Social Inertia Research Articles

Happy objects, happy men? Affect and materiality in vocational training

This article investigates the prevailing social inertia of vocational training. Previous research indicates that gendered social norms contribute to sustaining gender segregation. Few studies, however, have paid attention to how the interplay of emotional and material factors impact on gender norms in vocational training. The article builds on an ethnographic study in a Swedish upper-secondary educational programme traditionally dominated by masculinity norms, namely the Building and Construction programme. Employing Sara Ahmed's notion of happy objects, the article centres on vocational students' expressed joy in the practical work and shows how joy contributes to sustaining and challenging dominant masculinity patterns. Though students enjoyed practical work, the study indicates that a particular version of happiness was normalised which ruled out non-heterosexual and female students. The article suggests that further studies of social inertia in vocational training need to account for the interconnectedness of the emotional, material, and corporeal dimensions of gender.

“At the end of everything”: Confession and Critique in Michel Tremblay’s Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra

Parallel structures Damnee Manon, Sacree Sandra allegorizes the effects of la grande noirceur, a period of extreme social and religious conservatism Quebec under Premier Maurice Duplessis. (1) During Duplessis's tenure, which lasted from 1936 to 1959 (with the exception of a five-year hiatus from 1939 to 1944) the Church maintained direct oversight of education, health care, and social services. Although Church and state were officially separate, in actual fact the church was deeply involved promoting and ordering social life and had a considerable influence on the operation of the government (Baum 438). The guiding principles of this era included an emphasis on religion, authority, tradition, and the family; the promotion of agriculture; fierce opposition to unionization, communism, and socialist principles; and a suspicion of democratic government (Rouillard 25). According to one sociologist, there are few historical parallels for a modern industrialized society so determined by Catholic ideology (Baum 438). It was only when a liberal government was finally elected 1960 that the social climate began to change drastically, precipitating a cultural shift that became known as the Quiet Revolution. Tremblay is one of the artists most closely associated with this period of social regeneration. The premiere of Les at Montreal's Theatre du Rideau Vert on 28 August 1968 is commonly cited as a turning point: the words of one critic, There is clearly a before and after Les Belles-Soeurs (Durand 13). Damnee Manon, Sacree Sandra, the eleventh instalment the BellesSoeurs cycle, concerns itself with the legacy of la grande noirceur. The social inertia and isolation of this period are formally embodied the stage directions: Tremblay separates the two characters on stage, placing Manon her kitchen and Sandra her dressing room (7). It is from these remote locations that the characters will deliver their confessions (10). (2) This mise en scene recalls an earlier play the cycle, Forever Yours Marie-Lou, which is similarly structured by the two parallel (although antagonistic) monologues delivered by Manon's parents. In that play, the stage directions stipulate that and Leopold never move, never look at one another. They stare straight ahead (4). The resultant dramatic immobility evokes the deeper social and cultural stasis at which the playwright is taking aim, the theme of which Forever Yours Marie-Lou is developed multiple relationships: that of the parents, whose dysfunctional arguments have been repeated throughout their marriage, as well as their child Manon, who is accused by her sister Carmen of being unable to move beyond a pathological mourning for their dead mother. The truth of Carmen's accusation is revealed Damnee Manon, Sacree Sandra (set roughly six years later), when Manon admits that her life's purpose has been to perpetuate my mother (34). Sandra's trajectory has been similarly centripetal: she has moved back to the same street on which she grew up, right across from the house where [she] was born (37). The social dysfunction displayed by Marie-Louise and Leopold has been replicated the next generation, an inheritance that Tremblay emphasizes by way of structural echo. In addition to physically isolating them on stage, Tremblay reinforces the ideological chasm separating Damnee Manon, Sacree Sandras characters through a visual opposition: Manon, very devout and dressed black, is sitting a completely white kitchen. The transvestite Sandra, all dressed white, is doing her nails a completely black dressing room (7). However, at the same time as the opposite colour-coding distinguishes the two characters, the chiasmic mise en scene compels us to identify them and moreover thwarts our desire for coherent symbolism. (3) Manon, the religious zealot, whom Tremblay calls a full stop on the religious era Quebec (Boulanger 92), (4) is positioned a room painted the colour of purity and virginity. …

The Burden of Excessive “Linking Social Capital”

This article analyses the relationship between vulnerable households and local authorities during floods using the concept of linking social capital. The analysis combines a narrow operationalisation that measures the stock of linking social capital in vulnerable communities, with a broader operationalisation that seeks to address the nature of linking social capital. The empirical data, collected across four provinces in Central and North Vietnam, suggests that while a substantial stock of social linking capital exists in the vulnerable communities concerned, the nature of the relationship between the communities and local authorities during floods is characterised by top-down linkages and limited community autonomy. These linkages appear to be susceptible to social inertia during times of stress. They also undermine the development and reproduction of strong bonding and bridging social capital.

