Suchergebnisse

AbstractCultural rights are becoming an increasingly important area of human rights discussion given the association between culture, identity and social equity. The subject is considered here in the context of how the absence of cultural rights influences both the recognition of the diversity of cultures and the capacity of some to access and practice art. Culture and arts practices are intertwined but certain arts practices are prioritised over others by funding bodies, governments and institutions. Recent examples from Australia are highlighted, in which changes to the cultural makeup of the country are occurring at a rapid rate without adequate responses from governments to address funding inequities. It is argued here that unless cultural rights are seen as a basic human right and embedded in the legal national framework, then sectors of the broader community are disenfranchised.

This research explores how empowerment programs impact gender-based violence and the social structures that lead to such violence in the first place. Drawing from interviews with former participants in empowerment programs that focus on building community leaders, the study examines how grassroots women lead interventions and their effects on leaders' and survivors' lives. We find that although most survivors had displayed some agency in independently resisting violence, their efforts were more effective when coupled with a support network and access to resources. With the intervention of leaders, the survivors were able to better negotiate for justice with a renewed sense of agency. For the leaders, participation in programs gave them an identity independent of their status within the family. They promoted change by developing independent, innovative intervention strategies that worked despite the tight structural constraints of gendered norms.

AbstractRacial fluidity and mixed phenotype have been posited as critical barriers to politicized black identity in the region. Using an original, survey experiment in Panama, this paper finds that racial fluidity and phenotype significantly affect who identifies as black, but have relatively little impact on the strength of measures of black group consciousness. Rather than reducing the strength of group consciousness all together, racial fluidity and phenotype influence the salience of different measures of group consciousness. Afro-Panamanians with phenotypic features that stably predict black self-identification express stronger beliefs that racial discrimination is a problem in Panama (perceived discrimination) and greater dissatisfaction with the social standing of their in-group (polar power). In contrast, Afro-Panamanians with mixed phenotypic features express stronger in-group affect (pride), stronger belief in the efficacy of black collective mobilization (collective efficacy), and stronger linked fate.

Sociological theories of morality have grown in prevalence over the last decade and a half. These theories often focus on developing single concepts such as identity, reputation or emotion, or they provide sweeping historical accounts. Such theories often also take the construct of empathy for granted, as an inevitable consequence of morality. Here, I present a mechanistic theory of empathy which operates at multiple levels of analysis. The approach offered can help frame particular topics in the sociology of morality, though it is also robust enough to analyse historical change. Specifically, the theory presented here is composed of sets of situational, structural and societal mechanisms. Each set is discussed, as well as their relation to one another, before turning to an explication of how the present theory relates to a selective sampling of prominent theories in the contemporary sociology of morality.

This paper is based on the first analysis of the 25 narrative interviews collected from March to November 2018 in small local communities in the Lower Silesia Region. All narrators belong to the families that were transferred from the former Yugoslavia in 1946 to the western lands which were incorporated to Poland. The socio-cultural conditions are significant for local development, so I present some features of localism after 1989 when the state transformation processes started. Next, I discuss the narrators' self-identity dilemmas and make an attempt to conceptualize "migrating biography" as one of the features of living in a postmodern world.
The aim of the whole project, but not described in this article, is to reveal the intergenerational adult learning processes seen from the insider's perspective, as well as to describe such lives in a psychosocial and cultural context.

This article synthesises the experiential and meaning-based dimensions of loyalty to extend the brand loyalty canon. The experientially loyal consumer is defined as one who is sufficiently invested in a brand to find personal symbolic meanings in the act of consuming that brand and engage around these meanings, individually or within the context of communities of similarly engaged consumers in the pursuit of identity projects. Drawing on a particular type of consumer that epitomises experiential loyalty – the fan, the features of this new conceptualisation are highlighted. The foundations of 'experiential brand loyalty' in consumer research are identified and examined. The concept of experiential brand loyalty is articulated and set alongside existing research as a complementary position that bridges the gap between brand loyalty and experiential consumption literatures. Implications are drawn for future research and marketing practice.

The following analysis of the Israeli Nation State law reflects on the emerging new constitutional imagination in Israel. It argues that this Zionist imagination mirrors the deep sociological and political changes taking place in Israeli society. The hegemonic political elites have transformed the Israeli constitutional identity from one based on constructive legal ambiguity into one rooted in exclusive ethno-theological values. The latter stands in direct negation of the Zionist constitutional formula promoted by the founding fathers of the State as embodied in the 1948 Declaration of Independence. This rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence incorporated liberal values, in spite of the fact that the Labour Zionist political elite of the time was not fully committed to the practical meanings of these values. The current hegemonic elite in Israel views such a veiling strategy as not only unnecessary, but also as hazardous.

Our truth culture has changed. Yet we are not living in a post-truth era but in a truth era – an observation of the ongoing debates shows a proliferation of invocations of truth. This paper argues that in order to grasp this transition, we should not refer to classical truth theories or common oppositions such as knowledge and belief, objectivity and subjectivity. Instead, we should focus on concrete practices in concrete situations: on "doing truth." This paper introduces the concept of a "praxeology of truth," which sets out to analyse truth by means of two parameters: "truth scenes" and "truth figures." In suggesting that to ask about truth is to pose the question of power, it follows Michel Foucault, but it regards the invocation of truth as a technique of identity politics and truth as a social operator.

