Fuck the law: decolonizing nomophilitis with the discourse of love

ABSTRACT

This papyrus questions the assumption that global cultures and especially Indigenous peoples are to be civilized and modernized by being subjected to the rule of European law, Euro Reschtaat, under racist, patriarchal imperialism as a result of centuries of dehumanizing conquest, genocide, slavery, apartheid and colonization. Giannacopoulos raised similar questions about how feasible it is to expect that the love of the law, nomophilia, would be the answer to the institutionalized racism-sexism-classism that Indigenous peoples and poor refugees face under settler colonialism? This papyrus raises the additional question of whether young people around the world are crazy for giving the middle finger salute to the empire of law or whether defiant Hip Hop artists may be expressing understandable decolonization discourse against legal imperialism without criminologists and legal scholars being aware.     

A Caution on Comparisons

Abstract

The family is the foundation of our society. By learning about family life in other countries, we learn about our own lives and we realize that we all belong to one big family—the family of mankind. … [Studying families of the world] could help us to get closer to people in distant countries and support the knowledge that “we are one.” — Liv Ullmann, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador     

Accelerated Contagion and Response: Understanding the Relationships among Globalization,Time, and Disease

Abstract

The rapid global transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 raises questions about the intersections of globalization, time, and diseases. Viewing it as a disease of speed, this article examines SARS as a case of emerging infectious diseases in the context of contemporary globalization. We contend that the SARS crisis exposed the limitations of traditional spatiality-based approaches to infectious diseases, disease control, and health governance. When the advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) in recent decades have accelerated the diffusion of pathogens, actors at all levels of global public health are pressed to keep up with the new temporalities. While cognitive and organizational innovations arising from technological changes show some hope for addressing these issues on a global level, other temporality-related challenges—such as differential capacities of the affected countries to respond to the simultaneity of the crisis—are yet to be tackled.     

Aux limites du paradigme de la distribution : l’écoute des appels de détresse et le traitement de la souffrance des suicidaires,du téléphone à l’e-mail

How can a telephone hotline for helping the suicidal be seen as a distributed practice and collective skill? Based on fieldwork, this research reviews the paradigm of distributed action by broadening it to activities that imply not only cognition but also moral and emotional dimensions. Two limits of this paradigm are discussed. The first, illustrated with the shift from telephone calls to electronic mail, bears on the capacity for analyzing the development of activities; it leads to a discussion of the differences and similarities between distributed cognition and activity theory. The second has to do with covering up the political dimension of distributed cognition: how do the persons involved in an activity perceive what they do and act on their perceptions — how are they “concerned”? This case study of a counseling hotline by telephone and E-mail raises questions about the performative nature of the words used to express suffering.     

Gay Bars and Serendipity

Abstract

HIV/AIDS continues to be a serious public health issue. As HIV changes from an acute disease to a more chronic illness, it places increased responsibility on family caregivers to provide on-going assistance. Based on a conceptual model of caregiving resilience, this study found high variation in caregiving outcomes with many caregivers demonstrating high levels of well-being despite adverse life circumstances. Factors that contributed significantly to caregiver well-being included income, caregiver health, discrimination, multiple loss, dispositional optimism and self-empowerment. These findings suggest that HIV/AIDS and caregiving entail more than stress and distress and that future research needs to consider caregiving within the context of a historically disadvantaged community, resilience of informal caregivers, and risk and protective factors at the personal, cultural and community levels. Such information is necessary to design community-based interventions to support informal caregivers and persons living with HIV/AIDS.     

Curative fictions: The ‘narrative cure’ in Judith Herman's trauma and recovery and Chantal Chawaf's Le Manteau noir

Abstract

The possibility of a so‐called ‘narrative cure’, whereby a survivor of traumatic experience can begin to deal with her past through integrating it into narrative, has become central both to psychotherapy and to literary criticism on writings of trauma as a means of ethical, ‘truthful’ testimony and of healing. This article seeks to question the correlation between testimony and ‘cure’ through analysing the function of the ‘narrative cure’ in a psychotherapeutic text and in a literary text. This highlights how any notion of ‘truthful’ testimony is always underwritten by fiction, which raises crucial ethical questions about the relation between fiction and ‘truth’, testimony and ‘cure’ and psychotherapy and literature. I argue that the ‘narrative cure’ is not a privileged space of curative ‘truth’, but a point of tension between memory and amnesia and between ‘truth’ and fiction; it is precisely this tension, I suggest, which should characterize and structure interdisciplinary responses to trauma.     

