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Since the dawn of social science, theorists have debated how and why societies appear to change, develop and evolve. Today, this question is pursued by scholars across many different disciplines and our understanding of these dynamics has grown markedly. Yet, there remain important areas of disagreement and debate: what is the difference between societal change, development and evolution? What specific aspects of cultures change, develop or evolve and why? Do societies change, develop or evolve in particular ways, perhaps according to cycles, or stages or in response to survival necessities? How do different disciplines—from sociology to anthropology to psychology and economics—approach these questions? This book provides complex and nuanced answers to these, and many other, questions. First, the book invites readers to consider the broad landscape of societal dynamics across human history, beginning with humanity's origins in small nomadic bands of hunter gatherers through to the emergence of post-industrial democracies. Then, the book provides a tour of several prominent existing theories of cultural change, development and evolution. Approaches to explaining cultural dynamics will be discussed across disciplines and schools of thought, from'meme'theories to established cumulative cultural evolutionary theories to newly emerging theories on cultural tightness-looseness. The book concludes with a call for theoretical integration and a frank discussion of some of the most unexamined structures that drive cultural dynamics across schools of thought.

This book provides qualitative analyses of intercultural sense making in a variety of institutional contexts. It relies on the assumption that in an increasingly culturally diverse world, individuals often enter contexts that have communal, historically determined and stable sets of values, norms and expected identities, with little cultural compass to find their bearings in them. The book goes beyond interpreting differences in people's ethnic or linguistic roots and discusses instead people's interpretive efforts to navigate different sociocultural situations. The contributors examine such situations in educational, organizational, medical and community settings and look at how participants with different levels of sociocultural competences (such as, migrant patients, migrant adult learners, children) try to cope with institutional constraints and expectations, how they understand symbols, practices and identities in institutional contexts,and how their creative adjustments come to light. This book provides insights from the fields of psychology, education, anthropology and linguistics, and is for a wide readership interested in cultural meaning-making.

Winner of the Norbert Elias Book Prize 2023 This book charts the process of civilisation in Japan. Using the theory of civilising processes developed by Norbert Elias, the author examines the complex underlying structural and psychological processes from the seventh century to the twentieth century. Furthermore, by drawing on rich historical data, the author illustrates how these complex processes led the Japanese to see themselves as ‘more civilised'than their forebears and neighbouring countries. Although the theory serves as an important reference point, the author draws on other works to address different complex questions surrounding Japanese development. Therefore, this book presents three key themes: first, it gives an alternative understanding of the complex developments of Japanese society; second, it intercedes into an ongoing debate about the applicability of Elias's theory in a non-Western context; and third, it expands Elias's theory.

This book contributes to research on therapeutic culture by drawing on longstanding ethnographic work and by offering a new theoretical reading of therapeutic culture in today's society. It suggests that the therapeutic field serves as a key site in which a number of contradictions of capitalism are confronted and lived out. It shows that therapeutic engagements are inherently ambivalent and contradictory, as they can be articulated and engaged with in many different ways and harnessed for diverse, and often contradictory, political projects. The book takes issue with the interpretation of therapeutic culture as merely individualising, depoliticizing and working in congruence with neoliberalism, and shows that therapeutic engagements may also open up a space for contestation and critique of neoliberal capitalism, animate collective action for social change and articulate alternative forms of life and subjectivities. The book will speak to a wide variety of audiences in the social sciences and will be of particular interest to those working in the fields of sociology, anthropology, critical psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and critical social theory.

The book explores, through a reflection on food, the complexity of the concept of well-being. It starts from the consideration that food is a fundamental element for human well-being, and for well-being of the planet as a whole. Not only does food guarantee the survival of human beings, it is also a cultural expression. With regard to the Italian socio-cultural context, the contributors explore how food relates to aspects such as history, tradition, new food styles, health, and the old and new technologies used to produce food. The studies in the book do not simply analyse indicators to illustrate the Italian situation in the'here and now'. As part of the tradition of studies on social indicators, they provide valid and well-founded indications to contribute to an improvement in the quality of life for years to come.This work on the theme of food represents a very useful contribution to the general reflection on well-being and its statistical, sociological, and multidisciplinary study, due to the importance historically given to food in Italy and the socio-cultural implications of food in various life contexts.

Geld ist heute ein sachlich, zeitlich und sozial ubiquitäres Phänomen. Es fällt schwer – trotz sich verstetigender Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrisen in der jüngeren Vergangenheit –, sich Geld wegzudenken oder sich auch nur ein anderes Geld(-system) zu denken. Diese Ubiquität steht im Kontrast zu einer hochgradig selektiven wissenschaftlichen Behandlung, die es verunmöglicht, den kultur-evolutionären Stellenwert des Geldes adäquat abzuschätzen. Die neoklassische Ökonomik ist durch eine (seit Adam Smith kolportierte) tauschtheoretische Engführung von Geld limitiert. Geld gilt dort strukturell als auch verteilungspolitisch weithin als neutral, also nicht als evolutionärer Mechanismus aus eigenem Recht. Die Neue Wirtschaftssoziologie hat zwar zu Recht den Modellplatonismus der Mainstream-Ökonomik kritisiert und auf die soziale Einbettung der Wirtschaft hingewiesen. Sie hat es in diesem Zuge aber nicht zu einer eigenständigen Geldtheorie gebracht. Das Buch präsentiert Überlegungen zu einer interdisziplinär informierten soziologischen Geldtheorie in kultur-evolutionärer Absicht. In zwei historischen Studien (zu Mesopotamien ab dem vierten Jahrtausend v.u.Z. sowie zum Griechenland des ersten Jahrtausends v.u.Z.) werden die koevolutionären Prozesse von Geldentwicklung, Schriftentwicklung und Rationalitätsentwicklung detailliert rekonstruiert. Einer solchen Forschungsperspektive gelingt es, die in der Soziologie etablierte problematische Dichotomie von Einbettungs- und Ausdifferenzierungsparadigmen durch eine integrative Perspektive zu überwinden und aufzuheben.

