scholarly journals Personal Life, Pragmatism and Bricolage

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 129-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social World ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Link Structure ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Social Legitimation

Individualisation theory misrepresents and romanticises the nature of agency as a primarily discursive and reflexive process where people freely create their personal lives in an open social world divorced from tradition. But empirically we find that people usually make decisions about their personal lives pragmatically, bounded by circumstances and in connection with other people, not only relationally but also institutionally. This pragmatism is often non-reflexive, habitual and routinised, even unconscious. Agents draw on existing traditions - styles of thinking, sanctioned social relationships, institutions, the presumptions of particular social groups and places, lived law and social norms - to ‘patch’ or ‘piece together' responses to changing situations. Often it is institutions that ‘do the thinking’. People try to both conserve social energy and seek social legitimation in this adaption process, a process which can lead to a ‘re-serving' of tradition even as institutional leakage transfers meanings from past to present, and vice versa. But this process of bricolage will always be socially contested and socially uneven. In this way bricolage describes how people actually link structure and agency through their actions, and can provide a framework for empirical research on doing family.

scholarly journals Adopted utility calculus: Origins of a concept of social affiliation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey J Powell
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Preference ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social World ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Social Affiliation ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
Initial Concept ◽  
New View

To successfully navigate their social world, humans need to understand and map enduring relationships between people: we need a concept of social affiliation. Here I propose that our initial concept of social affiliation, available to human infants, is based on the extent to which one individual consistently takes on the goals and needs of another. This proposal grounds affiliation in a commonsense psychology that treats individuals as rational actors, as formalized in the naive utility calculus model. A concept of affiliation based on interpersonal utility adoption can account for findings from studies of infants’ reasoning about imitation and similarity, helpful and fair individuals, “ritual” behaviors, and social groups, without the need for additional innate mechanisms such as a coalitional psychology, moral sense, or general social preference for similar others. This concept of affiliation also offers a new view on the prosocial nature of imitation, placing the value of aligning with someone else’s behavior in the adoption of their goals rather than in mere similarity. I propose further tests of this concept of affiliation, and also discuss how it is likely to be relevant to reasoning and learning about social relationships across the lifespan.

The Cooking Ape: An Interview with Richard Wrangham

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
elisabeth townsend
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Primate Research ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
Cooked Food ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Brain

Humans: The Cooking Ape Perhaps the first to suggest that humans were cooking as early as 1.9 million years ago, Richard Wrangham shows through his new research and his imagination how and possibly when cooking changed humans dramatically. Wrangham, Harvard University primatologist and MacArthur Fellow, has been studying the evolution of human cooking. After 25 years of primate research at his site in Kibale, Uganda, Wrangham is best known for explaining the similarity and differences across species of primate social organizations. In Kibale, he has analyzed chimpanzees’ behavior: how it’s changed when they interact with the environment and how their social groups have evolved. In particular, he noticed how food changed their interactions with each other. Like that of chimps, human behavior has been affected by food, especially as they shifted from raw to cooked food. Moving from eating food as it was discovered to collecting edibles and cooking them altered our social relationships. Cooked food has changed Homo sapiens physically by making food more digestible thereby altering jaws, teeth, and guts, and providing more calories for more expensive organs such as the brain. Wrangham discusses when and how humans may have started using fire to cook food, what they cooked, and the transition from cooking in an outdoor fire to hearths and open ovens.