Brazilian Demographic Transition and the Strategic Role of Youth

Although later than other countries, Brazil is experiencing a demographic transition. While urbanization reaches its apex in the country, with 84.3% of its population living in urban areas, ongoing demographic changes are reflected in both birth rates and the age pyramid. Studies show that Brazil is enjoying a demographic “bonus”, i.e., the proportion of working age population has grown at higher rates than the decrease in dependency rates, thus creating a favorable scenario for economic development that should last until 2050. However, in recent years, a significant drop in total fertility rates was observed. It is now at 1.8 children per woman, hence below replacement level, although this average bears notable regional disparities. In this paper, we examine demographic transition in Brazil, based on the case of Rio Grande do Sul, the Brazilian state that undergoes a faster change in age structure, exhibiting the country’s lowest fertility rate – 1.6 children per woman – and the highest proportion of elderly, 9.3%. The approach based on youth is justified for the strategic role they play in the development process, since they will be responsible, in the future, for sustaining this aged population. Recent evaluations of social mobility in Brazil revealed that it has impacted chiefly the rural areas, and also that young people have been its main beneficiaries, since their families have more resources for investing in their education and qualification. The paper is organized into four sections, besides introduction and final remarks. In the first one, we analyze the distinct aspects of demographic transition in Brazil. Secondly, we feature the case of Rio Grande do Sul, where this process is more advanced. The third section, in turn, focuses on Brazilian social mobility and its repercussions on demographic transition. At last, the effects of this phenomenon on rural areas are examined, notably on youth, which have a strategic role in taking advantage of demographic transition and, nevertheless, have a significant segment affected by social inertia.

Advancing urban sustainability theory and action: Challenges and opportunities

Urban ecology and its theories are increasingly poised to contribute to urban sustainability, through both basic understanding and action. We present a conceptual framework that expands the Industrial→Sanitary→Sustainable City transition to include non-sanitary cities, “new cities”, and various permutations of transition options for cities encountering exogenous and endogenous “triggers of change”. When investigating and modeling these urban transitions, we should consider: (1) the triggers that have induced change; (2) situations where crisis triggers change; (3) why cities transition toward more sustainable states on their own, in the absence of crisis; (4) what we can learn from new city transitions, and non-sanitary city transitions; and (5) how resource interactions affect urban transitions.Several existing theoretical frameworks, including sustainability, resilience, adaptation, and vulnerability, may be helpful when considering urban transitions. We suggest that all of these theories interact through inertia in urban systems, and that this multi-faceted inertia—e.g. institutional inertia, infrastructural inertia, and social inertia—imparts degrees of rigidity that make urban systems less flexible and nimble when facing transitional triggers and change. Given this, solutions to urban sustainability challenges may be categorized as those: (1) that “tweak” the current systems and work with or even take advantage of the inertia in those systems, versus; (2) that are more “transformative”, that confront systemic inertia, and that may require new systems. We propose that a model for addressing urban sustainability in the context of relevant theory, and for bridging research and practice, should focus on intercity comparisons. And one mechanism to facilitate this approach is a newly formed interdisciplinary Research Coordination Network (RCN) that focuses on urban sustainability by integrating urban research while incubating solutions-oriented products and collaborative partnerships with practitioners. The Network includes more than two dozen cities in five continents that are in various degrees of transition. In the true vein of sustainability science, our Network activities are incubating societally-relevant solutions through projects that will lead to tangible, “on the ground” sustainable solutions for all types of cities. Our ultimate goal is to understand the process by which cities become more sustainable while affecting that process through action inspired by knowledge.

