Viewpoint: Place and space in sociological fieldwork

This brief note argues against the tendency in sociological fieldwork to limit observation and explanation to one medium of communication – speech. Against such ethnographic reductionism, it pleads for a reincorporation of a sense of place and space in fieldwork, and for attention to the multiple ways in which messages are communicated.     

The Christian difference: Surviving postmodernism

Abstract

Drawing on the work of Nicholas Boyle, this paper argues that postmodernism represents the intellectual style we should expect as part of developing global capitalist regimes. Accordingly, I argue that postmodernism is not a friend but an enemy to Christianity just to the extent the former tempts us to lose our history. In that respect, the challenge of postmodernism is no different than the challenge of modernity. It becomes the Christian task now to narrate modernity and postmodernity on our own terms rather than those offered by the postmodernists. But for Christianity to be capable of such narration, it must rediscover in its own life the significance of the church which is capable of surviving in a world which is in many ways quite accurately described as postmodern.     

Developing Effective Mentoring Relationships: Strategies From the Mentor's Viewpoint

Mentoring is being increasingly used by companies as a means of fostering employee learning and development. Limited research exists from the perspective of the mentor on these relationships. This article presents the results of a qualitative study that investigated the characteristics that the ideal mentor should possess and ways that both mentors and protégés can make mentoring relationships most effective. Findings from the study are used to frame suggestions for future research and practice.     

Recognizing difference: in/visibility in the everyday life of individuals with facial limb absence

People who lack part(s) of their face have a visibly different appearance both due to their facial difference itself and the medical aids that they use to cover it (e.g. prostheses, bandages). In this article, we draw on interviews with affected individuals in order to investigate how visible difference features in their everyday experience. The visibility of their facial difference, we show, comes into play as they interact with various others in the contexts of their daily life. However, respondents’ visibility manifests in different ways, depending on whether they cover or uncover their facial difference. These different modes of visibility make for distinct ‘visibility experiences’, as participants meet others who notice – or fail to notice – their atypical appearance. By exploring these experiences, our article provides insights into the role of visibility in interviewees’ everyday life, and demonstrates how they actively negotiate their social recognition within encounters with various others.     

Towards an Insurrectionary Power/Knowledge: Movement-Relevance,Anti-Oppression,Prefiguration

Despite ongoing efforts to articulate radical methods and theoretical frameworks for social movement research, the field remains embedded in exploitative, oppressive, and hierarchical modes of knowledge production. Following Foucault, I argue that this is because societies like ours, founded through racial and patriarchal violence, are invested in a regime of truth supportive of that violence. In light of this, I argue that social movements scholars need to adopt a radically different form of knowledge practice. Building on anarchist, anti-racist feminist, and anti-colonial scholarship, this paper begins by analysing how liberalism constrains social justice organizing and how academic norms foreclose accountable social movements scholarship. I then introduce three unique ethics emerging in resistance to this situation: movement-relevant, anti-oppressive, and prefigurative. The first confronts the extractive imperatives of enlightenment truth-making; the second resists its neutral and disinterested tendencies; and the third models a rejection of its hierarchical and exclusive mode of authority. I argue that together they provide scholars with a strategy for re-/orienting their research towards what Foucault theorizes as an insurrection of knowledges. These three ethical frameworks combine to facilitate an insurrectionary power/knowledge that fosters collective struggle as it progressively dismantles the regime of truth underlying social movements research.     

从多维视角透视“代沟”的影响

本文以社会学、文化学、心理学等多学科为背景,从社会、家庭、个体三个层面,即宏观、中观、微观多维视角对"代沟"可能存在的影响作一探讨.认为"代沟"对社会诸层面的影响具有积极和消极双重效应,而何种性质的影响占主导及其影响程度则取决于社会变迁的速度、强度和广度,以及人们的"代沟"意识等因素.总体而言,现代社会中的"代沟"是一种具有进步意义的社会现象.     

