Specific Social Actors Research Articles

Voices in Selected Comments of Obiageli Ezekwesili on the #BringBackOurGirls Protest

This article reports Obiageli Ezekwesili’s voices on the #BringBackOurGirls protest. Fusing Du Bois’s stance theory and Ochs’s theory of context as theoretical model, this study articulates Ezekwesili’s stances on the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls. Data were sourced through purposive sampling from six prominent Nigerian online newspapers (Punch, Vanguard, Tribune, The Guardian, The Nation, and Daily Trust). Over 100 of Ezekwesili’s comments on the Chibok kidnapping were adopted as the study population. However, 20 comments were selected for analysis. The tenets of Du Bois’s stance theory and Ochs’s theory of context were engaged. Interior and exterior indexical stances are adopted through the deployment of lexical, pronominal, nominal, and verbal choices to reveal the collectivism, determination, power struggle, and resoluteness of the #BringBackOurGirls protesters. The study surmises that the language of protest is imbued with emotion-evoking stances that articulate the agitations of specific social actors in protest.

Coping with urban shrinkage: the role of informal social capital in French medium-sized shrinking cities

ABSTRACT This paper addresses current debates on the role of social capital in the context of urban shrinkage, by investigating the specific role of informal social capital. The results are drawn from qualitative studies conducted in two French medium-sized shrinking cities. The findings show that similarly to the institutional and collective forms of social capital analyzed in previous literature, informal social capital is also impacted by the changes affecting urban place in the context of shrinkage, and particularly weakened for elderly residents – especially women – and young professionals. At the same time, it constitutes an efficient resource, that helps residents facing shrinkage-related problems individually rather than addressing shrinkage itself collectively. Finally, the findings highlight the role of specific social actors such as community centres who, by providing institutionalized sources of social capital, foster the creation of informal social capital and allow us to address its unequal distribution and weakening. This emphasizes the need to reconsider current social capital-based planning strategies, from relying mainly on collective initiatives addressing shrinkage, to supporting institutional social actors in the creation of small scale, individual level social ties and interactions.

Deinstytucjonalizacja jako ruch społeczny

The article describes the history of the idea and phenomenon of deinstitutionalisation, that is, the process of transforming care institutions, in particular transferring their competences to local communities. These processes are illustrated using examples from the United States and Europe, discussions that have been going on there for decades, and the experiments and solutions being implemented in those regions. In this study, however, the phenomenon of deinstitutionalisation goes beyond a purely technical problem related to a change in the concept of managing the fate of people who are ill, disabled or affected by various social problems, such as homelessness. Here, deinstitutionalisation is above all a manifestation of the activities of social actors; that is, a social movement. The movement is not so much of a consensual nature, focused on the rationalisation of aid, as it is an ethical and even a conflict-oriented movement, in other words, a ‘new social movement’. The movement : (1) is represented by specific social actors: organisations and their leaders; (2) has its resources, values and identity to lobby for new legislation, implementation of new care and health practices, as well as shaping political and social attitudes in this sector; and, finally, (3) performs evaluative and critical functions, and is, therefore, a kind of ‘epistemic community’ that disseminated certain knowledge and demanded the implementation of the resulting practices.

China’s narrative of the fight against COVID-19: a case study of the representation of social actors in China Keywords

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese political leadership has devoted substantial efforts to shape, through media and institutional discourses, a specific narrative of its response to the crisis, framing it as a fight in which the Chinese people, under the leadership of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, promptly came together to defeat the virus.
 The present paper examines this dominant narrative focusing on the Chinese language section on the fight against COVID-19 of the multilingual online platform China Keywords, a project run by State and Party-affiliated institutions. Drawing on the theoretical background and analytical tools from Critical Discourse Studies, the paper provides an analysis of the discursive representation of social actors constructed by this tool. The analysis shows how different discursive strategies employed to represent specific social actors contribute to reinforce the constitutive elements of the Chinese leadership’s dominant narrative of the events of early 2020. Moreover, the paper argues that the section of China Keywords on the topic should be understood as one of the products of the multifaceted institutional efforts to “tell China’s Covid-19 story well,” both domestically and internationally.

