Social Formation Research Articles

Scalable intimacy: Rethinking intimate sociality and its problem of scale in digital China

With the development of the Internet in China, people have increasingly turned to digital communication and networking tools for personal connections and social relations. From messaging and dating apps to microblogging and live-streaming platforms, mediated forms of sociality constitute a significant part of people’s intimate lives. Scholarly works on modern and contemporary China have shown how practices and politics of intimacy are formulated and contested against the backdrop of the tensions between the residual culture of Confucianism, the socialist ideological regime, and China’s participation in global capitalism. On the contrary, research on global network societies has foregrounded the role of information and media technologies in mediating intimacy with conceptual frameworks such as programmed sociality and networked intimacy. Bridging these two areas of research, this essay attempts to understand how intimate sociality is configured within China’s burgeoning digital economy and culture. It first provides a review of previous works on forms of intimacy and sociality mediated by network technologies ranging from mobile phones to online dating. Using the popularity of live streaming in current-day China as a case study, this essay then introduces the problem of “scale” to consider how intimacy is mediated at scale with Internet-based media technologies and discuss how scalability shapes intimate lives in Chinese society as a shared rationale behind modernization, network technologies, and new forms of economies. This essay proposes the concept of scalable intimacy to move beyond the platform-centered approach and develop a more contextualized framework for understanding intimate sociality in digital China.

Prosocial behaviour enhances evaluation of physical beauty.

Ten studies (N = 4192) demonstrated that individuals depicted as prosocial were judged to be more physically beautiful. This evaluation of prosocial individuals as more beautiful is influenced by a motivation to be associated with prosocial others. This phenomenon was observed in real-world settings (Study 1) and applied to both men and women, both as targets and observers (Studies 2a-2b). The effect persisted in scenarios where participants imagined the target without any visual aid (Study 2c) and extended beyond metaphorical interpretations of beauty (Study 3). The effect weakened when prosocial behaviour was an isolated incident, not indicative of the target's prosocial personality (Study 4). The influence of prosociality on beauty evaluations surpassed that of other positive traits such as intelligence or humour (Study 5) and remained significant despite physical imperfections in the target's appearance (Study 6). The effect diminished insituations where forming a relationship was not feasible, thus supporting the motivated cognition rationale (Studies 7-8). These findings highlight the substantial role of prosocial behaviour in influencing evaluations of physical beauty, a crucial element in social interactions and relationship formation, often outweighing other attributes typically linked to physical appearance evaluation.

Social media addiction and personality dimensions among Tunisian medical students.

Social media (SM) has become a common activity for today's young people. It is sometimes overused and potentially results in SM addiction. This study aims to assess SM addiction and its associated factors in medical students and to examine its relationship with dimensions of personality global self-esteem, and social self-esteem. We carried out a cross-sectional study among a sample of medical students in the region of Sfax in Tunisia. Social Media Addiction Scale-Student Form (SMAS-SF), Big Five Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Social Self-Esteem Inventory were used to collect data. Overall, 116 medical students were included in the survey. The median age of the participants was 26 years, and 91 students (78.4%) were female. Almost half of them (55.20%) were enrolled in the third cycle. The most widely used SM was Facebook (98.3%). Students with the highest SMAS-SF scores had a significantly younger age of first use (p=0.011, r=-0.235), spent more time on their favorite SM (p=0.005, r=0.260), and performed more activities on SM, namely: making comments (p=0.005), browsing SM profiles (p=0.018), and posting videos (p=0.007) or pictures (p=0.002). The need to establish an identity was significantly associated with higher SMAS-SF scores (p=0.011). We also found that neuroticism and a low level of conscientiousness were linked to high SMAS-SF scores (p=0.006, r=0.252 and p=0.050, r=-0.183, respectively). Moreover, high SMAS-SF scores were significantly related to lower global and social self-esteem scores (p=0.015, r=-0.226 and p=0.032, r=-0.199, respectively). Our results highlight the critical need to take into consideration the evaluation and intervention of self-esteem and personality dimensional issues to target interventions for SM addiction among medical students.

Identifying what social emotional support first-year engineering students need to overcome setbacks in lab settings: a case study

ABSTRACT Engineering has high attrition rates in the United States, especially in underrepresented subpopulations in the first year of undergraduate study. An important component of combatting attrition is better understanding what social emotional supports are needed to retain students. In this case study, five first-year engineering students were interviewed across three semi-structured sessions. Transcripts were thematically analysed using the framework developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to identify what social emotional learning (SEL) skills and forms of support are needed to overcome setbacks. Students shared that applying emotion regulation skills to manage frustration and relying on relationship skills to ask for help facilitated overcoming setbacks. Analysing the skills described and the desired supports students expressed within the context of the SEL framework provides a way to categorise and discuss how instructors can practically support their undergraduate engineering students in the classroom to better retain them.

