本文对文化的价值多样性进行多元的理解，集中阐述和讨论“文化的价值组合配置”(cultural configurations of values)概念。主要包括以下几个要点：(1)在世界的各种文化中，人类的价值有不同的表现形式，但其基本价值是相似的，甚至相同的。(2)人类的各种基本价值之间不但有互相促进的关系，也有相互矛盾、相互竞 争、相互冲突的关系。(3)一种文化类型提供对相互冲突的价值的一种处理方式。不同的文化形成其各自的价值组合与配置。这种价值的配置与其社会环境相适应，是其文化的核心部分。文化差异性的一个重要方面就是，尽管 所有文化共有这些基本价值，但是他们会给予这些价值不同的权重，形成不同的价值配置形式。(4)有时在同一个社会里，会存在若干“亚文化”，会有不同的价值配置。随着时间的推移，文化和社会都会有改变。虽然它们在 价值组合配置普世化上可能永远无法达成一致，但是它们之间的共同价值为和平共处提供了基础。.

All cultures are infused by or even rooted in certain values. Although those values are generally recognised in all societies, they are diversely ranked or proritised in different human groups and different perceptions partly account for cultural diversity as not all values can be equally upheld in any community or by any individual. Though value universalism in a strict sense is unachievable, we can all agree on a pluralistic mutual understanding of and tolerance for diversity.

Based on two case studies of the design of electronic communication networks developed in the public and private sector, this article explores the barriers within current design cultures to account for the needs and diversity of users. Whereas the constraints on user-centered design are usually described in macrosociological terms, in which the user–technology relation is merely understood as a process of the inclusion or exclusion of users in design, the authors suggest that it is important to adopt a semiotic approach. (...) Moreover, they argue that we need to take into account the gender identity of designers to understand how design practices in ICT prioritize male users. The article shows how configuring the user as “everybody” and the use of the “I-methodology” are important constraints in the development of technologies that aim to reach users in all their diversity. (shrink)

Taking its cue from contemporary western debates on presence in the social sciences and the humanities, this volume focuses on "presence" both as everyday experience and as an experience of intense moments. It raises questions about diverse social configurations of presence as well as about the specific cultural repertoires which encode, articulate, and shape discourses of presence. The contributions take as a premise that phenomena of presence are connected to particular forms of knowledge. Especially tacit knowledge (pre)determines experiences of (...) individual and collective presence and becomes tangible in moments of presence or presentification. (shrink)

The role of the cultural assets as one of the pillars of sustainable development is undeniably of great significance in the cultural sustainability of cities. Indeed, the way users understand and interpret cultural heritage sites would be highly critical to managing cultural organizations properly. It means by improving users’ perception of these sites, it can expect a fair distribution of comprehensive awareness among generations about the values of cultural assets. Past studies in spatial psychology have (...) demonstrated that environmental properties can positively Influence human emotions. On the other hand, using computational–mathematical methods used to examine spatio-visual properties have rarely been compared to human perceptions. This paper examines the impact of spatio-visual properties on human perception as a clever cultural management strategy to promote cultural sustainability. It is discussed how environmental features in general, and visibility in particular, can shape the way users interpret cultural heritage. Results indicate that not only visibility of users’ paths within cultural heritage sites can be an influential factor for the development of users’ perception, but also the visibility of the entrance of these complexes can change their understanding. This means that decision-makers, architects, and managers of the cultural organizations can apply these findings as cultural management framework by defining predefined paths in these sites in the way that they possess high visibility and visible entrance. Consequently, the distribution of public awareness among generations can be improved to strengthen the role of cultural aspects in sustainable development. (shrink)

Scholars from various disciplines have explored the powerful symbolic function that children occupy within public discourses of technology, but less attention has been paid to the role this plays in the social shaping of the technologies themselves. Virtual worlds present a unique site for studying how ideas about children become embedded in the artifacts adults make for them. This article argues that children’s virtual worlds are fundamentally negotiated spaces in which broader aspirations and anxieties about children’s relationships with play, technology, (...) consumer culture, and the public sphere resurface as “configurations” of an imagined, ideal child player. The article begins with a brief overview of the children's virtual worlds phenomenon, followed by a discussion of related research on children’s play and play technologies. Findings from a case study of six commercial, game-themed virtual worlds targeted specifically to children are then presented, with a focus on how these artifacts configure their child players in highly ideological and normative ways, wherein play is narrowly defined in accordance with a neoromantic, consumerist ethos. The article aims to uncover the hidden politics inscribed within a particular genre of children’s technology and to explore some of the implications for children’s digital play. (shrink)

Previous work suggests that Asians allocate more attention to configuration information than Caucasian Americans do. Yet this cultural variation has been found only with stimuli such as natural scenes and objects that require both feature- and configuration-based processing. Here, we show that the cultural variation also exists in face perception—a domain that is typically viewed as configural in nature. When asked to identify a prototypic face for a set of disparate exemplars, Japanese were more likely than Caucasian Americans (...) to use overall resemblance rather than feature matching. Moreover, in a speeded identity-matching task, Japanese were more accurate than Americans in identifying the spatial configuration of features (e.g., eyes). Together, these findings underscore the robustness of culture’s influences on cognition. (shrink)

This is a peer reviewed chapter in the book The Persistence of Taste: Art, Museums and Everyday Life After Bourdieu, an interdisciplinary analysis of taste in the wake of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology. The chapter, ‘The configurational encounter and the problematic of beholding’, is in Part I of the book, entitled ‘Taste and Art’. Engaging the aesthetics of reception as its field of inquiry, the chapter draws upon the literary theorist Wolfgang Iser’s notion of the ‘blank’ as a staged suspension of (...) connectivity, arguing for a reassignment of the aesthetic in terms of a ‘configurational encounter’ that problematizes the work/beholder relation. This constitutes a rare attempt to apply reception aesthetics to contemporary art, a ‘gap’ first highlighted by the art historian Michael Ann Holly in her 2002 article ‘Reciprocity and Reception Theory’, published in A Companion to Art Theory. Utilising concrete examples of practice, the chapter asks whether the shift towards inter- or transmedia art practices, characterising postconceptual art, renders Bourdieu’s characterisation of the ‘autonomous’ artwork superfluous to the contemporary situation, and whether the kinds of judgments of taste associated with the acquisition of cultural capital are no longer relevant. The chapter argues that in revealing material processes, rules, instructions or appropriations – and/or its situated reception and apparatus of display – the configurational encounter problematizes the beholder’s bodily and ideological orientation toward an artwork, revealing our embodied dispositions or ‘habitus’. This counters philosopher Peter Osborne’s suggestion that a change in art’s ‘ontology’ post 1960s renders questions of aesthetics obsolete and reconceives the aesthetic as emerging from the oscillation of spatial and ideational perspective switches resulting from a calculated problematizing of the beholder’s position-taking. (shrink)

