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On Aging Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-16 Ilan Stavans
A series of personal reflections, springing from a neighborhood talk and exploring the way aging has been approached in literature by Cicero, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Borges, and Neruda. We age from the moment we are born, though we grasp its pathos as death nears.
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Adaptation and Survival Among the University of Nigeria Nsukka Academic Staff: The Double Tragedy of “No Salary” and “Lockdown” Policies Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-05 Celestine Uchechukwu Udeogu, Emmanuel Johnson Ibuot, Michael Nwokedi, Chigozie Ifekwe Okonkwo
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Not “Coddling” but “Rewiring”: Explaining Psychic Harm Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-03 Cassandra Sever
Sensitivity to harm has become a crisis, and the reasons for this remain unexplained. Across organizations, individuals express psychic damage from trauma to microaggressions. Some call this rise in harm-oriented claims a loss of resilience due to an excess of “coddling.” Although harm is innately social, sociologists have seldom studied the deeper sources of this crisis. I advance a theoretical model
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Girls in Pieces: An Exploration of Ethnic Identity in Two Anglo-Latina University Students Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-30 April Vázquez
The multiracial population is the fastest-growing demographic in American society, increasing at three times the rate of the population as a whole. Because the majority of multiracial and multiethnic individuals are children and adolescents, the issue has important implications for the future of American schools. Using Rockquemore and Brunsma’s racial identity taxonomy, I analyzed the interview and
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Depression Among India’s Older Adults: The Burdens and Challenges of a Widespread Disease Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-21 Isha Sharma, Alok Ranjan
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Breaking the Silence: Participatory Forum Theatre and Gender-Based Violence Prevention in Mining Communities. A Case Study of Makusha, Midlands Province, Zimbabwe Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-19 Everjoy Magwegwe
This study investigates forum theater, an interactive, participatory type of theater, as a tool to better understand and combat gender-based violence (GBV) in Makusha, a densely populated mining community in Shurugwi, the Midlands region of Zimbabwe. Deeply impacted by rapid mining industry expansion, this community faces intensifying social tensions. At the core of the study lies an examination of
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Managerial Pluralism: Thirty Years of Teaching Business Ethics Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-15 Joseph L. Badaracco
The author reflects on 30 years of teaching business ethics at Harvard Business School. The paper presents tactical lessons for teaching courses in professional ethics and introduces “managerial pluralism.” This concept is akin to Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism and directly addresses the complexity of ethical decision-making in business. Managerial pluralism also raises challenging questions about
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Far Away Is Close at Hand: A Critique of Martha Nussbaum’s Cosmopolitanism Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-16 John Ackroyd
Martha Nussbaum’s approach to ethical and political philosophy — unlike that of certain of her notable contemporaries — is neither ahistorical nor concerned with augmenting or refining the historical record. Rather, its aim is learning what the deepest philosophical minds of the past have proposed as the fairest organisation of society, in terms of a balance between autonomy for individuals and communities
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Housing Crisis and Neoliberal Social Policy in Greece Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-06 Nikos Kourachanis
The purpose of this study is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to the current housing crisis in Greece and to offer a critical assessment of existing interventions on social policy. It focuses on the way in which the multiple crises over the past 15 years and their management have exacerbated social inequalities. Housing represents an illustrative case study. In terms
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Markets and Public Goods: Integrity, Trust, and Climate Change Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-05 Avner Offer
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Russia’s Growing Military in Africa: Economic Partnership or Colonial Pillage? Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-05 Nnanna Onuoha Arukwe
Russia is currently intervening in Africa through the activities of private military contractors tied to the Kremlin. Although there seems to be growing public support in Africa for Russian intervention, it is important to determine whether the people’s enthusiasm for Russia’s military’s presence in Africa is justified. To analyze the phenomenon of Russia’s military presence in Africa, this article
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Internalization of Borders: The Concept and Its Applications Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-23 Volker M. Heins
Europe and the United States are spending billions on the fortification of borders to stop migrants deemed unwanted by the government. The questionable effectiveness of this policy and its disastrous, often deadly consequences for people on the move have been studied extensively. The political project of closing borders to racially stigmatized migrants has serious consequences not only for outsiders
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Does Philosophy Need to Know Its History? Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-10 Raymond Geuss
The point of doing the history of philosophy is to confront that which is completely foreign to us and seems unassimilable, in the hope of thereby getting some distance from our own form of life, and of learning to treat what is alien on its own terms. This is more difficult to do than might first seem to be the case, because of our almost irresistable tendency to assimilate that which is radically
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Contested Understandings of Violence: Refiguring Modern and Postmodern Perspectives Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-03 Ekkehard Coenen
