How is reality really manufactured? The idea of social construction has become a commonplace part of much social research, yet precisely what is constructed, how it is constructed, and what constructionism means are often left unclear or taken for granted. In this major work, Jonathan Potter explores the central themes raised by these questions. Representing Reality explores the different traditions in constructivist thought--including sociology of scientific knowledge; conversation analysis and ethnomethodology; and semiotics, poststructuralism, and postmodernism--to provide a lucid (...) introduction to several key strands of work that have overturned the way we think about facts and descriptions. Potter illustrates his points throughout with varied and engaging examples taken from newspaper stories, relationship counseling sessions, accounts of paranormal events, social workers' assessments of violent parents, informal talk between program organizers, political arguments, and everyday conversations. Representing Reality offers the student and scholar in social psychology, rhetoric and discourse, and related fields a critical introduction to constructivism. (shrink)

Peter L. Berger was one of the most influential sociologists of the last sixty years. In the sociology of religion, his publications are among the key works of the discipline. This paper is a “positive critique” of three aspects of Berger’s theoretical work in the sociology of religion: an inconsistent application of the idea of social construction, a lack of focus on power and ideology, and an insufficient operationalization of language as a vehicle of world-construction. Augmenting Berger’s field-defining work with (...) insights from contemporary theories of ideology and discourse, the article provides an outline for a critical constructionist approach to the sociology of religion. (shrink)

This article considers the social construction of mental toughness in line with prevailing social attitudes towards success and dominance in elite sport. Critical attention is drawn to the research literature which has sought to conceptualise mental toughness and the idealistic rhetoric and metaphor with which it has done so. The concept of mental toughness currently reflects an elitist ideal, constructed along the lines of the romantic narrative of the ‘Hollywood hero’ athlete. In contrast, the mental and moral virtues which (...) should form the basis of mental toughness are often neglected when an athlete ‘fails’. Currently, mental toughness exists as a characteristic used to describe successful athletes and is only applied in hindsight. Finally, we recommend that the morally problematic association of mental toughness (within the media, society, and the research community) with ultimate success needs to be removed in order to rescue the concept from the elitist discourses which currently surround and suffocate it. (shrink)

'Social construction' is a central metaphor in contemporary social science, yet it is used and understood in widely divergent and indeed conflicting ways by different thinkers. Most commonly, it is seen as radically opposed to realist social theory. Dave Elder-Vass argues that social scientists should be both realists and social constructionists and that coherent versions of these ways of thinking are entirely compatible with each other. This book seeks to transform prevailing understandings of the relationship between realism and constructionism. It (...) offers a thorough ontological analysis of the phenomena of language, discourse, culture and knowledge, and shows how this justifies a realist version of social constructionism. In doing so, however, it also develops an analysis of these phenomena that is significant in its own right. (shrink)

This article evaluates the view that the self is social constructed. It explains that a social constructionist approach to the self is critical insofar as it targets many of the traditional conceptions of self under discussion in this volume. It analyses the primary use of the term self in psychological and mental discourse, suggesting many ways in which the sources of knowledge about the realm of the mental are open to question. It cites the work of Michel Foucault and (...) others who develop a sustained critique of what may be the dark side of the construction of the self as an autonomous, alienated entity differentiated from the other. (shrink)

Social “construction,” “constructionism” and “constructivism” are terms in wide use in the humanities and social sciences, and are applied to a diverse range of objects including the emotions, gender, race, sex, homo- and hetero-sexuality, mental illness, technology, quarks, facts, reality, and truth. This sort of terminology plays a number of different roles in different discourses, only some of which are philosophically interesting, and fewer of which admit of a “naturalistic” approach—an approach that treats science as a central and successful (...) (if sometimes fallible) source of knowledge about the world. If there is any core idea of social constructionism, it is that some object or objects are caused or controlled by social or cultural factors rather than natural factors, and if there is any core motivation of such research, it is the aim of showing that such objects are or were under our control: they could be, or might have been, otherwise. (shrink)

The issue of sex trafficking has become increasingly politicized in recent years due to the efforts of an influential moral crusade. This article examines the social construction of sex trafficking in the discourse of leading activists and organizations within the crusade, and concludes that the central claims are problematic, unsubstantiated, or demonstrably false. The analysis documents the increasing endorsement and institutionalization of crusade ideology in U.S. government policy and practice.

