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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > General
Do doctors fix patients? Or do they heal them? For all of modern medicine's many successes, discontent with the quality of patient care has combined with a host of new developments, from aging populations to the resurgence of infectious diseases, which challenge medicine's overreliance on narrowly mechanistic and technical methods of explanation and intervention, or "fixing' patients. The need for a better balance, for more humane "healing" rationales and practices that attend to the social and environmental aspects of health and illness and the experiencing person, is more urgent than ever. Yet, in public health and bioethics, the fields best positioned to offer countervailing values and orientations, the dominant approaches largely extend and reinforce the reductionism and individualism of biomedicine. The collected essays in To Fix or To Heal do more than document the persistence of reductionist approaches and the attendant extension of medicalization to more and more aspects of our lives. The contributors also shed valuable light on why reductionism has persisted and why more holistic models, incorporating social and environmental factors, have gained so little traction. The contributors examine the moral appeal of reductionism, the larger rationalist dream of technological mastery, the growing valuation of health, and the enshrining of individual responsibility as the seemingly non-coercive means of intervention and control. This paradigm-challenging volume advances new lines of criticism of our dominant medical regime, even while proposing ways of bringing medical practice, bioethics, and public health more closely into line with their original goals. Precisely because of the centrality of the biomedical approach to our society, the contributors argue, challenging the reductionist model and its ever-widening effects is perhaps the best way to press for a much-needed renewal of our ethical and political discourse.
As seen in military documents, medical journals, novels, films, television shows, and memoirs, soldiers' invisible wounds are not innate cracks in individual psyches that break under the stress of war. Instead, the generation of weary warriors is caught up in wider social and political networks and institutions-families, activist groups, government bureaucracies, welfare state programs-mediated through a military hierarchy, psychiatry rooted in mind-body sciences, and various cultural constructs of masculinity. This book offers a history of military psychiatry from the American Civil War to the latest Afghanistan conflict. The authors trace the effects of power and knowledge in relation to the emotional and psychological trauma that shapes soldiers' bodies, minds, and souls, developing an extensive account of the emergence, diagnosis, and treatment of soldiers' invisible wounds.
In a world permeated by digital technology, engineering is involved in every aspect of human life. Engineers address a wider range of design problems than ever before, raising new questions and challenges regarding their work, as boundaries between engineering, management, politics, education and art disappear in the face of comprehensive socio-technical systems. It is therefore necessary to review our understanding of engineering practice, expertise and responsibility. This book advances the idea that the future of engineering will not be driven by a static view of a closed discipline, but rather will result from a continuous dialogue between different stakeholders involved in the design and application of technical artefacts. Based on papers presented at the 2016 conference of the forum for Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET) in Nuremberg, Germany, the book features contributions by philosophers, engineers and managers from academia and industry, who discuss current and upcoming issues in engineering from a wide variety of different perspectives. They cover topics such as problem solving strategies and value-sensitive design, experimentation and simulation, engineering knowledge and education, interdisciplinary collaboration, sustainability, risk and privacy. The different contributions in combination draw a comprehensive picture of efforts worldwide to come to terms with engineering, its foundations in philosophy, the ethical problems it causes, and its effect on the ongoing development of society.
What are the features of the school environment that make students'
of color incorporation greater at some schools than at others?
Prudence L. Carter seeks to answer this basic but bedeviling
question through a rich comparative analysis of the organizational
and group dynamics in eight schools located within four cities in
the United States and South Africa-two nations rebounding from
centuries of overt practices of racial and social inequality.
Stubborn Roots provides insight into how school communities can
better incorporate previously disadvantaged groups and engender
equity by addressing socio-cultural contexts and promoting
"cultural flexibility." It also raises important and timely
questions about the social, political, and philosophical purposes
of multiracial schooling that have been greatly ignored by many,
and cautions against narrow approaches to education that merely
focus on test-scores and resources. "Prudence Carter's remarkable book shines a light on the often
invisible patterns that perpetuate educational disparity in both
the United States and South Africa. Stubborn Roots reveals how
racial and ethnic divides are often reinforced, even in supposedly
'integrated' schools and even when many people of good will, try to
eradicate them. Carter's insights illuminate how educators and
schools can address these issues by becoming increasingly attuned
to the socio-cultural worlds in which their students live. This
book paves the way for the changes needed for historically
disadvantaged groups to receive equitable, high-quality
educations."