While previous studies have examined the impact of informal institutions to determine entrepreneurial activities, this paper explores the different configurational paths of informal institutions to promote men’s and women’s entrepreneurial activities across factor-driven and efficiency-driven economies. We collected data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 56 countries for the years 2008-2013 and employed fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to conduct the empirical analysis. The results confirm that a single antecedent condition is unable to produce an outcome while combination of different conditions (...) can produce an outcome. We find that cultural-cognitive institutional antecedents in combination with social-normative antecedents create configurations of conditions that lead to the higher levels of men’s and women’s entrepreneurial activities in factor-driven and efficiency-driven economies. Moreover, this study shows that these causal conditions configure differently to promote men’s and women’s entrepreneurial activities in factor-driven and efficiency-driven nations. This paper may create awareness in potential entrepreneurs regarding specific sets of institutional antecedents that can increase the emergence of entrepreneurship in different economic clusters. We show that institutional antecedents which are essential to promote entrepreneurship combine distinctly for men’s and women’s entrepreneurship and this combination varies in different stages of economic development. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary, social scientific analysis of the regulatory discourse on nanotechnology in the three German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland and in the EU between 2000 and 2013 has shown three distinct phases, characterised by shifts in the configuration of actors and in the thematic scope from nanotechnology to nano-materials. Compared to modes of governance based on traditional statutory law, modes of governance based on less binding forms of soft law and self-regulation (like codes of conduct, guidelines and certification (...) systems) and new modes of governance (like assessment studies, risk management frameworks as well as participatory and cooperative forms of communication and negotiation) have gained importance. Despite some similarities, two different cultures in governing nanotechnology can be distinguished: a product-oriented culture in statutory regulations (when speaking about products, the article is also referring to substances) and a risk-based culture in applying soft law based on new modes of governance. In addition, the different regulatory cultures have led to four strategic approaches: modes of governance mainly based on hard law and soft law at the EU level, modes of governance mainly based on cooperative and self-regulatory approaches in Germany, cooperative governance approaches in Austria and modes of governance mainly based on self-regulatory and soft law approaches in Switzerland. (shrink)

The broad purpose of this article is to explore the theoretical conditions for understanding the new individualist configurations of imagination and identity in contemporary culture and critical discourse. The article begins with a sketch of recent debates in social theory on identity, individualization and new individualism, focusing on the work of Giddens, Beck, and Bauman, as well as Lemert and Elliott. The second part of the article turns to consider, in some detail, the path breaking contributions of Cornelius Castoriadis on (...) the demise of the social imaginary in conditions of advanced capitalism or what he termed the spread of ‘generalized conformism’. Whilst making the argument that the notion of ‘generalized conformism’ is of key importance in grasping the subjective and cultural dynamics promoted by the global electronic economy, the article also underscores the limitations of Castoriadis’s psychoanalytic and political position. The third section of the article offers a pathway beyond such constraint by examining the recent social-theoretical contributions of Julia Kristeva on ‘new maladies of the soul’. Like Castoriadis, Kristeva focuses on the atrophy of imagination in contemporary times, but does so from a more complex psychoanalytic prism. The article concludes that the work of both Castoriadis and Kristeva are essential to grasping contemporary shifts in the new individualism. (shrink)

The oriental culture has generally been known to bloom in China in regional framework, and established the form of a country in ancient times, and continuously develop as Yu (虞) / Xia (夏) / Yin (殷) [Shang=商] / Zhou (周) in periodical framework. There are several documents to discover the origin along with archaeological and cultural configuration related to prehistory tales or the history of tribal settlement in ancient times. Unfortunately, however, there were few outputs that unveiled the original (...) source in cultural or theoretical angles. Generally, a certain race and a local culture can be a good resource to be considered, the base of ideology, and further, the root of philosophy in a country. It can be found that, in comparison with pre-history legends and archaeological research results, the source of Chinese philosophy is mainly composed of exterior cultures from foreign settlers rather than its own one. In short, it is possible to setup the preposition or hypothesis that the source of Chinese philosophy and thoughts was not from Han (漢) race, but from old Dongyi (東夷) race. Thus, it is necessary to study deeply on that point as a key clue, linking the characteristics of Zhouyi (周易) philosophy' which is the origin of Chinese philosophy to Dongyi culture. As mentioned in the passages above, it was demonstrated that the fundamental issue of Yi philosophy lies in the principle of time operation in Tiantao (天道), and the formulation of Yi philosophy, and through the analysis of fourteen saints in the process of review of Shengtong, (聖統) the stream of old saints by the principle of Lishu (曆數) more than half of saints were from Dongyi family. In addition, the historical fact that the Dongyi tribe had raised the Yin (Shang) culturewhich mainly formed the base of Chinese cultures as a ancient dynasty shows the deep relation between Zhouyi and the Dongyi culture, and further, it seems that the relation was from the tribe's realization of the principle of time operation of Heaven which had been accumulated for a long time as the culture of agricultural settlement, the conceptual characteristics in the Dongyi culture, and it can be found that the cultural characteristics are in connection with Yi philosophy which considers the principle of time operation in Tiantao as the fundamental ground. It also can be detected that they have connection with the original meaning ofseveral concepts in Yixue (易學) and the culture which emphasize the bottom line of the nature of time. This study focused on questioning issues of these findings as a preliminary research in order to prepare for the formal works which will scrutinize the details of circumstances. In brief, the fact that the fundamental issue of Yi philosophy which is the source of Chinese philosophy lies in the nature of time in the operation of Tiantao should be demonstrated, and the matter that the root was from the Dongyi family who had lived in the north-eastern area in the ancient period and had raised the culture which stressed the principle of time operation as the agricultural settlement culture, and moved to the central area of old China should be unveiled through the trace, which, in the future, might be able to enlighten roots of thoughts in Chinese philosophy in the right course, and make them realize that the work process which is being operated in the north-eastern part would be of no use in the after all. (shrink)

