Social Science Discourse Research Articles

A critical juncture for synthetic biology: Lessons from nanotechnology could inform public discourse and further development of synthetic biology.

EMBO Reports (2018) e46153 The development of new technologies and their applications often have to navigate regulatory limitations and public attitudes, expectations or resistance—the trajectories of genetically modified crops in the Europe or the success of in vitro fertilization after initial resistance demonstrate how public attitudes and regulation can determine if a technology succeeds or fails. Academic scientists and companies working on new technologies increasingly must consider these factors and mitigate real and perceived risks of the technology so as to avoid overreaching regulation and public resistance that could threaten innovation. In this context, social science takes an important role by gauging public attitudes about if and how the emergence of new technologies stokes fears and raises hopes. This article illustrates how the natural sciences and social sciences interacted in the emerging fields of synthetic biology and nanotechnology, specifically the timing and rise of social science research and commentary on the potential impact and risks of these emerging technologies. > Generally, it is expected that physical sciences research would grow earlier and faster than the social sciences owing to the responsive and reflexive nature of social science inquiry. In the case of nanotechnology, the private sector was afforded two decades of growth without commensurate academic discourse from social scientists, while in the case of synthetic biology, both physical and social science have been intertwined from the very beginning. Ignorance of social science discourse could hinder research on synthetic biology and commercial opportunities [1]. Given the broad benefits this technology may offer, it is important for industry to proactively engage with the general public and regulatory community to foster transparent and responsible dialogue regarding the field's best …

Social Infrastructure Services for Promoting Local Community Wellbeing in Lithuania

Abstract Social infrastructure is largely related to various services for community, facilities and public spaces, relationships and networks among local community members. It is therefore obvious that social infrastructure could be viewed as an important factor for creating better opportunities for integration and participation in society, fostering functional capabilities of a community, acknowledging human rights, improving judgements related to overall life satisfaction. The links between social infrastructure services and focus on local community wellbeing in Lithuanian’s social science discourse has not been substantiated sufficiently yet. Consequently, this article aims at disclosing the importance of social infrastructure services in promotion of local community wellbeing. The research question of this article is formulated as follows: how social infrastructure services contribute and could promote wellbeing of local community. The methodological background is based on both theoretical and empirical findings pertaining to the topic. The research results have suggested that the need of local community for social infrastructure services should be evaluated more carefully in the context of wellbeing. These services have been found to play significant role in reaching a certain level of wellbeing in view of the place where people live, how they feel and how to evaluate the future of their living.

Semiotics and Discourse Studies

In this paper, I would like to discuss the contribution that post-structuralist semiotics has brought to the analysis of academic discourse. The semiotic model was developed initially for the analysis of tales and myths. It has been gradually extended to various forms of fiction (novels, short stories), and then, according to "a growing degree of complexity and abstraction", to all "forms of social production of meaning" (p. 5). This is the project stated in the first pages to a book entitled “Introduction to Discourse Analysis in Social Sciences” (A.J. Greimas & E. Landowski eds, 1979). The generalized extension is based on a typology of discourses that has been illustrated by specific analyses published in the 1980s (Bastide 1981, Bastide & Fabbri 1985, Landowski 1986, Bordron 1987). One may be considered that the research project led by Greimas and Landowski is thus located at the farthest point of development and initial application of the model and it is therefore a test for the narrative hypothesis. In doing so, the semiotic approach took the risk of being confronted with other models of analysis, such as they were elaborated in theoretical frameworks resulting from rhetoric (renewed in the 1950s by Chaim Perelman and his school ), pragmatics (cf Parret 1983 & 1987), sociology of knowledge (from the founding work of Berger & Luckmann 1966), or as they relate to other theoretical currents in the language sciences (in particular, In France, the Althusserian discourse analysis). For the discourse in social sciences, these models offer two advantages over that of semiotics: on the one hand, it seems that the theoretical postulates on which they are worked out are more directly in accord with this type of discourse; on the other hand, they can count on a solid tradition of studies to ensure the sustainability of the results. Nevertheless, the model of semiotic analysis is original and it has also an advantage: it is general. I will put forward the benefits of this generality. ---DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2017n44a1033

Legacies of the Rue Morgue: Science, Space, and Crime Fiction in France. Andrea Goulet. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. 295.

