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From Mirroring to World-Making: Research as Future Forming
Abstract
After decades of acrimonious debate on the nature of scientific knowledge, researchers in the human or social sciences are reaching a state of relative equanimity, a condition that may be characterized as a reflective pragmatism. Yet, even while the context has favored the development of new forms of research, the longstanding ocular metaphor of inquiry remains pervasive. That is, researchers continue the practice of observing what is the case, with the intent to illuminate, understand, report on, or furnish insight into given states of affairs. And, while selectively useful, such an orientation is not only limited in potential but subject to a receding span of application. As I will propose, when the logics of reflective pragmatism are fully extended, we enter a new territory of understanding, one in which the vision of research is radically altered. We replace the captivating gaze on the world as it is with value based explorations into what it could be. This conception of a future forming orientation to research opens the way to new aims, practices, and reflections.
... If we apply the radical imagination to the context of the massive hyperobject of education, we have to acknowledge that we do not only -individually as well as collectively -imagine what education is, but we also always have the possibility to reimagine education and to act upon what it could be (see also Peim & Stock, 2022). As education researchers and practitioners we thus have the responsibility to do more than merely mirroring and articulating crises (Gergen, 2015). 'The vast share of research today' , Gergen (2015) states, 'remains dedicated to "revealing", "illuminating", "understanding", or "reflecting" a given state of affairs' (p. ...
... As education researchers and practitioners we thus have the responsibility to do more than merely mirroring and articulating crises (Gergen, 2015). 'The vast share of research today' , Gergen (2015) states, 'remains dedicated to "revealing", "illuminating", "understanding", or "reflecting" a given state of affairs' (p. 291). ...
... Communities involved in these initiatives do not simply mirror or reveal (Gergen, 2015), but 'create what is to become' (Gergen, 2015, p. 294). If we return to the earlier made argument that education exists as a hyperobject beyond the binary of education and non-education, and beyond the binary of hope and despair, then education is present in all of these insurrectionary moments where radically different social forms are (collectively) imagined. ...
... Since action researchers intervene in what unfolds, they can develop nuanced and embodied understandings of tensions and paradoxes that must be dealt with in shared attempts to transform unsustainable organizational and social practice. The facilitation of these transformative attempts is a fourth strength of action research as it fits with the search for future forming research methods (Gergen, 2015;Gümüsay and Reinecke, 2024) that may help define and develop regenerative repertoires. ...
... In its continuous interplay of theory and practice, action research moves beyond an appreciation of theory for what it cleverly describes to what it meaningfully does. In a gloomy confrontation with the unsustainable views, habits, and institutions that underly grand challenges, a dire need arises for emancipatory and imaginative theorizing (Cornelissen et al., 2021;Gergen, 2015;Gümüsay and Reinecke, 2024). We are convinced that action research can play an important role in such future forming work because of its competence in facilitating forward moving process, its ...
The growing interest in impact-driven research invites organization and strategy scholars to not merely study, but actively help address grand challenges. This essay explores how action research might offer a robust methodology to impact and study grand challenges by developing theory through action. Action research is introduced, and its contributions, strengths and limitations are discussed in view of the current conversation about impact-driven scholarly work. Some practical guidance is given to bring action research within reach as a viable approach. The essay concludes with an exploration of how a fuller embrace of action research might help transform academic practice in the interest of urgent planetary change.
... Este estudio se sustenta en la perspectiva del construccionismo social, a partir de la cual toma relevancia la acción discursiva y desde sus planteamientos, la realidad social se construye desde la cotidianidad. Para Gergen (2014) permite establecer un nuevo sentido a la relación entre lo que se investiga con quien lo investiga. Desde un enfoque cualitativo y un método etnográfico, busco interpretar los sentidos producidos a través de las prácticas discursivas de los docentes universitarios para, desde sus voces, favorecer los procesos de transformación sobre los procedimientos metodológicos y los manejos de los docentes, sobre los entornos virtuales. ...
... This study is based on the perspective of Social Constructionism, from which discursive action becomes relevant and from its approaches, social reality is built from everyday life. For Gergen (2014) it allows to establish a new meaning to the relationship between what is investigated with those who investigate it. From a qualitative approach and an ethnographic method, I seek to interpret the senses produced through the discursive practices of university professors to, from their voices, favor the processes of transformation on the methodological procedures and the management of teachers, on virtual environments. ...
Este artículo presenta avances de la investigación de la tesis doctoral, en aras de construir una guía metodológica para la enseñanza y aprendizaje virtual en las instituciones de educación superior de República Dominicana. Este estudio se encuentra motivado, pues, a raíz de la pandemia generada por el COVID-19, que obligó, a las instituciones educativas a virtualizar sus procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje para asegurar la continuidad de la educación, replicando en la virtualidad lo que pasa en la modalidad presencial con limitada preparación de los actores principales. Rescata la necesidad de profundizar y buscar nuevas maneras de gestionar el conocimiento desde la modalidad virtual, tomando en cuenta la experiencia vivida por los docentes. Este estudio se sustenta en la perspectiva del construccionismo social, a partir de la cual toma relevancia la acción discursiva y desde sus planteamientos, la realidad social se construye desde la cotidianidad. Para Gergen (2014) permite establecer un nuevo sentido a la relación entre lo que se investiga con quien lo investiga. Desde un enfoque cualitativo y un método etnográfico, busco interpretar los sentidos producidos a través de las prácticas discursivas de los docentes universitarios para, desde sus voces, favorecer los procesos de transformación sobre los procedimientos metodológicos y los manejos de los docentes, sobre los entornos virtuales. Pretendo aportar una ruta metodológica desde la cual, se pueda impartir docencia con la confianza y seguridad de las bondades de la herramienta, y con la certeza de que su proceso de enseñanza impacte en aprendizajes de calidad para sus estudiantes. Aplicaré un cuestionario, estructurado por cinco competencias, a la luz de los planteamientos de García (2014). Dicho cuestionario ha sido validado por un experto y recoge los lineamientos a formar parte de la guía metodológica que contribuya para la mejora de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje desde la modalidad virtual.
... Para situar e resumir os entendimentos da pesquisa construcionista social, apresentamos seus elementos, conforme descritos por Kenneth Gergen (1999Gergen ( , 2015, especialmente enfatizando a relação direta entre discurso e realidade, que a epistemologia construcionista social incorpora em sua práxis: O construcionismo social pode ser definido como um movimento crítico e interdisciplinar que se sustentou sobretudo na problematização de visões essencialistas sobre realidades sociais, apontando o papel importante da linguagem, do contexto e das interações sociais na construção do mundo em que vivemos (Gergen & Gergen, 2010;Spink & Frezza, 1999). Dessa maneira, interessa a esta epistemologia o estudo das escolhas de determinadas palavras ao invés de outras e como tais refletem em ações. ...
... Dessa maneira, destacamos algumas aproximações entre interesses e modos de fazer pesquisa feminista pós-moderna e construcionista social, como aportes epistemológicos, sustentadas por Mary Gergen (2001): a crítica como atividade científica; valores sociais e políticos integrados ao trabalho científico; o entendimento de que os limites da linguagem são limites dos nossos mundos, e como a descrição das múltiplas vozes por meio da etnografia podem compor noções mais diversas sobre os mundos; modos de narrativas de vidas, como ficcionais e artísticas; a reflexividade como forma de compor o texto e o fazer científico; a performatividade para além do texto escrito (Gergen & Gergen, 2010). Tais temas vestem-se inevitavelmente por valores sociais, éticos, estéticos e políticos e, ao mesmo tempo, requerem métodos que deem conta de expressar sua complexidade (Gergen, 2015). ...
Resumo: Neste artigo, temos como objetivo estabelecer um diálogo entre as pesquisas construcionista social e feminista, destacando aproximações e possíveis tensões. Nossa discussão se faz a partir da sugestão da divisão da pesquisa feminista em três momentos: empiricista, standpoint e pós-moderno. Sugerimos que a interface entre as pesquisas construcionista social e feminista pós-moderna propõe a problematização de verdades universais, a partir da noção da construção social das realidades. A proposição epistemológica dessa interface é política e relacional, potencializa práticas pelo alargamento de possíveis temas e métodos de pesquisa, com especial interesse pelos efeitos de discursos opressivos para o cotidiano. Este artigo tem como principal contribuição o convite para que a comunidade científica se aproxime dos movimentos sociais feministas, reconhecendo suas demandas latentes e urgentes para transformação da sociedade.
... Such prospective theorizing, as defined here, not only allows stakeholders to prepare for such futures but also embraces its performative potential (Ghoshal, 2005;Gond et al., 2016), making desirable futures more likely or feasible by theorizing them. We join an emerging group of scholars calling for alternatives to conventional forms of theorizing based on prospection (Cooperrider, 2021;Laszlo, 2021;Muñoz & Dimov, 2023), developing a future-forming orientation to research (Gergen, 2015;Gümüsay & Reinecke, 2022) and 'generative scholarship' (Pavez et al., 2021). In this article, we expand and elaborate on this call in three ways. ...
... To realize our ambitions for theory to be impactful, theorizing has to deal with such a future that is different from the present. Here, an emerging group of scholars have started to 'challenge the basic structure of inquiry' (Gergen, 2015, p. 290) and call for an embracing of prospection -'the mental representation and evaluation of possible futures' (Laszlo, 2021, p. 19; see also Cooperrider, 2021;Muñoz & Dimov, 2023) -as a basis for developing a future-forming orientation to research (Gergen, 2015) or 'generative scholarship' (Pavez et al., 2021). ...