How Does New Media Shape the Sense of Belonging and Social Identity? The Social and Psychological Processes of Sustainable Successful Reintegration for Rehabilitated People

Objective: This study aims to explore the role of new media in shaping the social identity and reintegration of rehabilitated individuals (ex-offenders), given the increasing societal attention on their successful reintegration. The objective is to analyze how media dependency and social identity formation contribute to their sustainable reintegration into society. Methods: Conducted in 2022–2023, the study adopted a narrative research paradigm. It employed qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and participant observation, to investigate the decision-making processes of rehabilitated people under social adaptation pressures. The analysis was framed by media dependency theory and the two-dimensional model of social identity (Evaluation-Relationship). Results: The findings reveal that media dependency significantly enhances the construction of rehabilitated individuals’ social identity, aiding in their successful reintegration. The process of media dependency facilitates emotional support, providing an important outlet for resolving ambivalences in identity during the reintegration process. Moreover, media dependency strengthens the positive impact of new media on identity formation, thereby supporting sustainable reintegration into society. Conclusions: This study underscores the practical importance of media in identity reconstruction for rehabilitated individuals. The findings offer insights for policymakers to design more inclusive media policies that reduce stigmatization. Additionally, the results provide valuable guidance for social workers and counselors in leveraging new media to offer emotional support and identity reconstruction. Future research should examine identity formation in diverse socio-cultural contexts to further understand how new media can support sustainable reintegration.

The permanent global crisis of working-class social reproduction: ten propositions

The maintenance and reproduction of the working class remains a necessary condition for the reproduction of capital. But the capitalist may safely leave this to the labourer’s drives for self-preservation and propagation. (Marx [1867] 1976: 718) The capitalist mode of production gives rise to a crisis of working-class social reproduction from the outset, and continually exacerbates that crisis in the course of its development. Far from being in principle a crisis for the capitalist mode of production itself, then, crises of working-class social reproduction are the empirical effects of changes in the capitalist economy, reflecting capitalist power over the fate of the propertyless population. The inherent characteristics of the capitalist mode of production – competition between individual capitals, uninterrupted scientific and technological revolution, an ever-increasing division of labour on local to global scales, the constant process of ‘creative destruction’ as obsolete capitalist enterprises die and new ones are born, the universalisation of commodity production, concomitant to proletarianisation and the creation of a permanent ‘reserve army of labour’, and the tendency for capital to invade and take over any form of production more ‘primitive’ than itself – all continually disrupt areas of social and economic activity within capitalist social formations and those which capitalism has not fully penetrated yet. The effect of state government policies and governance on the part of international organisations is to induce or exploit crises of working-class social reproduction in order to further the hegemony of capital over their own territory and the world market as a whole.

Problems of international politics: impact of globalization on politics

The concept of globalization is associated with the process of expanding crossborder transactions and interactions in the political, socio-cultural, and economic spheres. It describes the phenomenon of denationalization, which tends to be perceived as a political project. Globalization in the international political system is considered centralized due to its impact on external relations and its close connection with political structures and mechanisms. The creation of the necessary international rules and institutions is characterized by the fact that the concept of global governance is a political response to the processes of economic and social globalization. The influence of the era of globalization on the development of international politics and economic structures has turned out to be deep and complex, being the background for the creation of new political forms and stages of its development. The modern process of globalization is focused on international transformations in the field of politics and economics. It is important to emphasize the fact that the concept of globalization is a broad issue that is an integral part of every field of public activity. It can be described as an acceleration of global economic and political interconnections; the analysis of this phenomenon made it possible to assess the problems caused by its development. This article shows the importance of the globalized world for the life of individual states and international cooperation. The large-scale changes caused by globalization have proved its significant role for cultural, social, economic, and political formation at the international level. The research was based on the theory of globalization, the concept of sustainable development, and the theory of competition. Conclusions. The impact of globalization is felt most strongly when it comes to identity, whether it is an individual or a community. Although globalization can have positive effects, this phenomenon needs to be critically assessed in order to ensure that its negative consequences are understood, studied, and effectively addressed.

