话语与权力对当前中国“剩女”形象的社会建构

近年来"剩女"问题已成为大众传媒和社会舆论广泛关注的议题,"剩女"成为社会现象与我国当前的性别文化传播以及传统文化观念有着密切的联系。本文从话语与权力的关系着手,对"剩女"问题进行分析,发现"剩女"议题是人为建构的社会问题,是男权思维定势下对优秀女性的贬低,是男高女低婚恋观的延续,是大众传媒市场化的结果。"剩女"形象是男性话语对优质单身女性施加的符号暴力,是男性权力对大龄未婚女性的污名化。     

都市女性恋爱暴力的质性研究

本文借用曾流行于亚洲的韩国电影《我的野蛮女友》的影像为引题,探讨了中国都市年轻人的暴力经验,尤其是女性在恋爱中的暴力行为所投射出来的社会文化图景。本文是一项建立在三次焦点小组、42位年轻人(其中13位男性,29位女性)的深度半结构式访问之上的质性研究。从第三波女性主义对于暴力研究的立场出发,本文显示了中国多层次的社会性别、爱情、性的话语怎样给年轻人提供自由表达的空间,去理解女性恋爱暴力的文化"合理性"。而年轻人,是怎样通过所经历的恋爱暴力塑造自己的社会性别,其叙述又是如何展示两性恋爱形态的变迁。在此基础上,进一步探索了在青年的亚文化话语空间中,"野蛮女友,温柔男友"的现代都市恋爱新模式的出现,以及中国都市青年的女性气质和男性气质的文化建构。     

对产品说明的批判话语分析——以X女性沐浴露为例

本文拟通过对产品说明的批判话语分析,找到生产者影响消费行为的路径,更深层次地挖掘这些路径背后的文化因素。一方面,生产者运用话语策略赋予消费者规范性行为期待,对消费者产生权力控制。另一方面,男权社会中男性对女性的远距离权力规训,使得女性按照男性的审美要求来消费。     

女性青年农民工发展问题研究

女性青年农民工进入城市后所遇到的困难和问题或许会较男性更多,在城市发展过程中由此所付出的诸如生活、工作、生理和心理成本也可能会更多,这些均对她们的生存与发展影响极大。本文在对外来人口的重要聚集地之一:上海浦东新区实证调查基础上,从女性青年农民工群体的文化构成、就业状况、收入情况、社会关系、权益保障、居住地域、婚姻生活等维度进行分析探讨,针对在城市社会经济快速发展与转型过程中女性青年农民工群体存在的一些主要发展问题,提出旨在促进其发展的对策建议。     

“事业线”：青年女性的职场新污名

“事业线”在现代社会背景下有了全新的意涵与表征。它从手掌这一中性的身体意象中“逸出”而投射到了女性的胸部,同时形成了对女性身体的物化和贬损,而这种现象在青年女性的职场生活中显得尤为突出。在身体社会学的视野中看来,“事业线“是一种青年女性的职场新污名。这一污名来源于男性的凝视、身体资本的积累逻辑以及身体消费便利性等因素间的相互作用,并负面地影响了青年女性的身体健康。探索新污名的生成机制、社会后果以及治理策略对青年女性在职场中的和谐发展有着重要的现实意义。     

海明威的女性身体观

海明威深受达尔文、弗洛伊德、尼采等哲学家的影响,在作品中呈现了独特的女性身体观,即女性身体的动物性。与维多利亚时代相反,女性步入公共空间,然而尚不能与男性竞争以获得独立的经济能力。在这样的社会适应过程中,许多女性沦为性消费对象,即用身体的交换来获得生活保障。这传递了海明威对女性的同情。     

“身体写作”与女性自觉

“身体写作”最早由西方女权主义者提出并倡导。它旨在反对男性中心的话语方式,建立女性自己的言说方式和书写向度。而当代中国文坛上流行的“身体写作”,却是一种“欲望写作”,偏离了女性自觉的轨道。我们应倡导女性自觉状态下的“身体写作”。     

