Suchergebnisse

This book outlines A.N. Whitehead's philosophy of process and uses it to re-orient a range of topics within social theory, namely: the relation of language and the body; sexual difference and conceptions of nature; the question of realism; the concept of the social; and capitalism as process.

The present article explores the expansion of the public and private health segment in response to the needs of the population of a peripheral sector of the South Zone of São Paulo, Brazil. Management of the sector is led from the margins of the capitalist peripheral State in the context of the current crisis of democracy which is driving a gradual individualization of social policies. As such, this management is both social and structural in nature. In addition to those users of the system who were interviewed, participants in the research included social leaders, Basic Health Unit (UBS) professionals, and agents of the Family Health Strategy (ESF) primary healthcare program. We focus on the continuities and discontinuities of public policies and highlight the important role that strategies of containment and reproduction of poverty have played in the process of legitimizing the democratic regime in Brazil.

Both health inequalities and social group health differences are important aspects of measuring population health. Despite widespread recognition of their magnitude in many high- and low-income countries, there is considerable debate about the meaning and measurement of health inequalities, social group health differences and inequities. The lack of standard definitions, measurement strategies and indicators has and will continue to limit comparisons--between and within countries, and over time--of health inequalities, and perhaps more importantly comparative analyses of their determinants. Such comparative work, however, will be essential to find effective policies for governments to reduce health inequalities. This article addresses the question of whether we should be measuring health inequalities or social group health differences. To help clarify the strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches, we review some of the major arguments for and against each of them.

The article describes the historical development of data services for the social sciences, not just to recall what happened, but to point out the strategic choices that have shaped the current situation. With respect to future developments, knowledge of these choices is important. Specifically, one should be aware that data archives -- the core institutions in this development -- were understood to be part of data services, & these in turn as building blocks in an infrastructure for empirical social sciences. Enlarging such an infrastructure was not & is not undertaken with the ambition to supply all the information that the social sciences need. It is necessary to identify, country by country, what gaps need to be closed in data provision, &, in general, in the infrastructure for the empirical social sciences. Furthermore, it is necessary to establish in parallel access to information & training in the techniques necessary to make effective & rigorous use of it. As access expands & technology evolves, there is room for concern that user expertise, particularly in statistical methods, is tending to lag behind. 39 References. Adapted from the source document.

The problem of inadequate media representation of disabled people has been changed in recent years by social media, owing to which disabled people can gain at least partial control over their image in public space and thus influence how non-disabled people see them. The article aims to discuss the results of the research on how disabled people use social media to create their image and how this image is different from the one present in traditional media. The study used a qualitative content analysis of the most popular Instagram profiles created by disabled people and addressing disability-related issues. The analysis shows that disabled Instagram users create their image effectively and actively, and the portrayal that emerges from their narratives differs significantly from the dominant ways of presenting disabled people in the mass media, i.e. as "victims" and "supercrips".

AbstractDoes landholding inequality undermine democratization? Recent contributions have challenged the argument that landholding elites oppose suffrage extension if geographically fixed assets are unequally distributed. We advance research on this long-standing question by exploiting exogenous variance to reinvestigate the relationship. Using multiple instruments, we find that landholding inequality decreases support for suffrage extension. By focusing on traditional patterns of social control, we explore an empirically neglected mechanism linking landholding inequality and democratization. Taking advantage of four direct democratic votes between 1866 and 1877 in Switzerland, we demonstrate that landholding inequality also influences the political preferences of ordinary citizens who do not control these resources. This paper shows that high levels of landholding inequality provide local elites with the incentive and the means to align the local population's voting behaviour with their political goals. Supplementary analyses using qualitative and quantitative data further substantiate this social control mechanism.

AbstractThis paper explores how feminist social movements are organized and re‐generated across and through different media, both online and offline, using the example of zines. We critically examine the emergence and growth of an intersectional feminist zine community through a 6‐year in‐depth qualitative netnographic and ethnographic study. Theoretically, we build on work concerning feminist digital information and archival infrastructures, bringing it together with work on feminist digital activism. We make three key contributions: first to theorize zines and their communities as infrastructures, which cut across the social, digital, and material. Second in understanding the political potential of engagements in zine infrastructures in which the individual and collective are entangled, and third in revealing how the current generation of young feminists move across and work at the interfaces of formats to benefit from their synergistic, but also their agonistic, relations to form new affective solidarities.