This essay looks at Norplant qua technology and uses analytic frameworks from the social construction of technology to explain the trajectory of its brief history. The author contend that there were multiple uses of Norplant, in terms of rhetorical strategies, symbolic representations, and contraceptive intentions, constructed by reproductive scientists, population control advocates, pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, birth control clinic staffers, government regulators, legislators, judges, women’s health activists, potential users, and actual users. However, while relevant social groups shaped the discourse surrounding (...) Norplant in the 1990s, its ultimate fate was determined by choices made by potential users. At the ‘‘consumption junction’’ of the late twentieth-century contraceptive marketplace, American women ignored the meanings constructed for Norplant by developers, producers, providers, and policy makers and made their decisions based on what Norplant meant to them. Individuals’ decisions to choose other methods of preventing pregnancy coalesced into a collective rejection of this contraceptive technology. (shrink)

As identity and authenticity discourses increasingly saturate everyday life, so too have these concepts spread across the humanities and social sciences literatures. Many scholars may be interested in identity and authenticity, but lack knowledge of paradigmatic or disciplinary approaches to these concepts. This volume offers readers insight into social constructionist approaches to identity and authenticity. It focuses on the processes of identification and authentication, rather than on subjective experiences of selfhood. There are no attempts to settle what authentic identities (...) are. On the contrary, contributors demonstrate that neither identities nor their authenticity have a single or fixed meaning. Chapters provide exemplars of contemporary research on identity and authenticity, with significant diversity among them in terms of the identities, cultural milieu, geographic settings, disciplinary traditions, and methodological approaches considered. Contributors introduce readers to a number of established and emerging identity groups from sites around the world, from yogis and punks to fire dancers and social media influencers. Their conceptual work stretches from the micro-analytic to the ethno-national as authors employ a variety of qualitative methods including ethnographic fieldwork, interviewing, and the collection and analysis of naturally-occurring interactions. Several of the chapters look directly at identification and authentication, while others focus on the social and cultural backdrops that structure these practices-what unites them is the adoption of social constructionist sensibilities. This book will appeal to anyone interested in understanding identity and authenticity. (shrink)

This article examines the different discursive resources on which small business owner–managers draw when understanding their sense of self in relation to corporate social responsibility. In the small business context, identity provides a justifiable framework to study corporate social responsibility, as decisions regarding socially responsible activities are mainly taken by managers and stem from their sense of who they are in the world. On the basis of 25 thematic interviews with owner–managers, two broad discursive resources were found that describe (...) how they actively seek to create and legitimise their sense of self within the discussion on corporate social responsibility. These discursive resources are called being altruistic and being instrumental. The findings emphasise that the essential and also the most challenging feature in small business owner–managers' identity work is the process of reconciling economic values with the social and ethical aspects of business life. (shrink)

Nature can be understood as socially constructed in two senses: in different cultures’ interpretations of the nonhuman world and in the physical ways that humans have shaped even areas that they think of as “natural.” Both understandings are important for environmental ethics insofar as they highlight the diversity of ways of viewing and living in nature. However, strong versions of the social constructionist argument contend that there is no “nature” apart from human discourse and practices. This claim is (...) problematic both logically, insofar as it fails to deconstruct the notion of culture, and ethically, insofar as it categorically privileges human activities and traits. (shrink)

This paper argues that in addition to the familiar approach using formal contexts, there is now a need in artificial intelligence to study contexts as social constructs. As a successful example of the latter approach, I draw attention to 'interpretation' (in the sense of literary theory), viz. the reconstruction of the intended meaning of a literary text that takes into account the context in which the author assumed the reader would place the text. An important contribution here comes from Wendell (...) Harris, enumerating the seven crucial dimensions of context: knowledge of reality, knowledge of language, and the authorial, generic, collective, specific, and textual dimensions. Finally, two recent approaches to interpretation, due to Jon Barwise and Jerry Hobbs, are analyzed as useful attempts which also come to grips with the notion of context. It must be noted that there has been a considerable body of contributions connecting linguistic structure with social context. For example, anthropological linguistics, from Bronislaw Malinowski onwards, has underlined the cultural context of discourse as essential to meaning. This viewpoint became prominent with the emergence of the ethnography of speaking in anthropology. Thus, conversation analysis represents a consistent formal effort to contribute to an analysis of the nature of context. While this paper emphasizes and reviews the literary theory approach, it makes various contacts with works of the latter kind (e.g., the landmark contributions of Erving Goffman, John Gumperz, William Hanks, John Heritage, Dell Hymes, et al.) in order to deliver a more balanced and complete study of the dimensions of context. (shrink)