Social inertia and the field of creative labour

While the emergent field of creative labour research provides a timely evidence-based reply to the hyperbole of the creative industries policy push, studies have remained speculative as to why so many people would seek careers in the creative sector. This article proposes that to adequately address this question requires a change in the scope of creative labour from ‘industries’ to ‘fields’. It briefly reviews cultural economic descriptions of artists’ labour markets, and suggests that Bourdieu’s notion of social inertia provides a plausible hypothesis concerning the social trajectories of those who are inclined to make a vocation of the cultural field. The article draws on a recent survey of student demand for university creative writing courses, identifying a cohort whose situation can be interpreted in terms of the social inertia effect. Such an approach shifts the focus of creative labour research from employment to ‘vocation’, and returns the notion of social status to the centre of explanation.

A “AJUDA” DO PROGRAMA BOLSA FAMÍLIA: REPRESENTAÇÕES DA TRANSFERÊNCIA DE RENDA PARA SEUS BENEFICIÁRIOS

The Family Grant Program (PBF) is currently the Brazilian social policy to fight hunger of greater magnitude and scope. Aimed at families in poverty and extreme poverty, it associates the transfer of financial benefits with access to basic social rights through conditionality. Three main axes and interrelated actions should make this program: income transfer, access to public health and education, and access to employment and income through complementary programs. However, it is clear that income transfer plays a central role in PBF. This study aimed to identify the representations of PBF beneficiaries about the financial benefits received and, therefore, discuss the relation between these individuals and the program. We conducted 23 interviews and analyzed them through the hermeneutic-dialectic approach. The interviews summarized the representations of beneficiaries with the category help . The main points we highlight on this categorization are: a lack of benefit considering the needs of the family; disregard of this benefit as a right, ie, understanding that it is some kind of grant; and the feeling of disaffiliation from the labor market, which generates feelings of worthlessness and social inertia.

Stochastic Dynamics on Hypergraphs and the Spatial Majority Rule Model

This article starts by introducing a new theoretical framework to model spatial systems which is obtained from the framework of interacting particle systems by replacing the traditional graphical structure that defines the network of interactions with a structure of hypergraph. This new perspective is more appropriate to define stochastic spatial processes in which large blocks of vertices may flip simultaneously, which is then applied to define a spatial version of the Galam’s majority rule model. In our spatial model, each vertex of the lattice has one of two possible competing opinions, say opinion 0 and opinion 1, as in the popular voter model. Hyperedges are updated at rate one, which results in all the vertices in the hyperedge changing simultaneously their opinion to the majority opinion of the hyperedge. In the case of a tie in hyperedges with even size, a bias is introduced in favor of type 1, which is motivated by the principle of social inertia. Our analytical results along with simulations and heuristic arguments suggest that, in any spatial dimensions and when the set of hyperedges consists of the collection of all n×⋯×n blocks of the lattice, opinion 1 wins when n is even while the system clusters when n is odd, which contrasts with results about the voter model in high dimensions for which opinions coexist. This is fully proved in one dimension while the rest of our analysis focuses on the cases when n=2 and n=3 in two dimensions.

Level of Educational Development and the Underlying Disparities: A Study of Burdwan District, West Bengal.

Education plays significant role for human resource development as well as social development. So elementary education and basic education is necessary for any state or nation. Social inertia and infrastructural facility are the essential for systematic development of education. Lacking of this facility leads to inconsistency in the development of basic education. Poverty, early marriage system, poor infrastructural facility and employment opportunities are the factors which retards basic education development in different states of India. The forgoing analysis is an attempt to glean out the role of different for impaired development of basic education in Burdwan District, West Bengal.

RCP2.6: exploring the possibility to keep global mean temperature increase below 2°C

The RCP2.6 emission and concentration pathway is representative of the literature on mitigation scenarios aiming to limit the increase of global mean temperature to 2°C. These scenarios form the low end of the scenario literature in terms of emissions and radiative forcing. They often show negative emissions from energy use in the second half of the 21st century. The RCP2.6 scenario is shown to be technically feasible in the IMAGE integrated assessment modeling framework from a medium emission baseline scenario, assuming full participation of all countries. Cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases from 2010 to 2100 need to be reduced by 70% compared to a baseline scenario, requiring substantial changes in energy use and emissions of non-CO2 gases. These measures (specifically the use of bio-energy and reforestation measures) also have clear consequences for global land use. Based on the RCP2.6 scenario, recommendations for further research on low emission scenarios have been formulated. These include the response of the climate system to a radiative forcing peak, the ability of society to achieve the required emission reduction rates given political and social inertia and the possibilities to further reduce emissions of non-CO2 gases.