Die Studie von Alexandra Bernhardt beschäftigt sich mit Coworking Spaces und ihren Atmosphären. Neben einer umfassenden Betrachtung der Rolle von Atmosphären wird die besondere Bedeutung von Gemeinschaft im Kontext dieser Arbeitsräume näher beleuchtet. Den Kern der Untersuchung bilden zwei Fallstudien in urbanen Coworking Spaces, wobei ein an der Ethnografie orientiertes, methodenplurales qualitatives Forschungsdesign verfolgt wird. Im Rahmen der Analyse wird zum einen betrachtet, was Coworking im Alltag und damit die neue Gemeinschaftlichkeit bei der Arbeit ausmacht: Dabei werden relevante Praktiken und Rituale, räumliche Arrangements und Atmosphären in ihrer Komposition herausgearbeitet. Zum anderen rücken die Coworkenden, ihr Raumhandeln und damit verbundene Haltungen näher in den Blick: Es wird aufgezeigt, wie sich die Nutzer•innen Coworking Spaces als Arbeits- und Gemeinschaftsräume erschließen und welche Rolle Atmosphären spielen. Zudem werden soziale Gebilde herausgestellt, die von den Coworkenden in Bezug auf ihren Coworking Space aufgegriffen werden und die den Coworking-Space-Alltag mitprägen. Auch werden Spannungen aufgedeckt, die aus einem Nebeneinander von Gemeinschafts- und Dienstleistungslogik entstehen, und der Umgang damit näher betrachtet.

In this third iteration of the classic work The Impacts of Racism on White Americans (1981, 1996), a new generation of scholars make the case that racism often negatively affects Whites themselves, especially during the Trump era. In 1981, Impacts introduced an alternative understanding of racism, arguing that it went beyond white-black and/or inter-race relations. Instead, the book proposed that the problem of race in the U.S. is fundamentally one of white identity and culture and that racism has substantial negative effects on White Americans. This volume advances these propositions through three key areas: (1) Trump-era cultural and institutional racism, bolstered by the use of historical notions of racial hierarchy; (2) institutional and interpersonal racism, which in turn drive individual racist behaviors; and finally, (3) racism's interactional sequences and how they impact anti-racism efforts. As each chapter author explores an iteration of these racisms, they also explore how racist attitudes produce disadvantage among White Americans.

Bewertungsphänomene wie Rankings und Ratings sind in Gegenwartsgesellschaften weit verbreitet. Sie werfen gleichermaßen theoretische wie politische Fragen auf und fordern die soziologische Analyse heraus. Der Band versammelt Studien zu Bewertungsphänomen in unterschiedlichen sozialen Sphären (u.a. Alltag, digitalen Medien, Kultur, Sport und Wissenschaft) und bringt sie miteinander ins Gespräch. Zugleich wirbt er für eine konsequent vergleichende Perspektive, die unterschiedliche Bewertungskulturen in Gegenwartsgesellschaften umfassend nachzeichnet.

Studien unter dem Vorzeichen der Kulturgerontologie verstehen das Alter nicht als eine biologisch definierte Lebensphase, sondern als Teil sozialer Praxis und kultureller Ordnung. Die interdisziplinäre Annäherung an die Lebensphase Alter passiert dabei vor dem Hintergrund von Praxistheorien, Diskurstheorien, Materialitätstheorien oder Kulturtheorien. Empirisch geht mit dieser Neuausrichtung eine Erforschung des Alltagsnahen und Lebensweltlichen, des impliziten Wissens, der sozio-materiellen Arrangements und der Ästhetisierungen des Alterns einher. Der Band bildet die Vervielfältigung und Synthese von disziplinären Perspektiven der Kulturgerontologie im deutschsprachigen Raum ab und zeigt damit neue Wege auf, die Lebensphase Alter zu gestalten.

Es war ein fataler Fehler von Wissenschaftlern und politischen Beobachtern, in den islamistischen Bewegungen Vertreter einer scheinbar „authentischen“ Modernisierung zu sehen und dadurch an der Delegitimierung der säkularen Kräfte in den muslimischen Ländern und Milieus als „kulturfremde Eliten“ mitzuwirken. An diese Fehldeutung knüpft auch die paradigmatische Entscheidung der Regierungen in Europa resp. in Deutschland an, bei der Integrationspolitik auf die Religion umzusatteln. Die Beiträge in diesem Band problematisieren die Fundamentalisierung des Islam unter den Migranten und die religiöse Wende in der Integrationspolitik.

This book examines the social production of our world, of the worlds of the past and of the worlds of the future, considering the ways in which worlds are created in both actuality and imagination. Bringing together central concepts of classical sociology, including social change, transformation, individuation, collectivisation and human imagination and practice, it draws lessons from the collapse of Graeco-Roman antiquity for our own world of virus and ecological disasters, considers the genesis of capitalism and intimates its ending. Rooted in classical sociology yet challenging its traditions and objects of study, Visualising Worlds: World-Making and Social Theory adopts new ways of thinking about visuality, aesthetics and how we ‘see'social worlds, and how we then begin to build them. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in social theory, historical sociology, cultural studies, critical theory, archaeology, and the emergence, change and collapse of civilisations.