Second slavery, capital and other slaveries

The present contribution examines three historical problems of theoretical implications that are present in Dale Tomich’s work on the “second slavery”. I find it more interesting to reflect on three basic points that are part of Tomich’s thesis: The crisis of “old colonial slavery” because of the irruption and development of the world-economy. The relationship between slavery and capital. The conception of the world-economy as a transnational social formation, in which capitalism plays the role of nexus and motor of local particularities (with their corresponding labor modalities), particularities that were gradually subordinated to the market and to “social labor” (commodity-producing labor with the abstraction of the relations of production in which commodities are produced).

Pendidikan Jasmani Berbasis Nilai: Membentuk Karakter melalui Aktivitas Fisik pada Siswa

Physical education has an important role in shaping students' character through physical activity at school. Through the development of motor skills, physical abilities, knowledge, sportsmanship, as well as mental, emotional, spiritual and social character formation, physical education aims to achieve the goals of the National education system. Apart from that, physical education also has important benefits in improving students' physical fitness and forming characters such as discipline, cooperation and sportsmanship. The difference with sports education lies in the focus on developing motor skills, knowledge and healthy living attitudes through physical activity, while sports education places more emphasis on developing strong athletes and achievements in certain sports. Physical education also includes activities outside the classroom such as field trips, camping, environmental awareness, exploring, and mountain climbing. Values-based physical education combines a character education approach with physical activities to develop students' attitudes, values ​​and social skills. The advantages of value-based physical education include character building, improving mental and emotional health, social skills, and overcoming the problem of accidents at school. Examples of physical activities such as team games, collaborative activities, yoga or meditation classes, and sports competitions can be used as a means to implement values-based physical education.

Mining the Sun: Coal-to-solar transitions and energetic place-making in Appalachia

A striking effort is under way to use energy investment, a key feature of US federal climate policy, to build solar farms on former mining lands and in legacy mining communities in central Appalachia. Focusing on community solar initiatives, we consider the geosociality of energy transitions from the perspective of communities where many people have considerable knowledge of energy systems and how they work. We note that the politics of place-making in the context of environmental sacrifice and capital abandonment enables negotiations around energy that often seek to bridge deep social contradictions. We highlight how solar energy’s diffuse networks of power, both social and electrical, privilege forms of temporal labor that are alliance-building, compositionist, para-ethnographic and intimately concerned with the capacity to build relations. Vernacular energy expertise can play a major role in creating novel forms of political sociality. In West Virginia, this both builds on and significantly shifts the emphasis of long legacies of energetic place-making. We expect the ongoing development of community-led solar investment to contribute to substantially important diversifying effects in West Virginian communities, especially when these efforts can more explicitly address the state’s extreme geographical, race, and class-based inequalities.

Social Media and Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior: Evidence of the Interaction Between Short Videos and Social Value Orientation.

Social media significantly influences adolescents' prosocial behavior. With smartphones becoming ubiquitous, short videos have emerged as the predominant social media format for adolescents. However, the effects of adolescents' engagement with short videos on their prosocial behavior remain uncertain. This study aims to address the problem of how short videos (content and consequences) affect prosocial behavior in adolescents, and simultaneously explores the differences of this effect among individuals with different social value orientations. The current study conducted two research laboratory experiments using the between-subject study design of two factors. Study 1 (N=148) reveals that viewing prosocial short videos significantly predicts adolescents' prosocial behavior more so than neutral short videos. The interaction between short video content and social value orientation on prosocial behavior illustrates that the encouraging impact of prosocial content is primarily evident in prosocial individuals, rather than in pro-self individuals. In Study 2 (N=152), we introduce new dimensions by assessing adolescents' response to varying consequences of the same prosocial behavior (ie, reward, punishment) within the short video context. Findings indicate that reward consequences significantly bolster adolescents' prosocial behavior, whereas punitive measures tend to adversely affect it. Furthermore, the interaction between the consequences of prosocial short videos and social value orientation suggests that prosocial individuals exhibit no significant behavioral difference between rewards and punishments; instead, the reward/punishment consequences notably influence the prosocial behavior of pro-self individuals. Short videos (content and consequences) and social value orientations interactively influence adolescents' prosocial behaviors. This study underscores the need to recognize individual differences in adolescents' use of short videos and its impact on their prosocial behavior, particularly highlighting the crucial role of their social value orientations. Practically, the research offers valuable insights for parents and professionals seeking to foster adolescents' prosocial behavior.

