The aura of tattoos: The commodification of tradition in Buscalan village,the Philippines

The present study focuses on the ongoing shift in the meaning and importance of traditional Kalinga tattoos that is happening in Buscalan village in the Philippines. The starting point for the analysis is the conception of disintegration of “the aura”, as defined by Walter Benjamin, resulting from their disembedding from time and space that is caused by technological reproducibility of the artworks. The study shows that the basis of the aura of Buscalan tattoos is their relation to a successful headhunt. At present, tattoos in Buscalan are standing on the edge, because the high popularity of the last tattoo artist who tattooed the head-hunters leads to commodification of traditional tattoos and an increase in tourism in the particular area. The study describes a two-way process of disintegration and preservation of the aura of Buscalan tattoos: on the one hand, the tradition of tattooing headhunters has disappeared, but on the other hand, the aura of tattoos is preserved thanks to audiovisual means and sharing on social networking sites. The “here and now” of the place and its tattoos is being transferred into the hyper-reality where Buscalan tattoos are gaining a new dimension     

Wo'Lakol Kiciyapi

ABSTRACT

This pilot study hypothesized that the ancient traditions of help and healing among traditional Lakota people represent an alternative or complementary model for understanding a distinctive approach to American social work theory and practice which includes “shamanic” or spirit healing as a constituent part of the help and healing process. Thirty-two individuals, Including traditional Lakota elders, educators, leaders, and mental health providers, were interviewed about their views on traditional ideas of help and healing and about social work and social service practices. The findings show that there were distinctive approaches to ensure social health and well-being among pre-reservation Lakota peoples, and that the traditions of help and healing are intimately linked to the “natural law” and to the ceremonial life of the tribe. The findings show a resurgence of traditional healing practices among the Lakota with important implications for Social Work theory and practice.     

Tattooing and Civilizing Processes: Body Modification as Self‐control*

Malgré la révolution en cours dans le tatouage en Amérique du Nord, les universitaires restent attachés à l'idée que les « fanatiques du tatouage » seraient des inadaptés sociaux. Dans cet article, des données obtenues au cours d'une observation participante de trois ans parmi des fanatiques du tatouage au Canada ouvrent la porte à une critique des interprétations psycho‐sociales privilégiées du tatouage comme étant une conduite irrationnelle, impliquant des risques (voir Carroll et coll., 2002; Roberts et Ryan, 2002). À la lumière de la sociologie figurationnelle (Elias, 1983; 1994; 1996), le tatouage est ici vu comme un acte de communication à caractère sociable et régi affectivement plutôt que comme un cas pathologique d'automutilation. Despite the ongoing revolution in the use of tattoos in North America, academic understandings of tattooing remain grounded in conceptions of “tattoo enthusiasts” as social misfits. In this paper, data from three years of participant observation with tattoo enthusiasts in Canada help critique preferred social‐psychological interpretations of tattooing as irrational, “risk‐taking behaviour” (see Carroll et al., 2002; Roberts and Ryan, 2002). Through the lens of figurational sociology (Elias, 1983; 1994; 1996), tattooing is interpreted in this paper as a pro‐social and affectively regulated act of communication, rather than a pathological instance of self‐injury.     

Pierre Bourdieu: Economic models against economism

The use of economic analogies by Bourdieu has often been the object of much criticism. For some scholars, it reveals an “economistic” vision of the social world too much inspired by neoclassical economics. For others, it is a kind of mechanical metaphor transposed to cultural phenomena in a determinist way, as in the holistic (Marxist) tradition. To understand this usage and to refute these contradictory criticisms, we return to and focus on the very first occurrences in the 1958–1966 period – the focus of our article – of what Bourdieu would call a “general economy of practices” in his book Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique. Two central aspects, often forgotten by critics, are presented here: first, the close but very particular link between his work and economics as a growing scientific discipline during these years; second, the criticisms Bourdieu makes of the economic model as a general scientific tool for the social sciences. If one insists only on one of the two sides of the coin, one risks misunderstanding Bourdieu’s original scientific habitusand intellectual project. By contrast, this “double” position opens the possibility of an “integrated” vision of social and economic factors of practices, thanks to the introduction of the “cultural” and above all the “symbolic” dimensions of social life.     

Musical Ties That Bind: Nostalgia,Affect, and Heritage in Festival Narratives

Affective heritage embracement, a collective narrative of nostalgia, is identified at two popular music festivals. “MusicFest” embraces a tradition of “Red Dirt” country music through performance (music festival), whereas the “Walnut Valley Festival” embraces a bluegrass/folk musical heritage through performance and participation (musicians' festival). The symbolic importance of musical interaction is explored to highlight the experienced emotionality that leads to the affective ties that bind these otherwise temporary communities. This collective narrative reveals the various functions of nostalgia wherein collective sentiment both reflects and creates the perceived authentic experiences of festival attendees.     