The HIV epidemic remains one of the most challenging of modern times, despite the enormous promise of anti-retroviral treatment. This timely book takes a critical look at HIV/AIDS in the context of South Africa, the country with the largest HIV epidemic in the world. Drawing on feminist science and technology studies and a close analysis of a range of textual sources, Politics in the Making of HIV/AIDS in South Africa tracks how the disease has been formed and transformed through political struggles. It illuminates the ways these struggles have also generated new selves for those living with HIV. In conducting this enquiry, the book addresses pressing questions about the politics of public health, the ethics of biological citizenship, and agency and the making of neoliberal subjects. It should appeal to scholars and students with interests in the sociology of health and medicine, the body in society, science and technology studies, and public health.

If art, and especially music, has been framed in cultural sociology as a collective production relying on a variety of actors, technicians have been mostly framed as “support personnel” marginally impacting the meaning of a cultural production. This book analyzes sound technicians as technical intermediaries. They are autonomous actors of cultural production, and contribute in various ways to the meaning of live or recorded music performances, framed as a form of interaction rituals. From this analysis, it argues that artists should not be considered at the center of art worlds, and proposes a model including various types of actors in different roles, all necessary to produce a cultural object.

How does culture affect action? This question has long been framed in terms of a means vs ends debate—in other words, do cultural ends or cultural means play a primary causal role in human behavior? However, the role of socialization has been largely overlooked in this debate. In this book, Vila-Henninger develops a model of how culture affects action called “The Sociological Dual-Process Model of Outcomes” that incorporates socialization. This book contributes to the debate by first providing a critical overview of the literature that explains the limitations of the sociological dual-process model and subsequent scholarship—and especially work in sociology on “schemas”. It then develops a sociological dual-process model of moral judgment that formally explains Type I processes, Type II processes, and the interaction between Type I and Type II processes. The book also expands sociological dual-process models to include a temporal dimension—the'Sociological Dual-Process Model of Outcomes'. Finally, the book integrates a theory of socialization into the sociological dual-process model and creates empirical indicators that confirm Vila-Henninger's theorization and contribute to the literature on measures of dual-process models.

Konstruktivistische Raumvorstellungen prägen in vielen Disziplinen die Beschäftigung mit räumlichen Dimensionen von Identitäten. Auch in der raumbezogenen Identitätsforschung dominiert eine dualistische Sichtweise, die den Körper vom Geist und den Menschen von seiner Umwelt trennt. Ortsbezogene, lokale und auch materielle Kontexte sowie die leiblichen, affektiven oder irrationalen Dimensionen unserer Erfahrungen werden außer Acht gelassen, die für Menschen zentral im Rahmen ihrer Identitätsarbeit sind. Aus diesem Grund plädiert Anke Breitung für einen holistischen Ansatz und macht dazu eine neo-phänomenologische Perspektive für die Identitätsforschung fruchtbar. Dabei werden die räumlichen Bezüge menschlicher Identitätsarbeit vom leiblichen Dasein des Menschen aus entworfen. So gelingt es ein radikal neues leiblich-räumlich-zentriertes Identitätsmodell zu entwerfen. Damit leistet die Autorin einen wichtigen Beitrag, um zu verstehen, wie die Ganzheit der sich durch uns aufspannenden Umwelt in komplexer und dynamischer Art und Weise auf die Konstruktion unseres Selbst reflexiv Einfluss nimmt.Die Autorin:Anke Breitung war als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin in der Arbeitsgruppe Humangeographie der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt tätig. Ihre Schwerpunkte liegen in den Bereichen (Neo-)Phänomenologie bzw. Raumphänomenologie, Medizinische Geographie, Raumbezogene Identitätsforschung sowie Stadtgeographie und Geographische Handelsforschung.

This book addresses critical topics and unanswered questions on the contemporary state of Qatar. Drawing together a unique combination of authors that have researched the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in general, and the state of Qatar specifically, each author provides an in-depth empirical analysis of Qatar's current social, political, and economic landscape against a historically informed backdrop. Cognizant of its rapid state of flux, the contributors collectively provide a comprehensive overview of the intersection of these respective areas, delving into the historical creation of Qatar as a state, its politics and systems of governance, its economic strata and reliance on natural resources, its society and national identity, its new and thriving sports culture, and, most topically, matters of diplomacy, the 2017 blockade, and its armed forces. Owing to the contributors'invaluable firsthand experience and knowledge of Qatar, this book provides valuable insights into this nation, at once old and new, and its intertwined trajectories in its socio-political and economic positionality within the region. This book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars researching the Middle East generally, and the Gulf, specifically, with interests in topics such as politics and international relations, political economy and foreign policy, development, sources of social change, societal activism, popular culture, and the various elements of identity.

In den Bänden dieser Reihe werden erstmalig detailliert die wichtigsten Strömungen und Themen der ungemein fruchtbaren Periode der Soziologie der Zwischenkriegszeit im deutschen Sprachraum dargelegt. Damit leisten diese Bände nicht nur einen eminent wertvollen Beitrag zur Aufarbeitung der Geschichte der Soziologie in theoretischer, empirischer und institutioneller Hinsicht, sondern vertiefen diese Fachgeschichte auch durch die Bezugnahme auf Nachbardisziplinen wie Sozial- und Ideengeschichte, Ökonomik, Psychologie und Ethnologie.