Direct estimates based on election returns show that corruption is mildly punished at the polls. A large majority of survey respondents, however, often tend to state that they do not like corruption and will not support corrupt politicians. This has been interpreted as a product of social desirability bias: interviewees prefer to report socially accepted attitudes (rejection of corruption) instead of truthful responses (intention to vote for their preferred candidates regardless of malfeasance). We test to what extent this is the case by using a list experiment that allows interviewees to be questioned in an unobtrusive way, removing the possible effects of social desirability. Our results show that the great majority of respondents report intentions to electorally punish allegedly corrupt candidates even when asked in an unobtrusive way. We discuss the implications of this finding for the limited electoral accountability of corruption.

This special issue examines the political context and social impacts of plans for two statesponsored megaprojects in Timor-Leste: the Special Zone of Social Market Economy (ZEESM) in the Oecusse enclave, and the Tasi Mane Project stretching along the south coast. Tracing debates about national development models in Timor-Leste back to the Indonesian occupation and transition period to independence, this Introduction situates these projects within contemporary debates about development. We pay special attention to two key aspects: how megaprojects transform people's relations with the land, a vital source of livelihoods and cultural meaning; and how different ethnolinguistic groups in Timor-Leste are adapting local practice to accommodate change. We conclude by highlighting how megaprojects reflect and affect aspects of life beyond economic development: governance practice, assertion of sovereignty, sensory losses and identity, ritual adaptations and aspirations for the future.

A qualidade é uma questão complexa que se manifesta com veemência no Vale dos Vinhedos, principal área produtora de vinhos finos no Brasil. A pesquisa, então, versa sobre a construção social em torno da qualidade dos vinhos finos na microrregião, a qual foi demarcada para iniciar um processo de reconhecimento de Indicações Geográficas. Cada vez mais os mercados são percebidos como construções sociais, em que os atores são capazes de criar produtos diferenciados. Nesse sentido, o objetivo do estudo centra-se na caracterização e na análise do Vale dos Vinhedos como um ambiente institucional e organizacional construído socialmente, com base em elementos da coordenação dos agentes. Apoiado em metodologia de caráter exploratório com enfoque qualitativo, aplicando-se entrevistas semiestruturadas a agentes selecionados, os resultados discutidos levaram à observação de que a construção social promoveu evolução da qualidade e desenvolvimento, assim que atores buscam revelar e afirmar uma identidade.

In this contribution we study the determinants of how individuals assess the social fairness of a given income distribution. We propose an analytical framework distinguishing between potential impact factors related to the following fields: first fairness preferences, second beliefs on the sources of economic success and the functioning of democracy and third selfinterest. We test this framework on representative survey data for Germany for the years 1991, 2000 and 2004. Our results indicate that self-interest, beliefs and fairness preferences jointly shape fairness assessments. In addition, a number of personal characteristics are found to be important: Compared to their western fellow citizens, people born in GDR have a more critical view at social fairness. A particularly strong impact is related to the belief on the functioning of the democratic system. This points an important role of procedural fairness for the acceptance of a given distribution.

The third wave of the European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP) shows that 12 per cent of European families were lone‐parent families in 1996. Nine single parents out of ten are women, usually divorced or separated. The proportion of lone parents under 30 varies from 3 per cent in Italy to 20 per cent in the United Kingdom. Most lone parents are in work, and very often occupy a full‐time job, but the employment rate ranges from only 40 per cent in Ireland and the United Kingdom to 75 per cent in France and Denmark. Lone‐parent families benefit from social transfers more often than other families, and for higher amounts, but poverty is more common than in other households, except in Denmark, Greece and Portugal. The housing circumstances of lone‐parent families vary widely from country to country. In the south of Europe, 25 to 40 per cent are lodging in a larger household, suggesting solidarity within the extended families. This paper classifies the nations of Europe into five groups in terms of the overall circumstances of lone‐parent families. Anglo‐Saxon countries have the highest proportion of lone parents, with the least labour market participation and lower incomes. In contrast, lone parents in Scandinavian countries are more often at work and no more affected by poverty than other types of households.