The predominant conception of the status of race is that race is a social construction. But what does it mean to say that a group, racially defined, is a social construct? How we understand the process of constitution and related identities is important beyond the conceptual reality or non-reality that defines the group. To this end, this dissertation explores two models of group constitution employed by Jean-Paul Sartre, the first from Anti-Semite and Jew, which bases group constitution and identity on (...) the gaze of the dominant Other, and the second from his later work, Critique of Dialectic Reason, Vol.1, which places the group as a prominent facilitator of history that produces itself in the domain of the Other. Both models show that the existence of group and group identity are constructed and as a result both reject claims of essentialism that may be ascribed to the group. However, I argue that the more nuanced conception of the social construction of the group, found in the Critique, envisages a more complex and dynamic account of group formation and identification, an account that acknowledges the need for group identities particularly among those who are historically oppressed as members of a group. ;My dissertation attempts to reconcile two fundamental and distinct approaches to race---ontology and experience---through what I hope the reader will appreciate as a series of dialogues between Sartre and various interlocuters. These interlocuters include contemporary authors such as Ian Hacking, K. Anthony Appiah, and Naomi Zack whose works refer to some aspect of Sartrean thought. Additionally, I explore textual dialogues between Sartre and both Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Frantz Fanon, existentialists authors themselves, whose works provide insights into the possibilities and problems that Sartre faced in his attempts to attend to colonialism, racism, race and class consciousness, individual and group freedom. Thus, a secondary goal of this dissertation is to show Sartre's continued relevance to our contemporary discourse of race in particular and contemporary philosophy in general. (shrink)

A British coffee chain’s fundraising practices constitute a background for this study to examine ideological discourses behind British charitable giving. The charity executes projects in coffee growing communities by providing education for children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The study takes a critical stance from a discursive paradigmatic perspective to analyse visual contents used by the charity. The applied visual critical discourse analysis was inspired by Barthes’ semiotic theory. Findings suggest that the adverts’ interpretative repertoires can serve ideologies that sustain the (...) donors’ social-cultural dominance over the recipients by justifying group-based social hierarchies. The chains of signifiers do not question the spectators’ moral position but rationalise status quo and maintain undisturbed consumption. Findings suggest the possibility that the discourses of prosocial behaviour incited under consuming conditions do not challenge but may even justify global inequality. This finding presents challenges facing charitable organisations balancing their work within wider commercial and cultural contexts. (shrink)

Starting from the metaphor of “playing chamber music at a rock festival” used by Peter L. Berger in 1992 to describe the impact of The Social Construction of Reality on US sociology, this article works out how the book’s somewhat puzzling legacy as a bestseller and a classic with remarkably rare direct follow-ups in the US discourse can indeed be conceived. I argue that one needs to take into account the theoretical-historical context in which Berger and Luckmann developed their ideas, (...) including the specific forms of knowledge production in US sociology at the time, the institutional background of the book’s emergence at the New School for Social Research and the author’s biographical trajectories. On this basis, on can explain why Berger and Luckmann’s reformulation of the sociology of knowledge both perfectly met the 1960s Zeitgeist and at the same time remained theoretically marginal. (shrink)

This paper describes how language contributes to the oppression and exploitation of animals by animal product industries. Critical Discourse Analysis, a framework usually applied in countering racism and sexism, is applied to a corpus of texts taken from animal industry sources. The mass confinement and slaughter of animals in intensive farms depend on the implicit consent of the population, signaled by its willingness to buy animal products produced in this way. Ideological assumptions embedded in everyday discourse and that of the (...) animal industries manufacture and maintain this consent. Through analysis of texts, this paper attempts to expose these assumptions and discusses implications for countering the domination and exploitation of animals. (shrink)

The application of constructivism to “nature” and “wilderness” is intellectually and politically objectionable. Despite a proclivity for examining the social underpinnings of representations, constructivists do not deconstruct their own rhetoric and assumptions; nor do they consider what socio-historical conditions support their perspective. Constructivists employ skewed metaphors to describe knowledge production about nature as though the loaded language use of constructivism is straightforward and neutral. They also implicitly rely on a humanist perspective about knowledge creation that privileges the cognitive sovereignty of (...) human subject over nature. Politically, the constructivist approach fails to take the scientific documentation of the biodiversity crisis seriously; it diverts attention toward discourses about the environmental predicament, rather than examining that predicament itself; and it indirectly cashes in on, and thus supports, human colonization of the Earth. (shrink)