With the looming planetary emergency, the future will be anything but an extension of the past. Yet theorizing the future poses a peculiar problem. By definition, it is not present yet. The conundrum of the future is that it requires conceptualizing and theorizing what is not (yet) observable and does not (yet) exist. Scholars have called for more impactful theories; we argue that one powerful avenue to make organizational theories more impactful is to make them more future-oriented. In this article, we call for prospective theorizing, which we define as a future-oriented approach to theorizing that is concerned with imagining desirable futures. First, we argue that prospective theorizing involves a shift along two dimensions (onto-epistemological and axiological): from projection to imagination, and from values-neutral to values-led theorizing. Second, we suggest and promote prospective theorizing practices that might enable such a shift, distinguishing between inputs, throughputs and outputs of theorizing. Third, for such prospective theorizing to be scientifically evaluable and rigorous, we develop the notion of speculative rigour, and outline criteria of generative potency, process transparency, plausible desirability and speculative plausibility. Overall, we argue that prospective theorizing adds to greater plurality in our theorizing towards (re)generative scholarship for imagining desirable futures.
... Theories, frameworks and models are not merely lenses through which we see the world, they are tools meant for thinking and acting in and on the world. Moreover, they participate in future and worldforming (Gergen, 2015). In this sense, there is no sharp divide between theory and practice in Possibility Studies, the two inform each other and co-develop. ...
... This understanding not only foregrounds the embodied and material nature of engaging with the possible, it also highlights the social, cultural, political and ethical dimensions of this engagement (for the role of power, see Batliwala & Friedman, 2014;Freire, 1970). To explore possibilities doesn't mean to play with ideas in one's head, as a solitary activity. ...
This article focuses on the applied side of Possibility Studies and the methodologies that could be used to cultivate possibility thinking and empower participants to become agents within the field of the possible. It proposes Possibility Spaces as collaborative pop-up interventions in which theories, methods and practices from across disciplines co-evolve in order to engage with and to serve participants from a wide range of communities around the world. The article starts by outlining a conceptual framework for Possible Action (P-ACT), grounded in the relation between sense of the possible, personal agency and action, which is the theoretical basis for methodologies like PROMPT (Positioning / Repositioning / Original Repositioning / Making / Possibilities Transformed), discussed in great detail. Offered as an example of how to run Possibility Spaces, PROMPT is one among other action-research tools envisioned in the paper. A future of collaboration is ultimately argued for, one in which researchers and practitioners within Possibility Studies work together with local communities to develop more methodologies that foster transformative experiences of the possible – experiences grounded in the continuous interplay between enhanced sense of the possible, personal agency, and the enactment of new possibilities.
... A participação foi totalmente voluntária. Apesar de realizada em período delimitado, não se tratando de educação permanente propriamente dita, a pesquisa se fez aplicada à realidade, sendo que em seu próprio acontecer ela foi uma forma de criar o futuro, gerando a transformação no campo que pesquisou (Gergen, 2014). Assim, a pesquisa e a EPS se fizeram em um mesmo processo. ...
... Entendendo a centralidade da linguagem na construção da realidade, isto é, entendendo que o modo de se conversar constrói as realidades nas quais vivemos, investir nos potenciais da conversa se torna investir na transformação da realidade. Trata-se da criação conjunta de novos futuros, em momentos de imaginação e reflexão sobre a realidade e de encontro de pautas comuns que revelem novas perspectivas de seguirmos juntos/as nos contextos de trabalho (Gergen, 2014). As ideias de dialogia e de responsividade nos convidam a levar à máxima consideração a proposta de construção conjunta, promovendo horizontalidade nas relações. ...
Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar um processo de Educação Permanente em Saúde (EPS) desenvolvido com profissionais de Centros de Atenção Psicossocial. O estudo foi orientado pela perspectiva construcionista social, que considera a linguagem como forma de ação social e se interessa pelos processos interacionais e dialógicos na produção do conhecimento. Foram realizados sete encontros com um grupo de dez profissionais. As conversas foram gravadas, transcritas e analisadas qualitativamente, a partir da delimitação de momentos críticos. Exploramos a análise de dois momentos críticos, que indicam a ocorrência de transformação de sentidos relacionados à importância do trabalho desenvolvido pelas profissionais e à possibilidade de participação das famílias no cuidado. Foram nomeados como: “‘O afeto é transformador”: ’: construindo a importância do trabalho e dos encontros de EPS, e “‘Estamos prescrevendo corresponsabilização”: ’: transformando o sentido de participação das famílias. Por meio da análise deles, discutimos a centralidade do processo conversacional na configuração das possibilidades dialógicas, com destaque à responsividade como recurso básico de facilitação para promoção da dialogia.
... When I read this chapter, I pondered if he could usefully have explored the difference between an interpretivist approach which still sets out to "capture" people's meaning-making, and an approach which is more firmly rooted in what Guba and Lincoln (2013) call a "Constructivist Credo" and what Gergen (2014Gergen ( , 2015Gergen ( , 2023 in his various writings calls a "social constructionist position, which does not define research as a world-mirroring enterprise." In this way, Omodan could have focused more deliberately on what he calls "advancements" or developments in the field. ...
In the book, Research Paradigms and Their Methodological Alignment in Social Sciences, Bunmi Omodan explores in depth the philosophical foundations of five paradigms (which he points out are not fixed or univocal in their content), namely positivism; interpretivism/constructivism; transformative paradigm; postcolonial Indigenous paradigm; and pragmatism. Examples of the kinds of research questions, research designs, and attendant data collection and analytic processes, as well as ethical positions, that align with paradigmatic positions are presented to us. At the same time, we are urged to “engage with critiques and debates surrounding each paradigm” (Omodan, 2024, p. xii). The book thus hopes to shed light on, while contributing to, “ongoing intellectual dialogues within the field [of social research]” (Omodan, 2024, p. xii). The book re-opens discussion on topics such as: the meaning of “objectivity”; the role of the “subjectivity” of researchers in engagement with research participants, as admitted within certain paradigms; the need to critically reflect on the consequences for research participants and the wider society(ies) of the research endeavor (which he urges us all to take seriously); the possible commitment to social justice as part of a research agenda (as advocated specifically within the transformative paradigm); and the importance of appreciating the historical context in which all paradigms have arisen (and evolved), including the postcolonial Indigenous one. As he puts it, this latter paradigm “acknowledges that colonialism is not a thing of the past but continues to shape Indigenous realities [of those historically and currently affected] in various forms” (p. 119). Omodan endeavors to navigate the difficult course between trying to give credence to all the paradigms which he discusses, while urging us to continue to reflect upon the consequences of how we invoke them. He also subtly introduces as a general ethical guideline that we should (as expressly advised within transformative and Indigenous paradigms), reflect upon how research can be designed to “provide a space for inclusive decision making and co-learning, cultivating an environment where [professional] researchers’ and community members’ insights and wisdom are valued” (Omodan, 2024, p. 128).
... Any book can have an ambition, a hope, or a dream. The present one intends to be a messenger of hope, an assistant to future forming (Gergen, 2014). We hope you will gather courage to remodel your future from infirmity and debility. ...
This book creates a scope for achieving mental wellbeing apart from the currently dominant mental health practices, critiqued for their damaging effects on individuals and families. By broadly drawing on salutary possibilities, it brings evidence of existing and emerging approaches to resolve to mental distress.
This unique volume brings several practices and testimonies together that can support people’s healing and recovery, focusing on the following key interventions:
• Different ways of looking at emotional suffering beyond psy-knowledge, which many doctors, social workers, disability scholars, legal or policy experts and psy-professionals advocate for.
• The role of expressive arts employed by both professionals and peers.
•Efficacy of peer engagement of a professional nature in India, the newest globally emerging phenomenon, often heralded as the future of mental health worldwide.
Deftly interwoven with patient and peer narratives in jargon-free language, this one-of-a-kind book brings practices and choices that can facilitate healing and ways out of permanent psychiatric patient-hood. This volume may be of interest to psychiatric and other helping professionals, therapists, researchers, current patients, caregivers, service providers, social workers, non-profits, students of psychology, social work and disability studies , as well as legal and policy experts.
... Yet, such an undertaking must account for a subject matter that is also nonrepresentational, should it constitute part of human mental life. Such a program differs from a psychology that has become nonrepresentational without intent through its methodologism (i.e., traditional psychology), but also differs from streams of intentional nonrepresentational approaches: Gergen's (1994Gergen's ( , 2015 work is known for advancing a postmodern, social constructionist psychology. However, I would argue that most psychologists sympathetic to social constructionism have moved beyond postmodernism, to postpostmodernism, accepting certain tenets, but also proceeding beyond its core assumptions and contradictions. ...
The argument is based on the premise that method follows subject matter. A representational view of methodology is discussed, arguing that a natural–scientific approach based on variabilization and subdivision of mental life is epistemically insufficient. Subjectivity as the subject matter of psychology must be studied with methods that are capable of addressing wholistic entities and integrating a mostly sociohistorical object, which can be addressed through the psychological humanities. The methodologism of psychology leads to a representational self-misunderstanding that simulates knowledge about human subjectivity but is based on artificial distinctions that are embedded in research practices removed from psychosocial reality. The case is made for representational as well as nonrepresentational psychologies that are grounded in the idea that parts of subjectivity address what is possible and not only what exists. It is concluded that psychology needs a much broader knowledge base and methodological canon, including armchair reflection, for an understanding of human mental life.
... Who may benefit or be harmed from such work? Gergen (2015) links these pragmatic and ethical questions to a "future-forming practice-a practice in which social change is indeed the primary goal" (p. 292). ...
... Forming the initial part of a long-term AR project, the core elements of the design in this study are cyclical processes with co-creation [34][35][36][37] and appreciation [38]. Here, co-creation is understood as a "co-participation process" where we all create the organizational world to which we belong [39]. ...
