Creative Activism and Art Against Urban Renaissance and Social Exclusion – Space Sensitive Approaches to the Study of Collective Action and Belonging

Creative activism and urban art are increasingly being used as an instrument to collectively re‐appropriate the urban space and thus articulate urban belonging and citizenship from below. In cities worldwide, where different politics of place stimulate capitalist appropriation, individuals and groups use the public space as a laboratory for resistance, creative act, and as a medium for communication. As such, creative activism is a strategy for those who are widely excluded from social, political, cultural, and economic participation. Collectives are built through joint actions and experiences that are translated into the production situated forms of urban belonging. By drawing on space sensitive and situationist approaches and the power of creativity as an important moment in the analysis of action, the paper provides examples of how collective action and belonging is produced under conditions of contentious politics and exclusion that go beyond social norms, the social containment of institutions, ¹ and imposed collective identities.     

Politics, Social Movements, and the Body

This paper outlines a conceptual idea of the 'body' in social movement research that captures how the body is both the materialization of civic culture and empowering agent of change. After critically reviewing the three main debates on the body literature –'biopolitics', 'embodiment' and 'feminism'– I explain why each fails to provide an adequate account of the embodied self in social movements. I suggest combining the concepts of 'performativity. and 'performance' to capture how social movements use, challenge, and reproduce civic norms to construct 'embodied performances' as forms of symbolic communication for the purposes of stimulating cultural and political change. By combining the two concepts, I will put forth an theory of the body in social movements that addresses: 1) the constraints of normative civic ethics that limit possible forms of struggle as well as foreshadow political consequences 2) how embodied performances create community and solidarity within a heterogeneous population to make mobilization possible and 3) the stratification and sometimes fracturing of social groups during the social movement process.     

Extracting the commons

This article investigates how resources that are perceived as common are turned into property through different interventions of extractivism, and how this provokes counter-activism from groups and actors who see their rights and living conditions threatened by the practices of extraction. The article looks at how extraction is enacted through three distinct practices: prospecting, enclosure and unbundling, studied through three different cases. The cases involve resources that are material and immaterial, renewable as well as non-renewable, ‘natural’ as well as man-made. Prospecting is exemplified by patenting of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, enclosure is exemplified by debates over copyright expansionism and information commons, and unbundling through conflicts over mining and gas extraction. The article draws on fieldwork involving interviews and participant observation with protesters at contested mining sites in Australia and with digital rights activists from across the world who protest against how the expansion of copyright limits public access to culture and information. The article departs from an understanding of ‘commons’ not as an open access resource, but as a resource shared by a group of people, often subjected to particular social norms that regulate how it can be used. Enclosure and extraction are both social processes, dependent on recognising some and downplaying or misrecognising other social relations when it comes to resources and processes of property creation. These processes are always, regardless of the particular resources at stake, cultural in the sense that the uses of the commons are regulated through cultural norms and contracts, but also that they carry profound cultural and social meanings for those who use them. Finally, the commonalities and heterogeneities of these protest movements are analysed as ‘working in common’, where the resistance to extraction in itself represents a process of commoning.     

Learning from tradition: the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world

This paper analyses the community values of residential neighborhoods in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia as an approach to a new theory in urbanism. The indigenous masterbuilders and tribemen incorporated planning decisions pertinent to climatic, cultural, social, economic and religious factors when designing physical elements in their built environment. This is what makes every traditional settlement in the southwest region of Saudi Arabia unique in terms of urban form and social structure. As a step to examining and evaluating the process of residential neighborhood development, three stages of practiced urbanism are discussed. These stages are labelled “vernacular”, “transitional” and “new vernacularism”. These are planning concepts used worldwide in the development of residential neighborhoods throughout history until the present. “New Vernacularism” is envisioned in this investigation as a design/planning objective implemented in most recently planned neighborhoods in Al-Horaidhah, Southwest Saudi Arabia. The achievement of successful urbanism underlies the political goals of urban planning practice. The Al-Horaidhah planning concept is conceived in the light of preservation of community values in neighborhood design/planning as a critical issue.The paper aims to investigate and reconcile the conflicts in the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world. The conflicts are restricted between retaining traditions of architecture, urban design and planning with the necessary social, economic, and technological changes in urban formation, mainly, the vernacular and modern. The paper illustrates the concept “New Vernacularism” by presenting Al-Horaidhah scheme as a model for community development in three administrative regions along the Red Sea coastline. “New Vernacularism” as a planning concept looks at the community development in Al-Horaidhah in the light of Sharicah, the Islamic Law and Customary norms by emphasizing the importance of the involvement of local residents in the planning process and gives suggestions of how this might best be achieved and later implemented into new communities.     