<i>Legacies of the Rue Morgue: Science, Space, and Crime Fiction in France</i>. Andrea Goulet. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. 295.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE: REFLECTIONS ON THE ANALYSIS OF PIETY POLITICS

AbstractExamining the writings of prominent Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey, including Fatma Barbarosoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, Yıldız Ramazanoğlu, and Nazife Şişman, this article explores the repercussions of their intellectual activism for how scholars understand and study piety politics. These Islamist women intellectuals, whose discourse and subjectivities have been translated into analytical categories by scholars of piety politics, contest the terms of their encounters with academics and, more broadly, the conversion of Muslim women into objects of research. Their writings shed light on the complex interpretative interplay between academic and lay discourse when the objects of scholarly study speak back to social scientists. I argue that these kinds of critical engagements between Islamist women intellectuals and social scientific discourses attest to the mobility and circularity of social scientific categories, which have infused and reconstituted Islamist debates in Turkey. Rather than uncritically endorse or dispute these intellectuals’ interpretations of social scientific accounts, I leverage their claims to underscore the social life of academic discourse and to promote an enriched vision of piety politics and reflexive methodology.

A Study on the Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and Conducting Social Research with Gypsy / Roma Groups

In social science discourse, the dichotomy between agency and structure tends to dominate debates pertaining to identity construction. When complex social facts are viewed through a simplistic prism of either individual activities or dominant structural impacts is likely to lead to a conclusion, - particularly when the subjects of research are members of communities at risk of vulnerability which are merely two-dimensional; omitting essential elements and interplays of circumstances, agency and structures which can rapidly shift dependent on both personal and external contexts and stressors. In this article, we discuss ways of utilising Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical model to explore the potential for creating a more nuanced theory of identity construction in the context of case studies focused on Gypsy/Roma(ni) people, whose identities depend both on internal identifications and those of the (dominant) groups with whom they live. We also aim to consider how in two widely contrasting international contexts – that of Roma people in Turkey and Gypsy/Traveller communities in the UK – use of Bourdieuian analysis provides appropriate tools that enable an analysis of daily living and the associated sense of active agency of these populations without minimising or excluding the structural effects which impact them. This approach enables a nuanced relational approach to understanding Gypsy/Roma(ni) groups’ identity construction in its entirety, whilst taking account of the specific geographical context in which the populations reside.

Healing the Spirit: Exploring Sexualized Trauma and Recovery among Indigenous Men in Toronto.

Colonial policies in Canada have led to social disruption and intergenerational trauma across Indigenous nations, contributing to high rates of sexualized violence within many communities. While mental health and social science discourse has identified the harmful impacts of violence against Indigenous women in Canada, there continues to be a lack of focus on the unique mental health needs of Indigenous men in this regard. This article reviews the results of a nationally funded research study which looked at the mental health and healing needs of Indigenous men in Toronto who have experienced sexualized trauma. This study followed Indigenous protocols for research and was conducted in partnership with Anishnawbe Health Toronto, a culture-based community health center. The methodology utilized a narrative inquiry and interviewed six community men about their recovery journeys and ten community healers and counselors about recovery through a gendered lens. The results explore the discourses that contribute to the social construction of masculinity(ies) and the impacts of these social norms on help-seeking behaviors. These results inform culturally appropriate and gender-relevant mental health service provision for Indigenous male clients recovering from sexualized trauma.

Gestating times: women's accounts of the temporalities of pregnancies that end in abortion in England.

Tensions between the ‘clock time’ of medicine and the embodied times of its subjects are central to feminist writing concerning Western obstetric practice. In this article, I expand the focus of this literature by addressing the temporal dynamics of another site of reproductive healthcare: abortion provision. Echoing obstetric accounts of birth, time in legal, healthcare and social scientific discourse on abortion is routinely conceptualised as a finite resource contained within the pregnant/foetal body, which can be measured using clocks and calendars. I argue that women's interview accounts of their experiences of ending their pregnancies offer opportunities for critical reflection on this characterisation of pregnancy as linear ‘gestational time’. First, participants in this study re‐position the significance of gestational time by articulating its embodied meaning. Second, they provide alternative accounts of the temporality of pregnancy as a process which emerges through, and is disrupted by, the dynamics of socio‐material relations. The article considers the broader implications of women's accounts of pregnancy times for legal, healthcare and social scientific accounts of ‘later’ abortion.