Today, social engineering techniques are the most common way of committing cybercrimes through the intrusion and infection of computer systems. Cybersecurity experts use the term “social engineering” to highlight the “human factor” in digitized systems, as social engineering attacks aim at manipulating people to reveal sensitive information. In this paper, we explore how discursive framings of individual versus collective security by cybersecurity experts redefine roles and responsibilities at the digitalized workplace. We will first show how the rhetorical figure of the (...) deficient user is constructed vis-à-vis notions of security in social engineering discourses. Second, we will investigate the normative tensions that these practices create. To do so, we link work in science and technology studies on the politics of deficit construction to recent work in critical security studies on securitization and resilience. Empirically, our analysis builds on a multi-sited conference ethnography during three cybersecurity conferences as well as an extensive document analysis. Our findings suggest a redistribution of institutional responsibility to the individual user through three distinct social engineering story lines—“the oblivious employee,” “speaking code and social,” and “fixing human flaws.” Finally, we propose to open up the discourse on social engineering and its inscribed politics of deficit construction and securitization and advocate for companies and policy makers to establish and foster a culture of collective cyber in/security and corporate responsibility. (shrink)

We introduce the CUBISM system for the analysis and deep understanding of multi-participant dialogues. CUBISM brings together two typically separate forms of discourse analysis: semantic analysis and sociolinguistic analysis. In the paper proper, we describe and illustrate major components of the CUBISM system, and discuss the challenge posed by the system’s ultimate purpose, which is to automatically detect anomalous changes in participants’ expressed or implied beliefs about the world and each other, including shifts toward or away from cultural and community (...) norms. (shrink)

This book provides a thorough and compelling argument for a realist form of moderate social constructionism. It argues that social scientists should provide an explanatory account of the construction of various elements of the social world. Such accounts should be realist because, “social construction is a real process and a process whose products are real” . The argument here furthers a tradition that includes work by Bhaskar and Searle. The book is a pleasure to read. Elder-Vass writes in an admirably (...) clear and well-organized fashion, consistently explaining his commitments and what is entailed by the considerations he adduces.The combination of social constructionism and realism is motivated by the following line of thought: Constructionists generally assign a key role in the process of construction to one of more of: culture, language, discourse, and knowledge. In this, the constructionists are pointing to phenomena of importance. The realist also has a weighty .. (shrink)

This paper deals with the statue without female forms of Our Lady of Maidens, kept in the parish church of Civitella Roveto in the Abruzzo region, in Italy. After describing the religious rituals involving the statue of this Virgin in order to shed light on her title, the study goes on to analyze vernacular discourses about her and explore the prohibition regarding the touching of her body. The symbolic aspects of the shapeless body of the statue are then investigated (...) and discussed in the light of Marian, anthropological, sociological, and feminist literature, considering them a specific device for expelling female sexual desire from the domain of fertility. The article, focused on the body of the Madonna, hopes to contribute to studies in religious materiality as well as to studies in the social construction of gender inequality. (shrink)

Based on systemic functional linguistics, and especially newly developed appraisal theory, this study uses editorials from the China Daily to investigate patterns of interpersonal rhetoric devised to construct and shape public opinion. Attitudinal lexis and modal expressions are examined separately with the object of discovering how editorials communicate their evaluation of their subject matter. This article contends that the author of an editorial is more likely to be explicit in evaluating events and implicit in evaluating behaviour and that he/she seldom (...) attributes attitudes to other sources. Modality occurs frequently in editorial discourse. Modal expressions of certainty, necessity and obligation are particularly common and indicate the authority and power nature of the discourse. Modal expressions of obligation/necessity normally occur at the end of the text in order to make the most powerful possible appeal to the reader. (shrink)

Large companies must increasingly satisfy not only the conditions of their formal licences, but also the concerns and expectations of host communities and broader society. This has led to the emergence, particularly in the minerals industry, of the notion of “social licence”, an interdiscursive term whose meaning is rarely interrogated. We use textual analysis to critically investigate the construction of social licence discourse in minerals companies’ sustainable development reports and at a recent industry conference. We find that the texts mystify (...) the nature of agency, and privilege processes that maintain existing power relations. Through their partial accommodation of heterogeneous discourses, the texts downplay tensions and conflicts. We conclude that there is a need to reconceptualise the nature of company–stakeholder relationships through a more collaborative, dialogic and reflexive process, avoiding the binary state implied by the term licence. (shrink)