In the burgeoning literature on welfare regimes and typologies, this comparative study offers a stimulating new perspective. Kaufmann, the doyen of the sociology of social policy in Germany, emphasizes norms, culture and history, in contrast to political economy approaches. Comparing Britain, Sweden, France and Germany, Kaufmann highlights the "idiosyncrasy" of each welfare state: countries are compared with regard to their state traditions and the relationship between state and civil society; their national "social questions"; their economic systems, including the unions and labour law; social security and redistribution; and their personal social services and education. The socio-cultural approach enables Kaufmann to show that not all modern states are welfare states. Some are just "capitalism" (the USA), others are "socialism" (the former Soviet Union). In this light, the (essentially North-West European) welfare state is portrayed as a third way between capitalism and socialism.
"Chaos Revolution and Redemption: The Children of Tomorrow" is an account of a civilization that is redeemed after chaos and calamities. It is a description of a cosmic intervention that is taking place right before our eyes. A world revolution is taking place. Our climate is changing, but the human world is also in equal transformation. Present calamities, (droughts, wars, food shortages, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis), and those yet to come, all herald this cosmic change. There will be a complete revolution of our world as we know it. Old ideologies, along with their followers, will be exposed and challenged. False ideas and concepts that have shaped the values of American culture for centuries will be abandoned. Definitions and stereotypes of race and gender will be overthrown to make way for a completely new and different society. Politicians and other warmongers will be exposed. Their greed and brutality will compose the mantra of their age. In rectification of this karma, a tremendous and cleansing change is coming. The dynamics of this revolutionary change is dilineated by The Prophet Ok-ta-ha within the pages of "Chaos Revolution and Redemption: The Children of Tomorrow." "Chaos Revolution and Redemption: The Children of Tomorrow" also contains the scathing and controversial essay, "The White Tribe" which chronicles the journey of an American black man through the white world of wealth and power. This essay, successor to James Baldwin's, "The Fire Next Time" does not offer a solution based on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but indicts instead. It trumpets a new age sans White domination sustained by military might and cultural hegemony.
In contemporary manifestations of public health rituals and events, people are being increasingly united around what they hold in common-their material being and humanity. As a cult of humanity, public health provides a moral force in society that replaces 'traditional' religions in times of great diversity or heterogeneity of peoples, activities and desires. This is in contrast to public health's foundation in science, particularly the science of epidemiology. The rigid rules of 'scientific evidence' used to determine the cause of illness and disease can work against the most vulnerable in society by putting sectors of the population, such as underrepresented workers, at a disadvantage. This study focuses on this tension between traditional science and the changing vision articulated within public health (and across many disciplines) that calls for a collective response to uncontrolled capitalism and unremitting globalization, and to the way in which health inequalities and their association with social inequalities provides a political rhetoric that calls for a new redistributive social programme. Drawing on decades of research, the author argues that public health is both a cult and a science of contemporary society.
The politics of land are vital. They stretch from fights over fracking, gentrification, and taxation to land grabs, dispossession, and border conflicts. And they raise crucial questions about power, authority, violence, populism, and neoliberalism. This volume of Research in Political Sociology seeks to carve out a renewed political sociology of land, bringing together classic questions about the state, commodification, and social change and contemporary studies of contentious land use in various parts of the world. An introductory essay sketches foundations for a political sociology of land and specifies what is unique about land in comparison to other political objects. Chapters are based on highly original qualitative, quantitative, and/or historical analyses to shed light on numerous dimensions of land politics. They include analyses of anti-fracking campaigns, property tax caps, and "green gentrification" in the United States, soil protection regulation in Europe, squatter settlements in Peru, land grabs in peri-urban China and rural Senegal, violent expulsions in Colombia, and the privatization of property rights in Morocco. The volume brings together high quality, peer-reviewed research, opens up novel comparisons, and enriches theories of the state, commodification, and collective resistance.
Social constructivism is one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in the social sciences. This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of its first formulation in Peter Berger and Luckmann's classic foundational text, The Social Construction of Reality. Addressing the work's contribution to establishing social constructivism as a paradigm and discussing its potential for current questions in social theory, the contributing authors indicate the various cultural understandings and theoretical formulations that exist of social construction, its different fields of research and the promising new directions for future research that it presents in its most recent developments. A study of the importance of a work that established a paradigm in the international sociology of knowledge, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in social theory, the history of the social sciences and the significance of social constructivism.
