Hunting ruralities: nature,society and culture in ‘hunt countries’ of England and Wales

The practice of hunting with dogs in the British countryside has received a great deal of political attention over recent years. The election of the New Labour Government in 1997, with a manifesto commitment to allow a free parliamentary vote on hunting, has provided the campaign to abolish hunting with a great deal of momentum. However, a merger of the pro-hunt groups into the Countryside Alliance has created a powerful counter campaign, evidenced by the highly publicised countryside marches of the late 1990s. A key tactic of the Alliance's campaign has involved a key shift in the defence of hunting from the natural to the social realm, with the focus increasingly placed on the claimed socio-cultural contribution of hunting to rural communities. This paper assesses the merits of this claim by providing a critical in-depth exploration of the socio-cultural role of hunting with dogs in areas of the English and Welsh countryside. It does this in two main ways. Firstly, recent discussions of hunting are positioned within a broader social science context of nature–society relations, and consideration is given to the complex connections between hunting, nature and rurality. Secondly, connections between hunting, nature and rural society are examined in greater depth by drawing on key findings from a recent study of the social and cultural role of hunting in four areas of English and Welsh countryside.     

Totality from Interiority: The Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel as Epic in Georg Lukàcs’s The Theory of the Novel

In The Theory of the Novel, Georg Lukàcs’s (1885–1971) approach to the nineteenth-century Russian novel evidences underlying conflict: without presenting theoretical justification, Lukàcs continually refers to these works as ‘epic’. Yet according to the opposition he creates between novel and epic, the idea of a work’s belonging to both genres — even peripherally — appears paradoxical. This article explores the possibility that from Lukàcs’s approach within the Theory, the particular history and characteristics of the nineteenth-century Russian novel make it genuinely qualify for the seemingly-impossible classification of renewed epic; hence his continual implication that this is its true genre. Lukàcs’s treatments of nineteenth-century Russian novelists mentioned in the Theory are examined as support for this reading.     

Jean-Paul Sartre and the philosophy of négritude: Race,self, and society

In this article, Jean-Paul Sartre’s relationship to the négritude movement and black intellectuals in Paris between the 1940s and the 1960s is examined in sociological and historical context. Sartre’s version of négritude, developed in his 1948 treatise “Orphée noir” prefacing Léopold Senghor’s collection of African and Malagasy poetry, is analyzed in terms of its role in shaping the discourses and debates surrounding négritude and the relationship of black intellectuals to the rest of French society. Sartre’s phenomenological theories of race, juxtaposing dominant and subaltern ideologies, are contrasted with his dialectic of négritude. The antinégritude movement of the late 1960s is also considered with reference to Sartre’s theories and inspiration. During this period, the relationship that Sartre established with Martinican intellectual and revolutionary Frantz Fanon helped to place Sartre into prominence as an activist and a theorist of decolonization and Third World politics. Sartre’s theories of race, self, and society were integral to both his early and later works and warrant review as approaches to the sociology of culture and sources of reflection for contemporary postcolonial studies.

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“Bringing the migrant back in”: mobility,conflict, and social change in contemporary society

Dominant social theories have rarely placed migration at the center of our understanding of society and social change. Classical theories in the Western tradition have been more preoccupied with the impact of economic and political revolutions on social change, stratification and class conflict, and have paid far less attention to other important aspects of society. Contemporary theories have expanded the theoretical gaze to include a much wider set of issues, from racial and gender divisions to warfare and the environment. In an era of globalization, we argue that such a marginalization of the migrant, and the failure to better integrate both internal and external migration into a more nuanced interpretation of social change, is a significant shortcoming. By examining some of the key elements linked to such human movement in Europe, North America and China -- in the light of five recent studies in this field -- we argue that migration is a vital factor in changing the world as we know it and consequently a central concern for social theory. This is a review essay on:Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.Louis DeSipio and Rodolfo de la Garza. US Immigration in the Twenty-First Century: Making Americans, Remaking America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2015.Adrian Favell. Immigration, Integration and Mobility: New Agendas in Migration Studies. Colchester: ECPR Press, 2015.Zhongshan Yue. Social Integration of Rural-Urban Migrants in China: Current Status, Determinants and Consequences. Singapore: World Scientific Publishers, 2015.Robyn R Iredale and Fei Guo. Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015.     