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we've been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

Wie gestaltet sich für Pfarrpriester unter dem Einfluss der Nutzung von Technologien zur digitalen Vernetzung die Wahrnehmung von und der Umgang mit Raum, Zeit und sozialen Beziehungen? Diese Frage versucht der Autor in dieser empirischen Arbeit zu beantworten, indem er das Zusammenspiel zwischen der Nutzung digitaler Medien und der Anwendung sozialer Praktiken im Pfarralltag untersucht. Auf Grundlage der Daten konnte für die gegenständliche Studie der Idealtypus des Reflektierten Grenzgängers entwickelt werden. Dieser Idealtypus beschreibt einen Menschen, der nach einer reflektierten Gestaltung seiner Lebensbereiche Arbeit und Freizeit strebt, um nicht wie der Idealtypus des Effizienten Menschen ein Maximum an Aufgaben, sondern die jeweiligen Aufgaben bestmöglich zu bewältigen. Eine effiziente Mediennutzung und das Grenzmanagement sind folglich nur die Voraussetzungen, um in einer von digitalen Medien durchsetzten Welt bestmögliche Arbeit leisten zu können.

This book tackles the disconnect between social perceptions and expert knowledge regarding trade policy decisions. Using a Polish language internet database, the authors shed light on areas that need to be addressed when considering the adoption of particular trade policies by applying content and statistical analysis to produce an easy to deploy measure of populism in digital media, the “Media Populism Ratio”. Defining a mismatch between social perception and expert knowledge may contribute to a better understanding of the controversies on free trade, as well as properly defining possible sources of populism and social conflicts – therefore also revealing some potential weaknesses in the trade policy implementation level which are at times neglected or underestimated. The book will be relevant to students and researchers interested in economic policy, economic narratives and cultural economics.

This essential presents the state of urban research on gentrification in a condensed form. This term, which has been used in the scientific community since the 1960s, has now also become established in the public debate. It describes how rising rents in the cities and the lack of affordable housing lead to poorer residents being driven out of their neighbourhoods. It becomes clear in what way gentrification is a general principle of urban development and thus poses a considerable challenge to the social mix of our cities. It also shows what political measures should be taken from the perspective of research in order to prevent gentrification.This Springer essential is a translation of the original German 1st edition essentials, Gentrifizierung by Frank Eckardt, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2018. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the serviceDeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

The idea of cultural reproduction was first developed by Bourdieu (1973) who sees the function of the education system as being to reproduce the culture of the dominant classes, thus helping to ensure their continued dominance. Through his concepts of cultural capital'and habitus'Bourdieu's influence spread into other areas of socialization and high culture. However, despite the complex of influences that contribute to Bourdieu's method, sociologists of culture and students of cultural studies seem to have picked up on the negative and critical elements in the work. In particular, they developed the metaphor of reproduction as copy or imitation rather than reproduction as regeneration and synthesis. As a consequence cultural reproduction'has become part of the orthodoxy of studies in the theory of ideology and neo-Marxisms. While still addressing this well established theme of ideology and structural determinacy in cultural reproduction theory, this collection of original essays seeks also to explore other possibilities, in terms of ethnomethodology, Durkheimianism, structuralism and post-structuralism. Many of the arguments put forward also confront the most contemporary challenges presented by postmodernism. The papers address an unusually wide spectrum of cultural formations including gender roles, fine art, film, journalism, education, consumerism, style, language and sociology itself. The introduction discusses the origin and development of the concept of cultural reproduction and shows the variety of analytic possibilities within several traditions of social theorizing, all later expanded in the body of the text. Most of the contributors are academics working in the area of sociology of communication studies. All of them have taught in and have continuing research interests in the sociology of culture and cultural studies.

This book challenges the narrative of Northern England as a failed space of multiculturalism, drawing on a historically-contextualised discussion of ethnic relations to argue that multiculturalism has been more successful and locally situated than these assumptions allow.The authors examine the interplay between ‘race', space and place to analyse how profound economic change, the evolving nature of the state, individual racism, and the local creation and enactment of multiculturalist policies have all contributed to shaping the trajectory of ethnic/faith identities and inter-community relations at a local level. In doing so, the book analyses both change and continuity in discussion of, and national/local state policy towards, ethnic relations, particularly around the supposed segregation/integration dichotomy, and the ways in which racialised ‘events'are perceived and ‘identities'are created and reflected in state policy operations. Drawing on the authors'long involvement in empirical research, policy and practice around ethnicity, ‘race'and racism in the Northern England, they effectively support critical and situated analysis of controversial, racialised issues, and set these geographically specific findings in the context of wider international experiences of and tensions around growing ethnic diversity in the context of profound economic and social changes.

This book explores the nature of modern culture as a culture of anxiety, analyzing the modes in which such anxiety presents itself. Drawing on sociological and philosophical concepts of modernity, the author builds on the work of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud to offer an understanding of modern anxiety culture as the reverse side of risk culture, which stabilizes itself by concealing or making familiar the social phenomena of risk society. Through explorations of memory, politics, art, clairvoyance, notions of national community, and identity, this volume sheds light on the fissures in our culture where anxiety appears, thus revealing its underlying volatility. A study of the ruptures in our modern culture, Anxiety and Lucidity will appeal to scholars of sociology, social theory, anthropology, and philosophy with interests in late modern culture.