The driving cultural force of that form of life we call 'modern' is the desire to make the world controllable. Yet it is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world - only then do we feel touched, moved and alive. A world that is fully known, in which everything has been planned and mastered, would be a dead world. Our lives are played out on the border between what we can control and that which lies outside our control. But because we late-modern human beings seek to make the world controllable, we tend to encounter the world as a series of objects that we have to conquer, master or exploit. And precisely because of this, 'life, ' the experience of feeling alive and truly encountering the world, always seems to elude us. This in turn leads to frustration, anger and even despair, which then manifest themselves in, among other things, acts of impotent political aggression. For Rosa, to encounter the world and achieve resonance with it requires us to be open to that which extends beyond our control. The outcome of this process cannot be predicted, and this is why moments of resonance are always concomitant with moments of uncontrollability. This short book - the sequel to Rosa's path-breaking work on social acceleration and resonance - will be of great interest students and scholars in sociology and the social sciences and to anyone concerned with the nature of modern social life.
Social policy scholars and practitioners work with concepts such as "welfare state" and "social security" but where do these concepts come from and how has their meaning changed over time? Which are the dominant social policy concepts and how are they contested? What characterises social policy language in specific countries and regions of the world and how do social concepts travel between countries? Addressing such questions in a systematic manner for the first time, this edited collection, written by a cross-disciplinary group of leading social policy researchers, analyses the concepts and language used to make sense of contemporary social policy. The volume focuses on OECD countries located on four different continents: Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North America. Combining detailed chapters on particular countries with broader comparative chapters, the book strikes a rare balance between case studies and transnational perspectives. It will be of interest to academics and students in social policy, social work, political science, sociology, history, and public administration, as well as practitioners and policy makers.
This book provides new ethnographic perspectives on the intersections between deportation, anxiety, and justice. As an instrument for controlling international migration, deportation policies may be justified by public authorities as measures responding to anxieties over (unregulated) migration. At the same time, they also bring out uncertainty and unrest to deportable and deported migrants as well as to their social and institutional environments, in which this act of the state may appear deeply unjust. Providing new and complementary insights into what 'deportation' as a legal and policy measure actually embraces in social reality, this book argues for an understanding of deportation as a process that begins long before (and carries on long after) the removal from one country to another has taken place. It provides a transnational perspective over the 'deportation corridor', covering different places, sites, actors, and institutions. Most importantly, it reasserts the emotional and normative elements inherent to contemporary deportation policies and practices, emphasising the interplay between deportation, perceptions of justice, and national, institutional, and personal anxieties. Written by leading experts in the field, the contributions cover a broad spectrum of geographical sites, deportation practices, and perspectives, bringing together a long overdue addition to the current scholarship on deportation studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Around the world there are a myriad of NGOs using human rights education (HRE) as a tool of community empowerment with the firm belief that it will help people improve their lives. One way of understanding these processes is that they translate universal human rights speak using messages and symbols which make them relevant to people's daily lives and culturally resonant. However, an alternative more radical perspective is that these processes should engage individuals in modes of critical inquiry into the ways that that existing power structures maintain the status quo and control not only how we understand and speak about social inequality and injustice, but also act on it. This book is a critical inquiry into the production, distribution and consumption of HRE and how the discourse is constructed historically, socially and politically through global institutions and local NGO practice. The book begins with the premise that HRE is composed of theories of human rights and education, both of which are complex and multifaceted. However, the book demonstrates how over time a dominant discourse of HRE, constructed by the United Nations institutional framework, has come to prominence and the ways it is reproduced and reinforced through the practice of intermediary NGOs engaged in HRE activities with community groups. Drawing on socio-legal scholarship it offers a new theoretical and political framework for addressing how human rights, pedagogy, knowledge and power can be analysed between the global and local by connecting the critical, but well-trodden, theories of human rights to insights on critical pedagogy. It uses critical discourse analysis and ethnographic research to investigate the practice of NGOs engaged in HRE using contextual evidence and findings from fieldwork with NGOs and communities in Tanzania.