China’s narrative of the fight against COVID-19: a case study of the representation of social actors in China Keywords

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese political leadership has devoted substantial efforts to shape, through media and institutional discourses, a specific narrative of its response to the crisis, framing it as a fight in which the Chinese people, under the leadership of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, promptly came together to defeat the virus.
 The present paper examines this dominant narrative focusing on the Chinese language section on the fight against COVID-19 of the multilingual online platform China Keywords, a project run by State and Party-affiliated institutions. Drawing on the theoretical background and analytical tools from Critical Discourse Studies, the paper provides an analysis of the discursive representation of social actors constructed by this tool. The analysis shows how different discursive strategies employed to represent specific social actors contribute to reinforce the constitutive elements of the Chinese leadership’s dominant narrative of the events of early 2020. Moreover, the paper argues that the section of China Keywords on the topic should be understood as one of the products of the multifaceted institutional efforts to “tell China’s Covid-19 story well,” both domestically and internationally.

Orthodox Mobilizations and Political Identities in Post-Soviet Georgia

Abstract Based on field research carried out over the last two decades, this article analyzes the labile nature of the relationship between religion and politics in Georgia. It aims to understand not only the rational and deliberate processes in which elites engage for political ends but also to grasp the diversity of actors and patterns of religion mobilization. It argues that three main types of articulations have developed since the 1990s: the mobilization of Orthodoxy (1) in the service of nation-building; (2) in the construction of an anti-elite popular identity; and (3) as a moral crusade. Each type of articulation involves specific social actors, organizational forms, and relations with political institutions.

Public trust and genomic medicine in Canada and the UK.

Background: Genomic medicine could improve precise risk stratification, early prevention, and personalised treatment across a broad spectrum of disease. As this reality approaches, questions on the importance of public trust arise. The success of genomic medicine initiatives is influenced by the public's trust and willingness to engage. Specific social actors influential in the public's trust have been identified by the "Your DNA, Your Say" study, including doctors, researchers, and governments. This paper aims to identify and examine which specific social actors, if any, in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) are the most trustworthy and influential to engage the public in genomic medicine research. Methods: Using data from the 'Your DNA, Your Say' study, logistic regression models and Pearson's chi-square tests were conducted to explore trust in social actors across Canada and the UK. Results: The results demonstrate Canada and the UK significantly differ in public trust and willingness to donate. Non-profit researchers, domestic doctors, and personal doctors were identified to be the most influential and trustworthy social actors in Canada and the UK. Conclusions: The comparative results indicate that both countries would benefit from engaging the public through doctors and non-profit researchers. The UK could additionally support public trust by engaging with the public through the National Health Service. However, the results suggest that whilst public trust is significant, it may be neither necessary nor sufficient in influencing willingness to donate. Future research could do well to investigate how the importance of public trust compares in countries with lower public trust.

Public trust and genomic medicine in Canada and the UK

Background: Genomic medicine could improve precise risk stratification, early prevention, and personalised treatment across a broad spectrum of disease. As this reality approaches, questions on the importance of public trust arise. The success of genomic medicine initiatives is influenced by the public’s trust and willingness to engage. Specific social actors influential in the public's trust have been identified by the “Your DNA, Your Say” study, including doctors, researchers, and governments. This paper aims to identify and examine which specific social actors, if any, in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) are the most trustworthy and influential to engage the public in genomic medicine research. Methods: Using data from the ‘Your DNA, Your Say’ study, logistic regression models and Pearson’s chi-square tests were conducted to explore trust in social actors across Canada and the UK. Results: The results demonstrate Canada and the UK significantly differ in public trust and willingness to donate. Non-profit researchers, domestic doctors, and personal doctors were identified to be the most influential and trustworthy social actors in Canada and the UK. Conclusions: The comparative results indicate that both countries would benefit from engaging the public through doctors and non-profit researchers. The UK could additionally support public trust by engaging with the public through the National Health Service. However, the results suggest that whilst public trust is significant, it may be neither necessary nor sufficient in influencing willingness to donate. Future research could do well to investigate how the importance of public trust compares in countries with lower public trust.