Tipping elements and climate–economic shocks: Pathways toward integrated assessment

AbstractThe literature on the costs of climate change often draws a link between climatic “tipping points” and large economic shocks, frequently called “catastrophes.” The phrase “tipping points” in this context can be misleading. In popular and social scientific discourse, “tipping points” involve abrupt state changes. For some climatic “tipping points,” the commitment to a state change may occur abruptly, but the change itself may be rate‐limited and take centuries or longer to realize. Additionally, the connection between climatic “tipping points” and economic losses is tenuous, although emerging empirical and process‐model‐based tools provide pathways for investigating it. We propose terminology to clarify the distinction between “tipping points” in the popular sense, the critical thresholds exhibited by climatic and social “tipping elements,” and “economic shocks.” The last may be associated with tipping elements, gradual climate change, or nonclimatic triggers. We illustrate our proposed distinctions by surveying the literature on climatic tipping elements, climatically sensitive social tipping elements, and climate–economic shocks, and we propose a research agenda to advance the integrated assessment of all three.

Socialinių ir humanitarinių mokslų vertės paieškos Lietuvoje: monizmas, pliuralizmas ir administracinė kontrolė

The article analyzes the evaluation discourse and practices of Lithuanian social sciences and humani­ties (SSH). The special attention is also paid at the ways, in which two rival philosophical conceptions of science – monism and pluralism – structure national field of science. The issues of recognition and identi­fication of scientific value are discussed structurally reconstructing the major premises and approaches in the social sciences and humanities evaluation discourse from 1994 to 2015. The article as well reveals what social implications in academia the legal and administrative decisions generated by this discourse had, and what were the reactions to the decisions by the research communities in social science and humanities. We argue that the dynamics of the administrative system is generated not only by the tension between monism (positivism) and pluralism (epistemic variety) but also by resistance of research communities to increasing administrative control. The latter form of control employing its technical decisions implicitly devalues SSH and negates their meaningfulness. Administrative control orients towards global systems of symbolic pres­tige, which results in reproduction of unequal power relations between different research disciplines as well as between researchers and research administrators.

Researching Governance for Sustainable Development: Some Conceptual Clarifications

This article addresses two problems characterizing policy thinking on environmental change and sustainable development. First, the role of the social sciences in the wider processes of governance is sometimes misrepresented such that the likelihood of achieving consensual decision-making on environmental phenomena is overestimated. Second, the social science discourse on governance is plagued by conceptual confusion. This article seeks to address these problems by outlining an analytical framework for environmental governance research. In the view of this article, scientific knowledge claims are integral parts of governance processes. The article advocates a holistic understanding of governance that includes the production and diffusion of scientific knowledge, political interaction, and decision-making as well as the wider institutional context required for policy implementation and enforcement. The conclusion is that the entire governance process from the translation of scientific knowledge into policy proposals to the implementation will always be laden with politically charged opportunity costs.

The Economy and Money in Three Recent Mission Documents

While economic issues are not usually much debated in theology, three recent mission documents (The Cape Town Commitment, Together Towards Life and Evangelii Gaudium) have directly addressed them, criticising globalised capitalism more or less sharply and explicitly. However, all three lack transparency in that possible analysis which might provide foundation for the statements made is not visible. Additionally, the critique offered is vague and general except for some relatively concrete propositions in Evangelii Gaudium with seemingly social-democrat overtones. Thus these documents do not readily connect with economic, political and social scientific discourses, which reduces their applicability predominantly to the religious sphere and further supports an Enlightenment sacred/secular dichotomy that conflicts with the approach advocated in Together Towards Life. In order to increase the relevance of theological arguments concerning economic issues to spheres beyond the churches, theologians need to cooperate with economists and familiarise themselves with economic theories and practices before prescribing policies based on theological argumentation.