There are numerous conceptions of violence today, such as physical, psychological, emotional, structural, and epistemic. The question of which social phenomena are to be described as violence is itself a matter of furious dispute. In social theory, there is a widespread tendency to distinguish between ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ conceptions of violence. In this scheme, modern violence is primarily physical
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Plato’s Ambivalent Assessment of Democracy Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-04 David Roochnik
In his 2016 article, “Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic,” Andrew Sullivan argued that Book VIII of Plato’s Republic accurately depicts a “mature” democracy, such as that found in the United States, as well as the process by which first a demagogue and then a tyrant can emerge from it. He expressed the fear that Donald Trump was just such a man. Part I discusses Sullivan’s article. Part II
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Puzzling Beliefs: Why Do Many Americans Mistrust Science? Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-03 Paul Boghossian
Why is there such a pervasive mistrust of science and expertise in the United States these days? This essay argues that, alongside the contribution made by the internet in facilitating the spread of misinformation, information silos, validation of kooky views, and so forth, the most significant factor derives from our failure to inculcate in our citizenry the basics of critical scientific thought and
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Neglected Components in Dominant Accounts of a Good Life? — Disagreements among Maasai Pastoralists Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-21 Eugen Pissarskoi, Leiyo Singo
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The State and Criminalization of Artisanal Oil Refining in Nigeria Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-15 Michael I. Ugwueze, Samuel A. Asua, Samuel A. Mbadah, Paulinus E. Ezeme, Peter L. Atime, Josephine N. Obioji, Elias C. Ngwu
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Dividing the Nation: The Weaponization of “Terrorism” in Russian Influence Operations in the USA Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-13 Ori Swed, Daniel Jaster, Mary Adami
The term terrorist represents the ultimate enemy: someone that is evil, illegitimate, and outside of the social order. Branding political rivals as terrorists delegitimizes them, transforming them from political adversaries into enemies or irrational actors. One does not negotiate with enemies, but rather eradicates or neutralizes them. Terrorism’s ill-defined qualities and multitude of definitions
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Social Theory and Transgender: Beyond Polarization Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 Charles Turner
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Poverty and the Rise and Fall of the Welfare State in Britain, 1900 to the Present Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-25 Patricia Thane
Poverty in the UK has recently risen to levels and created conditions not seen since c.1900. Then, the poverty revealed in major surveys by Booth and Rowntree created shock and proposals for change leading to the first measures of what became the Welfare State. Then, as now, a major cause of poverty was inadequate pay for precarious work, though another significant cause now is the decline of the Welfare
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Stairway to Heaven: LGBTQ+ Gatherings as Civil-Religious Rituals Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-19 Stefan Schwarzkopf, Sine Nørholm Just, Jannick Friis Christensen
This paper applies ritual theory to study public LGBTQ+ gatherings, including Pride parades, silent vigils, and commemorative litanies. The analysis of public LGBTQ+ rituals has often focussed on Pride parades and their carnivalistic exuberance. We call instead for more attention to the whole nexus of public rituals that this movement consists of, and we argue that these rituals are central to LGBTQ+
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Isaiah Berlin and Feminism: Liberty and Value Pluralism Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-12 George Crowder
Isaiah Berlin’s account of freedom is more useful for feminists than is generally recognized, especially when seen in the context of his value pluralism. Focusing on the work of Nancy Hirschmann and Sharon Krause, I argue, first, that Berlin’s concept of negative liberty can be used to resist patriarchy when his notion of the ‘conditions’ of negative liberty is taken into account. Second, positive
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The Voice of the People: Populism and Donald Trump’s Use of Informal Voice Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen
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Can Terrorism Ever Be Morally Justified? Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Quassim Cassam
This paper provides a framework to make moral sense of terrorism. The framework consists in a test, referred to as the MODAL test, which is an acronym standing for five tests or principles for determining the moral defensibility or indefensibility of terrorism. The five principles concern the motives for terrorism, its objectives, destructiveness, availability of alternatives, and likelihood of success
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Point-n-Kill: Label Metaphors in Heterosexual Peer Networks in Nigeria Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-27 Eyo O. Mensah
Male and female partners in heterosexual peer networks in Calabar metropolis, Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria, use reciprocal label metaphors to characterize each other in negative (or positive) ways. This article explores how sexual metaphors, banters, and teasing are used to satirize young people’s heterosexual behaviors and practices to develop consensual sexual morality. The study is anchored
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Socrates’ Critique of Writing Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 David Roochnik
This essay discusses the critique of writing that Socrates presents in Plato’s Phaedrus. It argues that because he conceives of writing as a kind of technology (in Greek, a technê), this passage prefigures many of the conversations now taking place about our own most recent technological advances: the internet, the smartphone, and artificial intelligence.