‘Story of one’s life and a tree of friends’ – understanding millennials’ information behaviour in social networks

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 489-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pam Read ◽  
Chirag Shah ◽  
Lupita S-O’Brien ◽  
Jaqueline Woolcott
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Space ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Comprehensive Literature Review ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rich Data ◽  
Work Supports

Exploring ways in which new technology impacts adolescents’ information behaviours and creates a social space requires holistic investigation. A qualitative study of 21 seniors in an upper-middle-class suburban high school revealed highly individualized use of Facebook and its features. These included: (i) Friends groups of 50—3700 members, with even the largest groups representative primarily of face-to-face connections, and (ii) a clear articulation within those groups of various categories, each with its own distinct communicative channel and style. A meaningful connection was found between the social value of various social network (SN)-mediated relationships and the communicative modes used to maintain and enhance them. Through a comprehensive literature review and clearly grounded analysis of rich data, this work supports the contention that adolescent social groups in which SNs are embedded form a distinct domain, and establishes a rationale for further investigation of adolescents’ contextualized use of SNs within social relationships.

scholarly journals Motivation and resistance as predictors of sports practice expectations: a case study of the Physical and Sports Activity students of the Central University of Ecuador (Motivaciones y resistencias, e imagen del profesorado de actividad física y deportiva

Retos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 262-270
Author(s):  
Jenny Esmeralda Martínez Benítez ◽  
LLuisa Aitana Sauleda Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Sports Activity ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Data Collection Technique ◽  
Interpretative Approach ◽  
The Impact

Abstract: This study analyzes factors that may influence the expectations of practicing future sports. Among these factors, the motivation and resistance towards the practice of physical activity and sports from 300 students of the Central University of Ecuador are analysed. The metaphorical constructions of the students are also interpreted in relation to the impact that the physical activity and sports -PAS has in their personal lives. The metaphorical constructions of the students, in relation to the meaning that the PAS represents in their personal life are also considered and the students’ perception of their Physical activity and Sports teachers also is requested. Finally, the expectations of PAS practice that they express are taken into account. The methodology is qualitative with an interpretative approach. The data collection technique is an interview that allows you to understand the problem from the perspective of its protagonists. In the data processing, the Aquad 6 computer program is used, which allows the analysis of the narratives through categories and codes. The results show that motivation exceeds resistance, and that the lack of time is its great difficulty to practice. In the study of metaphors, the level of satisfaction indicated, coincides with the metaphors of the value of PAS in personal life as a source of well-being and health. The findings show high expectations which could be correlated with the positive satisfactions in practice, the image of the teaching staff and the vital relevance they attach to the PAS.Resumen: Esta investigación analiza factores que pueden influir en las expectativas de práctica deportiva futura. Específicamente, se analizan las motivaciones y resistencias hacia la práctica de actividad física y deportiva de 300 estudiantes de la Universidad Central del Ecuador. Asimismo, se analizan las construcciones metafóricas de los estudiantes en relación al sentido que la actividad física y el deporte- AFD representa en su vida personal. Estos resultados se relacionan con la percepción que los estudiantes tienen de su profesorado de Actividad Física y Deportiva y con la representación metafórica de la imagen del profesor de AFD que se les solicita. Finalmente, se analizan las expectativas de práctica de AFD que manifiestan. La metodología es cualitativa con un enfoque interpretativo. La recogida de datos se registra mediante una entrevista que permite comprender la problemática desde la perspectiva de sus protagonistas. En el procesamiento de datos se utiliza el programa informático Aquad 6, que posibilita el análisis de las narrativas a través de categorías y códigos. Los resultados evidencian que la afección supera a la resistencia, que la falta de tiempo es su mayor dificultad para la práctica. En el estudio de metáforas, las satisfacciones señaladas, la salud y la satisfacción en la práctica, coinciden con las imágenes del valor de la AFD en su vida personal como fuente de bienestar y salud. La opinión sobre el profesorado es positiva y la imagen metafórica muestra una visión idealizada del profesor en el que quieren convertirse. Los hallazgos muestran altas expectativas lo que podría correlacionarse con las positivas satisfacciones en la práctica, la imagen del profesorado y la vital relevancia que conceden a la AFD.