Recent attempts at preventing the social exclusion of vulnerable children in England have been driven by notions of resilience which centre primarily on changing children so that they may be better able to cope with adversity. Drawing on the concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), we suggest that the idea of resilience should be expanded to include developing a capacity to act on and reshape the social conditions of one’s development. We use evidence from two studies of practices (...) in recent re-configurations of children’s services in England to examine whether practitioners are seeing resilience in these terms. We present examples of work which embody these views but suggest that they are not easily incorporated into practices where expertise is centred on care and clear communication. The care and communication model of practice reflects the emphases given to evolutionary notions of child development while a CHAT view of resilience reflects Vygotsky’s concerns with a dialectic between individuals and the social situations of their development. (shrink)

How can we make complexity work as part of a programme of engaged social science? This article attempts to answer that question by arguing that one way to do this is through a reconstruction of a central tool of a distinctively social science – the comparative method – understood as a procedure for elucidating the complex and multiple systems of causation that generate particular trajectories towards a desired future from the multiple sets of available futures. The article distinguishes between ‘simplistic (...) complexity’ and ‘complex complexity’. ‘Simplistic complexity’ seeks to explain emergence in complex systems as the product of simple rules and defines complex science as the process of establishing such rules. It can and does serve as the basis of technocratic social engineering in the interest of the powerful. In contrast ‘complex complexity’ recognizes the significance of social structure and willed social agency and does not reduce emergence to the mere working out of a restricted set of rules. Research programmes informed by this second approach must necessarily engage with social actors in context – they must be dialogical. This opens up the possibility of ‘complex complexity’ as a frame of reference for action-research directed towards the transformation of complex social systems. Comparative methods, and in particular Ragin’s qualitative comparative analysis approach, when deployed as part of such a programme, can provide meaningful information about the range of possible futures and the different configurations of causes which might generate particular desired social outcomes. (shrink)

This paper offers an alternative theoretical consideration of ethnic identification in psychology. Mainstream social psychological theories are largely positivist and individualistic. New possibilities of theoretical understanding open up as the relational and symbolic nature of ethnicity enters psychological inquiry. This paper takes culture and self as two conceptual domains of social identification, following a meta-theoretical position of cultural psychology. The central focus is the cultural development of the person in social context of a given culture, specifically their ethnic (...) identification, to which end, it looks at several processual aspects. First, ethnic culture is approached as a guiding principle and practice in everyday understanding and experience of one?s own ethnicity. Second, ethnic identification is considered a social and personal act of meaning making, which happens in a given social context, through practical activity and the discursive positioning of a person. Third, since rather than considered a conscious aspect of belonging, ethnicity is assumed and taken for granted, ruptures are considered as destabilizing events that create an opportunity for ethnic meaning reinterpretation and developmental transition. In the meaning making process, symbolic resources are conceived of as primary self-configuring tools, which are also culture-configuring. Ethnic meaning making is theorized as a central social-psychological process through which ethnic culture and a person as an ethnic subject emerge in historical perspective. Finally, the uniqueness of a singular person in the shared ethnic culture is conceptualized based on symbolic distancing from the immediate social context, through the model of knitting personal and socio-historical semiotic threads. (shrink)

There is growing consensus that we need a new paradigm if we are to solve the global problems that are the result of actions and policies stemming from prevailing paradigms or cognitive maps. Theories are cognitive maps. This article summarizes cultural transformation theory, which proposes that to solve our mounting global problems we need a clearer understanding of the self-organizing interaction of two basic movements in cultural evolution. The first consists of technological phase changes, including the most recent (...) shift from industrial to electronic, nuclear, and biochemical technologies. The second consists of shifts in a system's orientation to what, based on three decades of transdisciplinary research, the author identifies as the socio-economic, gender, and cultural configurations characteristic of the dominator and partnership models. The article calls for a reassessment of earlier theories as the basis for effective action to accelerate the shift to a world orienting to the partnership rather than dominator model as a basis for a sustainable, equitable, and peaceful future. (shrink)

We draw from resource dependence and institutional theories to explore how board characteristics associated with directors’ capacities to provide resources and legitimacy (i.e., board size, the number of non-executive, interlocking, and female directors) along with regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional conditions combine to shape firm environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Using a process of configurational theorizing with fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis and data from firms in 32 countries, we identify multiple equifinal configurations that are associated with high (...) and low ESG performance. We find that high and low ESG performance have different drivers due to complementarities among the presence and absence of board characteristics. Our results also show that the effectiveness (or not) of the bundles of boards’ characteristics for ESG performance varies across institutional contexts. By leveraging these findings to construct a typology of board archetypes that lead to high and low ESG performance, we offer novel theoretical and empirical insights to scholars as well as implications for practice. (shrink)

Studies on participation and spatial orientations of college students have examined aspects of university life, as projected through language, from a reportorial or narrative perspective, but hardly any one of these studies has been devoted exclusively to how students' participation structure, together with the activities participants orient to at the participation space, evokes shared socio-academic backgrounds and cultural constraints, a major way to gain access into the students' cognitive and pragmatic tendencies. This research, thus, addresses itself to Nigerian college (...) students' participation configuration, their participant roles, and the illocutionary goals of their encounters within the Goffmanian participation framework and discourse pragmatic parameters. For data, 100 interactions amongst students of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, were taped and scrutinised for participation forms and spatial descriptions. Two types of participation structure are manifest in the interactions, namely, unmarked and marked participations. The unmarked participation structure is the regular frame in which Goffman's ratification and non-ratification framework is strictly observed. The marked participation configuration, an unexpected interactional frame which bifurcates into accommodated and non-accommodated structures, takes interruptions by unaccredited participants as appropriate or inappropriate. The paper contends that participation configuration and contextual elements prescribe participant roles together with the pragmatic functions assigned to language and actions in the interactions. Thus, the illocutionary goals of participants, rooted in socio-academic matters and enabled by participation structures, spatial orientations and body language manipulations are contextually negotiated. (shrink)