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Paul Johnson and the Cultural Logic of the British Hard Right Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Charlie Ellis
Within the British conservative movement, the hard right is identifiable and significant. The hard right tends to believe that Britain’s cultural institutions, such as the BBC, have an embedded anti-conservative bias. For them, the Corporation represents everything that is wrong with the ‘liberal metropolitan elite’ that, they believe, controls key institutions. This article explores the contribution
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Traces of Hope from a New Transnational Well-Being Index: World Love Index Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Marco Palmieri, Federica Floridi, Angela Delli Paoli, Gennaro Iorio, Fabrizio Martire, Silvia Cataldi
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Does the Phrase “Conspiracy Theory” Matter? Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-15 M R. X. Dentith, G. Husting, M. Orr
Research on conspiracy theories has proliferated since 2016, in part due to the US election of President Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly threatening environmental conditions. In the rush to publication given these concerning social consequences, researchers have increasingly treated as definitive a 2016 paper by Michael Wood (Political Psychology, 37(5), 695–705, 2016) that concludes
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In the Face of Opposition: An Analysis of Homeless Services in Skid Row Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-14 Maryanne Alderson Diaz
California is currently grappling with a severe homeless crisis, with Los Angeles and particularly Skid Row, harboring the largest homeless population in the nation. The escalating prevalence of homelessness necessitates evidence-based practices for effective intervention. Despite extensive research on homeless services, the issue’s complexity leaves us without a definitive solution for addressing
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Anthropometry and Lock Hospitals in Nineteenth-Century Madras Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-11 Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan
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Everything for My Children: Social Policies and Traces of Hope Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-07 Angelica De Sena
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Introduction to Symposium: Healthcare Research in India: Qualitative Insights Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Jagriti Gangopadhyay, Ranjana Saha
The main aim of this Symposium is to bring out the significance of qualitative research in the field of public health in India. The diverse articles are thematically interconnected and jointly provide socio-historical perspectives of different health concerns prevalent in colonial and postcolonial India. These are located at the crucial intersections between gender, sexuality, and health. While pointing
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The Standpoint of Hope and the Decolonial Ethno-Poetics of Radical Love Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 William A. Calvo-Quirós
This article argues that love and care, and more specifically, the hope of a new world, were central to the ethos of the US Civil Rights movement of the late 1960s and the decolonial projects inspired by it. Starting from the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other central activists of the era, this article explores how hope guided their visionary work. This article examines what differentiates
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Internalised Gay Ageism: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of Minority Stressors in Urban Mumbai Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Anupam Joya Sharma, Malavika Ambale Subramanyam
Middle-aged and older queer men are socially invisible across the world, especially in countries with a long history of criminalisation of homosexuality, such as India. The heteronormative society they grew up in and the perceived ageist gay culture within the queer community have contributed to the development of two stressors—internalised homophobia and internalised ageism, respectively—as adapted
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The Bio-moral Politics of Semen Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Sohini Saha
The article focuses on the bio-moral politics of semen in India. By engaging with religious, ascetic, scientific, and medical discourses on semen in the context of India, it emphasises that semen and the regimes of its control were shaped by complex discourses on health, immortality, and modern politico-medical notions of immunity. Based on sociohistorical and ethnographic perspectives, the article
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World War I as a Cause of Ephemeral Hope in the Artistic Avant-Gardes Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Juan A. Roche Cárcel
The article shows, first, how Sociology has approached the concepts of “hope” and “war” and how throughout the history of the discipline these terms have gone from being neglected to arousing considerable interest. Second, the paper analyzes how and why avant-garde artists understood the First World War as a motif of utopian hope to annihilate a civilization in crisis and to transform it through its