The Social Democrats of Scholarship: Austrian Imperial Peripheries and the Making of a Progressive Science of Nationality, 1885–1903

To what extent and in what ways did the intellectual climate of Austria’s often ethnolinguistically heterogeneous borderlands contribute to the formation, institutionalization and diffusion of emerging social scientific discourses during the final decades of the 19th century? Investigating the intellectual exchange between two early proponents of folklore studies (Volkskunde)—the Slavonian-German-Jewish Friedrich Salomon Krauss (1859–1938) and Bukovinian-German Raimund Friedrich Kaindl (1866–1930)—this paper argues that imperial peripheries, while traditionally overlooked as sites of knowledge production, in fact played a pivotal role in the development of an important brand of “progressive” social scientific research, one defined by a critical stance toward the prevailing historicist paradigms of the time. These self-described “social democrats of scholarship” collaborated, both formally and informally, on a number of related theoretical projects aimed at disrupting the exclusionary narratives of the academic establishment and re-focusing scholarly attention on the sociological, rather than historical, character of ethnonational difference. In this way, the nationalities question spurred, both in the center and at the margins of the monarchy, the development of new sciences of nationality intended to sustain Austria’s imperial structure.

Table of Contents for: Theories and Practices of Compliance with WTO Law

Compliance is one of the key concepts in contemporary academic discourse in social sciences although it has so far remained at the margin of international legal scholarship, let alone in the context of the public international law of trade. Beyond the works of some social scientists which use realist theories, institutionalist theories and normative theories in the study of international relations, it is difficult to find any comprehensive work by international trade lawyers that uses some relevant social science theories to explain the rights and obligations of WTO Members. While there is currently an avalanche of academic work on WTO obligations and on the jurisprudential progressivism of the celebrated WTO disputes settlement regime, trade lawyers have avoided dealing/dealt insufficiently with the causal question ‘why WTO Members abide by their international trade law obligations’. This failure to deal with compliance is troubling because it undermines the very foundation of international trade law. To the extent that we can theorise using different social science theories to provide an answer to the question as to why nation-States comply/not comply with their international trade law obligations, we will be able to understand the function of the WTO as a legal system. This, as a consequence, will lead us to relevant propositions on ascertaining different perspectives on remedies against non-compliance with trade rules. This is precisely what this book intends to do.

Monolingualism and creativity: Scientific discourse and linguistic diversity in human and social sciences

Une question qui se pose aujourd&rsquo;hui avec acuit&eacute; est de savoir&nbsp; si le monolinguisme &ndash; dans la pratique il s&rsquo;agit de l&rsquo;anglais acad&eacute;mique &ndash; est propice &agrave; la production des connaissances en sciences humaines et sociales. Pour assurer leur carri&egrave;re, les chercheurs aspirent &agrave; faire conna&icirc;tre leurs travaux en publiant dans des revues internationales tr&egrave;s norm&eacute;es, les plus prestigieuses. Mais on ne doit pas ignorer les limites qu&rsquo;impose le fonctionnement de ces revues &agrave; la production de connaissances innovantes, susceptibles de mettre en cause les routines intellectuelles. On peut soutenir l&rsquo;id&eacute;e qu&rsquo;en sciences humaines et sociales la pr&eacute;servation d&rsquo;une pluralit&eacute; d&rsquo;espaces de production scientifiques fond&eacute;s sur une pluralit&eacute; de langues favorise davantage la cr&eacute;ativit&eacute; qu&rsquo;un espace unique et homog&egrave;ne, qui tend vers un plus grand conformisme.

Social Science Discourse and the Biopolitics of Terrorism

AbstractThis article weaves social science discourse into the fabric of a genealogy of terrorism. The power struggles associated with the US lead global war on terrorism are producing many new objects of knowledge and possible lines of research (e.g., Islamic terrorists, jihadists, suicide bombers, experts on counterterrorism, and ISIS). This process is modeled as a cycle involving power struggles and power elite orchestrated political victimage rituals and a biopolitics of knowledge. This dynamic is explored in terms of social science discourse and the biopolitics of terrorism. The limits of current thinking in “counterterrorism” and the possibilities of future research are highlighted.