This paper intends to illustrate the monuments of the Periklean building programme as embodying acts of temporal configuration; organizing synoptic episodes into an ethno-cultural continuum. A required element to this process is the issue of space, both in its experienced and imagined aspects, as the framework by which temporality is fixed and recounted. By viewing the monuments and accompanying iconography as spatio-temporal configurations, we can see the generation of those elements necessary for the formation of cultural identity via (...) memory. This includes the provision of axial points in time, set in space and wider temporal chronologies, and the election of totemic, and semioticized personages. Moreover, as the configurative action is both framed and informed by its enunciative context, the monuments indicate the promotion of biographical memory, as relating to the Persian Wars, into the register of Athenian cultural memory and temporality. (shrink)

How have different civilizations throughout different epochs mastered fundamental challenges of life? The series analyses the basic questions of cultural anthropology. All epochs and the most significant civilizations worldwide, as well as different epistemological aspects including historical sciences, sociology, ethnology, art, literature and philosophy are brought together.

Eco-Islam is often discussed from a theological perspective, but there are hardly any studies on the activist’s practices, their experiences and reasoning. In order to fill this gap and to emphasise the importance of studying lived religion, this article presents three interviews with young Eco-Islam activists in Germany. By using the method of cultural analysis, the author compares, summarises and abstracts their statements and activities, so that a comprehensive configuration is revealed. Cultural analysis focuses on cultural constellations (...) and tries to think historical, social and biographical components together. To understand the Eco-Islam activist’s perspectives at a deeper cultural level, the author firstly represents a thick description of the statements and activities of her three respondents. Afterwards, she scrutinises the actors’ practices and processes by applying the dimensions of belief, practice and community on their everyday life and performative action. At last she filters three related themes on a cultural constellational level. Contribution: In this article, the author simultaneously highlights the implicit connections of eco-Islamic Activism to aspects of Othering and empowerment, aspects of (re-) interpretation of religious norms and aspects of transgressing environmental activism and the idea of an Islamic community. (shrink)

The social science literature on identity politics around questions of race and ethnicity is profuse, prolix and contentious. Indigenous identity politics have seen a parallel growth and are equally complex. While there are analogies and overlaps, indigenous identities and social movements are neither conceptually nor empirically a sub-set of ethnic identities. The central issue of indigenous groups is the place of first peoples in relation to the nation-state system. This takes different forms in old world states of Asia and Africa (...) to those of new world settler (ex-colonial) states of the Americas and Australasia. While the major issues of the indigenous peoples have expanded beyond their national boundaries, their modes of participation in the national political arenas vary. They share a gradual nationalization of indigenous movements, including stronger links with socio-political forces of the respective countries in the region, a heightened consciousness of global processes and the broadening and enrichment of their socio-cultural and economic objectives. This paper looks at trans-national dimensions of indigenous social movements and identity politics in relation to nation-state policy regimes and examines the varying routes taken by indigenous peoples to achieve their goals. (shrink)

Despite the growing sociological interest in the object, and the long-standing tradition in the humanities and social sciences concerned with the creation of art and artefacts, there is relatively little research about how people in ordinary day-to-day circumstances explore and respond to exhibits in museums and galleries. In this article, we address the conduct and interaction of visitors to museums and galleries and consider how they examine and experience objects and artefacts in collaboration with each other. In particular, we address (...) the ways in which one participant shapes, through gesture and talk, how those they are with look at and respond to exhibits. The article is based on the analysis of audio-visual recordings gathered in museums and galleries both in the UK and abroad. (shrink)

Cultures of Memory in South Asia reconfigures European representations of India as a paradigmatic extension of a classical reading, which posits the relation between text and context in a determined way. It explores the South Asian cultural response to European "textual" inheritances. The main argument of this work is that the reflective and generative nodes of Indian cultural formations are located in the configurations of memory, the body and idiom (verbal and visual), where the body or the body (...) complex becomes the performative effect and medium of articulated memories. This work advances its arguments by engaging with mnemocultures-cultures of memory-that survive and proliferate in speech and gesture. Drawing on Sanskrit and Telugu reflective sources, this work emphasizes the need to engage with cultural memory and the compositional modes of Indian reflective traditions. This important and original work focuses on the ruptured and stigmatized resources of heterogeneous Indian traditions and calls for critical humanities that move beyond the colonially configured received traditions. Cultures of Memory suggests the possibilities of transcultural critical humanities research and teaching initiatives from the Indian context in today's academy. (shrink)

Douglas Kellner emerged in the late 1980s as a media theorist. This article reconstructs his intellectual trajectory, analyzing the developments and problems of his media theory. His path was influenced by so-called Western Marxism, notably by the Frankfurt School and, later, by British cultural studies. Kellner made both currents of European thought dialogue and incorporated them into French postmodernism, in a context configured by the ‘culture wars’ in the United States. All of this shaped the analysis of what he (...) called ‘media culture’ and, a few years later, ‘media spectacle’, as well as his proposal for critical media literacy. It is argued that Kellner proposes an innovative synthesis in theoretical and methodological terms, outlined with Cultural Marxism. On the other hand, his proposition is not exempt from conceptual contradictions that generate analytical simplifications during the practice of research, as it moves between immanent to transcendent critique. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elaborate on how a distinct concept of the person can be implemented within person‐centred care as an ethical configuration of personhood in the tension between the two predominant cultures of knowledge within health care: naturalism and phenomenology. Starting from Paul Ricoeur's ‘personalism of the first, second, and third person’ and his ‘broken’ ontology, open‐ended, incomplete, and imperfect mediations, placed at the precise juncture where reality is divided up into two separate cultures of knowledge, (...) is identified as crucial for what makes us human. Within this context, Ricoeur's distinct ethical configuration of personhood is based on the homology between the linguistic, practical, narrative, and moral determinations of selfhood—articulated as a hermeneutics of the self, without any methodological break. Person‐centred care is thus recognized as an profound ethical approach to health care based on mediations of ‘horizontal’ (teleological) and ‘vertical’ (deontological) readings of an ethical configuration of personhood by the use of practical wisdom. (shrink)