传统文化符号与高校青年文化身份认同

文化符号是地域、民族或国家文化内涵的重要载体和形式。文化符号对象化的结构性机制可以反观人类整体结构、总体精神的发展,也可以使人反观自我个性的状态和形成自我身份认同。传承传统文化符号是青年文化身份认同的重要内容维度。当前消费主义文化下的符号消费对传统文化符号的异化表达,后现代虚无主义文化下对文化符号的碎片化解读,全球化下文化冲突对本土文化符号的挑战等情况不同程度地造成文化符号记忆断裂,影响高校青年群体的自我身份认同。为此,要与时俱进地推进传统文化符号的现当代发展;增强文化自信,不断增进高校青年文化身份认同感;运用高校德育教育体系,培养青年群体传承文化符号的文化自觉。     

广告对青年女性形象的建构作用——以20世纪30年代《申报》图片广告为例

20世纪30年代《申报》的青年女性图片广告,在当时特立独行地塑造出了与其时代相一致的青年女性形象。它不仅是报业史上探索媒介经营的先驱和范本,更是研究当时上海大都会文化和城市气质构建的样本。当时的广告文本与当代审美文化中的广告内容有诸多共通之处:营造优雅、健康、文明的现代日常市民生活氛围,对传统审美文化的承继,对时尚美和健康美的追求,对自由独立生活的渴望。当代青年女性广告文化的内涵和策略,在那里可以找到萌芽和渊源。这对于现今广告人构建青年女性的图片广告以及塑造人物形象具有参考价值。     

去中心化与再中心化：跨文化性别形象的青年传播圈层建构

圈层化传播是社交媒体时代信息交往的重要形式。文章从青年社交媒体用户对跨文化女性形象的圈层认知建构出发,剖析青年传播圈层形成的内源机制与外源动因。基于网络田野和深度访谈法,研究发现：圈层化传播是青年文化的突出特征,也是青年群体内部交流互动的主要方式,已成为网络多元文化发展的推动力量。在全球化系统下的本土话语逻辑生成过程中,青年传播圈层对跨文化性别符号进行了现代性改造和本土化加工。在新型社会关系和群体身份认同的双重作用下,围绕跨文化性别形象所形成的青年传播圈层呈现出性别层面的“去中心化”和族裔层面的“再中心化”特征。青年圈层传播路径一方面折射了后全球化时代文化杂糅对青年群体身份建构的影响,另一方面也反映出不同青年圈层围绕价值观念和话语建构权的博弈。     

Back and Forth and Beyond

The Journal invited Tom Andersen, author of major pioneering work on the reflecting team, and his colleagues, to offer comment on The Reflecting Team Process in Training. We thought such a north-south dialogue was in keeping with the spirit of reflecting teams, and the team members in Melbourne and Tromsø agree — Editor.     

Time and aging--mechanisms and meanings

A recent European Molecular Biology Laboratory Conference on Science and Society entitled "Time & Aging--Mechanisms & Meanings" fascinated scientists from different research areas as well as nonscientists. Topics discussed included not only the biological aging process but also the psychological effects of aging and social influences that affect this process.     

Arts and Crafts and Reconstruction

Abstract

This paper examines the role of arts and crafts in reconstructing communities after times of upheaval, their use in creating employment opportunities, and their impact on the nature of South African art history. It looks at craft initiatives during and after the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, and draws parallels with early twentieth-century initiatives, particularly those of Florence Phillips, who founded the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1910, Emily Hobhouse, who established Boer home industries, and the South African National Union, which promoted the manufacture and use of local products.     

Sexual Compulsivity and Sexual Behaviors Among Gay and Bisexual Men and Lesbian and Bisexual Women

Within the existing body of research, the information pertaining to sexual compulsivity (SC) among women, both homo- and heterosexual, remains rather limited in comparison to men. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of SC in a community sample of gay and bisexual men and lesbian and bisexual women and to identify differences in sexual practices based on classification as sexually compulsive within gender. Supporting previous research, the findings indicated that gay and bisexual men were significantly higher in SC when compared to lesbian and bisexual women. Similarly, sexually compulsive gay and bisexual men were more likely to report drug use with sex than their non-sexually compulsive peers, suggesting that “party n' play” may play a larger role for men with SC. In addition, the findings demonstrated empirical support for the proposition that lesbian and bisexual women with symptoms of SC were more likely to engage in specialized sexual behaviors in comparison to their non-sexually compulsive peers. These data suggest that SC manifests differently in gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women.     