Tattoo Narratives: The intersection of the body,self‐identity and society

Drawing upon Frank's (1995) discussion of the personal and social aspects of embodied storytelling, this paper considers the tattoo as a form of visual communication created within a multiplicity of contexts. Based on in‐depth interviews with eight tattooed men and women, the focus of this article is the stories that these individuals tell about their tattoos. I argue that the tattooed body is a distinctively communicative body. It has a great deal to say, not only about the identity of the wearer, but also about the culture in which she lives. I conclude with some reflections on examining the tattoo as a conceptual latchkey—a tool that may enable researchers to begin to unlock the complicated relationship between the body, self‐identity and society.     

Gender,fear, and victimization: A preliminary application of power‐control theory

The accumulated body of research on public fear of victimization has consistently demonstrated that gender is the most useful predictor of tearfulness. However, theoretical attempts to link variations in fear of crime to gender differences have been found wanting. In particular, these theoretical accounts have failed to provide an integrated framework within which it is possible to reconcile findings relevant to gender differences in both fear‐arousing crimes and fear itself. In this article the research on gender differences in fear and victimization is reviewed, and the methodological assumptions that underlie work in this area are critically assessed. The theoretical inadequacies of contemporary explanations of these differences are then made explicit. Borrowing from the work of Hagan, Gillis, and Simpson, it is suggested that insights derived from power‐control theory provide an alternative and potentially more valuable conceptualization of the interrelationships among crime, fear, and gender.     

Beyond the certainty of security: On dominant and latent conceptions of “security” in modern societies

While other political programs have a relatively short history, the programatic logic of security is rather long-standing. This article argues that security as a product is a conception of modernity which came to its limits. The question arises, which kind of conception could be beyond those limits.     

Libya's ‘Black’ Market Diplomacies: Opacity and Entanglement in the Face of Hope and Horror

In this essay, I explore some of the values, exchanges and economies (moral, political and libidinal) characteristic of everyday life and official diplomacies in Libya. Through a consideration of multiple sites of estrangement and their related mediation practice, the essay engages the moral alibis, entangled yet unacknowledged relations, ontological commitments and duplicitous exchanges that made ‘Gaddafi's Libya’ possible. By patiently engaging the morally ambiguous mediation practices, violence and the bodies in pain that are erased by recognizable diplomatic regimes and discourses, I interrogate both the habitual ways of thinking about and relating to Libya and the uncritical exuberance that marks the celebration of the insurrectional present. Such a diplomatic rendition of the situation in Libya raises the ethical and political stakes of our analyses of the uprising by illustrating that there is more going on in this place than the Pan-African, Orientalist and humanitarian reductionisms tell us.

En este ensayo, yo exploro algunos de los valores, intercambios y economías (morales, políticos y libidinales) característicos de la vida diaria y las diplomacias oficiales en Libia. A través de una consideración de múltiples sitios de distanciamiento y su práctica relacionada de mediación, el ensayo emplea la coartada moral, enredada aún con relaciones no reconocidas, compromisos ontológicos e intercambios engañosos que hicieron posible a la “Libia de Gadafi”. Yo interrogo tanto a las formas habituales de pensar relacionadas con Libia, como a la exuberancia acrítica que marcan la celebración del presente insurreccional, empleando pacientemente las prácticas de mediación moralmente ambiguas, violencia y cuerpos en sufrimiento, que están borrados por regímenes y discusiones diplomáticas. Tal rendición diplomática de la situación en Libia levanta la apuesta ética y política de nuestro análisis de la insurrección mediante la ilustración de que está sucediendo mucho más en este sitio que lo que nos cuenta el reduccionismo panafricano, orientalista y humanitario.