This article uncovers the current discursive practices concerning socially vulnerable people in Danish society. A discourse analytical approach inspired by Michel Foucault, along with contributions from Erving Goffmann's work ‘Stigma’, is utilized throughout the analysis. First, the dominant discursive formations are described across the data material, consisting of sociopolitical and health policy documents. Second, we uncover how problematizations and mechanisms of power along with the emergence of the competition state push socially vulnerable people out into the periphery of (...) society. Finally, we discuss responsibility regarding social vulnerability and the structural injustice that follows. Our aim is to facilitate critical awareness of how socially vulnerable people are constructed and contribute to destabilizing accepted meanings and perceptions of social vulnerability. This study shows that being categorized as socially vulnerable is associated with poor health behavior and perceived as being in a dependent relationship with superior systems. The analysis points to a focus on strengthening and developing the work capacity of socially vulnerable people. Thus, the objective of the analyzed documents revolves around securing socially vulnerable people's contribution to society's economy. This article contributes with a perspective on how society, and therefore also healthcare professionals, perceive and interact with socially vulnerable people. (shrink)

Social justice is consistently upheld as a central value within the nursing profession, yet there are persistent inconsistencies in how this construct is conceptualized, further compounded by a lack of empirical inquiry into how nurses enact social justice in everyday practice. In the current context in which structural inequities are perpetuated throughout the health care system, and the emergency department in particular, it is crucial to understand how nurses understand and enact social justice as a disciplinary commitment. This research examines (...) how nurses' talk and institutional texts discursively construct social justice within the institutional context of the emergency department, and how such discourses shape the enactment of social justice within nursing practice. Guided by Iris Marion Young's theorizing of distributive and systemic social justice paradigms, this Foucauldian discourse analysis draws on emergency department nurses' talk (N = 25 interviews) and institutional documents (N = 27) as key texts that visibilize dominant and excluded discourses of social justice within the institutional context of the emergency department, and implications for how social justice is enacted through nursing practices. This analysis identified one overarching discursive pattern, in which social justice was discursively constructed through a hegemonic distributive paradigm, yet also resisted through nurses' conceptualization and enactment of a systemic social justice paradigm that facilitated their recognition and remediation of inequities. This central discursive pattern is explored through three exemplars of nurses' enactment of social justice as resistance: triage, harm reduction, and care planning. Findings from this analysis demonstrate that while a hegemonic distributive paradigm has dominated conceptualizations of social justice within nursing, a re‐construction of social justice through a systemic paradigm may guide nurses in enacting practices that remediate inequities in health and health care. (shrink)

Using a discursive and ethnomethodological analytic framework, this article explores the social construction of moral transgression and moral meanings in the context of coming to terms with the recent communist past in Eastern Europe. This article illustrates some significant aspects of everyday uses of morality and the socio-communicative organization of public judgements on moral transgression. The article considers the range of public reactions and commentaries to a public confession of having been an informer for the former Romanian secret police. Moral (...) reasoning around transgression takes several forms: a) invoking everyday psychological categories and morally implicative descriptions associated with identities of persons and actions; b) drawing upon culturally available metaphors and images with roots in Judaeo-Christian ethics and morality; c) using the wider political context of coming to terms with the past as foundation and criterion for moral judgement. This article argues that rather than attempting to analyse moral judgement in abstract, one must focus on the everyday constructions and uses of morality found in social interaction and social responses to moral transgression. (shrink)

Social justice is widely advanced as a central nursing value, and yet conceptual understandings of social justice remain inconsistent and vague. Further, despite persistently articulated commitments to upholding social justice, the profession of nursing has been implicated in perpetuating inequities in health and health care. In this context, it is essential to establish both conceptual clarity and tangible guidance for nurses in enacting practices to advance social justice—particularly through regulatory, education and accreditation documents that shape the nursing profession. This Foucauldian (...) discourse analysis examines how social justice is discursively positioned within nursing professional documents in Canada, and illustrates that social justice was largely discursively excluded from these texts. Where social justice discourses were invoked, we identified that four central discursive patterns obscured and de‐centred this nursing value: (i) Vague language undermined professional commitments to social justice; (ii) Constructions of knowledge and awareness de‐emphasized practice; (iii) Individualism discourses minimized institutional/professional responsibility; and (iv) Aspirational language obscured present action. Extending from this analysis, we contend that the nursing profession must re‐examine how social justice is understood and articulated, and call for a re‐conceptualization of social justice grounded in nursing practice toward remediating inequities in health and health care. (shrink)

Examines how knowledge is socially constructed within particular discourse communities.

