-se por realizá-las; numa sociedade também livre e participatória. A Teologia do Corpo, segmento da Teologia da Libertação, diverge da tradicional teologia do "espírito", ou desencarnada, que compreende o ser humano como sublime manifestação espiritual, apesar do corpo ou da sua corporeidade. Assim, a Educação Física somente conseguirá cumprir a sua função de organizar sistematicamente os movimentos humanos se for livre, enquanto instituição, e permitir o acesso de pessoas livres, com a intenção da mais plena realização do ser humano. A Educação Física Libertadora, proposta deste trabalho, vem a ser, então, uma contribuição para a orientação teórica do profissional em Educação Física que tenha, também, preocupações teológicas, ou com o sentido último de existência, numa perspectiva libertadora

ALIENATION AMONG ASIAN AND LATINO IMMIGRANTS IN THE LOS ANGELES GARMENT INDUSTRY: THE NEED FOR NEW FORMS OF CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

According to Marx, capitalism leads to the alienation of people from their work, from the product of their work, and from other people (Oilman, 1976:133–4). These characteristics of capitalism were obvious for all to see in the late nineteenth century, as capital and labor were increasingly polarized. But in the late twentieth century, class relations have become considerably more complicated. The emergence and growth of various forms of “middle class” (Walker, 1979; Wright, 1985) make the issue of who is exploiting whom, of who benefits from the alienation of workers, unclear. In turn, the confusion in class relations has an effect on the ability to wage class struggle, as the “enemy” of the working class is difficult to define, let alone target.

THE HUNGARIAN ECONOMIC REFORM: PROBLEMS OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE CULTURE

Introduction The Hungarian economic reform in 1968 was a departure from the centralised, autocratic economic and political system which existed prior to that time. In the old system, those at the different levels of the power structure were absolutely self‐confident about their ability and right to determine what was good for everybody else. They were not interested in the opinions of their subordinates, especially when those opinions concerned poor decision making at higher levels. Human resources were badly managed, and knowledge and skills were misused. This resulted in a lack of commitment by subordinates and also in a lack of interest in doing the right things. Those lacking power and responsibility were depressed with their work and held little hope for future improvement. They were not motivated to improve their performance in the absence of clear, honest performance‐oriented incentive and promotion systems. Personnel departments were more concerned about the political reliability of the people in a company than about their capabilities and skills and the match of these with the company's future plans. Alienation of people, along with dissatisfaction, could have been tapped if anyone had been interested in coping with these problems, which contributed considerably to the growing incompetence in managing the economy and the companies in the changing environment of the '60s. There appeared to be no way out of the crisis other than decentralisation; getting more people involved in decision making and problem solving.

Momaday, Welch, and Silko: Expressing the Feminine Principle through Male Alienation

The twentieth century accelerated the changes in American Indian life already begun several centuries before. Reflecting the colonial ideals of the hegemonic culture, these changes unceasingly assaulted tribal ties, reservation existence, and the identities of Indian people. The significance of these past eighty-eight years on the lives of Indian people cannot be overstated and within this social context Momaday, Welch, and Silko carefully construct their novels. Not surprisingly, Indian people's alienation, cultural conflicts, sense of loss, and the shame of losing are primary themes in House Made of Dawn, The Death of Jim Loney, and Ceremony. These themes are most fully and dramatically developed in the lives of the male protagonists, the central characters in all of the novels. That each novel has as its central character an Indian male experiencing a profound crisis of spirit is surely no accident. Rather, Momaday, Welch, and Silko have used the character of the alienated man for several reasons. First, given their primarily non-Indian readership, it is through isolated, alienated men that the authors are able to demonstrate the negative severity of the twentieth century on the lives of Indian people. Indian men are more suited than Indian women to the notion of the vanishing savage, exciting romantic nostalgia in the minds of readers. This is because of a prominent belief that the nature of women's work and women's place has permitted the cultural lives of Indian women to be sustained while the lives of men, in contrast, have been radically disrupted. This idea has most to do with an interpretation of the sexual division of labor, which suggests that women I s responsibilities for children and homemaking have continuity regardless of historical era, while the roles of Indian men, which were related to trade, hunting, and tribal warfare, have been extinguished. Consequently, Indian men more than Indian women can be seen as tragic figures who have clearly suffered the more severe losses, albeit inevitable and ultimately desirable losses in the assessment of the dominant society. Thus, while Indian

The Underlying Assumptions of Advocacy Planning: Pluralism and Reform

Abstract This article examines the underlying assumption of “political pluralism,” which has characterized the theory and practice of advocacy planning since its inception. In particular, political pluralism is cast as a prevailing social myth which has become the modus operandi of all planning activities in the United States. The growing concentration of economic and political power centers, the alienation of people from the decisionmaking process, the effective lack of meaningful access into the political process by groups and individuals, and the failure of conventional, electoral politics are identified as the primary indicators by which the failure of political pluralism and advocacy planning can be measured. Finally, several general conclusions are drawn which suggest that planners consider the so-called “radical” analysis of planning in the development of alternatives to the existing institutional setting.