The Geography of Peace Movements

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guntram H. Herb
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Peace Movements ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Movement Mobilization

Geographers have not been prominent in studying peace movements. This is not surprising, given the strong foundations of the discipline in warfare and imperialism. To date, the only general geographic survey of peace movements appears to be Brunn’s 1985 study, a catalog of peace organizations and their activities that covered mainly the United States. Other studies by geographers are few and focus on individual antiwar campaigns or disarmament strategies. However, more recently, geographers have made significant contributions to the analysis of the broader theoretical context of peace movements. These works offer spatial conceptualizations of social movement mobilization. A general appraisal of the geographic dimensions of peace movements is still missing. This chapter represents a tentative step in this direction. The examination is conducted in four steps. The first section deals with general characteristics of peace movements. It discusses problems of definition and presents the intellectual and philosophical foundations of peace activities. The second section approaches the geography of peace movements from a historical perspective. It examines the development of organized peace groups from their origins in the nineteenth century to the present. Different scales of the changing geopolitical and societal contexts will frame the discussion. Such a geohistory will allow us to identify and interpret changing intensities of activism. The third section addresses the geography of contemporary peace movements from a conceptual viewpoint. Armed with theoretical concepts from the recent literature on social movements, it examines the places and spaces of mobilization. The 1980s peace movement against nuclear armaments will serve as a case study to illustrate the insights that can be gained from a geographic approach. Finally, I will present the major implications that stem from the geohistorical and conceptual discussions in the conclusion. Peace is more than the absence of war. Though it is traditionally defined as the opposite of war, peace scholars and activists now embrace a notion of peace that includes the conditions necessary to bring about a nonviolent and just society at all levels of human activity. Contemporary peace movements not only seek to abolish the overt violence of war, but also struggle to transform the social structures responsible for death and human suffering.

Gaining a Voice: Storytelling and Undocumented Youth Activism in Chicago*

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Swerts
Keyword(s):  
Community Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Youth Activism ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
New Members ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Context Type ◽  
The Social

In recent years, undocumented youth have come out of the shadows to claim their rights in the United States. By sharing their stories, these youth gained a voice in the public debate. This article integrates insights from the literature on narratives and emotions to study how story-telling is employed within the undocumented youth movement in Chicago. I argue that undocumented youth strategically use storytelling for diverging purposes depending on the context, type of interaction, and audience involved. Based on ethnographic research, I show that storytelling allows them to incorporate new members, mobilize constituencies, and legitimize grievances. In each of these contexts, emotions play a key role in structuring the social transaction between storyteller and audience. Storytelling is thus a community-building, mobilizing, and claims-making practice in social movements. At a broader level, this case study demonstrates the power of storytelling as a political tool for marginalized populations.

Henry Carter Adams: A Case Study in the Emergence of the Social Sciences in the United States, 1850–1900

1968 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Coats
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Profession ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
European Counterpart

Few scholars would nowadays question the importance of the United States in the world of learning; but the process whereby that nation attained its present eminence still remains obscure. Among the cognoscenti, it is generally acknowledged that American scholarship had come of age by the early 1900s, whereas fifty years earlier there had been only a handful of American scholars and scientists of international repute, and the country's higher education lagged far behind its European counterpart. Yet despite the recent popularity of intellectual history and research in higher education, which has produced a veritable flood of publications touching on various aspects of this theme, the heart of the process—the emergence of the academic profession—is still inadequately documented and imperfectly understood.

scholarly journals A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIAL JUSTICE AS THE RULE OF LAW

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Sergey N. Smolnikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Historical Moment

The article considers the place of social justice in modern law. Various aspects are noted: its relationship with the social state, legal state, civilizational particularities, historical features. The question of the significance of choice between the legality and legitimacy of power as a factor in the establishment of social justice is considered. The article raises the issue of the subject-object essence of social justice. It provides a comparison of two approaches to social justice in modern Russia — liberal and conservative, and notes the contradictory nature of both. Attention is drawn to the role of elites, the intelligentsia and the people in the embodiment of the liberal project. The author reveals the historical and civilizational prerequisites for the conservative project domination, its being in demand on the part of both the authorities and significant segments of the population, and its correspondence to the historical moment. The similarity of the conservative response to the challenges facing the society in the United States, Japan, Britain and Russia is substantiated. A sociological comparison of positions on the issues of law as social justice in the West and in Russia is given. There is an increasing divergence in understanding social justice both in the countries of the West (destruction of the social contract, welfare state) and between the West and the rest of the world. The theme of justice is increasingly playing a role in causing mutual claims rather than in stabilizing and maintaining international and civil peace. The paper considers attempts to create domestic models of a just society. Social justice is regarded as a projective concept and presupposes the existence of models of the expected and ideal future of society. The world trend towards change in the ideas of the subject of law and of the paradigm shift from liberalism to transhumanism is noted. It is argued that it is impossible to identify law with social justice.

scholarly journals The politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism: A comparative case study of ride-hailing platforms in China and the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 205943642110467
Author(s):  
Ngai Keung Chan ◽  
Chi Kwok
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Behavioral Predictions

This article uses a comparative case study of two ride-hailing platforms—DiDi Chuxing in China and Uber in the United States—to explore the comparative politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is an emerging economic system that translates human experiences into surveillance assets for behavioral predictions and modifications. Through this comparative study, we demonstrate how DiDi and Uber articulate their operational legitimacy for advancing their corporate interests and visions of datafication in the face of legal uncertainty. Although DiDi and Uber are both “sectoral platforms” in urban mobility with similar visions of datafication and infrastructuralization, we highlight that they deploy different discursive legitimation strategies. Our study shows that Uber adopts a “confrontational” strategy, while DiDi employs a “collaborative” strategy when they need to legitimize their data and business practices to the public and regulatory authorities. This study offers a comparative lens to examine the social and political dynamics of platform firms based in China and the United States and, therefore, contributes to understanding the various aspirational logic of platform thinking in different political contexts.