The social dimension of the Southern Vowel Shift: Gender, age and class

The three most broadly recognized dialect areas of American Regional English are currently being re-defined by, in some cases, sweeping changes that alter the way vowels are being pronounced in the South, North and West. While research into the changes in urban Northern dialects has contributed a fairly broad picture of both the phonetic and social character of the Northern Cities Shift (NCS), the changes affecting the Southern region of the U.S. have received less attention, particularly in terms of social distribution and dissemination. This paper seeks to address the question of how successfully changes in the high and mid front and back vowels in the South are being disseminated throughout a local urban community and how these changes fit in with changes occurring in other American dialects. In addition, the paper weighs the attraction to local or national norms in determining the success and diffusion of each of the shifts relative to the social environment in which they are developing and attempts to relate the local social embedding of the shifts to their meaning in the larger national context.     

WWW.FAITH.ORG (Re)structuring communication and the social capital of religious organizations

This paper examines the relationships between Internet and social capital building within religious organizations, which are relatively understudied foci. Building upon theoretical insights provided by new institutionalism and recent research on the Internet, social capital and religion, this article explores the ways in which religious organizations have (re)structured their norms, values, and practices of religious community in light of the incorporation of the Internet into their congregational life. Drawing from interviews conducted with Christian and Buddhist religious leaders in Toronto, this article discusses three major relationships in which the effects of the Internet on social capital may be understood, that is, complementary, transformative, and perverse relationships. Religious organizations are traditionally associated with relatively high stocks of social capital, yet findings here suggest that their communicative norms, values, and practices are changing to a varying extent. The results also indicate that the relationship between the Internet and social capital building is largely complementary; however, the Internet is perceived by some to be a 'mixed blessing', facilitating the potential transformation of organizational practices that affect community norms while leading to the dispersion of religious ties that could undermine community solidarity. Thus, contrary to earlier studies that have documented no evidence of innovations involving the reconfiguration of organizational practices and the adjustment of mission or services, findings here illustrate how some religious organizations have expanded the scope of their calling and restructured their communicative practices to spur administrative and operational effectiveness. Like other organizations, religious organizations are not insulated from technological changes including those associated with the Internet. This study clarifies and identifies key ways in which the distinct spirituality, cultural values, and institutional practices and norms of religious organizations influence communication processes that constitute bridging and bonding forms of social capital in this dot.org era of faith.     

Social Movement Scenes: Place‐Based Politics and Everyday Resistance

Sociologists Darcy Leach and Sebastian Haunss coined the term “social movement scene” to refer to people “who share a common identity and a common set of subcultural or countercultural beliefs, values, norms” and the network of physical places they frequent. Leach and Haunss explain the numerous ways in which scenes can benefit social movements (e.g. as pools of mobilization or as places for cultural experimentation) and that scenes are places where resistance happens. I propose that thinking of a scene as a process is more useful than thinking of it as a stable context where political activity happens. Scenes are the products of urban protests, such as squatting; rituals, such as protest and music; and the activities of everyday life. Drawing on research from sociologists, geographers, historians, and cultural studies scholars, I discuss social movement scenes on both the political left and right in terms of their spatial, symbolic, and relational dimensions.     

Building Community from "Scratch": Forces at Work among Urban Vietnamese Refugees in Milwaukee

Drawing from extensive participant observation and qualitative interviewing, this paper describes and analyzes the Vietnamese "community" in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The author concludes that community, both as an element that is sensed by its members and a process identified by actual interaction, is virtually nonexistent. Ten specific forces that inhibit community formation are identified under the overlapping categories of demographics, organizational issues, cultural factors, and class/power interests. The underlying tendencies toward family isolationism and radical individualism are implicated as driving social forces that undermine community building. Lessons learned from this case study about the process of community formation include the insufficiency of a common "enemy" or ethnic identity for sustainable community, social psychological issues, and environmental influences, as well as survival needs.     