This article is a study of the development of modern European cuisine through an examination of the socio-cognitive schemas which shape the way social actors think of and about food. While the historical phase that spans from the late middle ages to modernity has been widely studied (mainly by historians) I advance a new interpretation which focuses on the influence of cognitive patterns on the structure of cuisine — the ways of eating, cooking and serving food. I argue that the (...) shift in the mode of classification helps explain the origin of the modern configuration of cuisine built on the polarity between the sweet and savory tastes. Using the case of cuisine, I propose to see the cultural schemas which define thinking in a socio-historical context as providing the conditions of possibility for transformations in a cultural sphere to occur. This article thus attempts to contribute to our understanding of the relation between cultural practices and cognitive schemas. (shrink)

Radical ethical relativism as presented in Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture not only denies absolute values, its thesis of the incommensurability of cultural configurations precludes possibility of any agreement on values by individuals of different cultures. This fact provides the proper perspective from which to judge the current controversy between radical and “modified” ethical relativists. A double error is committed, therefore, by those who contend that there has been no reduction of the “area of indeterminacy” existing between the ethical (...) principles of different cultures since, despite the newer developments in the social sciences, there are still no absolutely valid ethical values. Not only is the term “validity” vague and in need of reinterpretation, but, in assuming the denial of absolute values to be the distinguishing characteristic of radical relativism, they actually identify this theory with modified relativism. This brief paper attempts to prove the untenability of the denial of cross cultural agreement on ends and means by treating the question first, from the point of view of C. L. Stevenson's Dewey-inspired notion of the derivation of ends from means, and, second, from that of Stevenson's more original idea, complex ethical agreement. (shrink)

The metaphor of culture as a space or environment of meaning is widely employed. Going beyond metaphor, we present a model of culture as a 3-dimensional Euclidean space, using data from Brazil on cultural models of life goals. The dimensions of this space are defined by degree of sharing of culture (cultural competence); alternate configurations of that shared meaning (residual agreement); and social practice (cultural consonance). A cultural distance metric calculated within those dimensions identifies an individuals’ (...) proximity to prototypical goals; greater distance from these goals is associated with higher psychological distress. Cultural distance is in turn influenced by one’s sense of personal agency. Finally, in a set of open-ended interviews, the more individuals employ spatial metaphors in talking about culturally defined life goals, the higher their sense of personal agency and cultural consonance. This model moves the discussion of culture as a space of meaning from metaphor to measurement. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe paper is divided into the two parts. In the first, I examine the relations among molecular biology, gene technology, and medicine as some aspect of the consequences of these relations with respect to the human genome project of the consequences of these relations with respect to the human genome project. I argue that the prevailing momentum of early molecular biology resided in argue that the prevailing momentum of relay molecular biology resided in crating the technical means for an (...) extracellular representation of intracellular configurations. Assuch, its medical impact was rather limited. With the advent of recombinant DNA technology is based on the prospects of an intracellular representation of extracellular projects—the “rewriting” of life. Its medical impact is potentially unlimited. In the second part, I question the very opposition between nature and culture that implicitly underlies the notion of medicine as a “cultural system.” I argue that both on a macroscopic level and on a microscopic level, the “natural” and the “social” are no longer to be seen as ontologically different.In its uncanny oscillation between retrospection and foresight, between description and proclamation, and between assertion and hesitation, this essay translates an uneasiness that I have not been able to overcome while writing it. The essay conveys the tangled views of a hybrid author who himself cannot but oscillate between the perspectives of an actor in the field of molecular biology, a participant in the field of science studies, and a citizen. (shrink)

Through a critique of the rhetorical configurations of identity theft, this article contributes to the emerging body of theory contending with the social effects of digital information technologies (DIT). It demonstrates how the politics of fear manipulate technosocial matrices in order to derive consent for radical changes such as the domestication of the Web and the instrumentalization of identity. Specifically, this critique attends to these tasks by performing a rhetorical reading of three recent television commercials that were heavily circulated by (...) the international financial conglomerate, Citigroup Incorporated. Based on this reading, which is heavily indebted to Foucaldian theories of power and discipline, a distinction is drawn between identity theft as it is configured in juridico-political discourse and the cultural phenomenon of identity theft, which functions as a technosocial myth. (shrink)

Cet article propose de considérer les produits des industries culturelles comme des formes particulières de représentation de la « réalité » du monde social, c’est-à-dire comme un de ses avatars. Pour saisir sociologiquement ces avatars, l’auteur propose d’abord une approche compréhensive destinée à montrer en quoi les produits de la culture de masse sont typiques . Il propose ensuite de les réinscrire dans une théorie générale de l’action qui montre que ces avatars sont en permanence, dans les sphères privée et (...) publique, l’objet de conflits de définition et de querelles d’interprétations. D’où la complexité méthodologique de saisie d’objets que le sociologue, par ses recherches, contribue à configurer.This paper proposes to consider the products of our cultural industries as specific forms of representation of the « reality » of the social world, in other words, as one of its « avatars ». In order to comprehend these avatars through a sociological approach, the author will start from an insider’s standpoint which shows how mass culture products are typical . The author then suggests to re-inscribe them within the frame of a general theory of action, pointing out how these products are continually the object of a struggle for definition and interpretation within the private and the public spheres. Hence the methodological complexity of grasping these objects, which sociologists contribute to shape through their work. (shrink)