The term 'leftover women', commonly referring to single women older than 27, has been in popular use in Chinese media since 2007. This study investigates how leftover women are linguistically represented in the English-language news media in China by employing a corpus-assisted approach to critical discourse analysis. A specialised corpus of 303 English news articles (i.e. 236,254 words), covering the years between 2007 and 2017, was built for this purpose. Corpus linguistics techniques were employed to quantify the meaning shift units (MSUs) of the lemma leftover WOMAN, and van Leeuwen's 'social actors and actions theory' was applied to inform the classification of MSUs in context. These findings shed light on media representations of leftover women, the contested ideologies emerging from these representations, and how shifting gender politics and identity shapes and is shaped by media in the world's most populous nation.

AbstractWe argue that economic inequality between ethnic groups increases state repression. We contend that a high level of ethnic inequality fuels distributional conflicts between poor and rich ethnic groups. It also increases the salience of ethnic identity and promotes ethnic mobilization to challenge the status quo. This between-group tension creates collective grievances for ethnic groups, mounts challenges to incumbent governments and increases perceived threats to governments. The greater the perceived threats, the more likely that governments will employ coercive measures. We further argue that the impact of ethnic inequality on state repression is moderated by the level of democracy. Various institutional mechanisms in democracies increase the costs of repression, reducing leaders' incentives to employ coercive measures, even when facing high levels of ethnic inequality. Evidence from 152 countries between 1992 and 2011 supports our arguments.

The study focuses on the long-term struggle for an autocephalous statusfor Ukrainian Orthodoxy and also on the links between religion andnationalism. Theoretically it is based primarily on Rogers Brubaker'sconcept of religion as imbricated or intertwined with nationalism. However,particular forms of such intertwining are modified by the author, given thenature of the case being researched. The identified forms of overlappingand intertwining appear to be essential, and important for understandingthe actions of major actors. The study highlights that the ideological basisof the conflict over the autocephaly of Ukrainian Orthodoxy is a clash of twohistorical-religious mythologies, which serve as an example of intertwiningof religion and nationalism. They also have the potential to significantlyshape not only the ecclesiastical or religious scene of Ukraine and theRussian Federation, but also the concepts of national identity and valueattitudes of inhabitants of both countries.

Official de-Sovietization during the chaotic 1990s ushered in 'The New' – ostensibly, a new sociopolitical and economic order, a new business vocabulary, the new word 'rossiiane' for Russian citizens, the New Russians and the new genre of male fashion. Much of the new, in fact, recuperated the pre-Soviet old, including appropriation of western styles in sundry walks of life. Within male fashion, sartorial choice signalled allegiance to the 'new' order, financial and social status, individualism or membership in various collectives. Glossies targeting a male readership served as both primers and advertisements for men intent on forging an identity expressed in sartorial choices derived from such western modes as grunge, pop, Mafia, British rural garb and youth-eclectic 'casual'. For better and worse, that plethora reflected the seemingly endless options for the country during the Yeltsin era.

The convergence of sports and celebrity can have a powerful influence on everyday politics, especially for groups underrepresented in mainstream American society. This article examines the relationship between race, celebrity, and social movements, specifically Colin Kaepernick's protest of police violence and whether his activism mobilizes black Americans to political action. Using the 2017 Black Voter Project (BVP) Pilot Study, we explore African American political engagement in the 2016 election, a time devoid of President Obama as a mobilizing figure. We find African Americans who strongly approve of Kaepernick's protest engage in politics at elevated rates, even after accounting for alternative explanations. Moreover, approval for Kaepernick also moderates other forces rooted in group identity, such as identification with the Black Lives Matter movement. In the end, Kaepernick and the protest movement he leads offers a powerful mobilizing force for African Americans.

Memories of the personal past seem to be something natural for us, because they determine our identity and, at least partly, our character as well. Well-developed episodic memory, which enables us to mentally travel into our personal past and imagine our personal future, makes such perception of the past possible. Animals probably do not have this form of memory, or it is much less evolved in them than it is in humans. Archaeological finds suggest that in human evolution episodic memory evolved to the present extent relatively late, probably not until Modern man emerged. Such a conclusion can be made because archaic human species did not leave behind any material proofs, such as lasting jewellery and unambiguous ritual burials that would reflect the modern perception of time and desire to preserve personal memories.

AbstractChinese national identity has long been considered to have been an obstacle to Singapore's nation-building efforts. This is mainly because China was suspected of using its ethnic links to encourage Singapore's communist rebellions during the 1950s and 1960s as Lee Kuan Yew was working towards establishing the city state. This study reviews Lee's exchanges with Beijing and argues that he gave China the impression that he was building an anticolonial, pro-China nation. Beijing therefore responded positively to Lee's requests for support. Reiterating its overseas Chinese policy to Lee, Beijing sided with him against his political rivals and even acquiesced in his suppression of Chinese-speaking "communists." In addition, China boosted Lee's position against Tunku Abdul Rahman, supported Singapore's independence and lobbied Indonesia to recognize the territory as a separate state. China thus actually played a helpful role in Singapore's nation building.