Background
An increasingly complex healthcare system entails an urgent need for competent and resilient leadership. However, there is a lack of extensive research on leadership development within healthcare. The knowledge gaps extend to various frameworks and contexts, particularly concerning municipal healthcare, knowledge leadership, and the application of knowledge in the field of practice. This study is the first in a larger action research project that aims to co-create a knowledge-based continuous leadership development program for healthcare in a rural Arctic municipality. This present study aims to explore the knowledge and experiences of the participating healthcare leaders to develop a common basis for co-creating the program.
Methods
This hermeneutical study presents the first cycle of the larger action research project. An appreciative approach facilitated the project. Twenty-three healthcare leaders from three different leadership levels attended and evaluated two leadership development workshops and participated in four focus groups. The data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis.
Results
Two main themes were identified: (1) changing from striving solo players to team players, and (2) learning to handle a conflicting and complex context. These results influenced how the leadership development program based on the participants’ co-creation was organized as a collective and relational process rather than an individual competence replenishment.
Conclusions
The knowledge and experiences of healthcare leaders led to the co-creation of a knowledge-based continuous leadership development program based on the facilitated interaction of four essential elements: (1) competence development, (2) structures for interaction, (3) interpersonal safety, and (4) collective values and goals. The interaction was generated through trusted reflection facilitated by appreciative inquiry. The four elements and core played a crucial role in fostering relationships and facilitating learning, driving transformative change in this leadership development program. The study’s results provide a solid foundation for further co-creating the program. However, more research is needed to fully explore the practical application and overall significance.
... Whilst theorising exists in this study, it takes a backseat to practical knowledge with important policy and procedural implications for S&C. Furthermore, we contribute to recent arguments that a strength of social sciences is to be future forming, not mainly to mirror what is like the empiricists, with PAR and narrative inquiry both being extolled for this promise (Bochner and Riggs 2014;Gergen 2015). The natural sciences vs the social sciences are often framed as a dichotomy or binary, but within real-world contexts of sport and S&C, multiple ways of knowing exist. ...
Co-produced research can engage academics with non-academic partners to improve policy and practices in everyday life. Accordingly, we collabo-rated with the United Kingdom’s Strength and Conditioning Association (UKSCA) stakeholders. As an ongoing participatory action research (PAR), in phase one we explored the lack of psychosocial competencies in the UKSCA’s predominantly positivist and bioscientific coach education curri-culum and their suggestions for change. This manuscript focuses on the planning step of phase two of our PAR. Twenty-six UKSCA stakeholders engaged in focus groups or one-on-one interviews where they discussed their knowledge, beliefs, feelings, and suggestions of learning psychoso-cial coaching competencies as part of the UKSCA’s coach education and accreditation pathway. We used a thematic narrative analysis to create one story involving five sequential themes that build towards a plan for the UKSCA’s curriculum changes. The narrative arc starts with the stake-holders uncovering the central problem – the lack of psychosocial com-petencies. Then, the stakeholders identify the current curriculum as scientific and objective, explore how psychosocial competencies are cur-rently learned through experience, and the story climaxes with a debate on the need for change. In the resolution, they suggest actions for change, particularly a new module for the UKSCA, taught by psychosocial content experts. In the challenge of introducing new disciplinary knowledge to the field of strength and conditioning, the story outlines how PAR can lead to the organisation of a practical plan for ongoing co-production, which may shape coaches’ knowledge construction and a plurality of ontological and epistemological perspectives within the UKSCA.
... Los estudios desarrollados en el entorno doméstico observaban el juego espontáneo con los DP para comprender cómo el entorno de los niños afecta su juego y su elección de las actividades lúdicas. Los niños parecen beneficiarse de la inclusión de un componente de autonomía en los DP, ya que son ellos quienes deciden cómo adaptarse, y desarrollar las posibilidades que brinda el juego(Gergen, 2015), contribuyendo así a crear su propia agencia digital. En este sentido, los niños pequeños pueden idear métodos originales, imaginativos y más entretenidos para incorporar los diversos componentes del DP en su actividad lúdica(Marsh et al., 2016;Mustola et al., 2018).Por otro lado, en el entorno del aula donde se emplea el currículo basado en juegos, la implementación del DGBL se centra en lograr habilidades específicas (habilidades de creatividad, pensamiento computacional, pensamiento espacial, conciencia fonológica, conocimiento de las letras, lectura, escritura, sentido numérico y estimación de rectas numéricas), a través de actividades evaluables y estructuradas, dirigidas por adultos.Por último, en pocos casos se diseñan actividades de DGBL en espacios de juego distintos, como laboratorios y museos, donde se suele estudiar el juego colaborativo con actividades de juego más o menos estructuradas.En relación las consecuencias del uso de la tecnología en el juego, a pesar de no mencionar siempre las habilidades académicas adquiridas a través de la experiencia de juego digital, las investigaciones sobre DP suelen medir sus efectos en los dominios del desarrollo cognitivo y en menor medida emocional El aprendizaje basado en juegos digitales es un concepto que se utiliza comúnmente en el entorno educativo formal, donde a veces también hace referencia a un enfoque pedagógico, técnicas de enseñanza y currícula específicas. ...
... Whilst theorising exists in this study, it takes a backseat to practical knowledge with important policy and procedural implications for S&C. Furthermore, we contribute to recent arguments that a strength of social sciences is to be future forming, not mainly to mirror what is like the empiricists, with PAR and narrative inquiry both being extolled for this promise (Bochner and Riggs 2014;Gergen 2015). The natural sciences vs the social sciences are often framed as a dichotomy or binary, but within real-world contexts of sport and S&C, multiple ways of knowing exist. ...
... All these are meant to study and create social and political processes that increase ordinary people's possibilities to participate in imagining and building a just world and liberate themselves from structures of alienation by exploring not what is but what could be (see Eskola 1988;Gergen 2014;Wright 2010;Stetsenko 2020). Related efforts include the development of futures-oriented research methods that allow 'ordinary people to participate in imagining the future and solve small and large-scale social problems' (Suoranta and Teräs 2023: 318), research which is oriented to emotions and religion (Costello et al. 2024), and more general explorations of relationships between postdigital theory and future studies (Traxler et al. 2021). ...
... I paedagogisk forskning har der vaeret en tradition for at fokusere på det problematiske og kritisable. I dag ses derimod i stigende grad forskningsprojekter, der er optaget af det vaerdifulde og virkningsfulde, blandt andet med udgangspunkt i retninger som pragmatisme (Dewey 2005), 'appreciative inquiry' (Mejlvig 2012) og 'future forming research' (Gergen 2015). I undersøgelsen er de studerende opfordret til at se efter det positive såvel som det kritisable. ...
I den styrkede pædagogiske læreplan (2018) fremhæves legens egenværdi, og legen anses som grundlæggende for børns trivsel, læring, udvikling og dannelse i daginstitutioner. Med udgangspunkt i den justerede lovgivning er det væsentligt at afdække legens betingelser anno 2018. I denne artikel præsenteres en kvalitativ empirisk undersøgelse med dette fokus, foretaget med pædagogstuderende som medundersøgere. Undersøgelsen er en del af et nyopstartet og eksperimenterende forskningsnetværk, hvor der arbejdes med at kombinere undervisningsaktiviteter og forskning på nye måder. I undersøgelsen genereres data fra 40 dagtilbud, i form af semistrukturerede interviews og deltagerobservationer ud fra et fællesgjort design. Empirien er behandlet gennem processer, hvor de studerende og forskere interagerer omkring udvalgte analysenedslag. I undersøgelsen fremskrives tre primære fund, der kan forstås som dilemmaer eller ’spænd’, der interagerer med hinanden, og som pædagogikken skal håndtere. Disse fund betegnes Orden og Kaos, Leg og rationalisering samt Divergent professionsnarrativ og de diskuteres og perspektiveres yderligere i artiklen.
... Using a foresight lens to inform research also allows participants' expertise and visions of the future to be centered and viewed not just as passive data points to study, but as architects that are actively involved in world-building and future-making (Gergen, 2015). Using a foresight lens with participatory approaches would provide an exciting way to extend this method by partnering with participants in research design, theming, interpretation, and dissemination. ...
Most social work research explores ways to prevent or ameliorate social problems to relieve human suffering. Less common in social work is research which considers the future as a preparative tool to address challenges faced today. This qualitative methods paper describes the uses of a foresight lens and futures-focused framework to analyze empirical research. The paper first provides insight into speculative turns toward futures practice within academic and non-academic traditions in the United States. It describes the ways foresight has emerged within social work research and beyond. Next, the paper contextualizes the case study of mutual aid as a community strategy and research focus within a US context. Then, the paper provides the steps the research team took to use Dator’s (2009) four futures framework, which analyzed interviews of mutual aid participants and organizers (N= 25) during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team provides insights and best practices for using the foresight lens as an analytical tool, including reflexivity, flexibility, and an emphasis on centering participant voices. The paper ends with limitations and implications for the use of foresight practice and future-focus tools in the field of social work as a means to help prepare researchers, practitioners, and educators for the complex crises yet to come.
... Nella terza parte dell'intervista si sono integrate "domande generative" (Gergen, 2015;Romaioli, 2022) ovvero quesiti costruiti al fine di mettere i partecipanti nella condizione di meglio riconoscere risorse e competenze personali e relazionali, di espandere le riflessioni utili e/o di sfidare punti di vista dominanti e oppressivi attorno a un tema. In questo caso specifico, le persone sono state invitate a riflettere sull'epilessia non solo concentrandosi su elementi di limitazione, difficoltà e sofferenza, ma anche enfatizzando aspetti di arricchimento e di acquisizione di risorse che l'esperienza stessa con la malattia poteva aver generato. ...