Taylor brings an ethnographer's eye, ear, and many years of experience to this fictional portrait of life along the US/Mexico desert border. In these linked short stories, readers are taken on a wild ride from San Diego to Nogales, into Mexican and Chicano neighborhoods, failed spas and defunct mining towns, rambling Native American reservations and besieged Wildlife Refuges. Along the way they will share the conflicts, calamities, and occasional triumph of an engaging cast of characters. While these tales treat such familiar border themes as drug- and people-smuggling or hybrid and conflicting cultures and identities, they do so with a literary flair that revels in the rich diversity of border life as well as in its ambiguity, ambivalence, irony and often unexpected humor.

This authoritative but concise guide describes the most significant cultural theories from the 19th to the 21st century and their originators, as well as the links between them and their mutual influences. This guide explores ideas around what culture is, when and why cultures change over time and whether there are any rules or principles behind culture-related phenomena and processes. For those seeking to answer questions on culture, familiarity with these topics is essential. From refugee movements caused by wars, to the ongoing demographical changes in regions of the world like sub-Saharan Africa or the Indian subcontinent, understanding the underlying mechanisms of culture-related processes has become an immediate and essential task. Covering everything from the processes of cultural change to counterculture and destabilisation, the book explains different ideas in a clear and objective fashion and includes approaches that have been unduly neglected but which have high explanatory value regarding culture and its phenomena. Providing readers with an up-to-date idea of what culture is, and how our understanding of it has been established over the past century, this text is the perfect companion for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers.

La sociologie de la culture, tout comme les définitions même du mot culture, est l'objet de débats et de polémiques passionnantes et souvent passionnées.Le but de cet ouvrage est de resituer les travaux – théoriques et empiriques – dans la dynamique de ce champ de recherches vaste et varié. Derrière des oppositions entre « des écoles » ou des auteurs, des méthodes ou des façons d'aborder la culture, peuvent être dégagés des points de rencontre et des complémentarités. Par ailleurs, les débats les plus actuels, soulevés par les (r)évolutions liées au numérique, l'importance prise par les études de genre, et l'émergence de nouveaux publics (les enfants, les fans), sont abordés, à la fois à travers les nouveaux terrains qu'ils font surgir, mais également par les questions méthodologiques qu'ils posent aux sociologues.

Angst ist nicht nur eine menschliche Grundemotion, sondern ein gesellschaftliches Phänomen. Jüngst wurde sie zum charakteristischen Gefühl westlicher Gegenwartsgesellschaften erklärt und insbesondere mit politisch regressiven Entwicklungen, allen voran dem Aufstieg des Rechtspopulismus, in Verbindung gebracht. Ausgehend von Befunden eines aktuell veränderten gesellschaftlichen Stellenwerts der Angst untersucht der Sammelband in interdisziplinärer Perspektive gegenwärtige Ursachen, Auswirkungen, Repräsentationen, Ausprägungen, Deutungen und Praktiken der Angst. Mithilfe unterschiedlicher konzeptueller, theoretischer und methodisch-empirischer Zugänge werden im Sinne einer interdisziplinären Gesellschaftswissenschaft der Angst die vielfältigen sozialen, politischen und kulturellen Bedeutungen der Angst in gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften beleuchtet.

Die Deponie ist eine paradoxe, risikobehaftete Einrichtung. Die moderne Gesellschaft erhofft sich durch sie, weggeworfene, unbrauchbare oder gefährliche Dinge, Stoffe oder Substanzen ein für alle Mal sich selbst überlassen zu können. Zugleich erfordern die entsprechenden Ablagerungsstellen erhebliche Aufmerksamkeit und technischen Aufwand. Auch wenn die Deponie ihre Legitimation aus der Annahme zieht, den auf ihr angesammelten Müll zu domestizieren, ist sie trotz aller Versicherungen und Vorkehrungen nämlich eines gerade nicht: abgeschlossen. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes nehmen diese Beobachtung zum Ausgangspunkt. Sie fragen nach den ökologisch problematischen und ästhetisch produktiven Implikationen der Anhäufung beseitigter Materialitäten und deren Verknüpfungen mit literarisch-kulturellen Diskursen. In exemplarischen Probebohrungen eröffnen sie Perspektiven einer literatur-, medien- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Untersuchung der Deponie. Zwei bisher eher getrennt voneinander operierende akademische Wissensbereiche werden dazu zusammengebracht: Studien auf dem Gebiet des Ecocriticism mit solchen der kulturwissenschaftlichen Analyse von Praktiken und Poetiken des Sammelns und Archivierens. Die Deponie wird so sichtbar als ein dynamisch-agentielles Konglomerat aus sozialen Praktiken, Diskursen und Materialitäten, mit denen Narrative u.a. aus Literatur, Fotografie, Film und Computerspielen verwoben sind.