本文作者探索利比亚特有的日常生活和官方外交中的一些价值观念、相互交流和经济情况（包括道德的、政治的和本能的）。通过考察多个地方的疏远失和及与之相关的调解实践,本文引入道德缺位、混杂而未公开承认的关系、本体论义务以及双重交流这些使得“卡扎菲的利比亚”成为可能的要素。通过耐心地介入道德上模糊的调解实践,以及被可识别的外交机构与论说抹去了的暴力和肢体痛苦,作者拷问了思考和联系利比亚的习惯方式,以及标志着庆贺当前反叛的无批判的繁盛。通过详细说明实际正在发生的情况多于泛非、东方主义和人道主义还原论所告诉我们的,证明此种对利比亚局势的外交表演,提高了我们对起义进行分析的道德和政治意义。     

Culture,memory, and structural change: explaining support for “socialism” in a post-socialist society

Two decades ago, East European state socialism met with a paradoxical fate. Between 1989 and 1991, communist party hegemony was abolished, leaving the very idea of socialism permanently discredited—or so it seemed. Yet in the decade that followed, “socialistic” principles and practices would retain—or perhaps acquire—a surprising degree of popular appeal. Was this a cultural legacy of systematic indoctrination? A strategic response to material insecurities? Perhaps a combination of both? In this article, it is argued that many previous efforts to unravel the paradox are inadequate because they ignore both the “strategic” dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of instrumental reason. Using life-history data on the former East Germany, it is shown that apparently discredited ideologies can acquire renewed salience in the wake of regime change if they (1) remain culturally available as strategies of action that (2) provided material opportunities or symbolic privileges in the past, and (3) promise to ameliorate new problems engendered by alternative strategies.     

Visual power: review of image-based methodologies and subsequent development/uses of the Fotofeedback Method™

Over the past 60 years, image-based methodologies such as photo elicitation, photolanguage, auto-photography, hermeneutic photography, digital storytelling, photovoice and participant authored audio-visual stories have been used by qualitative researchers to better cognise humanity. Each of these methodologies are deeply rooted in visual imagery and while they may share different levels of similarities, each was coined because no existing method fully met the needs of the researchers or participants. For this same reason, a new image-based methodology, the Fotofeedback Method? (FFM) has emerged. FFM is defined as a qualitative image-based methodology that combines participant-initiated photography with written narrative in response to a research/evaluation inquiry. This article presents an overview of FFM’s formation along with examples of its use and subsequent outcomes. The aforementioned image-based methodologies are reviewed including their definition, founder, year conceptualised, discipline and location of origin, brief history, impact of use, key point and their similarities/differences to the FFM. Also presented is a comparison chart of the methodologies covered in this paper as well as a timeline of photo-based research techniques in relation to the historical development of photography, computers and social media. Current statistics regarding the power of the visual to engage others are also incorporated.     

Politicization of corporations and their environment: Corporations’ social license to operate in a polarized and mediatized society

Societies are increasingly characterized by polarization and fragmentation on a variety of socio-political issues. With the heightened social visibility of corporations, as a result of processes of mediatization, firms are pressured to engage with such social issues that are part of broader political discourses. Against the backdrop of these broad socio-political shifts, this study conceptually addresses the contribution of public relations to understanding the politicization of corporations and their environment. We argue that corporations have become inherently intertwined with their mediatized and polarized socio-political surroundings. As a result, corporations are increasingly pressured to speak out and take a stance on social issues to engage with their environment and renew their social license to operate (SLO) in a context characterized by political divides. By relying on concepts like issue arenas and corporate political advocacy, we argue that corporations can use public relations to publicly promote one ideal over another, by being guided by the corporation’s own intrinsic values and moral standpoints rather than efforts to balance competing interests of multiple stakeholders.     

Prevalence of discomfort/pain complaints and related factors in dental professionals of the public health service in Araucária, Paraná state, Brazil

This poster presents a study about the influence of gender related factors, age, body weight, time of service in the profession and practice of physical exercise on the prevalence of discomfort/pain complaints in dental professionals. The scope of this study was limited to 123 subjects, 84.24% of professionals in the public dental clinics, who answered the multidimensional analytical work questionnaire. The data suggest that the lack postural awareness can contribute to the maintenance of painful conditions and also the low commitment to self-care can perpetuate the state of musculoskeletal discomfort/pain, justifying the application of the ergonomics concepts in the workplace and systematic guidance to professionals to adopt a healthy lifestyle.