This research examines how the meaning of risk, safety, and accidents are constructed in a military context. We compare meanings of these constructs among members working for three organizations (Health and Safety Executive, Ministry of Defence, and Royal Marine Commandos) jointly responsible for planning and executing "safe" military training and maneuvres in a particular unit of the United Kingdom's Royal Marine Commandos. The discourse among these members embodies the inter-organizational collaboration over military safety, and through an analysis of this (...) discourse we situate and frame shared and contested meanings of risk, safety, and accidents within this particular community of practice. We discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice, rallying for a more contextualized understanding of what risk, safety, and accidents mean in organizational life and thus the relative nature of the standards to which organizations are expected to adhere. (shrink)

This study explores the discourse of social entrepreneurs and their audiences in pitch situations. Adopting a practice perspective on social entrepreneurship, we videotaped 49 pitches by social entrepreneurs at five different events in two incubators in Germany and Switzerland. Our analysis of the start-ups’ pitches and the audience’s questions and comments as well as of interview data elucidates the nuances of social and business discourse that social entrepreneurs and their audiences draw upon. Our analysis shows how many social entrepreneurs mobilize (...) a discursive repertoire that is familiar to their business-oriented audience while others predominantly draw on a social discourse. We identify separating, mixing, and combining as key strategies that allow social entrepreneurs to dance between the two. We discuss how the intertextual reproduction of concepts, objects, and subject positions contains both enabling and constraining elements, which results in an ethical dilemma for social entrepreneurs: Should they re-package their social impact story in a business discourse to connect with their audience? (shrink)

Intersubjectivity, the existing way of humans in discourse, is the speakers’ concern over the hearers. A framework for the dynamic construction of discourse intersubjectivity by integrating philosophical and cognitive perspectives was proposed to reveal the essential philosophical and cognitive attributes of discourse intersubjectivity. Qualitative analysis and speculative methods were employed. Intersubjectivity in discourse and its dynamic construction process were investigated from speaker orientation, hearer orientation and social interaction orientation. The results show the following: (1) the proposed framework clarifies the dynamic (...) construction of discourse meaning from objectivity to subjectivity and intersubjectivity; (2) speaker orientation focuses on the dynamic construction of discourse meaning from objectivity to subjectivity; (3) hearer orientation emphasises the dynamic construction of discourse meaning from subjectivity to intersubjectivity; (4) social interaction orientation concerns the interaction between speakers and hearers in social discursive practices. The study broadens the research perspective of intersubjectivity, provides a feasible analysis framework to deeply explore intersubjectivity, helps dig up the role of humans as communicative subjects in discourse and communication, and explores the implicit interaction between speakers and hearers. (shrink)

Although the referents of the term social capital merit sustained inquiry, the term impedes understanding because of the historical association of the word capital with economic discourse. As a result of this association, applying the term social capital to civic engagement blurs crucial analytic distinctions. Moreover, there are important ideological consequences to considering things such as bowling leagues to be a form of capital and urging citizens to become social capitalists. The term social capacity, the authors argue, provides the same (...) heuristic benefits as the term social capital without extending illusory promises of theoretical parsimony with the financial/human/social capital trinity. (shrink)

What is Love? Discourse about Emotions in Social Sciences The study of emotions has been one of the most important areas of research in the Social Sciences. Social Psychology has also contributed to the development of this area. In this article we analyse the contribution of social Psychology to the study of emotion, understood as a social construct, and its strong relationship with language. Specifically, we open a discussion on the basis of the general characteristics of the Social Psychology of (...) emotions and the contributions from different disciplines in this area of research, to give meaning to the relationship they have with the language of emotions. In this regard, we have reviewed basic references for the study of the construction of an emotion, and thematically classified them into three broad categories: 1) Contributions from different backgrounds and perspectives; 2) Construction and de-construction studies of emotion, and 3) Postconstructionist studies of emotion. In the first category, we consider the main contributions from the Social Sciences, which can be summarized in two areas: philosophical-construction of an emotion; mainstream-psychology of emotion. In the second category we have began with the relationship between emotion and language and the social construction of emotion, i.e., its discursive status. We end with postconstructionist theories, i.e., Butler's concept of performance and technoscience. To give more meaning to this line of research, the use of a concrete example of emotion seemed appropriate. Thus, we chose "love". (shrink)