Secondo l'OMS, l'epilessia colpisce circa cinquanta milioni di persone nel mondo. Nono-stante i progressi delle neuroscienze abbiano permesso oggi una conoscenza più esaustiva del-la malattia, i modi in cui l'epilessia è stata interpretata nel corso del tempo sono stati molteplici e forieri di differenti credenze attorno a essa. Il presente studio si propone di indagare le rap-presentazioni sociali dell'epilessia nel contesto italiano odierno, mettendo a confronto sguardi di persone con epilessia con quello di familiari/caregiver e di un più generico senso comune. A 49 partecipanti è stata proposta un'intervista episodica, mentre i testi raccolti sono stati sotto-posti a un'analisi tematica coadiuvata con il software Nud.Ist. I principali risultati delineano diversi modi di narrare l'epilessia, di definirla e di attribuirvi delle cause, generando posizio-namenti diversi nei nostri interlocutori. Nello specifico, mentre il gruppo delle persone con epilessia e dei familiari tende ad avvalorare principalmente un discorso medico ufficiale, se-condo il quale la malattia è definita come disfunzione neurologica, il senso comune costruisce il fenomeno in modi più sfaccettati, ancorandolo a credenze che lo indicano anche come pro-blema di natura psicologica. Il paper si conclude con riflessioni su come cambiare la rappre-sentazione sociale dell'epilessia e contribuire a promuovere punti di vista più inclusivi capaci di ridurre fenomeni di pregiudizio e discriminazione.
... Confronted with global conditions of lethal threat, attentions increasingly turn to means of building a more promising future. As psychologists propose, this would mean a significant shift in the traditions toward future forming initiatives (Gergen, 2015;Power et al., 2023). Traditional research in psychology examines, reports on, or represents an existing state of affairs. ...
The three authors of the 2015 American Psychologist “The Promises of Qualitative Inquiry” article assess the extent to which these promises have been realized in the first decade of Qualitative Psychology. In this review, we first highlight the ways in which contributions to the journal have markedly expanded the palette of legitimate methodologies for addressing important psychological questions. Augmenting traditional nomothetic research, such practices are acutely sensitive to issues of contemporary social and political significance and to the voices of marginalized and underrepresented subgroups. With respect to the flourishing of psychological science more generally, journal contributions have expanded domains of education, relations with other disciplines, and the dimensions of philosophic inquiry into the nature of knowledge. Finally, with respect to psychology’s relationship to the broader public, journal contributions have expanded the reach and efficacy of the discipline’s communication, and offered a model of care—or working with—in its orientation to those otherwise “under study.” As substantial as these achievements have been, significant spaces for improvement are also noted, particularly with respect to creatively expanding the range and variety of practices characterizing qualitative inquiry.
... In such a heuristic approach, truth or truth testing is eschewed. Instead, dialogical, relational activities are communally performative, i.e., they involve creating space for organisation members to co-author (Shotter, 1993) life-giving conversations that lead to the cocreation of shared futures (Gergen, 2015). These conversations should be diversity-honouring in that they should be based on whole systems thinking, participation and the curation of systemic intelligence. ...
This article takes a slight detour from this edition's theme – decolonising systemic practice – by suggesting that systemic practices can be used to decolonise dominant discourses, such as Western-centric management and its associated form of knowledge production. My views are voiced from an insider–outsider, intersectional positionality – a person from the Global South now working as a Human Resource Practitioner in the United Kingdom. The article posits management and human resource management as Western in their cultural roots and neoliberal in their economic worldview and proposes that underlying assumptions embedded in these discourses have resulted in epistemic othering and subjugation on an international scale. It suggests that decolonising management could begin with making the paradigm shift from a diagnostic to a dialogical understanding of organising human systems. It holds up this epiphany as an example of embracing indigenous knowledge and practices. The article also suggests, through a case story, the use of a systemic practice known as Social GRACEs (Burnham, 1992), that systemic reflexivity and the re-constitution of language games are paramount for making such a paradigmatic shift to decolonised practice.
... What comes after being stirred is typically the effort to channel a concern for social and ecological transition in the direction of effecting corresponding changes in one's circumstances (Spinosa et al., 1997). Under such an angle, social movements are veritable 'research projects' (in Hopkins' sense mentioned above), by which participants seek to develop (i) an awareness of the nature of the predicament they have 'fallen into' and that gathers them together (Russi, 2015b) and, building on that, (ii) a sense of orientation in order to advance the commitments they find themselves embodying (Gergen, 2015). This is the sort of endeavour that political philosopher Hannah Arendt would associate with the sphere of 'action': a gesture that matters because it reveals to the people who perform it who they are (Arendt, 2013). ...
This commentary responds to the following article previously published on the Journal and Business Ethics: ‘Baudoin, L., Arenas, D. “Everyone Has a Truth”: Forms of Ecological Embeddedness in an Interorganizational Context. J Bus Ethics 185, 263–280 (2023)’. Our commentary offers a rejoinder to Baudoin’s and Arenas’ conclusion that environmental engagement within organizations is a plural field within which many different sub-positions may be discerned. In rejoining their conclusion, our commentary searches for greater nuance in the portrayal of engagement for social and ecological transition in the workplace. This is done in two steps: first, by ‘softening’ categories that conceal as much as they reveal: like Olin Wright’s tripartition of rupture, interstice and reform as distinct forms such engagement might take. Second, by undertaking a close reading of the experience of an activist undertaking training on environmental issues, who has previously left a job with a French car manufacturer. In so doing, we discern the following strategies co-existing simultaneously in this person’s story: an existential quest to frame his choices, the decision to become a broker of scientific information concerning human-made climate change to other professionals, and a state of ‘suspension’ in moving from individual consciousness raising to the initiation of joint action with others.
... Således suser interessen for det enkelte menneske nemt ud af optikken (Bolt, 2016). Ikke alene Foucault, men en raekke mere kultur-re eksive kritikere har rejst denne 'kritik af kritikken' (se fx Haraway, 1991;Latour & Woolgar, 1986;Gergen, 2015;Deleuze & Guattari, 1993;Ranciere, 2007). Som Latour skriver: ...
Denne artikel belyser nogle af de spørgsmål og udfordringer, studerende og undervisere i dag konfronterer i arbejdet med kritisk tænkning og tilegnelsen af social-og humanvidenskabens kritiske traditioner. Artiklen forsøger dernæst at forklare kritikkens fortsatte relevans og mangeartede funktioner, men også nogle af dens mange interne stridspunkter, ikke mindst mellem på den ene side det, vi kan kalde social kritik, inspireret af bl.a. Marx og på den anden side kultur-refleksiv kritik, inspireret af bl.a. Foucault. Afslutningsvis argumenterer artiklen for, at den kritiske tradition, uanset teoretisk aftapning, i dag konfronterer nogle særlige udfordringer, der inviterer til, at vi øver os i at søge gensidig inspiration i vores teoretiske forskelle, frem for blot at se afstand og uforenelighed.
... As seen, our focus was primarily-even if not exclusively-on enhancing and emphasizing the positive aspects of participants' experience. This orientation is widely rooted in recent movements in social sciences which invite researchers to rethink research more as a "future-forming" (Gergen, 2015;2023), "generative" (Romaioli, 2022), and "world-making" (Power et al., 2023) activity. As this orientation assumes that the interaction between researchers and participants can be transformative of social realities, it usually aims to emphasize what is working, how things could be-unlike studies that aim to define problems in an attempt to measure them. ...
The Covid-19 pandemic added to collective concerns, making health risks salient especially for the older population. The health emergency exacerbated an already widespread negative representation of aging, and phenomena such as ageism. With the present qualitative inquiry, 21 episodic interviews were collected with the aim of understanding the experience of older adults in residential care facilities, exploring their ideas of aging and the viewpoints that helped them to respond to the pandemic successfully. A thematic analysis was conducted using NudIst software. The results show that participants described multiple personal and relational resources they used to cope with the pandemic, and they were able to express counter-narratives to the ideas of aging as coinciding with decline, and of lockdown as a source of distress alone. The paper concludes with reflections on the relevance of research capable of challenging unhelpful dominant discourses and averting the risk of them turning into negative prophecies.
... Narratives become more than simply tellings of personal meanings about the world. The key shift that FDA allows NI to make is from representation to performance (Gemignani, 2017;Gergen, 2014). From this perspective, a narrative is analyzed not only in terms of its content (i.e., representations of personal reality) but also as a performance of reality construction. ...
... Ein anderes Beispiel sind die von Marcel Ortmann (2021) genannten "Literatureffekte", über die er verdeutlicht, dass sich unabhängig von einer Felddifferenzierung unterschiedliche Überschneidungen von Literatur und Sozialwissenschaften in konkreten Werken und bei verschiedenen Personen herausheben lassen (vgl. Lepenies 1985). Eine a priori kritische Gegenüberstellung sowie Trennung von Wissenschaft und Kunst, die der performativen Sozialwissenschaft teilweise als (implizite) Ausgangslage eines eigenen Wissenschaftsverständnis dient, kann daher auch ganz anders betrachtet werden. ...