Vygotsky, at the end of his life, advanced a new representation of a psychological system that was ruled by a cognitive-emotional unity, a theorization that remains inconclusive due to Vygotsky's early death. This article discusses the advances made by Vygotsky in the comprehension of human motivation through his concepts of sense and perezhivanie at the end of his work. Through these concepts, he further advanced the discussion of motivation, despite the fact that these concepts have only very recently been considered (...) a relevant part of his legacy in both Russian and Western psychology. This paper discusses the departure from and the historical presentations of the concept of motive in the following two main approaches of Soviet psychology that were mistakenly equated in Western interpretations: Vygotsky's approach, mainly at the first as last moment of his work, and Leontiev's Activity Theory. Based on the final theoretical positions of Vygotsky and of other Soviet authors, and further developing this legacy, this article proposes a new definition of motivation as a specific quality of subjectively configured systems and defines motive as intrinsic to the functioning of all psychological function defines subjective functions as subjectively configured processes. This new proposal of human motivation within a new way of defining subjectivity defines new categories as subjective senses and subjective configurations on which the author bases a specific approach for advancing the topic of subjectivity and motivation within a cultural-historical framework. (shrink)

BackgroundThe global COVID-19 pandemic confronts people with their fragility, vulnerability, and mortality. To date, scales to measure death awareness mainly focus on the anxiety-provoking aspect of mortality cues. This study aims to cross-culturally adapt and validate the Death Reflection Scale, a scale for measuring positive, growth-oriented cognitions of life reflection and prosocial behavior following confrontation with the finiteness of life.Materials and MethodsThe Death Reflection Scale was translated and adapted in a multi-step process to the German language. In this anonymous, cross-sectional, (...) online survey at a large university in Germany, students, healthcare professionals and other staff completed the DRS alongside comparison measures. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess configural, metric, and scalar measurement equivalence across four age and occupational groups. Convergent/divergent validity testing was done via Spearman correlations.Results1,703 participants provided data for a response rate of ∼5%. 24% of respondents were HCP, 22% students. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a higher-order structure of the DRS with a strong general factor and the originally proposed five subscales. Multi-group CFA showed partial metric equivalence across age groups and partial scalar invariance across occupational groups. Non-invariant scales were the Motivation to live, Putting life into perspective, and Legacy subscales. In the convergent validity testing, two hypotheses were fully confirmed, two partially and four were not confirmed. Experiencing a propensity for increased contemplation and life reflection during the pandemic together with spirituality showed correlations of moderate to large size to the DRS and its subscales.ConclusionFurther conceptual work for death awareness to explore the construct’s stability in different population groups needs to be undertaken. However, the DRS can be mostly used to assess positive and growth-oriented aspects of death awareness and death reflection which may be an important avenue when developing counseling and support interventions for groups experiencing a high burden during the pandemic. (shrink)

The association between online Flow and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has attracted significant attention. Despite the consensus that online Flow plays a pivotal role in the development of IGD and other Internet addictive behaviours, there has been a lack of consistency in measurement scales used to assess online Flow. Even widely used measures of online Flow have not been psychometrically assessed across culturally diverse populations of gamers. Such an assessment would enhance the accuracy of cross-cultural comparisons regarding the association (...) between online Flow and IGD. Attending to this need, the present study assessed the psychometric properties of the binary coded (i.e. Yes, No) Online Flow Questionnaire (OFQ), while concurrently taking into consideration country, age, language, and mode of data collection (online or face-to-face) differences. Two sequences of successive multiple group confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the psychometric properties of the OFQ, between: a) emergent adults from the United States of America (N = 482, Mage = 25.23, SD = 2.746) and Australia (N = 168, Mage = 23.55, SD = 3.37) and b) adolescents from Greece (N = 1579, Mage = 16.12, SD =.849) and Cyprus (N = 1372, Mage = 15.54, SD =.656). Configural and partial metric invariance were confirmed between the USA and Australian samples. For the Greek and Cypriot samples, results indicated full configural and metric invariance. These results provide initial information to researchers and clinicians of the extent to which the OFQ maintains its consistency when used across cultures and invite for further cross-cultural studies in the field. Implications, as well as limitations, are discussed. (shrink)