This book, based on the Chinese dream and its basic principles, global significance, path of implementation and practical requirements, systemically explains China's Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy. The Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy is the strategic concept of the Communist Party of contemporary China. In the coming five and even the fifty years, the economic and social development of the Chinese society will be centering on it. Comprehensively constructing a moderately prosperous society is the strategic goal, comprehensively deepening reform and advancing the law-based governance of China are the engine and guarantee in realizing the strategic goal, while strengthening the Party Self-discipline represents the strategic measures to build up a firm core leadership. The Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy shows not only the CPC's view of China but also the view of world.
The research for this book was prompted by a combination of events, in particular the election of Mary Robinson as President of Ireland (November 1990) and the X case which rocked Irish society (February 1992). The book is an exploration of the dynamics between the Irish and European Courts, the legislators and the Irish citizens in relation to certain socio-sexual questions: divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Spanning the 73 years since the creation of the Irish State, it questions the nature of the moral order regulating Irish society and the concept of democracy underlying it: from a moral order based on the natural law and Victorian ideology, to a moral order based on the fundamental rights of individuals. The book examines the fragile balance struck between tradition and modernity, and is an indirect tribute to the work of former President Mary Robinson as a constitutional lawyer and senator.
Perinatal Depression among Spanish-Speaking and Latin American Women A Global Perspective on Detection and Treatment Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo and Katherine Leah Wisner, editors As more is known about postpartum depression, the more it is recognized as a global phenomenon. Yet despite the large numbers, information about this condition as experienced by Spanish speaking women and Latinas has not always been easy to come by. Perinatal Depression among Spanish-Speaking and Latin American Women focuses on four diverse Latina populations (Mexico, Chile, Spain, and U.S.) to analyze key similarities and differences within this large and wide-ranging group. This first-of-its-kind reference reviews current research on the topic, including prevalence, screening methods, interventions, and--of particular salience for this population--barriers to care. Findings on psychoeducation, assessment tools, and cognitive-behavioral and other forms of therapy provide important insights into best practices, and continuity of care. And psychosocial, cultural, and linguistic considerations in working with Latinas are described in depth for added clinical usefulness. This landmark volume: Outlines characteristics of Spanish-speaking women and Latinas screened for postpartum depression Introduces the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, English and Spanish versions, and reviews their use with Latina women Compares postpartum depression and health behaviors in Spanish and Latina immigrant mothers Offers streamlined assessment-to-intervention models Provides two in-depth case studies illustrating cultural factors influencing the treatment of Latinas with perinatal depression. Presents an instructive firsthand account of postpartum depression. Between its thorough coverage of the issues and its innovative clinical ideas, Perinatal Depression among Spanish-Speaking and Latin American Women has a wealth of information of interest to researchers and practitioners in maternal and child health, obstetrics/gynecology, mental health, and women's health.
In recent years an increasing number of scholars have incorporated a focus on emotions in their theories of material culture, transnationalism and globalization, and this book aims to contribute to this field of inquiry. It examines how 'emotions' can be theorized, and serves as a useful analytical tool for understanding the interrelated mobility of humans, objects and images. Ethnographically rich, and theoretically grounded case studies offer new perspectives on the relations between migration, material culture and emotions. While some chapters address the many different ways in which migrants and migrant artists express their emotions through objects and images in transnational contexts, other chapters focus on how particular works of art, everyday objects and artefacts can evoke feelings specific to particular migrant groups and communities. Case studies also analyse how artists, academics and policy makers can stimulate positive interaction between migrants and non-migrant communities.
What are the consequences of European integration on social movements? Who are the "winners" and the "losers" of Europe's organized civil society? This book explores the Europeanization of contention through an in-depth, comparative analysis of French and German pro-asylum movements since the end of the 1990s. Through an examination of their networks, discourses, and collective actions, it shows that the groups composing these movements display different degrees and forms of Europeanization, reflected in different fields of protest. More generally, it shows the multiple strategies implemented by activists to Europeanize their scope of mobilization and by doing so participate in the construction of a European public sphere.