Zusammenfassung
Der Beitrag untersucht einige grundlegende wissenschaftstheoretische sowie methodologische Konsequenzen, die sich aus dem Verhältnis von Sozialforschung und dem Ansatz der so genannten performativen Sozialwissenschaften ergeben. Ausgangspunkt für diese Ausführungen und auch deren Abschluss markiert die historische Epistemologie von Gaston Bachelard. Bachelard hat Gemeinsamkeiten von und Unterschiede zwischen Literatur und Wissenschaft analysiert. Im Zentrum stehen die Fragen nach der spezifischen Kreativität der Wissenschaften, die er mit dem Konzept des epistemologischen Bruchs ermöglicht sieht. Bachelards Epistemologie kann als die wissenschaftstheoretische Position des (Neo)Strukturalismus aufgefasst werden kann. Der Beitrag bezieht sich aber auch auf den (Neo)Pragmatismus, der wiederum eine andere Problematisierung der performativen Sozialwissenschaft zulässt. Die Kombination dieser beiden Megaparadigmen bietet sich an, da beide gerade auch mit ihren Methodologien in der qualitativen Sozialforschung einflussreich sind. Letztendlich geht es so um die Fragen nach einer unabhängigen Erkenntnispraxis der Wissenschaften einerseits und den Konsequenzen aus ihrer gesellschaftlichen Involviertheit andererseits.
Schlagwörter: Bachelard, epistemologisches Hindernis, Literatur, Phänomenotechnik, (Neo)Strukturalismus, (Neo)Pragmatismus
... Esa fractura, de los estudios historiográficos, lejos de afectar a su objeto, lo diversificó y enriqueció. La combinación de lo sincrónico con lo diacrónico, 2 la dialogicidad (BAJTÍN, 2005), la genealogía o la arqueología (FOUCAULT, 1969) de productos culturales "blandos" como los saberes de la alta tradición, la combinación de factores estructurales (BORDIEU, 1999) con sistémicos (WALLERSTEIN, 1996), el corrimiento del lugar de poder para el narrador de la historia (BORDIEU, 1999), la legitimación de ideas en su forma de circulación y recepción (JAUSS, 1978) y construcción (GERGEN, 2014), creación (MACHIN SUAREZ, 2011) en contraste con las tradicionales de reproducción (GERGEN, 2014), la legitimación de historias intangibles -imaginario, pensamientos, afectos (MACHIN SUAREZ, 2021)-o lo efímero; permitieron como "objetos" legitimados más recientemente por las disciplinas humanísticas y sociales enriquecer también la historiografía clásica. ...
Este trabajo pretende resaltar algunos apuntes para un estudio de la circulación, recepción, imaginarización, praxis e institucionalización del psicoanálisis en Cuba, después de 1959. Más que centrado en la lógica historiográfica tradicional, pretende hilvanar elementos contextuales, sociales, económicos y políticos que pudieran relacionarse con la manera en que fue percibido, asimilado y a la vez, relativamente marginado, este sistema de ideas en la tierra caribeña. Busca algunos puntos de comparación con otros países latinoamericanos y sienta las bases para un estudio en profundidad. Se toman de referencia los trabajos sobre este tema en Latinoamérica, específicamente en Argentina, Brasil y Chile. Se desmarca de estos al hacer énfasis en la relación imaginario, praxis social e institucionalización, para tratar de entender las dificultades de la inserción del psicoanálisis en la isla. Esta primera entrega recorre hasta 1980 aproximadamente. Una segunda continúa el recorrido a partir de la década de los 80 ́s hasta mediados de la segunda década del 2000, período de relativo renacer del psicoanálisis.
To empower student-driven projects for sustainability transformation in higher education structures, the project ‘Students create sustainable universities in Northrhine-Westphalia’ by German NGO netzwerk n e. V. has developed an innovative digital program ( https://kurs.netzwerk-n.org/ ) using transdisciplinary and transformative learning elements in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Core objective of the 8-week massive open online course is to encourage and connect student promoters for sustainable university transformation. Its transdisciplinary learning methods encourage creation and reflexive discourse about alternative images of the future of sustainable institutions, processes and education, as well as human-nature-interaction and more-than-human futures. The integrated digital future workshop based on the participatory workshop method explores a novel approach to assess images of the future individually and collectively in digital space. This paper presents the conceptual background and methodological premises used for design and implementation of the online course as innovative method for student project development. Participants’ structured critique, utopia envisioning and specific project development provide valuable insights into the use of images of the future for higher education sustainability discourse and transformative action in student-driven sustainability projects.
This study analyses the images of the future of Spanish secondary school students (n = 252) from two perspectives. First, from the relationship between representations of the personal future and the social future. Second, the potential influence of the specific training of Geography and History teachers in education for the future on the construction of these representations. From a descriptive, predictive-correlational and relational design, the results obtained report the existence of significant positive correlations , high effect sizes and optimal statistical power between the ways in which students conceive the social future and their own personal future. They also show the existence of statistically differential proportions between the two representations, less optimistic and progressive when thinking about the future of society. Similarly, the results report evidence of higher probabilities of obtaining positive perceptions about the social future when teachers have previous training in education for the future. The findings also show the need to rethink the concept of the future, in close connection with historical-temporal awareness , as the core of the aims of social science teaching.
In the context of neoliberalism and increasing globalization, technocratization, and scientification of mental health care, people suffering from socio-politico-economic problems ranging from poverty to structural violence are often transmogrified into “patients” with mental health problems to be “treated” with psychopharmaceuticals and individualized psychological therapies. Drawing from three socio-political issues India witnessed in the past 3 years, concerning three marginalized sections, namely, farmers, LGBTQIA+ people, and migrant workers, I illustrate the silence of mainstream mental health disciplines in India on sheer instances of structural violence and social suffering. Deflection of attention from human rights violations by mainstream mental health systems raises critical questions about the ethics and politics of mental health disciplines. The social, political, and material contexts that are central to lived experiences are almost always unaccounted in mental health academia, research, and practice. Engaging people with lived experiences advances equity by breaking down power dynamics, establishing collaborative decision-making, and improving equitable outcomes. Thus, knowledge production in mental health becomes irrelevant to political action and transformative policies that are crucial for positive mental health outcomes. By ignoring and thus implicitly sanctioning discriminatory, exploitive neoliberal architecture, mental health systems maintain the very upstream factors that cultivate and sustain mental distress. In this way, mainstream mental health practice in India fails to undertake world-making , raising deeper questions in public mental health ethics.
Purpose
The logic models at the center of leading environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting programs, such as the global reporting initiative, impose a dualistic relationship between organizations and social-ecological systems. Coupled with the lack of a real-world alternative, their dualistic approach results in widespread systems thinking-based reducibility errors in business responsibility. To help develop a nondualistic alternative, this study aims to present the idea of neltilistli or “rootedness,” as developed by the ancient Nahua indigenous peoples of Central Mexico. From the perspective of the Nahua, rootedness involves a holistic relationship with one’s body, community and the creative force called “teotl.”
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on the past to speculatively theorize an imagined future using the method of prospective theorizing to draw on a historical social context that is largely missing from current management scholarship. In doing so, the authors engage in a process of imagining a radically different future reality.
Findings
Integrating a rootedness approach into ESG reporting, particularly in terms of stakeholder relations, enriches it both spatially and temporally. This approach allows researchers and practitioners to replace dualistic thinking with a more holistic approach.
Originality/value
This paper complements the dualistic assumptions behind ESG reporting programs with a holistic approach based on the rootedness concept of ancient Nahua thought.
In this article, I discuss each of the elements of this special issue’s question, that is, “should,” “psychology,” “follow,” “the methods and principles,” and “the natural sciences,” and first argue that the natural sciences are many and diverse, and the choice to emulate them would still leave plenty of room for variety. There are, moreover, good ontological reasons to resist the urge to restrict what we call “psychology” to the study of human life with the “methods and principles of the natural sciences.” Psychologists should feel free to adopt and adapt (rather than follow) what has been developed in other fields of research in terms of principles, methods, techniques, and instruments. That includes fields of research other than those in the natural sciences.
FULL TEXT IN OA here: https://www.routledge.com/Everyday-Agri-Environmental-Governance-The-Emergence-of-Sustainability-through-Assemblage-Thinking/Forney-Bentia-Dwiartama/p/book/9781032221328
Abstract:
Revitalising the way the social sciences question agri-environmental governance, this book introduces "the everyday governance approach" as a means to improving the sustainability of agriculture and food systems.
The "everyday" refers to localised practices, specific networks, and practical norms that emerge in a process of interaction, translation, and reinterpretation. The authors build this approach on assemblage thinking and theory, which focuses on the collective production of the social through complex sets of connections. For this reason, assemblage thinking becomes a particularly productive guide in exploring how everyday governance is co-produced in the interaction between numerous social processes involving a diversity of actors and instruments. The authors navigate between original and contrasting case studies from Switzerland, Indonesia, and the European Union in order to reorient attention to the transformative nature of governance, which they locate along four different dimensions of the everyday: (1) the interdependence of instruments within a wider governance assemblage; (2) the uncertainty and unpredictability of effects in agri-environmental governance; (3) the distributed nature of agency and its implication for power relations; (4) the importance of capacities in the transformation of agri-food systems. This book calls for a redesigning of agri-environmental governance that should move away from the setting of fix and precise objectives and solutions, and rather aim for a consolidation of sound foundations on which desirable futures can emerge.
The book will be an essential read for students and scholars interested in sustainable agriculture and food systems, governance modes and approaches, and sustainability more broadly.
This study reports preservice teachers’ perceptions of desirable and undesirable digital futures for education. Empathy-based stories were collected from 74 student teachers in Finnish professional teacher education. The findings were arranged into three positive and three negative future scenarios. In the positive scenarios, digital tools support human interaction and are subject to the teacher’s agency. Teaching and learning remain essentially human activities, whereas technology has a supportive role. In the negative scenarios, learning is reduced to the acquisition of mechanical competences managed by technology and teachers becoming machine operators. These results could guide the development of teacher education, decision-making, and education policy toward meaningful digital futures.