Public trust and genomic medicine in Canada and the UK

Background: Genomic medicine could improve precise risk stratification, early prevention, and personalised treatment across a broad spectrum of disease. As this reality approaches, questions on the importance of public trust arise. The success of genomic medicine initiatives is influenced by the public’s trust and willingness to engage. Specific social actors influential in the public's trust have been identified by the “Your DNA, Your Say” study, including doctors, researchers, and governments. This paper aims to identify and examine which specific social actors, if any, in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) are the most trustworthy and influential to engage the public in genomic medicine. Methods: Using data from the ‘Your DNA, Your Say’ study, logistic regression models and Pearson’s chi-square tests were conducted to explore trust in social actors across Canada and the UK. Results: The results demonstrate Canada and the UK significantly differ in public trust and willingness to donate. Non-profit researchers, domestic doctors, and personal doctors were identified to be the most influential and trustworthy social actors in Canada and the UK. Conclusions: The comparative results indicate that both countries would benefit from engaging the public through doctors and non-profit researchers. The UK could additionally support public trust by engaging with the public through the National Health Service. However, the results suggest that whilst public trust is significant, it may be neither necessary nor sufficient in influencing willingness to donate. Future research could do well to investigate how the importance of public trust compares in countries with lower public trust.

Un análisis histórico y geográfico de la articulación de actores sociales en la apertura de escuelas de alternancia

Realizamos una reconstrucción histórica y geográfica del surgimiento y desarrollo de la pedagogía de la alternancia tal como se fue generando en diferentes continentes, centrándonos en las experiencias de Francia, Brasil y Canadá. Interpretamos la forma en que diversos actores sociales se han auto organizado en distintos países para abrir y sostener en el tiempo escuelas rurales de alternancia. Nos hemos preguntado: ¿en qué momentos y lugares se configuran procesos de auto organización comunitaria para abrir escuelas que permitan a los jóvenes de ámbitos rurales continuar con sus estudios luego de la educación primaria? ¿Qué actores sociales participan en cada caso y a qué tipos de demandas responden? Nuestros resultados muestran que la expansión de la pedagogía de la alternancia en el mundo se fue realizando a partir de contactos entre grupos que comparten una orientación similar en diferentes lugares geográficos (respeto por las formas culturales de la ruralidad, interés en construir instituciones educativas que permitan la participación de diferentes actores sociales, generación de herramientas pedagógicas distintivas). Así, esta pedagogía puede considerarse, tal como algunos de sus antecedentes lo indican, como un movimiento (inclusive de carácter internacional) conservando sin embargo el carácter singular de cada experiencia en cada historia y geografía particular.

Birthing matters in Portugal: introduction

In this introduction to the collection “Birthing matters in Portugal,” the contributions of anthropology to the understanding of childbirth as social practice are outlined. Portugal is a country with one of the highest rates of medical intervention in childbirth in Europe, and widespread and diverse opposition to current medicalised approaches to birthing care in Portugal are becoming increasingly visible, yet the “alternative” practice of homebirth exists in a legal void. The introduction provides a summary of the historical emergence of the current situation, which has scarcely been explored to date by social science scholars. This colelction of articles is an attempt to bridge the present gap in knowledge by showcasing new anthropological research from Portugal on pregnancy and childbirth, offering analyses of birth which go beyond generalising descriptions of the oppositional discourses of specific social actors (e. g. doctors, midwives, homebirthers), and instead analyse the various reflections, collaborations, contestations and contradictions, in particular situations and settings. The experiences of women are foregrounded. The contribution of each of the four papers in the collection is described.

Sociology’s Role in the Teaching of Organizational Behavior in Higher Education. The Case of Hospitality Management

Teaching in universities, especially in management schools, is today orientated to solving-problems and operational skills’ development, short-term productivity gains and to a vocational perspective. This represents an impoverishment of a deeper learning, an obstacle to the development of competences in a broader and integrative sense and the absence of a critical thinking practice. These are important tools to enhance in students and future managers, as specific social actors, abilities to act in a conscious, autonomous and long-term efficacious manner in society. This essay’s objective is to problematize the role that sociology could assume in the overcoming of that impoverishment, namely within the curricular unit of organizational behavior in two ways. First, teaching the social and macro dimensions that contribute to explain organizational structuring and behavior. Secondly, enhancing reflexivity and contextualization on the practices and discourses of all social actors involved and disassembling the dominant ideological, naturalized and simplistic individualized view on the reality of labor, employment and organizations. This is especially relevant in hospitality management studies because the dominant discourse about hospitality organizations hide, under a hegemonic paradigm of naturalized and individualized explanations, the macro-social dimensions of its organizational culture, work conditions, employees’ behaviors, management styles and market labor.