Impact of Culture on Lactation Policies: The Case of United States and Liberia

ABSTRACT

Programs or policies that are effective in reducing social problems have several things in common: They acknowledge the realities of culture, respect the sociocultural underpinnings of the community, and are often built on an innovative understanding of the issues. Policies that are created without regard for the culture in which they are to operate are destined to fail. This study discusses cultural attributes of different motivations, benefits, and approaches to breast-feeding, depending on the development of their infrastructure, scientific understanding, reliance on myths to understand their environment, and social norms. It argues that in some cases ignorance and lack of scientific information result in policies (both formal and informal) that negatively impact breast-feeding, whereas in other cases cultural or social norms drive policy decisions. Three examples of policies that impact breast-feeding negatively are discussed in this article. Two of them relate to developing nations and the third occurred in the United States, although it could also occur anywhere people lack basic information about the impact of hormones on normal human physiology and human sexual response.     

“We have to take these guys out”: Motivations for Assaulting Incarcerated Child Molesters

We know very little about how incarcerated men justify assaults against at‐risk inmates such as child molesters. For this article, we fill this gap in the literature by examining how men describe these assaults as a way to align their own violent behavior with more conventional mores. We find that formerly incarcerated men justify violence as a way to raise their own social status and promote cultural norms against child abuse. When inmates attack someone convicted of child molestation, they do so to punish him and provide a “service” to their community. Furthermore, they elevate their own social status and distance themselves from these offenders. Theoretically, this work broadens our understanding of verbal justifications for violent action.     

Formal Voluntary Organizations: Participation, Correlates, and Interrelationships

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the literature on formal voluntay organizations in the urban community. The theoretical approaches that guided much of the research in this area are identifid as social structural, social psychological, and organizational. Basic findings suggest that formal participation, including church membership, is a characteristic of urban life. Population characteristics, attitudes, informal interaction, and community involvement are all related to formal membership. Moreover, formal organizations attempt to integrate individuals with the larger community, and such groups, in urbanizing areas, facilitate modernization.     

创新“城中村”社区治理的对策思考——以泉州市城东片区四社区为研究对象

创新"城中村"社区治理工作,是有效推进社会管理的重要内容。近年来泉州市在"城中村"社区治理方面进行了积极探索,并取得明显成效。要实现以"城中村"社区治理工作的创新推动城市管理创新,泉州应该在社区治理主体多元化、社区工作方式民主化、居民保障水平提高、社区管理者素质提升、社区文化建设加强等五个方面继续推进各种有益探索。     

Ideological or religious? Contending visions on the future of Alevi identity

Establishing a coherent collective identity within the modern urban context among people who have different ideological, social and religious orientations, and social and economic backgrounds, is an ongoing struggle within the Alevi community in Turkey. This study tries to understand how alternative positions on Alevi identity dynamically construct the boundaries, moral contents and the new shape of Alevi identity in modern urban contexts through use of various discursive resources. At least two main contending ‘positions’ on Alevi identity try to institutionalise Alevi identity in modern urban contexts, which are ‘Ideological Position’ and ‘Religious Position’. Those discourse positions constitute different visions about the past and the future of the Alevi community as well as the cultural and the political boundaries of Alevi identity. More importantly, those positions resonate in ordinary citizens’ life stories as well as group narratives. This study utilises the analytical frame of ‘positioning theory’ to shed light on the complexities of identity negotiation.     