This essay on knowledge, emotions, and well-being first of all explores the narratives on boir, a primitive warfare among the Khoshias of the western Himalaya. These are tales of struggle for survival between the villages. From this arises a new vision into psychic conflicts—an enquiry of ambivalence of emotions, love and hate toward the lost object. For, in these transitions of emotions, everything that is in flesh and blood seeps into the psyche of the griever. Unaware of it, the person goes into a state of gloom. In some rare ones, who bear the pain, it burns as a fire of separation, the fire of biraha, and fuels creative works. It is a journey of the self into amar and sabar, the inner and outer world. However, for most of us, there are two ways to come out of the state of gloom. When aware of this state, effort must be to control consciousness and reinstate order through mourning. For others, the simplest way is to practice mindfulness.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic exposed insecurities and inequalities in schools. As such, there has been changing pedagogy in rural secondary schools in the uMkhanyakude district. Teachers adopted the technology, pedagogy, content, and spaces (TPeCS) knowledge framework, integrating planned behaviour. Teachers and learners engaged in discussion as a means of teaching and learning mathematics after school hours. This implicated cultural and sociological dimensions that were common among rural teachers and learners. Although the findings of this study could not be generalised, an all-encompassing framework for rural secondary school teachers and learners through online discussions is recommended. Novel technology-enhanced out-of-school teaching and learning activities were developed through progressive, participatory action-research. Furthermore, the findings support collaboration and a new contextualised theory called the technology, pedagogy, content, interaction, and spaces (TPeCIS) knowledge framework.
The present paper is intended to develop a theory on the aspects that should be considered while meaning is made and conveyed, in the context of multimodal communication, emphasizing the way in which the discourse constructs and deconstructs versions of the social world. The term theory refers to a set of insights, a collection of categories, intended to provide a conceptual understanding of the self and the world, as well as a rational support for such understanding. The paper is therefore an inductive approach, specific to qualitative research. Considering that inductive reasoning entails the derivation of a general principle, a new insight or a theory from a body of systematically collected knowledge, the grounded theory is employed as the research method.
The present paper is intended to develop a theory on the aspects that should be considered while meaning is made and conveyed, in the context of multimodal communication, emphasizing the way in which the discourse constructs and deconstructs versions of the social world. The term theory refers to a set of insights, a collection of categories, intended to provide a conceptual understanding of the self and the world, as well as a rational support for such understanding. The paper is therefore an inductive approach, specific to qualitative research. Considering that inductive reasoning entails the derivation of a general principle, a new insight or a theory from a body of systematically collected knowledge, the grounded theory is employed as the research method.
This commentary on one of D. Sinha’s articles is organised into three parts. In the first part, the narrowness of the scientific worldview and the limitations of the scientific method and its implication for investigating Indian psychological phenomena have been discussed. The second part discusses the distinct characteristics of the human world and the need for human science to study psychological phenomena. The importance of human science as an antidote to the dark side of scientific modernity has also been highlighted. Extending the discussion of the first two sections, the final (third) section discusses the current status of psychological research in India and suggests measures to improve research practices.
Bereavement services incorporating family-centered practices are emerging within hospital-based care but are often time-limited and lack personalization. This action research single case study explored one father’s experience of music therapy using amplified cardiopulmonary recordings (ACPR) during bereavement following his son’s death by suicide, to critique current norms and inspire transformative change in systems of care. As co-researchers, a bereaved father, his music therapist, and a music therapy researcher used iterative cycles to qualitatively analyze a series of dialogic reflections upon an 8-year experience of ACPR to construct two overarching themes: 1) continuity experienced as compassion, and 2) process of music therapy with ACPR as tool for resilience and positive growth. Aspects of continuity in the ACPR process, in relation with the music therapist, in journeying through grief, and in the heart and heartbeat were perceived as overwhelming compassion that fostered positive growth in the face of profound loss. We see our study as a first step in promoting culture change by exposing underlying practices, assumptions and policies within the context of hospital-based bereavement care and identifying an exceptional example of possibilities. Our findings add to the literature on action research for transformation by demonstrating that the process of relational knowledge co-creation can be perceived as part of the therapeutic journey.
Narrative inquiry, narrative conflict resolution, and auto/duoethnography can be seen as sources of agency, fostering emancipatory processes. Autoethnography is a method that can elicit constructive social change by cultivating narrative coherency. These generative methods and practices have the ability to enkindle a cultural shift. We need new stories to initiate transformational processes, resetting individual life trajectories and humanities' course. Writing Homing In: An Adopted Child's Story Mandala of Connecting, Reunion, and Belonging, provided an autoethnographic exploration that encompassed notions of the good life in an autoethnographic process akin to spiritual journey. This adoption and reunion story gave rise to concepts and transformational learning pedagogies that can be used to engender resolution processes that can be understood as “lines of flight” or flyways. The homing in mechanism that was found in cases of adopted children that were able to find their birth parents, is shown to work as a compass, guiding individual life trajectories. Auto/duoethnography are methods that elicit relational transformation while contributing to the development of conflict wisdom. Transformagram Portfolios incorporating these approaches were designed to teach courses within the Cultural and Social Department at Creighton University. Writing conflict and illness narratives elevated personal questing to art form by using future forming research methods to beautify story mandalas. Auto/duoethnography can be developed as an effective conflict resolution tool in response to current “glocal” challenges. Transformational pedagogies have facetted a holistic lens by creating reflexive space. In this context, mediatorship is a vessel of exploration that transports conflict resolution practices, while orienting experiential learning that interconnects the inner and outer journey. Transformagram Portfolios use auto/duoethnography to nurture narrative coherency, living wisdom, and generativity by scaffolding learning processes that provide an innovative pedagogical instrument for conflict resolution.
In their chapter, Teräs, Teräs, and Suoranta critique the current dominant narrative of the digitalization of higher education. They argue that reports and vision papers by powerful international and national organizations such as the OECD not only predict but also build a certain kind of digital future. They call these reports “official document utopias,” and reflect on their discursive truth with past utopian literature. The authors argue that we should use collective utopian methods to imagine genuinely alternative “postdigital” futures, and to this end, they introduce the Method of Empathy-Based Stories. While discussing its history, they also reflect on its potential and limitations through a study with Finnish teacher students, imagining the digitalization of higher education in 2050.
Conducting evaluation and research with community coalitions involved in health equity initiatives is inherently complex. In this paper we provide a review and synthesis of the empirical literature on the evaluation of equity-focused community coalitions. We explore issues, challenges, and barriers experienced by evaluators, as well as techniques and approaches that were considered beneficial. Our review identified 11 peer reviewed articles, from which we identified seven overlapping themes: (1) framing equity in the evaluation process, (2) use of multiple theoretical frameworks, (3) use of systems-focused approaches, (4) strategic use of intersectoral partnerships and collaborations, (5) intentional communication and building trusting relationships, (6) challenges dedicating purposeful time to the work, and (7) issues of cultural and contextual clarity and responsiveness. Our findings point to a significant focus on context, history, learning, communication, relationships, and power. The cultural complexity and historical scope of each context, diversity of stakeholders, and enormity of the systemic issues involved, shape and challenge the evaluation and research process in fundamental ways, requiring a creative and kinetic thinking -- a shifting from methodological certainty to an acknowledged uncertainty, where mixing, blending and the innovative use of approaches and theories becomes a way of moving beyond the colonizing past.
Professor Durganand Sinha in his oeuvre of work has provided a disciplinary vision to Indian psychologists to formulate a psychology indigenous to Indian ethos as well as use it to contribute to the building of a universal psychology. This commentary tries to interrogate the challenges that accompany realization of this two-pronged vision. It raises some critical questions about the challenges and possibilities of developing global psychology based on indigenous psychologies.
Presents an analysis of theory and research in social psychology which reveals that while methods of research are scientific in character, theories of social behavior are primarily reflections of contemporary history. The dissemination of psychological knowledge modifies the patterns of behavior upon which the knowledge is based. This modification occurs because of the prescriptive bias of psychological theorizing, the liberating effects of knowledge, and the resistance based on common values of freedom and individuality. In addition, theoretical premises are based primarily on acquired dispositions. As the culture changes, such dispositions are altered, and the premises are often invalidated. Several modifications in the scope and methods of social psychology are derived from this analysis. (53 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In applying social role theory to account for the content of a wide range of stereotypes, this research tests the proposition that observations of groups' roles determine stereotype content (Eagly & Wood, 2012). In a novel test of how stereotypes can develop from observations, preliminary research collected participants' beliefs about the occupational roles (e.g., lawyer, teacher, fast food worker, chief executive officer, store clerk, manager) in which members of social groups (e.g., Black women, Hispanics, White men, the rich, senior citizens, high school dropouts) are overrepresented relative to their numbers in the general population. These beliefs about groups' typical occupational roles proved to be generally accurate when evaluated in relation to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Then, correlational studies predicted participants' stereotypes of social groups from the attributes ascribed to group members' typical occupational roles (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c), the behaviors associated with those roles (Study 2), and the occupational interest profile of the roles (Study 3). As predicted by social role theory, beliefs about the attributes of groups' typical roles were strongly related to group stereotypes on both communion and agency/competence. In addition, an experimental study (Study 4) demonstrated that when social groups were described with changes to their typical social roles in the future, their projected stereotypes were more influenced by these future roles than by their current group stereotypes, thus supporting social role theory's predictions about stereotype change. Discussion considers the implications of these findings for stereotype change and the relation of social role theory to other theories of stereotype content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Psychological science is now in a period of major transition. After almost a century of dominance by a foundational view of empirical science, a new pluralism is sweeping the field. We witness the rapid and global expansion of perspectives, visions, and goals of inquiry. Partly owing to the traditional distinction between quantitative and qualitative research, these pluralistic pursuits are typically gathered under the qualitative umbrella. As I will first propose, the criteria of excellence applicable to traditional empirical research are mistakenly applied to most forms of qualitative inquiry. Furthermore, because of their differing ontologies, epistemologies, and aims of inquiry, there are no adequate criteria of excellence applicable across the qualitative spectrum. Thus explored is the emergence and sustainability of criteria within communities of practice. Within such communities, criteria of excellence become evident. At the same time, when criteria are solidified, their rigorous application is inimical to the well-being of the field and its contributions to society. Discussions of excellence ultimately may profit from an orientation of reflective pragmatism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
Existential anxiety is hypothesized to be a core human issue in a great deal of theoretical and philosophical writing. Fostering the empirical understanding of the expression of these concerns may be a valuable addition to the psychological literature on exposure to trauma. The purpose of this study was to test theoretical predictions about the association between different facets of existential anxiety and psychological symptoms (posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, suicidal ideation) among individuals following a natural disaster. A sample of 386 Gulf Coast residents completed the Existential Anxiety Questionnaire, a posttraumatic stress disorder symptom checklist, and a measure of psychological symptoms that included an item on suicidal ideation in the months following Hurricane Katrina. The results suggested that existential concerns were prevalent in the sample and that the various facets of existential anxiety were differentially associated with psychological symptoms. These findings provide preliminary evidence for existential concerns as an important correlate of psychological distress following exposure to natural disasters and increment empirical understanding of the concept of existential anxiety.