Justice of a Different Kind: The Original Kibbutz

Abstract

The aim of this article is to compare and contrast basic moral principles of justice, as articulated by Rawls (1999) and by a presumably utopian society (the original Israeli Kibbutz) that purposefully attempted to design a community that was just and free, by collectivizing it. The principles it evolved were noble but its outcome was doomed to failure because by making social justice the dominant goal it did not allow for sufficiently free liberty of individual moral agents on which social justice is based     

Goffman's legacy to political sociology

Conclusion I don't claim that Goffman addressed the questions that animate political sociologists. He was not interested in analyzing interaction to learn how it contributed to mobilization for collective action aimed at social change. He was not interested in changing political consciousness or in how the mass media and other social institutions make such change so difficult. But for those who are interested in such questions, he is worth heeding. His is an unanticipated bequest — from the cranky uncle who we always thought had no great love or admiration for our line of work.I have tried to show how Goffman's arguments about the nature of the interaction order and frame analysis can be applied to increase our understanding of micromobilization and political consciousness. The help here is concrete and empirical, aiding us in interpreting historical cases and guiding us in systematic research.But perhaps Goffman's most enduring legacy is in the moral stance that pervades his observations about social institutions. It goes beyond ideology, to the spirit of our intellectual pursuits. It is eloquently captured in words written after Goffman's death by the poet, Joseph BrodskyThe surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned impostor couldn't be happy with .... Evil is a sucker for solidity. It always goes for big numbers, for confident granite, for ideological purity, for drilled armies and balanced sheets. For Goffman, it was a lesson he knew and lived.

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Constructing Threat and Appropriating “Civil Rights”: Rhetorical Strategies of Gun Rights and English Only Leaders

Using a grounded theory method, we analyze the framing strategies of organizational leaders of the gun rights and English Only movements. Although we find greater variability in the framing strategies of English Only leaders, leaders of both movements mobilize fear by rhetorically constructing moral threats to American society in ways that draw on, and uphold, the ideals and practices of dominant social groups. In doing so, they appeal to their constituents' status anxieties. We also find that these movements engage in a particular form of frame transformation that we call “frame appropriation” to counter opponents' claims and broaden their support. Future research should examine when and how, and to what effect, other social movements similarly mobilize fear and engage in frame appropriation.     

“Just a Typical Teenager”: The Social Ecology of “Normal Adolescence”—Insights from Diabetes Care

In Western society “normal adolescence” is understood to be a biologically driven phase characterized by emotional turmoil and irrational behavior. Despite being discredited within academic literature this discourse persists both in formal theory and everyday use. Drawing on the case of diabetes care, I argue that the discourse of “normal adolescence” derives its power from its value as a vocabulary of motive through which to navigate the contradictions inherent in the social order at this stage of the life‐course. While helping us to comprehend sociologically the ecological niche in which “normal adolescence” is sustained, this analysis raises questions about the persistence of this discourse for social action.     

Conducting research with children: the limits of confidentiality and child protection protocols

This paper addresses the issue of child protection protocols within research conducted with children. Based partly on primary data this paper raises questions about the role of ethics committees in defining the limits of confidentiality in relation to child protection protocols within research, the perceptions of both children and parents about the meanings of confidentiality and notions of ‘harm’, and the role of the researcher in relation to legal and professional guidance about the protection of vulnerable people in society. We explore the concept of confidentiality within a research setting from a child protection perspective. In doing so we examine the legal and moral obligations of researchers to report child protection concerns, how children themselves perceive ‘harm’, and the need for much clearer guidance to researchers, as well as child participants and parents, about the limitations of confidentiality.     

“And Let the Grove,If Not the Parlour,Stand”: Home,Memory, and Gender in Mary Leapor's “Crumble-Hall”

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on Mary Leapor's “Crumble-Hall” and attempts to shed light on her gendered/class poetics. It argues that the poet uses the house as a metaphor for gendered (male) and social class (gentry) dominance as well as that through memory she assumes (poetic) control over it, demolishes and remakes it, thus forging her female/literary identity. The article also demonstrates that Leapor makes use of both social and psychological space in her poem. By appropriating the country-house convention, she creates a dialectical relationship between external space—the architectural structure; and internal space—the kitchen maid's unconscious; and points out that as the former crumbles, the latter stands because of the significance it acquires. Indeed, her memory of Crumble-Hall not only spawns years of suppression and hardship but also becomes the stepping-stone for her rebellion as well as for the creation of her verse. Her poetic empowerment is projected through the image of the grove surrounding the country house, a multifaceted symbol signifying the interrelation of home, memory, and female literary production. Overall, Leapor re-creates the past glory of the gentry house, depicts her subservient state, conveys her subversion, and finally, establishes her newfound identity as a female poet, all within the framework of fragmented memories. Consequently, she succeeds in promoting the need for gendered and class transgression, in the hope that her sisters can bring about the “crumbling” of their own “house” and remake their “home.”     