This essay concerns itself with the Lawyer cartoon, a thematic subgenre of the “The New Yorker Magazine” cartoon, which focuses on the legal profession in the US context. An examination of the cultural meaning of this phenomenon is carried out on the strength of ethnography of communication, which discloses the cartoon as a cultural, social and rhetorical artifact. Among the findings of this study are the structural components, functions, and the rules of configuring the Lawyer cartoon toward it (...) becoming a matter of “risibility” as well as a matter of cultural symbolism. By presenting the attorney as an abnormal character with excessive and hypocritical characteristics, the Lawyer cartoon points to the ascriptions of a disrupted self, making the profession appear as fundamentally inauthentic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Critical Forum Introduction:Cultural Encounters and Textual Speculations in the MediterraneanBurcu Kayışcı Akkoyun, Emrah Atasoy, and Merve TaburThis issue's Critical Forum takes its point of departure from two paradigm shifts. The first one has already occurred in utopian studies, as attested by the increasingly evident interest in non-Western conceptions of utopianism and representations of speculative fiction. Scholars of utopian studies such as Lyman Tower Sargent and Jacqueline Dutton have (...) been writing on utopias from other cultural traditions. The 2013 special issue of Utopian Studies (vol. 24, no. 1), which was introduced by Sargent and Dutton, included articles that reflected Iranian, Chinese, and Korean narratives and perspectives. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, monographs1 and journal special issues2 began examining literary and visual cultures of the Global South and transcultural expressions of the utopian imagination alongside a surge of speculative fiction from the Global South. A rising number of symposiums, anthologies, and critical works on Afrofuturism and Latinx and Arabic speculative fiction also contributed to today's widening discussions.3 This special section in Utopian Studies advocates shifting from Western-centric approaches to more nuanced modes of interpretation with a specific focus [End Page 127] on the Mediterranean, which has itself been a contested discursive site in Mediterranean studies, demanding the formation of new critical paradigms.According to Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, "It hardly needs stating that the Mediterranean, as an area seldom clearly defined but often subconsciously reduced to Italy and Greece, has been the perceived center of European civilization since the Renaissance, and in many respects since classical antiquity."4 Our set of articles challenges such reductionist views by exploring speculative configurations in the Mediterranean through literary representations of cultural encounters, social conflicts, and environmental crises. Offering analyses of various narratives that present dystopian articulations of the past and figurations of the present along with utopian aspirations for the future, the five contributions in this special section aim to expand the predominantly Eurocentric/Anglophone understanding of the Mediterranean by bringing together scholars and texts from diverse countries: Türkiye, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. They demonstrate the cultural interactions between different traditions, conventions, styles, and narratives, all within the broad domain of "speculative" visioning. As Franco Cassano points out, the Mediterranean "becomes the root that we need to rediscover today," but one that is "constitutionally plural. … The Mediterranean that emerges is not a monolithic identity, but a multiverse that trains the mind to grasp the complexities of the world: hybridity, crossroads, and identities that do not love purity and cleanliness, but have been mixed for a long time."5 Cassano's emphasis on plurality as much as rootedness is relevant to the scope and purposes of our contributions as well.The articles here refrain from creating new hierarchies by simply inverting the East-West dichotomy, or by consolidating the center-margin debate within the context of the Mediterranean. While using familiar Western hermeneutical tools to understand utopian and/or dystopian narratives produced in the Mediterranean, this special section underscores historical, political, social, and literary particularities, engaging with various manifestations of power on both textual and contextual grounds. Gabriele Proglio's introduction to Decolonising the Mediterranean (2016) informs the critical orientation of our approach. Decolonizing the Mediterranean "means deconstructing the power relations at play," he writes, "viewing the Mediterranean as an excess space of signification in order to reconsider the past and present stories and subjectivities erased by Eurocentric, nationalist historical discourse."6 Such reconsiderations are essential to imagining future utopian possibilities not [End Page 128] only for fictional narratives but also for the many types of discursive practices shaping the material world.Following Proglio's lead, Ceyhun Arslan examines utopian possibilities that the Mediterranean, whether taken as a context or as a framework, generates for artists and scholars. He argues for the utopian potential of the Mediterranean's longue-durée history, underlining the importance of identifying and resisting discriminatory notions and practices of Western imperialism throughout that history. Drawing on recent approaches to Mediterranean studies, he envisions what he calls a "disciplinary utopia," wherein critics, scholars, and artists carefully attend to linguistic and historical differences in... (shrink)

The essay starts from a reassessment of the concepts of «culture» and «identity», of their entanglements as well as of their differences. While the concept of «identity» is analyzed through anthropological and ethnographic studies, the concept of «culture» is scrutinized thanks to the decisive contributions of the theories of «nation». If the metaphor of ethnicity has allowed indeed to think the logics of identity, the metaphor of an heterotopic and heterochronic nation can help to think the logics situated in the (...) heterogeneity of culture. Lastly, the notion of «cultural configuration» is proposed as a new perspective through which it's possible to interpret political and social processes. (shrink)

The article considers conceptual ideas of color categorization as a cultural practice. Color categorization is the process of dividing the color continuum into discrete color groups (color categories) and fixing them in the human mind through the cutural sign system. In modern color studies, this process is viewed from the ecocentric perspective. According to ecocentrism, humans and other living being are equal parts of nature, and they should coexist in harmony and peace. In this regard, it becomes important to (...) search for ecological motivation not only in the human body, but also in human activity, especially in cultural practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze conceptual ideas of color categorization from the ecocentric perspective. The systematization of the indicated conceptual ideas allowed us to identify three key directions based on ecological motivation: (1) nature-centered, (2) body-oriented and (3) socio-cultural. The mentioned directions are formed on the basis of such concepts as "environment", "corporeality" and "sociality", respectively. Acting as the main factors that determine the content and structure of color categories, environment, human body and culture form the main vector of color categorization. The environment comprises a set of objects with chromatic characteristics. They are the material for color categorization, and their configuration sets examples of color combinations. The physiological and biological features of the human body determine the process of color perception and its cognitive processing resulting into color categories. As the color categories become a part of human activity, their cultural semantics is created in the form of cultural meanings and connotations. (shrink)

The problematic of world articulation is central to post-phenomenological approaches. With Castoriadis, it emerges as a significant if shadowy thematic. Its shifting contours in his thought are redolent of the ongoing dialogue between romantic and enlightenment currents. They are also indicative of the ambiguity inherent to cultural articulations of the world in modernity. Here, two world perspectives open up various — and conflicting — interpretative challenges to which a response is necessitated. In Castoriadis's case, these take on particular forms (...) of more general trends of `alienation' and `worldliness'. In particular, the isolation of the social-historical as the sole bearer of creativity tends to result in world alienation, whilst his later shift towards radical physis indicates a trend towards vertical worldliness. Arnason's theorization of world articulation in its twofold sense re-imagines the worldliness of the social-historical both in terms of the world tout court and our concrete stance towards it (or the world towards us). As such, it offers a corrective to the `worldless freedom' of the social-historical in Castoriadis's thought. (shrink)

In 1926 and 1927, James W. Alexander and Kurt Reidemeister claimed to have made “the same” crucial breakthrough in a branch of modern topology which soon thereafter was called knot theory. A detailed comparison of the techniques and objects studied in these two roughly simultaneous episodes of mathematical research shows, however, that the two mathematicians worked in quite different mathematical traditions and that they drew on related, but distinctly different epistemic resources. These traditions and resources were local, not universal elements (...) of mathematical culture. Even certain common features of the main publications such as their modernist, formal style of exposition can be explained by reference to particular constellations in the intellectual and professional environments of Alexander and Reidemeister. In order to analyze the role of such elements and constellations of mathematical research practice, a historiographical perspective is developed which emphasizes parallels with the recent historiography of experiment. In particular, a notion characterizing those “working units of scientific knowledge production” which Hans-Jörg Rheinberger has termed “experimental systems” in the case of empirical sciences proves helpful in understanding research episodes such as those bringing about modern knot theory. (shrink)