The Desirable and Undesirable in the life of the Chief Immigration Officer in Cape Town, Clarence Wilfred Cousins, 1905–1915

Itinerario ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-66
Author(s):  
Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Social World ◽  
Personal Life

This article argues that while immigration exclusions of those considered undesirable were clearly set out by legislation, the subjectivity of the immigration officer was an important aspect of implementation. Drawing on the diaries and personal letters of the officer based at Cape Town, the article focuses on his emotions as he went about his daily life and moved between different intimate city spaces – home, church, docks and office. Bringing together his social world with his world of work, the article argues that what the immigration officer considered desirable in his personal life influenced how he conducted his work at the port.

Groups and Social Boundaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-108
Author(s):  
Jan Fuhse
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Concept ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Network Patterns ◽  
Social Units

Social groups were a key concept in early sociology (German formal sociology, symbolic interactionism). Since the 1960s, they have been replaced by “social network” as the prime concept for informal social structures. We rarely find the bounded and internally homogeneous social units suggested by the group concept in the real world. Instead, individuals are embedded in a complex mesh of social relationships. Building on relational sociology, we can reconceptualize groups as a particular case of densely connected network patterns of social relationships. These exist only by degree, to the extent that they are reinforced by a social boundary separating the group members symbolically from the outside world and by foci of activity for the group to meet. Densely connected groups develop a particular group culture, and they frequently use symbols to signal group membership and the cultural difference to other groups and to the wider cultural context (group style).

Human Rights

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rex Honey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Geographical Research ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Just Society

Scholarship addressing the geography of human rights— the geographical analysis of the ways cultures conceive of justice and understand just behavior—improves both our understanding of human rights and our understanding of geography. A full understanding of struggles over human rights requires a geographical perspective, a consideration of the contexts in which the struggles occur. Conceptualizations of human rights and the abuse of human rights do not just happen. They are the products of human action in particular cultural and environmental settings. They are place-based and socially constructed, products of processes not only tied to place but also altering the significance of place. Human rights scholarship that omits geographical background and geographical consequences misses the target because it fails to capture both the cultural struggles over what a just society is and the milieu of interrelated sites of injustice. If geographical research addressing oppression does not explicitly address human rights, then virtually by definition such work does so implicitly. At its core, human rights scholarship addresses oppression. Hence, such geographical scholarship as the work of Knopp (1997) addressing gay rights and of Monk (1998) addressing women’s rights fits into the scope of the geography of human rights in America. To fulfill its potential as a scholarly discipline examining the human condition, geography needs to focus on human rights. The spotlight of geographic education’s five themes—place, location, region, nature–society relations, movement—should be focused on what truly matters in people’s lives, including human rights. Likewise, the study of human rights, with its vexing examination of rights and wrong, needs the nuanced sensitivity of geography, with its study of cultural and environmental contexts. To wit, geography needs human rights and human rights needs geography. Geographical research that has been done or is in progress explains why. Indeed, the roster of former presidents of the Association of American Geographers contains many individuals whose professional and personal lives were committed to the furtherance of human rights. Among them are such luminaries as Richard Hartshorne, Harold Rose, Gilbert White, Julian Wolpert, and Richard Morrill, each of whom struggled for the advance of human rights in his personal life as well as his scholarly work.

scholarly journals Work and personal life: Which strategies do secondary school educators use to deal with the interaction?

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizelle Wentzel ◽  
Chenell Buys ◽  
Karina Mostert
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Phenomenological Method ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Analysis Strategies ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Educational Field

The general objective of this study was to investigate which strategies secondary school educators use to deal with the interaction between their work and personal lives. A non-probability purposive voluntary sample (N = 21) was taken of secondary school educators from the Potchefstroom and Promosa areas in the North West Province. Data was collected through a phenomenological method of semi-structured in-depth interviews and was analysed by the use of content analysis. Strategies that were reported by the educators included support and understanding from important others, work satisfaction, keeping work and personal life apart, acceptance of their teaching environment, planning ahead, experiencing teaching as a calling, experience in the educational field, communication, religion or prayer, doing exercise and staying active, and doing the work that is expected of them.

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