Evening and night work schedules and children's social and emotional well-being

ABSTRACT

An emerging body of evidence shows that parents’ non-standard work schedules have a detrimental effect on children's well-being. However, only a limited number of studies have investigated mediating factors that underpin this association. Likewise, only a few studies have examined the impact of fathers’ non-standard work schedules on children's well-being. Based on data from the Families in Germany Study (FiD), this study aimed to address these research gaps. The sample consists of parents and their children at ages 7–8 and 9–10 (n?=?838 child observations in dual-earner families). The data were collected in the years 2010–2013. Non-standard work hours were defined as working in evenings and or at night (every day, several times a week, or changing as shifts). Children's social and emotional well-being was measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The findings show that both mothers’ and fathers’ evening and night work schedules are linked to an increase in children's externalizing and internalizing behavior and that this association is partially mediated by mothers’ and fathers’ harsh and strict parenting, with a stronger mediation effect for fathers parenting.     

History and the here and now

This paper explores the lesser-known histories and present-day realities of small towns and non-metropolitan areas in the internal provinces of South Africa. It is different inasmuch as it focuses on transformations that have taken place at the local level, and where possible, generalises from these, rather than following the normal route taken by social scientists – at least from 1994, which has been to examine them from the top down. One feature of such changes has been the growth of gated communicates across the length and breadth of South Africa, but there are many more. One reason for their anonymity is that their evolution has been gradual and corpuscular, that they have become unconsciously familiar and are left unexamined. Another is our collective preoccupation with the metropolitan areas rather than the smaller localities where such processes are subterranean and confined. This paper presents very briefly some of the results of the researchers of the Local Histories and Present Realities programme over the past five years, in 19 separate centres. It examines the history and present circumstance of chiefdoms of Ga-Mphahlele and reveals the surprise finding that much of recent and contemporary politics revolve around events 200 years old. An analogous situation has arisen in Venda as well as in Mpumalanga and elsewhere, where a combination of new legislation to revive chiefly powers, and land reclamation legislation have lent a new legitimacy to chiefly powers, and inspired hundreds of phantom – and time-consuming – quests. Another massive development which has gone on around us but whose internal dynamics have never been observed is the rise of game hunting and ranching all over the interior of South Africa. This is a monster subject which is likely to have influence on all of our lives into which our group is now in a position to offer insights. A change of equal proportions is the rise of mining all over the interior Bushveld Igneous Complex – Mokopane is a good example of this and the huge social consequences this has brought in its wake. One final theme which embraces all the communities that we have studied is the local histories of transformation – collectively the most important – since 1994. This is almost entirely hidden to a wider world, including the transformed positions of local Indian residents.     

Thinking and Speech and Protocol Analysis

Some form of verbal report—that is, a research participant' s concurrent or retrospective verbal account of thought processes during problem-solving activities—has been used throughout this century as the database from which psychologists have developed theories of human mentation. Newell and Simon (1972) and Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1993) have provided extensive justification for using one such method, protocol analysis, as a tool for investigating cognition from an information-processing (IP) perspective. Their arguments have characterized protocol analysis as a methodology capable of providing evidence of the ways in which people attend to information stored in short-term memory to solve problems, with the evidence providing them with the grounds from which to generate models of human cognitive processes. A different view of protocol analysis is available from the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) based on the work of Vygotsky (1987), Leont'ev (1981), and others, and its concern with the mediation of human development by culturally and historically grounded signs and tools. Because of its emphasis on culturally channeled development, a CHAT perspective views speech, including the speech that serves as evidence for cognition in psychological research, as a tool that potentially enables changes in consciousness. In this article I outline a CHAT perspective that accounts for protocol analysis along three key dimensions: (a) the relation between thinking and speech from a representational standpoint, (b) the social role of speech in research methodology, and (c) the influence of speech on thinking during data collection. The purpose of this discussion is not to refute the IP perspective on protocol analysis but to illustrate how this method can be viewed through a CHAT lens and to identify alternative assumptions that must be made to use it from a CHAT perspective.