The Invisibilization and Denial of Work in Argentinian Garment Homework

Homeworkers are a globally significant part of the informal workforce, commonly regarded as invisible because their work is not recognized (Burchielli et al., 2008; Prugl, 1999). In this qualitative study, we examine homeworker invisibility in the case of Argentinian garment homework using the concepts of work invisibilization and work denial. The work invisibilization concept (Krinsky and Simonet, 2012), referring to devalorized work resulting from the neoliberal agenda, is used to understand recent global trends away from standard work arrangements/protections. Arising from the social relations of domination, invisibilized work is precarious, with irregular/ non-existent employment contracts and relationships. Invisibilization thus provides a valuable lens for analysing homework, which shares key characteristics with emerging forms of invisibilized employment. Homework however, has not transformed but has always been informal, characterized by inferior standards. To account for this, we articulate a concept of denial of work. Cohen's (2001) concept of denial describes broad dimensions, including different forms, strategies and levels of denial. Adapting these, we construct a framework to analyze the denial of Argentinian garment homework, enabling a detailed examination of the specific social actors and processes involved in casting homework as non-work. In considering the denial of homework in relation to invisibilization, we argue that these are related but distinct concepts. Used together, they help explain the low-power condition of two types of garment homeworkers in Argentina while also accounting for their differences: the mostly male, migrant workers employed in clandestine workshops (such as the Bolivians interviewed in our study), and the traditional, mostly female, Argentinian garment homeworkers. Our findings suggest that Bolivian immigrant homeworkers are partially visibilized due to NGO advocacy. However, as there are no improvements to their working conditions, they remained largely invisibilized through the effects of capitalism. By contrast, traditional women homeworkers have no representation and internalize their condition: their invisibilization is explained by the cumulative effects of capitalism and patriarchy.

Socio-spatial stigmatization and its ‘incorporation’ in the centre of Athens, Greece

Considering stigmatization as a process ingrained into power relations, difference and contexts, this paper focuses on how socio-spatial stigmatization is deployed by specific social actors within a broader context of multiple stigmatization of social groups in the city of Athens, Greece. As such, it discusses imposed stigmatization, whereby stigma is attributed to a group and/or a place by external (to the group) actors and further explores what can be termed as ‘incorporated’ stigmatization whereby socio-spatial stigma becomes the central feature around which a group is formed and/or mobilized. Furthermore, in both cases, it explores the consequences of stigmatization, while raising further questions about (de)legitimization.

Politically Driven

Penal populism, advocating severe punishment of criminals, has greatly influenced justice policy measures in Eastern Europe over the last decade. This article takes Hungary as a typical case in the region and based on a recent criminal policy reform it investigates the roots of the penal populist discourse, which legitimizes and supports punitive measures. The research assumes that policy discourses need specific social actors that construct and promote them. Accordingly, the article explores whether the right-wing political parties and the tabloid media have taken a leading role in constructing the discourse of penal populism as a response to public concerns about crime. Content analysis and frame analysis of political communication and media was conducted to identify the discursive positions of major political parties and selected national media sources. The research found that penal populism was dominant in Hungarian political discourse while most of the media, including the tabloid press, have been rather reluctant to adopt punitive tones. The results thus contradict previous findings and offer a more nuanced view on how penal populism is being constructed and promoted in Eastern Europe.

Hidden transcripts of resilience: power and politics in Jamaican disaster management

This paper draws on assemblage theory and post-colonial theories to analyse the politics of community-based disaster resilience. Through a case study of community-based disaster resilience programming in Jamaica, I unpack the biopolitical strategies practitioners deploy in assembling cultures of safety and fashioning resilient subjects. My analysis draws out two juxtaposed forms of resilience that circulate within Jamaican disaster management and are not reducible to the interests of specific social actors: neoliberal and subversive resilience. While both rely on the same categories of self-sufficiency, responsibility and freedom, the latter operates through qualitatively distinct state–society relations that facilitate rather than problematise local populations' adaptive capacity. Assemblage theory introduces a new ethos into resilience thinking that is sensitive to the contemporaneous multiplicity and indeterminacy of resilience, and the possible ‘hidden transcripts’ of resilience that subversively resi...