Some of the ways in which the experience of mothering is shaped by the moral and cultural constructions surrounding breastfeeding discourse are examined using a critical deconstruction of recent Canadian health education material. Connections between the understandings surrounding breastfeeding and cultural constructions of nature and sexuality are raised, as is the overlap between breastfeeding discourse and a number of other social discourses including those surrounding child-centered parenting expertise, the remoralization of pregnancy, and the neoliberal preoccupation with individual responsibility and (...) the cost of social programs. Some of the implications that this understanding poses for mothers are examined. (shrink)

The paper analyzes current situation in epistemology that is characterized by the appearance of the so called alternative epistemologies opposing the classical epistemology. The ties between alternative epistemologies and Karl Marx’ class consciousness concept and its development in the neo- and postmarxist works (by A.Gramsci, E.Laclau, Ch.Mouffe) is demonstrated. The research is focused on the concept of “false consciousness” that serves as a basis of the concepts of ideology and hegemony. The concept of hegemony in neo- and postmarxism is analyzed, (...) it is shown how its application is reflected in the research of scientific knowledge: some authors claim that science is an agent of hegemony and it helps to maintain the illusion of the objectivity of the existence of certain phenomena. The proponents of this position – social constructionists, feminist philosophers et. al. – suggest to accept the equal value of the positions of different social groups each of which holds its own special discourse that helps to express the “knowledge” specific to this certain group. It is shown that such position sees “knowledge” as no longer universal, the knowledge is equaled to local understanding of the world. The conclusion is drawn that the position of K. Marx that gives basis to many claims of postmarxists and social constructionist is more favorable in comparison to them, because Marx whilst speaking of class consciousness assigns an important role to the individual subject. It allows to combine both universalistic understanding of knowledge and account not only for group differences, but for each individuality. (shrink)

Until a decade ago, a comprehensive contestation of the so-called?transitional? paradigm was largely missing in the post-socialist era. This reality changed in the last ten years, especially in the region of former Yugoslavia. Some social movements in this region have started questioning the very essence of the economic and social misconceptions of the post-socialist condition. This paper first provides an elaboration of the very conceptual edifice of the ruling paradigm, as well as a theoretical and methodological framework. It goes on (...) to map out the epistemic discursive content of the respective social movements in Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo, thereby assessing the conceptual content of their critique of the post-socialist transitional paradigm. Finally, given the similarities between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the paper seeks to explain variations in the critique by how the structural and contextual features impact the perspective from which it is constructed. (shrink)

Drawing from a multi-sourced data corpus gathered from high-net-worth social media influencers, this article explores how these individuals reconcile ethicality and living a luxury lifestyle through the enactment of three types of personas on Instagram: Ambassador of ‘True’ Luxury, Altruist, and ‘Good’ Role Model. By applying the concepts of taste regimes and social moral licensing, we find that HNW social media influencers conspicuously enact and display ethicality, thereby retaining legitimacy in the field of luxury consumption. As these individuals are highly (...) influential, they could leave a potentially significant mark on public discourse and, consequently, on their audiences’ construction of ethically responsible luxury consumption. In this vein, this article offers significant managerial insights into professional influencers and discusses ethical managerial practices to ensure ethical collaborations between influencers and managers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper discusses the housing crisis in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, a phenomenon that particularly affects the socioeconomically vulnerable. The paradigm adopted is the interpretative, with Critical Discourse Analysis as a theoretical framework and qualitative methodology. The Converging Linguistic Approaches Method is adopted. By studying a corpus of relevant legal texts, this paper explores the way in which the poor are constructed as subjects in City Law No. 3706, the only text where they feature as a dominant (...) focus category. To that end we need to deepen our understanding of the way in which the linguistic and discursive category of the poor as actors/subjects is constructed in the text. This paper also aims to show the ways in which linguistic discourse enquiry may use a qualitative analysis tool to shed light on social issues. (shrink)

This article explores verbal and visual language use in Zimbabwean contraceptive promotional brochures distributed from the early to mid-1980s. Drawing on recent work in critical discourse analysis of text and visual design, the article uses multimodal discourse analysis and draws from Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar’s transitivity analysis to analyze family planning pamphlets, focusing on the discursive construction of women as contraceptive users. The article argues that the salience of the language of risk and vulnerability, which is textually and visually deployed (...) throughout the pamphlets, discursively constructs risk as a feature of unequal power relations. The article further argues that underlying the overarching discourse on risk are multiple ‘silences’ that discursively construct an ideological difference consisting of oppositional binaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in terms of power relations. The differentiation of social groups reflects ‘hidden’ social inequalities in the text and visual images. (shrink)