Tangotanzen ist weltweit in Mode gekommen – eine Erfolgsstory mit vielen Gesichtern. Neben ökonomischen, historischen und politischen Aspekten spielen Sinnlichkeit und Emotionalität eine große Rolle, wie dieses Buch am Beispiel von Buenos Aires und Amsterdam zeigt. Grenzüberschreitend können empathische Gemeinschaften entstehen, die der sozialen Deprivation der Spätmoderne entgegen wirken und der Debatte um die Beziehung von globalem Süden und Norden neue Facetten hinzufügen.Die AutorinProf. Dr. Kathy Davis, Freie Universität Amsterdam, ist eine international tätige Geschlechterforscherin.Die HerausgeberinnenProf. Dr. Helma Lutz, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.Prof. i.R. Dr. Ursula Müller, Universität Bielefeld

Our contemporary societies place more and more emphasis on the singular and the unique. The industrial societies of the early 20th century produced standardized products, cities, subjects and organizations which tended to look the same, but in our late-modern societies, we value the exceptional - unique objects, experiences, places, individuals, events and communities which are beyond the ordinary and which claim a certain authenticity. Industrial society's logic of the general has been replaced by late modernity's logic of the particular. In this major new book, Andreas Reckwitz examines the causes, structures and consequences of the society of singularities in which we now live. The transformation from industrial to cultural capitalism, the rise of digital technologies and their ‘culture machine'and the emergence of an educated, urban new middle class form a powerful engine for the singularization of the social. In late modernity, what is singular is valorized and stirs the emotions, while what is general has to remain in the background, and this has profound social consequences. The society of singularities systematically produces devaluation and inequality: winner-takes-all markets, job polarization, the neglect of rural regions and the alienation of the traditional middle class. The emergence of populism and the rise of aggressive forms of nationalism which emphasize the cultural authenticity of one's own people thus turn out to be the other side of singularization. This prize-winning book offers a new perspective on how modern societies have changed in recent decades and it will be of great value to anyone interested in the forces that are shaping our world today.

Diese Arbeit widmet sich dem Thema der szenespezifischen Moden. Der Kern dieser Forschungsarbeit besteht daraus, anhand einer ethnographischen Studie das szenespezifische Modephänomen im Kontext der Hip-Hop-Szene in seinen Strukturen abzubilden und dessen Facetten, Bedeutungen und Differenzierungen aufzudecken, um daran anknüpfend aufzuzeigen, welche Produkte beziehungsweise Produkteigenschaften die Szene-Mitglieder als Mode deklarieren und konsumieren und welchen Stellenwert dieses Phänomen innerhalb der Szene einnimmt. Die übergreifende Zielstellung bildet dabei die Generierung eines differenzierteren Betrachtungsansatzes des Modephänomens, welcher auf die Vergemeinschaftungsform der Hip-Hop-Szene bezogen ist und deren innere Strukturen und Facetten berücksichtigt.Der InhaltForschungsstand: Moden und Szenen • Forschungsstand: Hip-Hop-Szene • Forschungsdesign • Konsumrelevante Werte, Strukturen und Relationen in der Hip-Hop-Szene • Produktkonsum in der Hip-Hop-Szene • Moden in der Hip-Hop-SzeneDer AutorMarco Krause ist Soziologe mit Fokus auf den Bereich Konsumsoziologie und Consultant im Bereich Digital Intelligence.

This book is the first comprehensive attempt to identify the deeper causes that have shaped contemporary behaviour patterns and motivations among football fans in Poland. Fan culture in Poland has long been based on a distinctively grassroots, spontaneous movements that ruled out any cooperation with local authorities and sports organizations. The activity of supporter groups has regularly failed to meet the principles set by official bodies, intentionally breaching the moral and legal standards of the day. Based on data derived from ethnographic fieldwork, content analysis of fan journals, magazines, social media and online forums, as well as a wide range of qualitative interviews conducted over the years, the book analyses the ways in which fandom culture in Poland has evolved: from its moderate beginnings in the shadows of a communist regime in the 1970's, through the anomic, ‘uncivilized'and pathological decade of the 1990's,to the peculiar culture based on strong cohesion, capabilities of social mobilization and emerging'resistance identity'in the 21st century. It thus provides a detailed analysis of Polish fandom's multi-dimensional structure, and will be of interest to students and academics interested in the growing field of football research, as well as those researching the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, or more generally in European Studies.

Anna M. Steinkamp erklärt aus vergleichender, ressourcenorientierter Perspektive die Zusammenhänge zwischen einer erfolgreichen Internationalisierungsstrategie eigenständiger Produktionsunternehmen aus der deutsch-polnischen Grenzregion und persönlichen Merkmalen der Entscheidungsträger. Die Autorin zeigt, wie die frühere Auslandserfahrung der Geschäftsführer eine spätere erste Internationalisierungsstrategie des Unternehmens beeinflusst und wie die Fremdsprachenkenntnisse der Entscheidungsträger auf die Art der Internationalisierungsstrategie und auf das Größenverhältnis der Auslandsumsätze zu den Gesamtumsätzen wirken. Darüber hinaus erörtert sie, welche Rolle die Nähe des Hauptsitzes des Unternehmens zur deutsch-polnischen Grenze für globale Geschäfte spielt.

Raphael Sassower examines the concept of hypocrisy for its strategic potential as a means of personal protection and social cohesion. Given the contemporary context of post-truth, the examination of degrees or kinds of hypocrisy moves from the Greek etymology of masks worn on the theater stage to the Hebrew etymology of the color adjustment of chameleons to their environment. Canonical presuppositions about the uniformity of the mind and the relation between intention and behavior that warrant the charge of hypocrisy are critically reconsidered in order to appreciate both inherent inconsistencies in personal conduct and the different contexts where the hypocrisy appears. Sassower considers the limits of analytic moral and political discourses that at times overlook the conditions under which putative hypocritical behavior is existentially required and where compromises yield positive results. When used among friends, the charge of hypocrisy is a useful tool with which to build trust and communities.