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A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere? With, against, and beyond Habermas Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-15 Simon Susen
The main purpose of this paper is to assess the validity of the contention that, over the past few decades, the public sphere has undergone a new structural transformation. To this end, the analysis focuses on Habermas’s recent inquiry into the causes and consequences of an allegedly ‘new’ or ‘further’ [erneuten] structural transformation of the political public sphere. The paper is divided into two
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The Emergence of Social Folds: How the Environment Contributes to the Creation of Ambivalent Social Actors Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Jesús Romero Moñivas
The concept of “environment” is ambiguous in social theory. Sometimes it is wielded like a “tyrant” which moulds subjects as if they were a simple reflection of its environment; other times it is treated as if the environment is a “slave” of subjects whose agency can transform it. This paper reflects on the complex interaction between people and their environments. Social theory cannot establish a
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Legal Pluralism as a Necessity: The Difficulty of Adjudicating Land Disputes in India Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Sharib Zeya
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Minority Language Public Sphere: The Irish Language in the Media and Beyond Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Iarfhlaith Watson, Lorenzo Posocco
In this paper, we delve into the dynamics of the Irish-language public sphere, with a primary emphasis on the media landscape. In our analysis, we contend that the prevailing public sphere in Ireland predominantly functions in the English language, thereby subordinating the Irish-language public sphere. By scrutinising the challenges inherent in conceptualising an Irish-language public sphere vis-à-vis
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“This Is Not a Riot”: Activists’ Responses to Accusations of Violence in the Ferguson Unrest Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-27 Carmit Wolberg
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the last decade has gained widespread support for protests against police brutality targeting African Americans. However, some people during these protests have resorted to violence, mostly against property, creating an opening for opponents to shift the debate from protesters’ grievances to the nature of the protests by labeling them as “riots” and depicting
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Publicking/Privating: The Gestural Politics of Digital Spaces Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Hannes Bajohr
The distinction between public and private spheres has become increasingly blurred in the digital age. As more aspects of life move online, where information is potentially visible to anyone, traditional barriers dividing public and private realms dissolve. This creates a default condition of publicness for much online activity. In response, Internet users have developed novel ways of demarcating contexts
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“But why isn’t it an accomplishment not to have children?”: A Qualitative Investigation into Millennial Perceptions of Voluntarily Childless Women Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-16 Hannah E. Colledge, Jessica Runacres
The concept of women as ‘child-bearers’ and the overarching view of motherhood as a prerequisite for female fulfilment has formed the basis for societal expectations of the female gender for centuries. However, the number of women who choose not to have children is increasing. This research aimed to gain a deeper understanding of millennials’ perception of voluntarily childless women in the UK. It
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Land as Common Property: The Fit of Land Governance with Ostrom’s Design Principles Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-12 Abdul-Salam Ibrahim, Mohammed Abubakari, Thembela Kepe
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College Diversity Politics and American Higher Education: An Institutional Analysis Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-12 Kaleb Demerew
In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC, this paper reexamines the politics of diversity and affirmative action. Exploring legal constructions and three core dimensions of diversity—structural, interactional, and viewpoint—the study identifies three perverse outcomes of the prevailing “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) paradigm in American higher
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The Unnamed: Exploring the Erasure of Women from the History of Ghana Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-13 Aboabea Gertrude Akuffo
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Geographies of Public Deliberation: A Closer Look at the Ingredient of Space Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-02 Harrison Esam Awuh
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Du Bois Watches Standup: Double Consciousness Revisited Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Adam Valen Levinson