Consensus and Crisis in American Classical Music Historiography from 1890 to 1950

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-231
Author(s):  
David C. Paul
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gustav Mahler ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Shed Light

In the late nineteenth century American publishers began to answer a burgeoning demand for histories of classical music. Although some of the authors they contracted are well-known to scholars of music in the United States—most notably Edward MacDowell and John Knowles Paine—the books themselves have been neglected. The reason is that these histories are almost exclusively concerned with the European musical past; the United States is a marginal presence in their narratives. But much can be learned about American musical culture by looking more closely at the historiographical practices employed in these histories and the changes that took place in the books that succeeded them in the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, they shed light on the shifting transatlantic connections that shaped American attitudes toward classical music. Marked at first by an Anglo-American consensus bolstered by the social evolutionary theory of prominent Victorians, American classical music histories came to be variegated, a result of the influence of Central European émigrés who fled Hitler’s Germany and settled in North America. The most dramatic part of this transformation pertains to American attitudes toward the link between music and modernity. A case study, the American reception of Gustav Mahler, reveals why Americans began to see signs of cultural decline in classical music only in the 1930s, despite the precedent set by many pessimistic fin-de-siècle European writers.

Secrets of succession: how one family business reached the ninth generation

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 12-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chamsa Fendri ◽  
Pascal Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Family Firms ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Consistent Picture ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the specific structures and routines of family firms and to highlight their strengths and weaknesses using a case study. Design/methodology/approach The case describes a French SME in the construction sector that is undergoing succession from the eighth to the ninth generation. Both generations have offered their viewpoints. The succession context allows us to better distinguish what makes a family firm uniquely resilient and what may easily turn into a weakness. Findings The case indicates that the trust that family owners have cultivated with employees allows the firm to operate less formally and with less rigid procedures. It also encourages employees to take initiatives and contributes to their greater engagement. On the other hand, it may expose the firm to more structured and well-organized competitors. Research limitations/implications The limitations are those relative to the use of a single case. Practical implications Succession is a delicate process that needs to be well prepared and executed without any haste. It involves retaining the firm’s strengths, such as the social capital that the family has patiently amassed. But it also represents an opportunity to review the firm’s practices and to introduce a good dose of innovation. Originality/value The case provides a vivid illustration of what makes family firms so distinctive. Theoretical concepts and empirical findings from the literature are put together in a single consistent picture.

Social Workers’ Impact on Policy Through Regulations: A Case Study of the U.S. Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program

2021 ◽  
pp. 146801732110103
Author(s):  
Susanny J Beltran ◽  
Vivian J Miller ◽  
Tyrone Hamler
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
Writing Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Term Care ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S

Summary Involvement in the political process in the United States is critical for social work professionals, as social policies dictate funding and programming in social work practice. Yet, there is little to no focus given to the regulation writing process in the social work literature in the United States. This article contributes to the scant body of knowledge that addresses the regulatory process from a social work perspective. A brief overview of the regulation writing process is provided, followed by a case study using the regulations for the U.S. Older Americans Act Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program to illustrate the process. Findings A total of 85 comments, submitted to the Federal Register docket, were analyzed using content analysis. Findings reveal that comment submissions varied greatly in terms of length, source, and input. Notably, findings indicate low participation from the social work profession. Application The open comment period of the regulation writing process offers a free, but effortful, window of opportunity for social workers to engage in post-legislative advocacy. There is a need to support the involvement of the social work profession in the regulation writing process, through practice and training enhancements.

scholarly journals From Apprenticeship to Internship: The Social and Legal Antecedents of the Intern Economy

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Frenette
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Government Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Legal Decisions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This article looks towards the future of the intern economy by focusing on its past. What led to recent debates about the intern economy? How did it become legally possible for interns to work for free? Using the United States as my case study, I draw parallels between the current intern economy and its closest historical antecedent, the apprenticeship system. By providing a brief overview of the history of work-based learning and the unpaid internship’s legal underpinnings, this article ultimately frames current lawsuits and debates as a correction to today’s insufficiently scrutinized youth labour regime not unlike the apprenticeship systems of the past. In the attempt to facilitate youth transitions from school to work, yet maintain minimum wage standards, government intervention and—more imminently likely—legal decisions will, I anticipate, eventually transform the intern economy much like the Fitzgerald Act of 1937 drastically formalized apprenticeships in the United States.

scholarly journals Cultural heritage as a means of heritage tourism development

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Alexandra Bitušíková
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
Tourism Development ◽  
Regional Context ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

A large number of studies within the social sciences have been devoted to the relationship between cultural heritage and cultural/ heritage tourism development in recent years and even decades. This area of study has been an object of interest for numerous disciplines, from economics, geography, sociology and history, to ethnology, sociocultural anthropology, museology and cultural studies. The study aims to present selected theories on cultural heritage and heritage tourism based on recent theoretical concepts, and to reflect their implementation within a particular national and regional context based on a case study of the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region, Slovakia.

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