Capital as the lens that Bourdieu Pierres through: Public relations,social theory,and rhetoric

In this paper, I explore the limitations of Bourdieu’s “capital” with the help of Burke’s four master tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. Both Bourdieu and Burke were concerned with theoretical reductionism. I claim that Bourdieu could not help but be reductive insofar as his metaphor of capital became the totalizing lens through which he understood society. First, I review Bourdieu’s forms of capital, noting how capital serves as the sine qua non of his theory of practice. Second, I situate Bourdieu within the PR literature. Third, I read Bourdieu’s “capital” through Burke’s (1941) four master tropes. Reading Bourdieu through Burke enables PR scholars to better understand the limitations in Bourdieu’s terminology, which leads to debunking, materialist reductionism, and relativism. I conclude with implications for future research adopting Bourdieusian and Burkean approaches to public relations.     

The Chicago Tradition and Social Change: Thomas,Park And Their Successors

Through their writings and research, Thomas and Park exemplified to their students and their successors at Chicago how to “do” sociololgy. Central to their respective positions were their conceptions of social change, reform and progress; the role of science and especially sociology; the agents of social change; the arenas and mechanisms of social change. Not only were there some basic differences in their respective conceptions, but succeeding generations of Chicago sociologists have been profoundly influenced in their ideas and work by selective interpretations of either or both founding fathers of this tradition. Like any other intellectual tradition, the Chicago one is neither as integrated as it often seems nor have its participants drawn on precisely the same aspects of their intellectual heritage. To understand the work of contemporary “Chicagoans,” it is necessary to, at least, understand what they have made and are making of their diverse heritage.     

The invention and promotion of cha-rye in Korea

Cha-rye (tea etiquette), now considered representative of Korean tea culture, is a new tradition developed during the Park Chung-hee government (1961–1979) and subsequently promoted nationally and internationally. With Korea's rapid industrialization and modernization in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional culture began to disintegrate, which caused various social problems and resulted in ethical and moral confusion among the people. A tea culture revival was proposed by some tea masters as a solution for the chaos in society, and cha-rye was designated a “tradition” to be restored. Anti-Japanese nationalist ideology proved a good facilitator for the transformation of Korean traditional culture, but controversies based in practical limitations arose among tea masters in the process of establishing a Korean-style tea spirit and practice. The re-invention of cha-rye demonstrates how a tradition has been created through the complex and multi-layered dynamics of Korea's rapidly changing political and social environment in combination with nationalist ideology.     

Because they were there: Access,deliberation, and the mobilization of networks for support

When people need help, what is the process through which they decide whom in their network to turn to? Research on social support has described a process that is deliberative in nature: people determine their needs, assess who in their network has the needed attributes—such as skill, trustworthiness, intimacy, and accessibility—and then activate that tie. Nevertheless, research in behavioral economics and other fields has shown that people make many decisions not deliberatively but intuitively. We examine this possibility in the context of social support by focusing on one factor: accessibility. Although researchers have argued that people weigh the accessibility of potential helpers as they do any other attribute, accessibility may be not only an attribute of the helper but also a condition of the situation. We develop a framework to make this question tractable for survey research and evaluate competing hypotheses using original data on an analytically strategic sample of ∼2000 college students, probing concrete instances of social support. We identify and document not one but three decision processes, reflective, incidental, and spontaneous activation, which differ in the extent to which actors had deliberated on whether to seek help and on whom to approach before activating the tie. We find that while the process was reflective (consistent with existing theory) when skill or trustworthiness played a role, it was significantly less so (consistent with the alternative) when accessibility did. Findings suggest that actors decide whom in their network to mobilize through at least three systematically different processes, two of which are consistent less with either active “mobilization” or explicit “help seeking” than with responsiveness to opportunity and context.     

The theatre of war: art,organization and the aesthetics of strategy

Recent Anglo-Saxon writings on management regard “vision” as being of strategic importance to leadership. Whilst such an approach has led to socio-psychological inquiries into “visionary leadership” the equally relevant phenomenological “philosophy of the eye” has remained unexplored by organizational scholars. This European philosophical tradition is closely connected to theories of art. In three cases, it will be shown how continental reflection on the strategic management of warfare has taken the eye seriously and thereby gained insights from aesthetics. It will be argued that the understanding of civilian strategic management also might benefit from such s connection between Strategy and Art.     

Post‐Marxist Trajectories: Diagnosis,Criticism, Utopia*

In this article, I examine the troublesome notion of “post‐Marxism.” First, I read post‐Marxism as an expression of the transformations entailed by our post‐1968 entry into what world‐systems thinkers call “an age of transition.” Second, drawing on Tormey and Townshend's work, I explore the thematic unity of post‐Marxism in terms of six problems posed to Marxism—the problems of history, revolutionary subjectivity, ethics, positivism, vanguardism, and democracy. Third, I suggest that, given the many questions raised by post‐Marxist efforts to go beyond these problems, and given the passing of the phase of what Holmes has called “happy globalization,” serious doubts are raised about the theoretical and utopian gains achieved by post‐Marxism and the distance we might want to travel from the suggestions offered by the Marxian tradition.     