气密性生物安全实验室应对开关门的压差控制策略研究

目的研究气密性生物安全实验室（BSL）应对开关门的压差控制策略。方法理论分析开关门对实验室风量及压差的影响,并进行对比实验研究气密性实验室分别在有无人为附加漏风两种情况下开关门对实验室压差的影响。结果提出了实验室核心工作间与缓冲间分别采用变风量（VAV）、定风量（CAV）的压差控制与人为附加漏风相结合的综合控制策略。结论该控制策略可有效应对开关门对实验室压差稳定的干扰,并保证实验室的定向流。     

Viewpoint The body of intellectuals/the intellectuals’ body (remarks for Roland)

Apparently Arab scholars, when speaking of the text, use this admirable expression: the certain body. What body? We have several of them; the body of anatomists and physiologists, the one science sees or discusses: this is the text of grammarians, critics, commentators, philologists (the pheno-text). But we also have a body of bliss consisting solely of erotic relations, utterly distinct from the first body: it is another contour, another nomination; thus with the text: it is no more than the open list of the fires of language… R. Barthes, 1973:16–17 The corpus: what a splendid idea! Providing one is willing to read the body in the corpus: either because in the group of texts reserved for study (and which form the corpus) the pursuit is no longer of structure alone but of the figures of the utterance; or because one has a certain erotic relation with this group of texts (without which the corpus is merely a scientific image-repertoire). R. Barthes, 1975:161     

E时代台湾大学生的性爱观

台湾大学生在性爱问题上已淡化传统色彩,崇尚享乐主义,台湾青年痛苦指数攀升,工具主义、功利主义在学校教育中盛行.台湾青年的性爱观及其性行为,带来不少社会问题,台湾高校的对策之一是重开品德课.     

Americans are more exposed to difference than we think: Capturing hidden exposure to political and racial difference

Use of name generators (NG) in assessing exposure to political difference has led to the conclusion that disagreement is uncommon. Data from two representative surveys tested a NG modification to probe for exposure to difference. Over half for whom NG results suggest no exposure to difference were able to name an alter who supported an alternative candidate. Over a quarter whose NG results indicate no exposure to a racial difference were able to name someone of the opposite race with whom they’d talked politics. These findings demonstrate that mixed or diverse networks are more common than prior NG research suggests.     

Capability and happiness: Conceptual difference and reality links

Happiness is not the same as capability, but the matters are related. Capability is obviously required for living a happy life and happiness feeds back on capability in several ways. Capabilities affect happiness not only at the individual level, but also indirectly at the societal level. For instance: school education does not seem to make pupils any happier, but a high level of education is required for modern society that does add to happiness.Insight in the interrelations between capability and happiness is required for making policy choices. If the prime aim is greater happiness for a greater number, one must know what capabilities are most functional for happiness in the given conditions. If the cultivation of capabilities is prioritized, one must at least acknowledge the possible loss of happiness. Inspection of the available data does not reveal much conflict.     

Making a difference: ethical consumption and the everyday

Our everyday shopping practices are increasingly marketed as opportunities to ‘make a difference’ via our ethical consumption choices. In response to a growing body of work detailing the ways in which specific alignments of ‘ethics’ and ‘consumption’ are mediated, we explore how ‘ethical’ opportunities such as the consumption of Fairtrade products are recognized, experienced and taken‐up in the everyday. The ‘everyday’ is approached here via a specially commissioned Mass Observation directive, a volunteer panel of correspondents in the UK. Our on‐going thematic analysis of their autobiographical accounts aims to explore a complex unevenness in the ways ‘ordinary’ people experience and negotiate calls to enact their ethical agency through consumption. Situating ethical consumption, moral obligation and choice in the everyday is, we argue, important if we are to avoid both over‐exaggerating the reflexive and self‐conscious sensibilities involved in ethical consumption, and, adhering to a reductive understanding of ethical self‐expression.