The Global Enclosure and the Remaking of Peasantries, 1870–1950

AbstractPeasant transformation has often been framed in dichotomous, linear, and predominantly a-historical models. This article adopts a dynamic perspective and shows how the developments that have often been regarded as constituent to the long-term process of the decline of agriculture and peasant worlds were in fact part of the spread of more diversified labour and income strategies of the peasantries. In the movement towards a worldwide enclosure of the rural worlds after 1870, a global peasantry emerged through a wide range of regional trajectories and narratives. By the first half of the twentieth century, peasant households all over the world had become heavily involved in the capitalist market economy. In this article, we argue that the (re)creation of peasantries as a social group is part of a diverse complex of reciprocal exchanges, regional and extra-regional market transactions, actions of public forces, and social conflict. Also we stress that social class formation should be understood in its specific world-historical co-ordinates using a particular set of transhistorical concepts like (re)peasantization, peasant frontiers, and peasant regimes.

Break From Digital Screen Using Digital Detox Program in Nursing Students.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an 8-week digital detox program on digital screen use among 300 nursing students and explored associations between screen use and demographic variables. A one-group pretest posttest design was employed using the Social Media Addiction Scale Student Form. The digital detox program was implemented for 8 weeks. Digital hygiene, self-reflection and goal setting, mental wellness, screen time management, physical health, interpersonal relationships, digital detox challenges, and hobby-based activities. Chi-square test was employed to determine the associations between digital screen use and demographic variables, respectively. t-tests were conducted to compare the mean screen time across different demographic groups. Results showed that 42% of students had high social media use, while 20% had low use. The overall mean score of social media use decreased significantly from 64.13 to 47.79 postintervention (p < 0.05), indicating the program's effectiveness. The study suggests incorporating digital detox routines to balance technology use with health, productivity, and external connections.

Social Injustice Inflicted by Spatial Changes in Vernacular Settings: An Analysis of Published Literature

It is well known that every kind of development has the tendancy to produce spatial disparity or spatial justice. However, usually, it is the demand-driven, rural, non-agricultural transitional area development considered the prime cause of concern for policy planners. Indeed, this is an area where spatial justice needs to be ensured so that development is just for all and not lopsided for any single stakeholder. For example, there is a need to ensure that fair allocation of land development rights rests with the village dwellers. Usually, the market is biased in favour of allocating premium land of the vernacular settlements to expand the city for new city dwellers who wish to get new parcels of land for developing housing. Plan-led spatial changes without corrective mediation between villagers and the city dwellers also lead to bias decision-making. Transition from rural sprawl to urban compactness suggests institutional change need be adopted in governance so that socio-spatial justice for villagers is incorporated into an integrated city. In this context, this paper examines the current knolwdge reflected through academic narratives of social injustice inflicted by spatial change. This paper presents the concept of spatial justice as an umbrella term encompassing all political, social, economic, and environmental forms. Gentrification and peri-urbanization are two spatial changes that do injustice to certain social groups. The paper employs both quantitative and qualitative data gathering techniques. It conducts primarily a document survey, analysing published research related to development and social and spatial justics issues. The documents discussing the role of planning in achieving spatial justice until 2023 are examined. The paper reveals that while formal planning often marginalizes vernacular settlements, participatory and communitydriven planning processes show potential for addressing issues of spatial injustice. The paper concludes that the investigation into spatial justice within vernacular settlements must account for unique socio-cultural, environmental, and economic dynamics.

Density and Differentiation: Cities in Global Social History

AbstractThe present article examines the particular role that cities have played, and should play, in global social history. It notes that many of the historiographical discussions that in the past years have addressed the reach and limits of the bourgeoisie and the middle class as a globalized social formation have implicitly focused on cities. It also notes that these discussions have often not been very forthcoming in explicitly acknowledging this urban focus. From this starting point, the present article ponders the implications and ramifications of making this focus more explicit. What do we conclude from the observation that the ‘global bourgeoisie’ or the ‘global middle class’, inasmuch as they existed at all, were quintessentially urban formations? And what do these conclusions, conversely, entail for the field of urban history? Highlighting density and differentiation as key traits of the urban form, the article ultimately argues for greater attention to the spatiality and to the built environment of class formation in global history.

The Ecological Rift in the Anthropocene

In an interview with Brazilian magazine Margem Esquerda, John Bellamy Foster shares with Fabio Querido, Maria Orlanda Pinassi, and Michael Löwy the formative experiences that contributed to his work as a young activist and, later, a preeminent scholar of ecological Marxism. The interview concludes with a message to the ecological left in Brazil and elsewhere: "Whatever solutions there are to the present planetary crisis must, in historical-materialist terms, arise from concrete social formations, on the basis of which the new revolutionary transformations will take place."