“ Tels parents, tels enfants ? ”

‘‘Like Parents, Like Children?’’ Using Secondary Data in the Study of Parental Political Influence in Switzerland: This text is devoted to the intergenerational transmission of left-right ideological orientation. Using data from the Swiss Household Panel (www.swisspanel.ch), collected both directly and through intermediaries, it raises the question of the validity of second-hand information, which is discussed on several points. The article also shows that there is a strong long-term coherence between the ideological orientation of parents and their children. It also highlights the fact that the link is not the same for boys as for girls, and it varies between generations. Finally, it shows that strong upward social mobility, compared to the original environment, facilitates emancipation from parental ideology, social inertia being greater for downward and horizontal mobility.

Juvenile hormone and the ontogeny of cockroach aggression

Our previous study [Kou et al., 2008. Juvenile hormone levels are increased in winners of cockroach fights. Horm. Behav. 52, 252–260] showed that the basic principle of the challenge hypothesis (hormone levels can respond to social stimuli to modulate aggression in vertebrates] could be applied to juvenile hormone (JH) levels and aggression in the lobster cockroach Nauphoeta cinerea. In that study, 80- to 85-day-old socially naïve males were used, as fighting is much more easily initiated in these older animals than in younger males, and JH III levels in the dominant were found to be significantly increased after an encounter compared to before the encounter and were significantly higher than those in the subordinates. In N. cinerea, newly emerged males usually show no aggressiveness towards each other and aggression is only initiated after several days of close contact. To investigate the development of aggression from an early age, in the present study, newly emerged males were paired to investigate the relationship between JH levels and aggression. The results showed that injection of JH III significantly increased the probability of the young males being fight winners. In each age group in which aggression was initiated, the dominants had significantly higher JH levels than either the subordinates or the same aged non-fighters. JH injection of subordinates on the day of rank establishment had no effect on the probability of rank switch. These results indicate that, (i) in newly emerged male pairs, JH plays a decisive role in rank establishment and the fact that dominant status is significantly associated with a higher JH titer and subordinate status with a lower JH titer is consistent with the basic principle of the challenge hypothesis, and (ii) after rank establishment, the lack of effect of JH treatment on rank change is consistent with the idea of “social inertia” in vertebrates.

The Value of Groups

We present the results of an experiment that attempts to measure the social value of groups. In the experiment, group membership is induced artificially: subjects interact with insiders and outsiders in trust games and periodically enter markets where they can trade group membership. We find that trust falls with groups because of negative discrimination against outsiders. Against this, however, there is evidence that group membership provides a psychological benefit, albeit one that may induce social inertia. Overall, the welfare effects of groups are at best neutral and could be negative. (JEL: D17, Z13)

The Value of Groups

We present the results of an experiment where we try to measure the social value of groups. Agents interact with insiders and outsiders in trust games settings and periodically enter markets where they can trade group membership. We found that trust fell when there were groups because of negative discrimination against outsiders. Against this there is evidence that group membership is the source of a psychological benefit, although this may induce social inertia. Overall, the 'pure' effects of groups on welfare are at best neutral and could be negative, pointing to the potential perverse effects of group-based social capital.

Social inertia and diversity in collaboration networks

Random graphs are useful tools to study social interactions. In particular, the use of weighted random graphs allows to handle a high level of information concerning which agents interact and in which degree the interactions take place. Taking advantage of this representation, we recently defined a magnitude, the Social Inertia, that measures the eagerness of agents to keep ties with previous partners. To study this magnitude, we used collaboration networks that are specially appropriate to obtain valid statistical results due to the large size of publically available databases. In this work, I study the Social Inertia in two of these empirical networks, IMDB movie database and condmat. More specifically, I focus on how the Inertia relates to other properties of the graphs, and show that the Inertia provides information on how the weight of neighboring edges correlates. A social interpretation of this effect is also offered.

PHASE TRANSITIONS IN A SOCIAL IMPACT MODEL FOR OPINION FORMATION

A model for opinion formation in a social group, based on the Theory of Social Impact developed by Latané, is studied by means of numerical simulations. Interactions among the members of the group, as well as with a strong leader competing with the mass media, are considered. The model exhibits first-order transitions between two different states of opinion, which are supported by the leader and the mass media, respectively. The social inertia of the group becomes evident when the opinion of the leader changes periodically. In this case two dynamic states are identified: for long periods of time, the group follows the changes of the leader but, decreasing the period, the opinion of the group remains unchanged. This scenery is suitable for the ocurrence of dynamic phase transitions.