For more than a century, the psychosocial concept of “double consciousness” (DC) has been inextricably linked to issues of “race,” and racial objectification. Using stand-up comedy as a close proxy for presentations of self, this article presents a fundamentally different understanding, and one that Du Bois quietly pivoted towards near the end of his life: DC is a cultural issue, one best described
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No Victims Without Sacrifice, No Sacrifice Without Victims: Conceptualizing Violence and the “Oklahoma City Bombing” Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-07 Jodok Troy
This article proposes a conceptualization of violence that builds on a tripartite relationship between violence, victims, and sacrifice that frames violence as a self-justifying sacrificial act. This conceptualization delineates the nature of violence by addressing its transformation from an instrumental act to a constitutional act, making violence possible, ongoing, contagious, and productive. In
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The Specter of Gentrification in a Pan-Asian Immigrant Neighborhood: Community Development and Resistance to Displacement in Portland’s Jade District Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Hilary Sanders
Focusing on a low-income neighborhood of Asian immigrant settlement located at the eastern periphery of Portland, Oregon, this article traces the efforts of an organization representing API (Asian and Pacific Islander) populations to implement community-led development and to prevent the displacement of residents vulnerable to real estate pressures. The project is representative of a growing recognition
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When a Club Turns into a Public Event: The Structural Transformation of the British Parliament and the Making of Collective Solidarity Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Danny Kaplan
Much of the scholarship on the modern public sphere has, following Habermas, focused on arenas of sociability detached from state authority. However, little attention has been given to the ways in which patterns of sociability intrinsic to political institutions facilitated the rise of civil society and a sense of nationhood. This article unpacks various structural dimensions of collective solidarity
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Office Obligation as Civil Virtue: The Crisis of American Democracy, November 3, 2020–January 6, 2021, and After Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Jeffrey C. Alexander
This essay develops a new theoretical and empirical understanding of the contemporary crisis of American democracy. Between November 3, 2020, and January 7, 2021, President Donald Trump battled to overturn the results of the American presidential election, launching myriad lawsuits and pressuring hundreds of electoral officials. Confronting this antidemocratic assault was a resilient civil sphere that
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Religious Affiliation in the Twenty-First Century: A Machine Learning Perspective on the World Value Survey Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-25 Elaheh Jafarigol, William Keely, Tess Hortag, Tom Welborn, Peyman Hekmatpour, Theodore B. Trafalis
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Avoiding the “Job-Stopper” Tattoo: An Exploratory Study on the Placement of Tattoos Among College Undergraduates Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-18 Roberto Gallardo
Designed as an exploratory case study, this analysis focuses on the determining factors for the placement of tattoos on the body among undergraduates. Previous tattoo literature has predominantly focused on reasons for getting tattoos or the deviance associated with tattooing and tattooed populations. Little research exists on the process and placement of tattoos on the body, especially among the undergraduate
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The Sociology of Hope: Classical Sources, Structural Components, Future Agenda Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-15 Adrian Scribano
The multiple problems that the planet is currently experiencing—climate crisis, conventional and unconventional wars, planetary disenchantment with political systems, growth of inequality, increase in all kinds of intersectional violence, destructuring of the political economy of morality, etc.—are not a favorable scenario for thinking about hope. This paper nevertheless offers a summary presentation
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The Uses and Misuses of History: Reflections on Nietzsche’s Second Untimely Meditation Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-11 Julian Young
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Populism: A Berlinian Critique Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 George Crowder
How would Isaiah Berlin assess the current wave of authoritarian populism? The question is worth asking both for the light it casts on populism and for what it tells us about Berlin. In several respects, his view of populism is ambivalent: he is surprisingly sympathetic to the Russian populists of the nineteenth century, sharing their concern for genuine democracy and their reservations about elite
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Fragmented Discourses: The Indian Digital Public Sphere in a Post-truth Era Society (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-07-31 Shabin Basheer, Chitra Karunakaran Prasanna, Fathimath Mahitha. K.