Exploring the influences of surrounding environments on students' habits

Acknowledging that students are intricately woven into diverse physical, social, and cultural fabric forms, this study aims to explore the multifaceted impact of the surrounding environment on the habits of students. This study employed a correlational research design to investigate the relationship between the family environment (X1) and the school environment (X2) on students' habits at IBC School Makassar (Y). The study conducted a comprehensive approach encompassing academic and non-academic habits to provide a nuanced understanding of the intricate. Through a correlational design, the study analyses various environmental factors, including home environment and school environment. By analyzing the impact of these variables on the routines of students, the study seeks to discern recurring trends and associations that facilitate the formation and reinforcement of particular conduct. The population of this study was students at IBC School Makassar in the academic year of 2023/2024. The researchers selected 1 class of 10 students as samples of the study. The data was collected through the distribution of questionnaires regarding the students' habits, familial environment, and school environment. According to the research findings, the assertion that family and school environments have a one hundred percent impact on students' behaviors at IBC School Makassar is a strong statement. Both family and school environments play pivotal roles in shaping student behavior. The interplay between these two environments is crucial for the holistic development of students.

Indigenous pedagogies of love: Theorizing nonscalable worlds

Indigenous life in India is defined by development. Indigenous peoples in India are categorized as Scheduled Tribes, a constitutional category defined by a presumed backwardness, remoteness, and need for improvement. Indigenous life and community well-being is tracked via development measures and initiatives where development is seen as both a requirement for and vehicle of peace and stability. In this article, we propose Naga pedagogies of love as Indigenous modes of accounting for relations and narrating community wellbeing. We consider Naga storytelling about rice as an embodied Indigenous pedagogy of love that enacts Indigenous futurity in the here and now. Building on theorizations of Indigenous epistemologies, we demonstrate how dominant modes of development and scaling-up are unable to account for Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Instead, we explore forms of reciprocity and sociality that are embedded in Indigenous community and allow us to claim past and future as Indigenous features that are outside the economic domain of expansion.

Theorizing Sexuality Politics of Neoliberalism: A Queer Sociological Approach

ABSTRACTThis article provides a critical overview of neoliberalism scholarship from a queer sociological perspective. Despite mainstream neoliberalism scholarship neglecting sexuality as a system of intersecting power relations, sociologists of sexualities have explored how neoliberalism reshapes the state, market, society, and subjectivity concerning sex, intimacy, and sexual politics. Highlighting the intersection of the sociology of sexualities with transnational feminist and queer studies, as well as critical race studies, I advocate for a refined understanding of sexuality as integral to neoliberalism's operations with empire, colonialism, and racial capitalism. I suggest areas for future research to further develop this understanding, including the emphasis on the variegated nature of neoliberalism, its ambivalence and contradictions, and its promiscuous convergence with other political, social, and cultural formations. This article ultimately calls for a queer political economic analysis in the continued engagement with neoliberalism and its interactions with sexuality politics to understand new global challenges and social transformations, including shifting geopolitics, digital and platform economies, and climate and reproductive crises.

The things they are a-changin': reinventing daily objects during the chilean 2019 revolt

In October 2019, fuelled by a collective discontent with the lifestyles and inequalities generated by the capitalist model, social protests took place in the Chilean streets. People staged massive demonstrations in every city demanding profound changes to the system. Known as the ‘Estallido Social’ (Social Explosion), the demonstrations paralysed an important part of the country and, after a few weeks of revolt, managed to initiate a new Constitution-making process. These events triggered a process in which the country was re-imagined, subjectivities were rewritten and objects and the environment were heavily transformed. This study places its focus on a set of industrially produced objects, whose original functions were subverted in the streets to enable new uses and meanings aligned with the Social Explosion. Kitchen items such as pots and ladles were used to make a lot of noise; road signs and pieces of urban furniture were re-located to block the streets; and gas cylinders and oil drums were reshaped for protection against police forces. While specialized literature generally seeks to recognize the new social forms and models that emerge from the crisis, this essay aims to reflect on the ways in which the relationship with the everyday environment is transformed in the midst of a social crisis, and how operations of resignification and reinterpretation may also be necessary to bring about more profound changes. As such, this study aims to characterize these operations of mutation (of bending, crumpling, scratching, wetting, moving, cutting, twisting, hitting, breaking, cracking, tricking, whipping, throwing, crushing, dragging, drilling and burning), and from there to move towards elucidating the practical and symbolic repercussions that this new material reality has had on the social body and daily life.