Supporting Asian Deaf Young People and their Families: the role of professionals and services

This paper discusses how Asian deaf young people and their families engage with welfare provision. Our findings, based on group and individual interviews with young deaf people and individual interviews with their parents, explore the assumptions underlying current provision and how they influence the options available to young people and their families. The paper suggests that the welfare state exerts a form of social control where professional help, although well intended, may disempowers Asian deaf people by privileging 'oralism' over sign language, and western norms over other cultural values. On the other hand, positive constructions of deafness privilege Deaf identity while failing to accommodate ethnic or religious diversity, resulting in Asian deaf young people and their families having an ambivalent relationship with the Deaf community. We argue that services need to recognise and address the reasons for this ambivalence if they are to adequately engage Asian deaf people and their families.     

Religious Culture and Political Action

Recent work by political sociologists and social movement theorists extend our understanding of how religious institutions contribute to expanding democracy, but nearly all analyze religious institutions as institutions; few focus directly on what religion qua religion might contribute. This article strives to illuminate the impact of religious culture per se, extending recent work on religion and democratic life by a small group of social movement scholars trained also in the sociology of religion. In examining religion's democratic impact, an explicitly cultural analysis inspired by the new approach to political culture developed by historical sociologists and cultural analysts of democracy is used to show the power of this approach and to provide a fuller theoretical account of how cultural dynamics shape political outcomes. The article examines religious institutions as generators of religious culture, presents a theoretical model of how religious cultural elements are incorporated into social movements and so shape their internal political cultures, and discusses how this in turn shapes their impact in the public realm. This model is then applied to a key site of democratic struggle: four efforts to promote social justice among low-income urban residents of the United States, including the most widespread such effort—faith-based community organizing.     

Techniques of neutralising wildlife crime in rural England and Wales

Within rural studies there have been few attempts to critically analyse crimes against nature. This paper addresses this gap by providing an analysis of farmers’ reasons for illegally culling badgers in the United Kingdom. Drawing on Sykes and Matza’s (1957) concepts of neutralisation and drift, the paper shows how farmers rationalise this activity. Using in-depth interviews with 61 farmers in the England and Wales, the paper shows how they justify badger culling through discursive strategies that claim the activity is necessary, deny the necessity of the law, condemning the condemners, and appealing to community loyalties The paper also shows that neutralisation helps identify contextual factors that allow farmers to drift ambiguously between deviant values and social norms. In the case of badger culling, drift is attributable to an attack on a particular rural identity and way of living that has left farmers perceiving their selves as an effect. As much as they are attempts to rationalise criminal behaviour, neutralisation techniques can also be seen as spatial discourses demarcating the boundaries of cultural and spatial identities. In conclusion, the paper discusses the implications for resolving the problems of wildlife crime.     

Understanding Intergenerational Relationships in India

ABSTRACT

This paper makes an attempt to describe the status and role of elderly within the family and community institutions as a source of wisdom and knowledge, particularly to have an understanding of the intergenerational relationships in the Indian context. As the countries and areas of Asia develop economically and become more heavily urban, the familial support of the elderly has eroded. There are a number of reasons to think that traditional systems of familial care for the elderly in Asia have started to reflect this changing scenario in terms of increasing problems for the elderly. The Indian subcontinent too has experienced these transitional changes. But despite the changes in the structures and functions of Indian societies, families do preserve the norms of social hierarchy (of which the elderly are an important part), cultural styles and mode of living. At the same time elderly who are regarded as the sources of wisdom and knowledge are given due respect and place in the society within the ambit of the family and community contexts.     

Technologies for Learning from Intercultural Reflections

This paper explores how technologies can transform the obstacles of geographical and cultural distance into new opportunities for learning and personal growth. In particular, it focuses on the potential benefits of reflection in the context of cross-cultural exchange and how technology can bring those benefits to the classroom. Several instances of research explore the uses of technology for promoting cross-cultural contact as a way to expose students and teachers to fresh models of educational values and practices. A consistent result is that, when people experience a new culture or community or even a new classroom, they report an increase in reflection, both about their identities as new members of the community and about their personal goals and responsibility in relation to the values of the new community. Reflection appears as a deeply social act. Several examples highlight two social functions of reflection in the context of cross-cultural interaction. One important function is to help people decide which aspects of culture to appropriate and how to adapt those aspects to their own interests. Another important function of reflection is to help people become more receptive to the presence of different values and practices. The paper concludes with a set of provisional design principles for encouraging learning through cross-cultural reflection.