The investigations described in this series are concerned with the conditions of independence and lack of independence in the face of group pressure. The abstract temper of present-day theory and investigation in this region rests to a considerable degree on a neglect of the cognitive and emotional experiences that are part of the individual's psychological field. The understanding of social influences will require the study of a wide range of conditions and of the interrelated operations of different psychological functions. A group of seven to nine individuals was gathered in a classroom to take part in what appeared to be a simple experiment in visual discrimination. The subjects were all male, white college students, ranging in age from 17 to 25; the mean age was 20. For certain purposes a large number of critical subjects was required for the present experiment. The present report is based on a total of 123 subjects. The task consisted of the comparison of a standard line with three other lines, one of which was equal in length to the standard. We investigated some of the conditions responsible for independence and lack of independence in the face of arbitrary group pressure. To this end we produced a disagreement between a group and one individual member about a clear and simple issue of fact. The interview, which followed the experimental session, provided qualitative evidence concerning the effects produced by the majority, The particular properties of the experimental situation and their relation to more usual social contradictions were described.
Despite growing interest in corporate discourse practices, linguists have rarely focused specifically on the discursive legitimation of institutional or corporate actors after perceived episodes of wrongdoing. This may be due to the fact that under normal conditions, legitimation may scarcely be perceptible, only reaching a significant pitch when a major crisis threatens the existence of the agents involved. Should such an event occur, then institutions will summon up a range of justificatory discursive strategies embodying ideological elements that will resonate with socially accepted ideas, feelings or desires. One case in which legitimation could clearly be perceived was that of the oil industry after the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In the wake of the disaster, as the oil spread and the crisis appeared to be uncontrollable, public opinion turned against the oil industry. It comes as no surprise that the messages to shareholders published in the annual reports of oil corporations during the following year all make reference to the incident and attempt to legitimate both the individual companies and the sector as a whole, in the eyes of the public in general and the shareholders for whom the reports are intended. This article examines the discourses of legitimation used in these texts, focusing specifically on the roles assumed by the writer as scientist and environmentalist, as well as financial expert, and on the story-telling techniques used to present the events as a survivor narrative. It discusses ways in which these writers endeavour to engage readers’ solidarity, while also appealing to their interests as stakeholders. These discourses operate on an ideological level to underpin the workings of large corporations within the complex panorama of contemporary capitalism.
There is a contemporary scepticism towards vision-based metaphors in management and organization studies that reflects a more general pattern across the social sciences. In short, there has been a shift away from ocularcentrism. This shift provides a useful basis for metatheoretical analysis of the philosophical discourse that informs organizational analysis. The article begins by briefly discussing the vision-generated, vision-centred interpretation of knowledge, truth, and reality that has characterized the western philosophical tradition. Taking late 18th-century rationalism as the high-point of ocularcentrism, the article then presents a metatheoretical framework based Ion three trajectories that critiques of ocularcentrism have subsequently taken. The first exposes the limits of the metaphor by, paradoxically, taking it to its limits. The second trajectory seeks to displace the primordial position of the ocular metaphor and replace it with an alternative lexicon based on other human senses. Last, the third trajectory describes how the Enlightenment ocular characterization of the visual and mental worlds has effectively been inverted in the postmodern moment.
Outline of a Theory of Practice is recognized as a major theoretical text on the foundations of anthropology and sociology. Pierre Bourdieu, a distinguished French anthropologist, develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood. With his central concept of the habitus, the principle which negotiates between objective structures and practices, Bourdieu is able to transcend the dichotomies which have shaped theoretical thinking about the social world. The author draws on his fieldwork in Kabylia (Algeria) to illustrate his theoretical propositions. With detailed study of matrimonial strategies and the role of rite and myth, he analyses the dialectical process of the 'incorporation of structures' and the objectification of habitus, whereby social formations tend to reproduce themselves. A rigorous consistent materialist approach lays the foundations for a theory of symbolic capital and, through analysis of the different modes of domination, a theory of symbolic power.
Prologue: In Medias Res TRAVELS Traveling Cultures A Ghost among Melanesians Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel, and the Disciplining of Anthropology CONTACTS Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections Paradise Museums as Contact Zones Palenque Log FUTURES Year of the Ram: Honolulu, February 2, 1991 Diasporas Immigrant Fort Ross Meditation Notes References Sources Acknowledgments Index
Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students. Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, commentaries and key readings - all in the same volume. The innovative and flexible 'two-dimensional' structure is built around four sections - introduction, development, exploration and extension - which offer self-contained stages for study. Each topic can also be read across these sections, enabling the reader to build gradually on the knowledge gained. Language and Power: offers a comprehensive survey of the ways in which language intersects and connects with the social, cultural and political aspects of power, provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of the field, and covers all the major approaches, theoretical concepts and methods of analysis in this important and developing area of academic study; covers all the 'traditional' topics, such as race, gender and institutional power, but also incorporates newer material from forensic discourse analysis, the discourse of new capitalism and the study of humour as power; includes readings from works by seminal figures in the field, such as Roger Fowler, Deborah Cameron and Teun van Dijk; uses real texts and examples throughout, including advertisements from cosmetics companies; newspaper articles and headlines; websites and internet media; and spoken dialogues such as a transcription from the Obama and McCain presidential debate; is accompanied by a supporting website that aims to challenge students at a more advanced level and features a complete four-unit chapter which includes activities, a reading and suggestions for further work. Language and Power will be essential reading for students studying English language and linguistics.
How did the Holocaust, an event marked by ethnic and racial hatred, violence, and war, become transformed into a generalized symbol of human suffering and moral evil, a universalized symbol whose very existence has created historically unprecedented opportunities for ethnic, racial, and religious justice? This cultural transformation has been achieved because the originating historical event, traumatic in the extreme for a delimited particular group-the Jews, has come over the last fifty years to be redefined as a traumatic event for all of humankind. This chapter explores the social creation of a cultural fact and the effects of this cultural fact on social and moral life. In the case of the Nazis' mass murder of the Jews, the decided increase in moral and social justice may eventually be the unintended result.
What does morality have to do with psychology in a value-neutral, postmodern world? According to a provocative new book, everything. Taking exception with current ideas in the mainstream (including cultural, evolutionary, and neuropsychology) as straying from the discipline's ethical foundations, Psychology as a Moral Science argues that psychological phenomena are inherently moral, and that psychology, as prescriptive and interventive practice, reflects specific moral principles. The book cites normative moral standards, as far back as Aristotle, that give human thoughts, feelings, and actions meaning, and posits psychology as one of the critical methods of organizing normative values in society; at the same time it carefully notes the discipline's history of being sidetracked by overemphasis on theoretical constructs and physical causes what the author terms "the psychologizing of morality." This synthesis of ideas brings an essential unity to what can sometimes appear as a fragmented area of inquiry at odds with itself. The book's "interpretive-pragmatic approach": Revisits core psychological concepts as supporting normative value systems. Traces how psychology has shaped society's view of morality Confronts the "naturalistic fallacy" in contemporary psychology. Explains why moral science need not be separated from social science. Addresses challenges and critiques to the author's work from both formalist and relativist theories of morality. With its bold call to reason, Psychology as a Moral Science contains enough controversial ideas to spark great interest among researchers and scholars in psychology and the philosophy of science. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011. All rights reserved.
Narrative medicine has emerged in response to a commodified health care system that places corporate and bureaucratic concerns over the needs of the patient. Generated from a confluence of sources including humanities and medicine, primary care medicine, narratology, and the study of doctor-patient relationships, narrative medicine is medicine practiced with the competence to recognise, absorb, interpret and be moved by the stories of illness. By placing events in temporal order, with beginnings, middles and ends, and by establishing connections among things using metaphor and figural language, narrative medicine helps doctors to recognise patients and diseases, convey knowledge, accompany patients through the ordeals of illness – and according to Rita Charon, can ultimately lead to more humane, ethical and effective healthcare. Trained in medicine and in literary studies, Rita Charon is a pioneer of and authority on the emerging field of narrative medicine. In this important and long-awaited book she provides a comprehensive and systemic introduction to the conceptual principles underlying narrative medicine, as well as a practical guide for implementing narrative methods in health care. A true milestone in the field, it will interest general readers and experts in medicine, humanities and literary theory.