This book names and confounds the mono-mainstream assumption that invisibly frames much research, the ideologies that normalize monolingualism, monoculturalism, monoliteracy, mononationalism, and/or monomodal ways of knowing. In its place, the authors propose multi- and trans- lenses of these phenomena steeped in a raciolinguistic perspective on Bourdieu's reflexive sociology to move toward a more accurate, multidimensional view of racialized peoples'literacy and language practices. To achieve this, they first engage in a comprehensive review of literacies, languaging, and a critical sociocultural framework. Then, the distinct testimonios of four women underscore this framework in practice, followed by action steps for research, policy, and pedagogy. This book will be of particular interest to literacy and language education researchers.

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Buches steht ein ‚Gegenstand‘, mit dem wir alle tagtäglich zu tun haben: das lebendige, so eigenwillige Haar. Jede und jeder von uns besitzt Erfahrungen mit seinem Haar, seinen Frisuren und Friseuren, ist von diesem Thema also unmittelbar betroffen und berührt.Die Autoren gehen der Frage nach, was einen ‚guten‘ Friseur ausmacht und beleuchten wenig bekannte und überraschende Seiten eines alten Berufs mit wechselhafter Geschichte und neuen Herausforderungen. Die genaue Betrachtung und Beschreibung der Arbeit des Friseurs ist in diesem Buch eingebettet in eine kulturhistorische Betrachtung der Bedeutung der Haare, der Entwicklung des Friseurberufs und in soziodemografische Daten und Einschätzungen zur aktuellen Lage des Friseurhandwerks.

This book covers the psychedelic ayahuasca tourism in Peru, with its facet-rich psychological, pharmacological, anthropological, and sociological aspects. The reader gets an interdisciplinary insight into the historical development and the current state of ayahuasca research. Findings from three empirical studies are presented, which the author has won in a 4-year field research: How do common standards develop in this particular form of psycho-spiritual tourism? Why are people from developed nations and urban centres heading to the Amazon to ingest the psychedelic beverage Ayahuasca? How do they experience such ceremonies and retreats? Which insights, personal meaning and effects do they gain and how do they integrate their experiences into the everyday life?

Love them or hate them, most of us have an opinion about cars. If not the cars themselves, then it's driver competence and behaviour that can offend us. And then there's modification: alloy wheels, custom audio systems and bespoke paint jobs. For some, changing the look, feel and sound of a car says something about themselves, but for others, such enhancements signify a lack of taste, or even criminality. In subtle and complex ways, cars transmit and modify our identities behind the wheel. As a symbol of independence and freedom, the car projects status, class, taste and, significantly, embeds racialisation. Using fascinating research from drivers, including first-person accounts as well as exploring hip-hop music and car-related TV shows, Alam unpicks the ways in which identity is rehearsed, enhanced, interpreted.

The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures explores central lines of enquiry and seminal scholarship on therapeutic cultures, popular psychology, and the happiness industry. Bringing together studies of therapeutic cultures from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, politics, law, history, social work, cultural studies, development studies, and American Indian studies, it adopts a consciously global focus, combining studies of the psychologisation of social life from across the world. Thematically organised, it offers historical accounts of the growing prominence of therapeutic discourses and practices in everyday life, before moving to consider the construction of self-identity in the context of the diffusion of therapeutic discourses in connection with the global spread of capitalism. With attention to the ways in which emotional language has brought new problematisations of the dichotomy between the normal and the pathological, as well as significant transformations of key institutions, such as work, family, education, and religion, it examines emergent trends in therapeutic culture and explores the manner in which the advent of new therapeutic technologies, the political interest in happiness, and the radical privatisation and financialisation of social life converge to remake self-identities and modes of everyday experience. Finally, the volume features the work of scholars who have foregrounded the historical and contemporary implication of psychotherapeutic practices in processes of globalisation and colonial and postcolonial modes of social organisation. Presenting agenda-setting research to encourage interdisciplinary and international dialogue and foster the development of a distinctive new field of social research, The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in the advance of therapeutic discourses and practices in an increasingly psychologised society.

In this edited volume, authors analyze how symbolic boundaries of belonging are negotiated and reflected upon by school actors in different educational contexts and how that contributes to a richer understanding of the ways in which'we-ness'acts as a fundamentally structuring force in immigrant incorporation. The analyses draw on cultural sociologist Jeffrey Alexander's work on civil sphere theory, thus grasping both the solidaristic dimensions of incorporation and processes of exclusion. Chapters are guided by two major themes: school choice/ethnic school segregation and religion/faith in schooling. Both of these themes provide rich examples of how immigrant school actors negotiate the symbolic codes that define boundaries of belonging/non-belonging in different communities. This focus will broaden the understanding of how educational practices and formal schooling works in relation to immigrant incorporation into different school cultures, as well as in the Swedish civilsphere.

Zoltan Peter und Ina Wilczewska untersuchen in ihrer empirischen Studie 1000 Jugendliche quantitativ und qualitativ in Hinblick auf ihre Offenheit und Toleranz. Befragt werden Jugendliche, die in einem Drittstaat geboren wurden und in Österreich leben. 80% der befragten Jugendlichen zeigen sich als proeuropäisch eingestellt, 60 Prozent sind es in besonders starkem Ausmaß. Bei 20-30% besteht hingegen leichter bis stärkerer Nachhol- und Unterstützungsbedarf. Ihnen mangelt es an Offenheit gegenüber liberalen Werten und Grundrechten. Sie neigen beträchtlich zu Vorurteilen, 5% erweisen sich – besonders in Religionsfragen – als sehr intolerant. Im Kern zeigt die Studie, dass der Anteil der jungen eingewanderten Bevölkerung, der demokratiefeindliche Einstellungen erkennen lässt, bei weitem nicht so hoch ist, wie die öffentliche Meinung vermuten lassen würde.