Social media is a pervasive part of everyday life. That is, new media occupies more and more spaces in individuals’ lives both in intimate and work sphere. In addition, due to convergence, new media brought together interpersonal and mass communications in the same environment. This fact has caused a wide range of changes in cultural industries. One of the main changes brought about by social media in relation to the mass media is the construction of a flow of content, (...) advertising and propaganda customized for each individual, and constructed from surveillance and control of individuals’ interactions in digital networks. For so doing, one element is central: Algorithms. It is not only by means of contents produced by cultural workers or amateurs that social media guarantees the life world colonization by the system, but mainly through the tracking of user interactions. That is possible thanks to the data gathering performed by algorithms. Therefore, social networks colonize the life world in a more constant and pervasive way than mass media, facilitating surveillance and social control that are vital for both, the digital conglomerates economic power and the state capacity to watch individuals, either to strengthen the sales effort or to ensure citizen vigilance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Intensifying Phronesis:Heidegger, Aristotle, and Rhetorical CultureDaniel L. SmithAll too well versed in the commonness of what is multiple and entangled, we are no longer capable of experiencing the strangeness that carries with it all that is simple.—Martin Heidegger, Aristotle's Metaphysics θ 1-3IntroductionIn Norms of Rhetorical Culture Thomas Farrell returns to the thought of Aristotle to develop a contemporary conception of rhetoric as a mode of practical philosophy, one that (...) foregrounds the importance of phronesis. Returning to Aristotle's work to forge contemporary conceptions of rhetoric as practical philosophy is nothing new. What is novel about Farrell's approach, however, are his thoughts on Aristotle's conception of "phainomena," or appearances. "Appearances," Farrell states, "come to us as configurations, as ensembles of objects, habitats, paths, tools, tasks, icons, and more or less recognizable characters that engage and reassure us with their... familiarity" (1993, 27). Phainomena and their stability, therefore, constitute the milieux of human life. But coupled with the stability of phainomena that lends continuity and predictability to our lives is their dynamic element of mutability, contingency, and unpredictability. Therefore phainomena can also be "ambiguous or even equivocal and incomplete," according to Farrell (27). This stable-mutable aspect of phainomena, and thus human life itself, demands that we have ways of inhabiting and responding to the worlds these phainomena constitute.Farrell cites a comment by Merleau-Ponty on Cezanne as an "apt characterization" of Aristotle's thought: Cezanne, writes Merleau-Ponty, "did not want to separate the stable things which we see and the shifting way in which they appear..." (quoted in Farrell, 27). For Farrell, Merleau-Ponty's observation concisely expresses a fundamental aspect of Aristotle's [End Page 77] thought, namely, a focus on the relation between the being of things and their dynamic modes of appearing, which are distinct but inextricably connected. Aristotle's conception of phainomena, Farrell's work suggests, offers possibilities for thinking about rhetoric as practical philosophy, a rhetoric that would be "an art of real life" (274), one that, because of the stability-contingency of real life, features the concept of phronesis.It is interesting to note that the issue of being-appearing that Farrell attributes to Aristotle sounds like a problematic of twentieth-century European phenomenology. Given Merleau-Ponty's status as one of the preeminent phenomenologists of the twentieth century, it is surprising that Farrell makes no mention of Merleau-Ponty's—or phenomenology's—interest in the dynamics of phainomena; nor does he make any explicit connections between Aristotle, rhetoric, and phenomenology. In fact, Farrell's thoughts on the connections between rhetoric and the being-appearing of phainomena are virtually eclipsed in his book when he turns to Jürgen Habermas. Farrell claims "that Habermas's project on discourse ethics, together with his practical placement of the public sphere, offers a basis for synthesizing the normative component of practical wisdom and a rhetoric goaded by emancipatory reason" (188). Farrell's interest in theorizing the enactment of "emancipatory reason" in the public sphere, through norm-governed rhetorical practices (of argumentation, deliberation, and so forth), takes precedence over theorizing the rhetoric-phainomena connection (or at the very least, does not facilitate a phenomenological consideration of rhetorical cultures and norms). This is not a criticism of Farrell, but rather the citing of an absence that opens a possibility. More specifically, because Farrell does not see, or perhaps is not interested in, the connection between his understanding of Aristotle and the problematic of phenomenology, he is not prompted to explore the possibilities that lie in bringing rhetorical studies into an encounter with phenomenology. Furthermore, given the connection Farrell makes between Aristotle and phainomena, Farrell's work suggests that it might be interesting to see what possibilities for rhetoric might exist in readings of Aristotle by phenomenologists.This essay will attempt to look into possibilities unexamined by Farrell. My aim in assuming this task, however, is not to theorize and facilitate the enactment of "emancipatory reason" in the public sphere through discourse governed by normative standards or ideals. Rather, my goal is to highlight the ways that phenomenology and phenomenological readings of Aristotle can help rhetorical scholars to examine... (shrink)

"This volume celebrates the thought of Louis Dupre, a man who, in such important works as Passage to Modernity, has assayed our present situation by plumbing the spiritual foundations of the present crisis. Dupre's probing into the genesis and maturation of the cultural epoch we call modernity not only enthralled a decade of Yale undergraduates but impels a new generation of scholars reconsidering the configuration of premodern, modern, and postmodern. The contributors to this volume all carry with them some (...) measure of Dupre's hope that our current age is but a time of transition to a better future, and they enter into conversation with his view of modern culture from a variety of perspectives: philosophy, theology, the history of ideas, social ethics, and mysticism."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

One of the most important contributions of the Parsonian tradition has been its conceptualization of the relative autonomy and mutual interpenetration of culture and social systems. The first part of this chapter defines three ideal types of empirical relationships between culture and society: specification, refraction, and columnization. Each is related to different configurations of social structure and culture and, in turn, to different degrees of social conflict. The second part of the chapter uses this typology to illuminate critical aspects of (...) the relationship between conflict and integration in the Watergate crisis in the U.S. (shrink)