Series Editor's Preface Acknowledgements Introduction PART 1: COMPASS POINTS Beyond Universalism: Local Regeneration Beyond Ideology: Dialogue Beyond Development: Liberation PART 2: PSYCHIC WOUNDS OF COLONIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION Symptoms and Psychologies in the Context of Culture From Bystanding to Engaged Witness Bystanding Pathologies of Perpetration Mourning and Witness After Collective Trauma PART 3: SPRINGS FOR CREATIVE RESTORATION Rupture and Hospitality Non-Subjects and Nomadic Consciousness Dialogue PART 4: PARTICIPATORY PRACTICES FOR REGENERATION Communities of Resistance Libertory Arts and Imagination Critical Participatory Action Research Placing Dialogical Ethics at the Center of Research Dreams of Reconciliation and Restoration Afterword Tikkun Olam : The Restoration and Repair of the World References Index
In this collage of essays, meditations, poems, and travel reports, Clifford takes travel and its difficult companion, translation, as openings into a complex modernity. He contemplates a world ever more connected yet not homogeneous, a global history proceeding from the fraught legacies of exploration, colonization, capitalist expansion, immigration, labor mobility, and tourism. Ranging from Highland New Guinea to northern California, from Vancouver to London, he probes current approaches to the interpretation and display of non-Western arts and cultures. Wherever people and things cross paths and where institutional forces work to discipline unruly encounters, Clifford's concern is with struggles to displace stereotypes, to recognize divergent histories, to sustain dqpostcolonialdq and dqtribaldq identities in contexts of domination and globalization. Travel, diaspora, border crossing, self-location, the making of homes away from home: these are transcultural predicaments for the late twentieth century. The map that might account for them, the history of an entangled modernity, emerges here as an unfinished series of paths and negotiations, leading in many directions while returning again and again to the struggles and arts of cultural encounter, the impossible, inescapable tasks of translation.
This article analyzes how cross-examining attorneys and litigating parents accomplished blame attributions and accounts during courtroom examinations in child custody disputes. It draws on recordings from 42 cases. It is shown how person descriptions were vital parts of sequences of blame ascriptions and subsequent blame accounts, where cross-examining attorneys elicited and then invoked parents' disparaging person descriptions of their ex-partners. As part of the institutional format of these disputes, parents had to handle an interactional dilemma concerning the reflexive implications of blaming others. While blame-implicative descriptions had been used to allocate blame to the ex-partner, they now backfired in that cross-examining attorneys would deploy the same descriptions as ways of reallocating blame (to the testifying parent). As part of such blame reallocations, cross-examining attorneys upgraded alleged prior blame attributions, thus fueling the dispute and setting up a recursive machinery in the form of a never-ending series of blamings.
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Teams are commonly celebrated as efficient and humane ways of organizing work and learning. By means of a series of in-depth case studies of teams in the United States and Finland over a time span of more than ten years, this book shows that teams are not a universal and ahistorical form of collaboration. Teams are best understood in their specific activity contexts and embedded in historical development of work. The book develops a set of conceptual tools for analysis and design of transformations in collaborative work and learning.
Anthropology is a disciplined inquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life. Generations of theorists, however, have expunged life from their accounts, treating it as the mere output of patterns, codes, structures or systems variously defined as genetic or cultural, natural or social. Building on his classic work The Perception of the Environment, Tim Ingold sets out to restore life to where it should belong, at the heart of anthropological concern.
This article focuses on the uses of research rather than on research methods per se. It highlights a particular feminist perspective: the importance of returning the results of research to the communities from which they derive. A theoretical rationale for psychological research on social issues argues that such work is inevitably value laden; bears implications for social change; and at its best amounts to a conversation among the researcher, the participants, and the community—one that ought to continue beyond the formal research project. This position is illustrated by two research projects and the means through which their findings were communicated back to lay communities. The unusual products of the research described here—an oratorio and a documentary video—and the process of their development are discussed.
In this article, I examine the role of talk in constructing speakers as heterosexual beings. Heterosexuality is a cultural construction relying on strictly enforced norms for its continuing dominance. Queer linguistics initially focused on the language of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups, but is now widening its focus to explore the discursive construction of heterosexuality, and to show that language does not just reflect the heteronormative order; it is also involved in reproducing that order. I shall explore how heterosexuality is ‘done’ in everyday talk, drawing on Cameron and Kulick’s idea of ‘the heteronormative hierarchy’. I shall also show how closely sexuality and gender are linked, and will argue that this closeness is essential to the maintenance of heteronormativity.
HISTORIANS AND OTHER OBSERVERS OF POSTWAR AMERIica note the dramatic social and political changes underway since the 1960s. It was, as Daniel Rodgers puts it, an age marked by discontinuity, shifting party allegiances, and social fracture.
An intellectual and cultural historian, Daniel Rodgers is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University. He is the author of four books, including: The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920 (University of Chicago Press, 1978), winner of the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Prize; Contested Truths: Keywords in American Politics (Basic Books, 1987); and Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Harvard University Press, 1998), which won the American Historical Association's Beer Prize and the Organization of American Historians's Hawley Prize. His latest book, The Age of Fracture (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), argues that in the 1970s Americans began to think of the country in terms of choice-making individuals rather than as a society shaped by classes, interests, and norms.
Historically Speaking asked Bruce Schulman, Melani McAlister, Michael Kimmage, and Donald Critchlow to comment on Rodgers's short essay about this shift in American thought. Their comments are followed by Rodgers's response. (Citations of Rodgers's book are in parentheses.)
The history of the United States in the last quarter of the 20th century seems to constitute, at first glance, a maze of paradoxes. It was the age of Reagan, conservative partisans said at the time: a moment of deep political reversal. Peggy Noonan, one of the most gifted of Reagan's speechwriters, joined the White House staff to be present at "the Reagan revolution." Political managers dreamed of a realignment election that would change the very frame of partisan politics, and political scientists pored over election results to see if they could discern that one had occurred. A sense of the world as shifting rapidly beneath one's feet was widespread, but, for all of Reagan's symbolic prominence, the notion of a clear political watershed turned out to be an illusion.
Party allegiances shifted dramatically in the last quarter of the century, particularly among white southern voters; a new and highly energized conservative political movement came into being; but the realignment election that would give the Republican Party a permanent majority failed to occur. Closely fought elections, divided governance, and an increasingly divided electorate have marked the last three decades' politics, not a new consensus. Even Reagan himself, Noonan wistfully admitted, "wasn't a revolutionary; he wasn't a missile drawn to the heat of a new idea." The battles over taxes and regulation that Reagan's election precipitated represented no revolutionary break with history. Even the "culture wars" and their partisan mobilization of religious loyalties replayed long-standing strains in 20th-century American politics.
Ronald Reagan
A stronger argument for discontinuity can be made for the structures of the late 20th-century economy. The global economic crisis of the 1970s with which the era began, buffeted by oil price shocks and inflation, was a prelude to wide-ranging transformations in the domestic and global economies. Squeezed by new cost pressures, compromises between labor and management unraveled. Union membership spiraled precipitously downward. Manufacture went global in search of cheaper labor. Finance capitalism emerged out of the crisis stronger than ever before, fueled by new and more exotic investment instruments and new investor ambitions for corporate restructuring. The derogatory "age of greed" label reflects a simplistic reading of the moral tone of the era, but the phrase had its structural basis, as David Harvey and others have argued, in the collapse of the Fordist economy of the middle years of the century.
And yet the age of materialism, global markets, ascendant financial capitalism, new political ambitions, and an intensely politicized punditry was also, and in many ways more fundamentally, a period of deep transformations in social thought. It was here, on the terrain in which Noonan thought her hero Reagan to have been least adept, that the discontinuities of the era were most pronounced. A whole vocabulary of concepts that had once seemed the...
Sparked by a global UNICEF initiative, Bosnia and Herzegovina launched a participatory action research process in which 75 young people in three towns explored local understandings, needs, and actions about HIV/AIDS, drug use, human rights, and other issues. This article chronicles the research process, the action recommendations generated by young people, and the current status of the project. It reflects on the commitments and efforts which are required when large, adult-directed organizations decide to promote youth participation, and on the institutional changes necessary to support sustained youth participation that benefits ordinary youth rather than a selected few.
The following is simultaneously an essay in sociological theory, in cultural sociology, and in the empirical reconstruction of postwar Western history. Per theory, it introduces and specifies a model of cultural trauma - a model that combines a strong cultural program with concern for institutional and power effects - and applies it to large-scale collectivities over extended periods of time. Per cultural sociology, the essay demonstrates that even the most calamitous and biological of social facts - the prototypical evil of genocidal mass murder - can be understood only inside of symbolic codes and narratives; that these frames change substantially depending on social circumstances; and that this culture process is critical to establishing understandings of moral responsibility. Empirically, this essay documents, in social and cultural detail, using both secondary and primary sources, how it was that the `Holocaust' gradually became the dominant symbolic representation of evil in the late twentieth century, and what its consequences have been for the development of a supra-national moral universalism that may restrict genocidal acts in the future.
My struggle to promote critical consciousness, dialogue, creative and critical thinking and collaboration in my class led me to turn the classroom into a lab where I would experiment with action research as pedagogy. I began my course by asking students what they wanted, what would they contribute and how we will implement their recommendations. More importantly I invited them to be my co-inquirers in what they perceived to be a radical approach to instruction. This article is an account of what took place specifically the way we all experienced the process.