Actionary pertinence: Space to place in kitesurfing

AbstractContemporary research investigating the phenomena of lifestyle sport has highlighted the centrality of space, spatiality and spatial appropriation. Lifestyle sports tend to manifest in liminal and/or unbounded spaces with practitioners drawing upon the affordances of the natural environment in new and unique ways. Simultaneously, practitioners employ continuously evolving technical tools (equipment) in the undertaking of these activities. This article articulates the ways in which the specialised equipment employed as mediational means affect the perception, interpretation and valuation of physical components of the natural and man-made environment.In this article, I introduce the notion of actionary pertinence and concept of locational element through the analysis of the ways in which general geographic areas (spaces) become actual kitesurfing locations (places) for specific social actors through mediated action and in direct connection to the mediational means through which action occurs. Drawing upon data generated through a year-long video ethnography, I argue that components of the physical environment become locational elements for specific social actors in and through mediated action. This explicitly extends theorisation regarding how mediational means affect and structure the nature of the action they mediate (Vygotsky 1978, 1987; Wertsch 1991, 1998), and extends this argument by exemplifying how mediational means also affect and structure the perception and interpretation of physical components of the environment which have a bearing on mediated action. Furthermore, I articulate the ways in which these locational elements are considered, read, re-read and interpreted in terms of their actionary pertinence. Thus, the materiality of locational elements manifests as salient and/or relevant through the bearing an element has on specific mediated actions and practices.

The French Republican model, the European Diversity Perspective and the European Public Sphere

This article discusses some findings of a European research project led by Bergen University, ‘Eurosphere: Diversity and the European Public Sphere – Towards a Citizens’ Europe’. The project aimed to evaluate perceptions of the construction of a European Public Sphere and of transnational relations among specific social actors interviewed in 16 European countries, between 2007 and 2012. In this particular article, the authors first examine reactions to the European Diversity Directive in France among three political parties (2 majority and 1 minority), three think-tanks, three NGO/SMO, and four media. Analysis of their attitudes towards diversity reveals a Girondin/Jacobin cleavage across actors. The Directive on Diversity is estimated to have had a positive impact in France because it obliged organizations and institutions to position themselves and revisit the debate on racial and postcolonial questions and on the European role in the democratization process of European societies. Concerning the relationship between the French and the EU’s attempts to build a European public sphere, we find not so much a European Public Sphere understood in the thick sense of the concept but, rather, a progressive Europeanization of the French national public sphere.

Percepciones y estados emocionales sobre el proyecto genoma humano en actores sociales seleccionados en la Región Metropolitana, Chile

The purpose of this paper is that of describing, by means of regression tables, the perceptions and emotional dispositions toward the human genome project in specific social actors of the Metropolitan Region. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, studied by means of an analysis content method of verbal conduct, were applied to genomics researchers, legislators, students and members of the civil society, so as to characterize the cultural and social conditions that might have an influence on the social appraisal of the human genome project. On the basis of the measurements obtained from a directed sample of 66 individuals, a level of knowledge (variable response) indicator is defined, considering as variable descriptors the measurements of hostility and anxiety, interest in scientific subjects, occupational group, level of studies, sex and age of those interviewed. The statistical analysis uses the Enterprise Miner of SAS 8.2. The variability of the knowledge level explained by the Regression Trees is 0. 75. Differences arise among the distinguishable subgroups as far as average level knowledge about the human genome project, sex and intensity of the psychological characteristics expressed by total anxiety and hostility, are detected.

Los movimientos sociales y la acción juvenil: apuntes para un debate

El trabajo aborda el rol que está jugando la juventud como generación, en el marco del aumento de las acciones colectivas y convivencia de movimientos sociales de múltiples orientaciones. Se toman en cuenta dos dimensiones: su peso en el marco de movimientos que involucran a distintos sujetos y cuyas reivindicaciones tienen un alcance más general, así como en qué medida, en tanto jóvenes, se convierten en actores sociales específicos, reconocidos (y autorreconocidos) como sujetos en sí mismos. Se constata que la juventud en esta etapa no ha constituido de manera significativa movimientos sociales con marcado carácter generacional y se formula la hipótesis de que el acelerado ritmo de los cambios que están teniendo lugar en nuestra época, imprimen un mayor dinamismo al contexto en que se configuran las generaciones y limitan las posibilidades de conformarse como tal, con una identidad colectiva definida, frente a otros criterios estructurantes de mayor estabilidad como el género o la etnia o frente a conflictos sociales más visibles y generales como la defensa de los derechos humanos o del medio ambiente. Sin embargo, la juventud constituye una relevante masa crítica dentro de movimientos sociales de diferente carácter, tiene particular protagonismo en algunos de ellos y su presencia resulta vital pues representan la perspectiva de futuro.