Social inertia in collaboration networks

This work is a study of the properties of collaboration networks employing the formalism of weighted graphs to represent their one-mode projection. The weight of the edges is directly the number of times that a partnership has been repeated. This representation allows us to define the concept of social inertia that measures the tendency of authors to keep on collaborating with previous partners. We use a collection of empirical datasets to analyze several aspects of the social inertia: (1) its probability distribution, (2) its correlation with other properties, and (3) the correlations of the inertia between neighbors in the network. We also contrast these empirical results with the predictions of a recently proposed theoretical model for the growth of collaboration networks.

Policies Addressing the Tempo Effect in Low-Fertility Countries

The possible negative consequences of current low fertility levels are causing increasing concern, particularly in countries where the total fertility rate is below 1.5. Social inertia and self-reinforcing processes may make it difficult to return to higher levels once fertility has been very low for some time, creating a possible “low-fertility trap.” Policies explicitly addressing the fertility-depressing effect of increases in the mean age at child-bearing (the tempo effect) may be a way to raise period fertility to somewhat higher levels and help escape the “low-fertility trap” before it closes. Reforms in the school system may affect the timing of childbearing by lowering the age at completion of education. A more efficient school system, which provides the same qualifications with a younger school-leaving age, is potentially capable of increasing period fertility and hence exerting a rejuvenating effect on the age composition, even if the levels of cohort fertility remain unchanged. Such policies may also have a positive effect on completed cohort fertility.

Of Postcolonial Entanglement andDurée: Reflections on the Francophone African Novel

One fundamental consequence of tragic failure of postcolonial nationstate in Africa has been elaboration of discursive positions underpinned by sentiments of despair and hopelessness. With one developmentalist thesis after another crumbling under weight of civil wars, famine, poverty, social inertia, and political stasis, it has become norm in various Africanist disciplines to homogenize continent's postcolonial space as one uniform site of dysfunctionality.' Underpinning reasons often proffered for this pervasive Afropessimism is belief that the African condition2 can only be understood from perspective of what Simon Gikandi calls the schemata of difference (455), difference, that is, from teleological ethos of Occident. Thus, an entire discursive symbology has evolved to place temporal frame of African postcolony within a largely unproblematized sign of negativity. This is difficulty of speaking rationally about Africa that Achille Mbembe evokes in introduction to On Postcolony. In an effort to transcend both Afropessimist representations of African condition and Eurocentric paradigms that underlie some of them, Patrick Chabal andJean-Pascal Daloz propose in Africa Works an analytical grid designed to reveal continuities in their historicity. Although their study focuses on articulations of agency in informal infra-State contexts of African postcolonies, Chabal and Daloz are able to show that Afropessimism devolves from scholarly practices and discursive formations that are too often fixated on tragedy of Africa's colonial past and imperfect modernity of nation-state it engendered. The trouble with such positions is that they often underestimate dynamism of present, subsuming its independent vitality within causal

Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis

In the Guadalupe Dunes, 170 miles north of Los Angeles and 250 miles south of San Francisco, an oil spill persisted unattended for 38 years. Over the period 1990-1996, the national press devoted 504 stories to the Exxon Valdez accident and a mere nine to the Guadalupe spill—even though the latter is most likely the nation's largest recorded oil spill. Although it was known to oil workers in the field where it originated, to visiting regulators, and to locals who frequented the beach, the Guadalupe spill became troubling only when those involved could no longer view the sight and smell of petroleum as normal. This book recounts how this change in perception finally took place after nearly four decades and what form the response took. Taking a sociological perspective, Thomas Beamish examines the organizational culture of the Unocal Corporation (whose oil fields produced the leakage), the interorganizational response of regulatory agencies, and local interpretations of the event. He applies notions of social organization, social stability, and social inertia to the kind of environmental degradation represented by the Guadalupe spill. More important, he uses the Guadalupe Dunes case as the basis for a broader study of environmental blind spots. He argues that many of our most pressing pollution problems go unacknowledged because they do not cause large-scale social disruption or dramatic visible destruction of the sort that triggers responses. Finally, he develops a model of social accommodation that helps explain why human systems seem inclined to do nothing as trouble mounts.