Analysis of HIV Caregivers in South Africa: A South African Depression and Anxiety Group

ABSTRACT

The severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa is well documented. However, little is known regarding the well-being of caregivers of persons with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. This study sought to evaluate characteristics, similarities and differences between groups of HIV caregivers in rural, semi-rural, and urban areas of South Africa. Interesting trends were noticed in the areas of suicidality, alcohol abuse, and intimate trauma. Findings indicate a substantial need for further study in the area of suicidality, denial of or lack of desire to know HIV status and the accompanying diagnostic stigma, and the need for a support network within lay caregivers.     

Children and the Discourse of Fear

The news media, a dominant source of information about social issues, use entertainment formats to organize reports that audiences will understand. Part of this organized effort is the use of a discourse of fear, or the pervasive communication, symbolic awareness, and expectation that danger and risk are central features of everyday life. Reliant on formal agents of social control as news sources about fear, news reports tend to repeat certain words, themes, and perspectives that support more social control. Although associated with crime, the discourse of fear includes other topics and concerns as well. A qualitative content analysis approach, “tracking discourse,” permits a mapping of discourse over time and across various topics. Analysis of the use of fear in three major newspapers during 1987–1996 shows that it has increased; that a large part of the discourse of fear includes children and the spaces they occupy (e.g., schools and neighborhoods); and that it changed from a focus on specific events in the 1980s to a more generalized, pervasive perspective in the 1990s, peaking in about 1994. It is argued that this is important for making claims about “necessary” social action to protect children, as well as protect us from children. Fear is the path to the dark side. —Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace     

90后大学生婚恋观存在的问题及应对性教育

90后大学生婚恋观总体上是积极健康的,但存在一些问题。这主要是由于受不良社会风气、道德观念及西方消极文化的误导所致。应从加强大学生价值观教育、婚恋道德教育和强化大学校园文化的隐性教育功能三个方面引导和帮助9 0后大学生树立正确的婚恋观。     

Rethinking biomedicine in the age of translational research: Organisational,professional, and epistemic encounters

In the most recent decade, translational research (TR) has played a pivotal role in the production and circulation of medical knowledge and technologies, thus redefining biomedicine's moral force, its cultural authority, and its status in society. As a major component of contemporary life sciences, TR—or more commonly, translational biomedicine—aims to transfer more quickly and effectively the findings of basic science into therapeutic interventions for patients by means of innovative organisational arrangements, research methodologies, protocols, and professional roles. This article brings together sociological research examining translational biomedicine from different perspectives to accomplish two goals. First, it offers a comprehensive introduction to the social science debate concerning the growing adoption of a TR framework in biomedicine, with a special focus on the organisational, professional, and epistemological issues. Second, the article has an operational purpose to raise questions about the main methodological repercussions for social scientists facing the investigation of TR as a complex and multi‐sited phenomenon that challenges traditional qualitative/quantitative research approaches.     

Children orphaned by HIV and AIDS in middle childhood in Potchefstroom,Northwest: The role of a social worker

ABSTRACT

The effects of HIV and AIDS have devastated families and communities in South Africa. The scourge has also left many children orphaned in the country. Given the vulnerability of orphaned children, social workers are in the forefront of ensuring that these children are cared for and protected from any harm. Hence, the purpose of this paper was to explore the role of a social worker in issues related to children orphaned by AIDS in their middle childhood. This study was situated within a qualitative research paradigm utilizing purposive, non-probability sampling of 10 participants recruited from Potchefstroom in the Northwest Province of South Africa. A semi-structured interview schedule was employed as a research tool, and in-depth one-on-one interviews were adopted as the method of data collection. A thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data collected during the interviews. The main findings point towards the need to educate children about HIV and AIDS and to empower their caregivers. The primary conclusion drawn from this study is that social workers play various key roles which contribute towards the well-being of orphaned children. Recommendations are posed in relation to social work service providers, government interventions, and future research.     

A Global-Middle-Class House?1 Cultural Capital,Taste, and Kitsch

Abstract

In this article, I show how the category of the migrant house, as has been recently discussed in much scholarship, can be expanded to include another subcategory—the global-middle-class house. Recently, the migrant house has generated much research in migration studies and in disciplines of the built environment. Consequently, it has been examined through various perspectives, including home and belonging, materiality in the home, and the transnational home. It has not been examined, however, through the concepts of cultural capital, taste and kitsch, as developed by Bourdieu and others. This article applies these concepts in the exploration of the migrant house through a case study of one house and its transformation from old to new in suburban Melbourne. The article shows how the concepts of cultural capital, taste and kitsch can be utilized to expand the category of the migrant house to include the global-middle-class house. Following a theoretical discussion, the article analyses the old family house, the decision to demolish, the construction process and the redevelopment of a new house, together with an analysis of material objects in the new house and around it. The article argues that this is a specific kind of a migrant house, a global-middle-class house, because it combines popular global taste with objects taken from the ancestral past of its migrant residents.