Knowledge production in a constructed field: reflections on comparative and international education

Adopting Maria Manzon’s theoretical framework, which draws on Foucault and proposes that comparative education as an academic field is socially constructed, I suggest that the field is neither stable nor well defined. To demonstrate this, I conduct a content analysis of the Comparative Education Review, using Klaus Krippendorff’s methodological framework to study comparative and international education (CIE) researchers’ understanding of the national—and of their related knowledge production in the field. Many comparativists express interests in multiple countries, and their knowledge production takes the form of individual country studies. The countries are habitually studied using a “problem approach” focusing on one specific aspect of the country under investigation and using an associated social science methodology deemed appropriate. Few comparativists are making explicit use of or reference to any methodology that is unique to comparative education. Efforts to catalog and systematize CIE research have demonstrated that the field is becoming so inclusive that it hardly is distinguishable from educational studies as a whole. Hence, I suggest that instead of speaking about unifying features of the field, it may be more relevant to speak about frequent elements, such as a focus on the national, and a knowledge production characterized by the academic practitioner who desires to improve the education systems studied. A third frequent element may be the focus on educational development, thus justifying the label of “comparative, international, and development education.” One challenge of the field is its dependence on Western social science discourses, which may be marginalizing other voices.

Physical education study field – in search of disciplinary identity

In order to understand meaningful landmarks for individuals and society, this article deals with the peculiarities of constructing disciplinary identity in the field of physical education. On the basis of the works for constructing identities in the physical education context we were trying to look for manifestations of disciplinary identity. Based on quantitative data gathered in Lithuanian universities, we have analysed the physical education study field from three directions: medicine and health, life sciences and education. In doing so, the provisions of the study participants interpreted by quantitative methods allowed us to distinguish four components of disciplinary identity: self-recognition, social recognition, satisfaction with the study field and objective communication. The analysis demonstrates essential differences regarding groups of study fields and the results suggest that undergraduate students from different study fields of physical education identify themselves differently and are acknowledged differently by their significant others. Hoping to encourage self-recognition and reduce differences in academic recognition of the physical education study field, students from the medical and health study field should be provided with the widest possible discourse of social sciences and the humanities. This is a way of helping students to become more self-aware as professionals and more capable of crossing boundaries of the physical education discipline.

The Ambivalence of Community: A Critical Analysis of Rural Education's Oldest Trope

The concept of community has been central to the discourse of rural education for generations. At the same time, community has been and continues to be a deeply problematic concept. I begin this analysis with Raymond Williams's characterization of the idea of community as a uniquely positive concept, arguing that this framing is, as Williams pointed out, deeply problematic. This paper interrogates the idea of community and looks at the way it has been used historically in rural education as well as some of the ways that it is understood and used in educational, social science, policy, and governance discourses today. In this analysis I draw on the foundational communitarian analysis of American social thinkers Paul Theobald and Robert Putnam as well as on Williams's critical analysis of rurality and community. I argue that effective rural educational policy today needs to problematize the idea of community and develop it in ways that avoids playing into nostalgic and retrogressive notions of the rural. This argument is based on a conception of place that keeps in focus multiple and complex understandings of emerging postproductivist rural spaces.

Citizenship education in Canada: ‘Democratic’ engagement with differences, conflicts and equity issues?

Abstract Recent research on multi-faceted citizenship education policy and practice in Canada illustrates five enduring themes of interest to educators around the world. First, citizenship education policy mandates reveal diverse goals for ‘good’ or ‘active’ citizen engagement, critical and inclusive awareness, and skills. Students from different social identity and status locations tend to have unequal citizenship learning experiences, and school education is often disconnected from their lived experiences and concerns. Second, intersecting questions of national and ethno-cultural identity and social justice are prominent in Canadian curricular rhetoric, although achievement of inter-group equity, mutual understanding and justice is elusive. Third, although transnational issues and perspectives are increasingly included, some Canadian curricula seem to reinforce ignorance and stereotypes about other nations and peoples and about the causes of global problems such as war. Much of the global citizenship education activity in Canadian schools seems to be focused on co-curricular activities, often emphasizing charity fundraising, leaving the causes of human misery largely uninterrogated. Fourth, curriculum policy discourse in civics, social sciences, language and media literacy emphasizes the importance of student-centred pedagogy for development of critical thinking skills, while typical classroom practice seems often to retain teacher-centred transmission approaches. Last, implicit citizenship education is embedded in day-to-day school-related activities and relationships: patterns of discipline and conflict management, community service activities, and student voice and leadership roles. Thus active, engaged citizenship, attentive to multicultural diversity, is a prominent goal in recent Canadian citizenship education policy and programming – yet in practice, Canadian students (especially those from less privileged backgrounds) have few opportunities to practice democratically relevant citizenship learning in school.