In the Industrial Age, citizens thrived by buying private property and engaging in commerce. In today's Information Age, people need access to city public services in order to ensure their welfare. In "Electronic cities & Web-based urbanization integrated systems," Maryam Kamrani and Amir Alikhanzadeh, experts in their respective fields, lay out a plan for cities to build an informational infrastructure that is essential for every individual's well-being. The authors argue that building e-cities based on broad strategies and master plans is necessary so that everyone will have equal access to public services. Moreover, designing such cities would enable areas to move quickly into a fully networked environment that would improve public services. Creating such e-cities, however, is no easy task. This kind of development requires master plans and broad strategies. Web sites must be created to provide online services through a city portal, paperless municipal services must become the norm, and all kinds of new management infrastructure must be designed and carefully set in place. Kamrani and Alikhanzadeh envision a new future and lay out the necessary steps municipal governments must take in order to serve their residents and change with the times.
In a country long associated with the trade in opiates, the Chinese government has for decades applied extreme measures to curtail the spread of illicit drugs, only to find that the problem has worsened. Burma is blamed as the major producer of illicit drugs and conduit for the entry of drugs into China. Which organizations are behind the heroin trade? What problems and prospects of drug control in the so-called "Golden Triangle" drug-trafficking region are faced by Chinese and Southeast Asian authorities? In The Chinese Heroin Trade, noted criminologists Ko-Lin Chin and Sheldon Zhangexamine the social organization of the trafficking of heroin from the Golden Triangle to China and the wholesale and retail distribution of the drug in China. Based on face-to-face interviews with hundreds of incarcerated drug traffickers, street-level drug dealers, users, and authorities, paired with extensive fieldwork in the border areas of Burma and China and several major urban centers in China and Southeast Asia, this volume reveals how the drug trade has evolved in the Golden Triangle since the late 1980s. Chin and Zhang also explore the marked characteristics of heroin traffickers; the relationship between drug use and sales in China; and how China compares to other international drug markets. The Chinese Heroin Trade is a fascinating, nuanced account of the world of high-risk drug trafficking in a tightly-controlled society.
Comedy and humour have frequently played a key role in disabled people's lives, for better or for worse. Comedy has also played a crucial part in constructing cultural representations of disability and impairments, contributing to the formation and maintenance of cultural attitudes towards disabled people, and potentially shaping disabled people's images of themselves. As a complex and often polysemic form of communication, there is a need for greater understanding of the way we make meanings from comedy. This is the first book which explores the specific role of comedic film genres in representations of disability and impairment. Wilde argues that there is a need to explore different ways to synthesise Critical/Disability Studies with Film Studies approaches, and that a better understanding of genre conventions is necessary if we are to understand the conditions of possibility for new representational forms and challenges to ableism. After a discussion of the possibilities of a 'fusion' between Disability Studies and Film Studies, and a consideration of the relationships of comedy to disability, Wilde undertakes analysis of contemporary films from the romantic comedy, satire, and gross-out genres. Analysis is focused upon the place of disabled and non-disabled people in particular films, considering visual, audio, and narrative dimensions of representation and the ways they might shape the expectations of film audiences. This book is of particular value to those in Film and Media Studies, and Critical/Disability Studies, especially for those who are investigating more inclusive practices in cultural representation.
The way people think and act politically is not set in stone. People can and do change the fundamental cultural contours of their political situation. Their political culture does not only restrict imagination and action - it is also a resource for political creativity and invention. In Reinventing Political Culture, this resource is uncovered and explored. Analyzed as a tension between the power of culture and the culture of power, the concept of political culture is reinvented and applied to understanding the practice of people transforming their own political culture in very different circumstances. Three instances of such reinvention are closely examined: one historic, during the twilight of the Soviet empire; one actively in process and actively opposed, 'the Obama revolution'; and one an apparent distant dream, the power of culture and the culture of power that would avoid 'the clash ofcivilizations' in the Middle East. In accessible and engaging prose, Goldfarb clearly and forcefully presents students and scholars of sociology, comparative politics, and cultural studies with an original position on political culture, showing how the political cultures of our times pose not only grave dangers, but also opportunities for creative alternatives.
From World War II to the early 1970s, social science research expanded in dramatic and unprecedented fashion in the United States, which became the world's acknowledged leader in the field. This volume examines how, why, and with what consequences this rapid and yet contested expansion depended on the entanglement of the social sciences with the Cold War. Utilizing the controversial but useful concept of "Cold War Social Science," the contributions gathered here reveal how scholars from established disciplines and new interdisciplinary fields of study made important contributions to long-standing debates about knowledge production, liberal democracy, and human nature in an era of diplomatic tension and ideological conflict. |
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