Syllable-final /s/ as an index of language,gender, and ethnicity in a contact variety of Mexican Spanish

This study of syllable-final /s/ reduction in a 55-speaker corpus of Spanish in Juchitán, México, a contact variety, uses both language contact and social processes to explain its results. Contact with the indigenous Isthmus Zapotec language leads to decreased rates of syllable-final /s/ retention, creating a locally salient n+1-order index between “Zapotecness” and /s/ reduction that influences the indexical field for syllable-final /s/ reduction. Zapotec identity is associated with tradition and femininity. Therefore, in this new indexical field, syllable-final /s/ reduction comes to directly index Zapotec language dominance and indirectly index both femininity and tradition. This leads feminine and elderly speakers to reduce /s/ more frequently than “less feminine” and young speakers, even though the opposite pattern is usually found in other varieties. The results show, therefore, that language contact can influence the indexical field typically linked to socially meaningful variation and thereby cause unexpected patterns of variation to emerge.     

An Ethical Assessment of Structured Intervention with Chemically Dependent Clients

ABSTRACT

Structured intervention is a widely accepted approach to helping the chemically dependent client get treatment. Because this method departs from the tradition of the client directly seeking help, it raises unique ethical diletnmas-for both client and practitioner-including issues of self-determination, secrecy, coercion, environmental manipulation, and “fair exchange.” Analysis of these issues using a model for ethical decision-making is followed by discussion of four ethical options for the practitioner. The authors identify a preferred emical position based on theoretical and practice knowledge plus professional and personal values.     

SUD-PTT unionists: moral entrepreneurs?

Since its founding in 1988, the SUD-PTT union [Solidarité, Unité, Démocratie at the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone] has made using the courts a frequent mode of action in its dealings with the two French public-sector companies in which it is present, La Poste and France Télécom. Legal action is now fully part of SUD-PTT practices. This is surprising for a union so strongly attached to the protest tradition and hostile in both practice and discourse to any form of institutionalization. After considering possible explanations for SUD-PTT's heavy use of legal institutions, the article looks at how the type of conflict it engages in, which may be called “conflit de règles” [conflict about and by means of rules] can be linked to a major trend in contemporary social conflictuality: the fact that the “antagonistic posture” is no longer limited to collective action but is now operative in a more institutionalized approach. The thesis is that this sort of action is not just technical or instrumental but aims to exert pressure on norms, and thereby on the codification of social relations and ways of “living together”.     

Cognition in Situations

The symbolic interactionist tradition can contribute to advancing sociological studies of cognition by setting dual process models on more solid ground. I draw on Blumer's epistemological statements and the interactionist tradition more broadly to consider how dual process models of cognition could be applied to naturally occurring situations. I suggest that attending to the ways the past and the future are handled and modified within social interaction provides a usable inroad for the sociology of cognition to engage with situational analysis. I identify “resonance” and “iterative reprocessing” as concepts that are suitable to this end.     

The Remains of the Say: Zero,Double‐crossing and the Landscaping of Language

This essay argues for a “landscaping” understanding of language, contrasting this with the more contemporary tradition of deconstruction, through Saussure, on difference. The paper opens with an evocation of the method of “double crossing” in Heidegger's () deconstruction of Western ontology, before drawing extensively on Heidegger's later discussion of the “bridge” to illustrate his landscaping argument over language. By crossing and criss‐crossing this reading of Heidegger with a critique of the same essay by Hillis Miller, a strong similarity in deconstructive technique is elicited despite an apparent clash in their views about language.     

The hybridization of organizational culture in tokyo disneyland

Tokyo Disneyland (TDL), a licensed version of the American theme park which was re-made in Japan, is a unique cultural, organizational and consumerist junction where “Japan” meets “America.” Offering an ethnography of this meeting, I focus here on the appropriation of the “Disney Way” into TDL's socialization practices of hiring and training. TDL's organizational culture is divided between an American influence that relates to part-timers and a Japanese tradition that applies to regular workers. It is discussed how local culture facilitated the successful transfer of the Disney Way to Japan while also promoting a modification of specific elements.     

Philadelphia says smoking ban has not led to treatment impact

Despite charges by Brooke Feldman and others (see “Advocate: Philadelphia smoking ban shuts some patients out of treatment,” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.32388 , ADAW, June 10), the number of people leaving addiction treatment in Philadelphia is up, not down, after the smoking ban, the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility services (DBHIDS) stated last week in a press release. The statement came out June 24, the day before a planned protest spearheaded by Feldman.     

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Magicianship,Misdirection, and the Dark Side of Legitimation1

Most discussions of legitimation focus on factors that are expected to contribute to it, such as tradition, expertise, or prosperity. Less attention has been paid to “the dark side” of legitimation, which depends heavily on evading attention. A potentially informative approach is to learn from professionals with special expertise in evading attention while making things “disappear”—magicians. Rather than seeking overt control over the audience, they perform in plain view, largely by using well‐timed distractions, or “misdirection.” Preliminary evidence suggests that similar techniques may be widely used in political contexts, with some of the most effective forms of misdirection involving diversionary reframing—diverting attention away from any questions about existing distributions of privilege, not by brute force, but by changing the subject, especially by raising questions about the legitimacy of critics. These and related techniques clearly deserve to be the focus of additional research.