Culture, cultural difference, and cultural conflict always surround us. Cultural sociologists aim to understand their role across all aspects of social life by examining processes of meaning-making. In this crisp and accessible book, Lyn Spillman demonstrates many of the conceptual tools cultural sociologists use to explore how people make meaning. Drawing on vivid examples, she offers a compelling analytical framework within which to view the entire field of cultural sociology. In each chapter, she introduces a different angle of vision, with distinct but compatible approaches for explaining culture and its role in social life: analyzing symbolic forms, meaning-making in interaction, and organized production. This book both offers a concise answer to the question of what cultural sociology is and provides an overview of the fundamental approaches in the field.

Culture's Engine offers an insightful and penetrating analysis of the enduring relationship between technology and society. William Gosling explores in absorbing historical detail how humans have experienced change through a sequence of technological revolutions, each giving rise to new social organisation, which in turn influences the shape and timing of the next such revolution. Gosling argues that it is through this dialogue that successful technology sets the direction and pace of all cultural evolution. The state of technology at any time is the major influence on the world, and not just the material world. This book then is not a history of technology, still less of science. It fundamentally questions how technology and social forces interact, leading to these successive revolutions and their outcomes.

While the field of football studies has produced an abundance of literature on professional, top-league football, there is little research output to do with the non-top level football. This book explores the relationship between the top and lower leagues, laying open the drastic schisms that exist between the different levels. The study links the developments at the top level of English and German football in the past 30 years to transformational processes in lower league football. Illustrating how the hegemonic status of top football weighs hard on the spheres below, it depicts how it also serves as a blueprint for lower league football clubs'strategies in coping with a threefold dilemma of institutional legitimacy that shows itself in economic, cultural and social dimensions. Taking the different club structures in both national contexts as a starting point, it portrays both the efficacy of institutional frameworks and how these can be challenged from below. This research will be of interest to students and scholars across football studies, sports studies, the sociology of sport, and organisation studies.

Katastrophen gehören zu den grundlegenden Erfahrungen des menschlichen Daseins. Sie entsetzen, indem sie unvermittelt eine große destruktive Kraft entfalten, die von Individuen und Kollektiven als existenzbedrohend wahrgenommen wird. Soziale Ordnungen werden nachhaltig und ohne Aussicht auf baldige Wiederherstellung irritiert.Ziel des vorliegenden Bandes ist es, Katastrophen als Erinnerungen aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven sowie mit Rücksicht auf gesellschaftliche Katastrophengedächtnisse zu beleuchten. Im Mittelpunkt steht hierbei die Zeitperspektive im Sinne der wissens- und damit gedächtnisspezifischen Wechselwirkung zwischen Erfahrung und Erwartung. Die hier versammelten Beiträge leisten dies zum einen mit theoretisch-systematisierendem Interesse und zum anderen als Fallstudien zu einzelnen Katastrophenphänomenen.Der InhaltFallstudien des Erinnerns und Vergessens katastrophaler Ereignisse • Theoretische Zugänge zu sozialen KatastrophengedächtnissenDie HerausgeberDr. Michael Heinlein ist Wissenschaftler am Institut für Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung e.V. – ISF München.Dr. Oliver Dimbath ist Professor für Soziologie an der Universität Koblenz-Landau.

If today students of social theory read Jurgen Habermas, Michael Foucault and Anthony Giddens, then proper regard to the question of culture means that they should also read Raymond Williams, Julia Kristeva and Slavoj Zizek. The second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Social and Cultural Theory is fully revised and updated to provide students, teachers and researchers with a comprehensive, critical guide to the major traditions of thought in social and cultural theory, as well as tracing the complex intellectual connections between these distinct but related approaches to understanding society and culture.The Handbook, edited by acclaimed sociologist Anthony Elliott, develops a powerful argument for bringing together social and cultural theory more systematically than ever before. Key social and cultural theories, ranging from classical approaches to postmodern, psychoanalytic and post-feminist approaches, are drawn together and critically appraised. There are also new chapters on mobilities and migrations, as well as posthumanism.The Handbook, written in a clear and direct style will appeal to a wide audience of students and scholars. The extensive references and sources will direct students to areas of further study.

Wer „Verschwörungstheorien“ verstehen will, muss die Kultur und die mit ihr verbundenen Praktiken und Diskurse erforschen, in der sie sich reproduzieren. Damit geht ein radikaler Perspektivenwechsel einher: Verschwörungen wie auch „Verschwörungstheoretiker“ sind nicht Ausnahmen oder ‚Andere‘ der Gesellschaft. Ethnographisch und kulturwissenschaftlich rekonstruiert der Autor, inwiefern Konspirationen und Subjektpositionen von Paranoia, ebenso wie der gesellschaftliche „Kampf“ gegen sie, vielmehr Teil derselben politischen und Alltagsnormalität und -rationalität sind. Im Begriff der „Konspirationskultur“ findet diese Rationalität ihren Ausdruck.

Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects of measurement—people, objects, and relationships—and then discusses how to pivot effectively between subjects and methods. Measuring Culture takes the reader on a tour of the state of the art in measuring meaning, from discussions of neuroscience to computational social science. It provides both the definitive introduction to the sociological literature on culture as well as a critical set of case studies for methods courses across the social sciences.