The article traces the origin and development of the concept of social skills in first and foremost American academic discourse. As soon as the concept of social skills was coined, the concern for people lacking such skills started and has been on the increase ever since. After the analysis of the academic history of the concept follows an examination of the implementation of a range of assessment instruments and training programmes related to social skills in contemporary Danish welfare institutions. The (...) analysis forwarded in the article thus demonstrates how an intellectual idea may develop and travel - and on its journey connect to pre-existing cultural logics and societal concerns. The idea of social skills has through its development been made uncontroversial – everybody wants to be skilful. The concept does, however, convey an individualistic view on social life and imposes a reflexivity over own performance on the participants. Further, its normative character contributes to a problematization of those who are perceived to lack these skills. (shrink)

This article proposes that Discourse Analysis (DA) be methodologically characterized as an analytical technique for the social sciences. To do this, it must first be situated in relation to two other methodological tools used for the study of discourse: hermeneutics and Content Analysis. Subsequently, the article will define DA, focusing on one aspect in particular: its compatibility with both qualitative and quantitative research strategies. It will then examine the usefulness of this technique in the process of data construction and finally (...) propose an assessment of this issue. En este artículo nos proponemos caracterizar metodológicamente al Análisis del Discurso (AD) en tanto técnica de análisis de las ciencias sociales. Para ello, primero, lo ubicaremos en relación con otras dos herramientas metodológicas utilizadas para estudiar el discurso: la hermenéutica y el análisis de contenido. Posteriormente, haremos una caracterización del AD, centrándonos en un aspecto en particular: su compatibilidad tanto con estrategias cualitativas como con estrategias cuantitativas de investigación. Estudiaremos la utilidad de esta técnica en el proceso de construcción de los datos. Finalmente, propondremos un balance de la cuestión. (shrink)

Unruly Practices brings together a series of widely discussed essays in feminism and social theory. Read together, they constitute a sustained critical encounter with leading European and American approaches to social theory. In addition, Nancy Fraser develops a new and original socialist-feminist critical theory that overcomes many of the limitations of current alternatives. First, in a series of critical essays, she deploys philosophical and literary techniques to assess the work of Michael Foucault, the French deconstructionists, Richard Rorty, and Jürgen Habermas. (...) Then, in a group of constructive essays, she incorporates their respective strengths in a new critical theory of late-capitalist political culture. Fraser breaks new ground methodologically by integrating the previously divergent insights of poststructuralism, critical social theory, feminist theory, and pragmatism. Thematically, she deals with varied forms of dominance and subordination in modern, industrial, late-capitalist societies. These themes are integrated in an original theory of 'the politics of need interpretation.' This concept becomes the linchpin of the socialist-feminist critical theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT he paper examines the digital practices and discourses of the Islamic State when exploiting Social Media Communication environments to propagate their jihadist ideology and mobilise specific audiences. It draws on insights from Social Media Critical Discourse Studies, observational approaches, and visual content/semiotic analysis. The paper maintains the complementary nature of technological practice and discursive content in the process of meaning-making in digital jihadist discourse. The study shows that digital practices of strategic sharing, distribution and campaigns to re-upload textual (...) materials are made possible by exploiting SMC communicative affordances. As for the analysis of discursive content, the paper focuses on YouTube and highlights strategic patterns and covert references in an IS-produced flagship video. It illustrates how IS discourse constructs its envisaged in-group/outgroup by symbolising current events within historical, political and ideological conflict scenarios, i.e. the incessant resistance and legitimacy of forces of virtue vs evil. By foregrounding symbolic references to military outgroup actors, IS legitimises its own violence and projects a powerful self-identity against a global hegemony. The paper shows how the combination of a technologically savvy operation and a resistant, anti-hegemonic narrative, embedded in a strategically framed symbolism of Islam, may resonate with global -diasporic digital consumers. (shrink)

This study analyzes the journalistic discourses on social media in order to find out the position of Venezuelan and international press in the coverage of 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. Drawing on Borrat’s and Enguix Oliver’s theoretical approaches regarding newspapers and social networks, and through CDA models of Fairclough and Richardson, this research aims to understand to what extent the national quality newspapers such as El Nacional, El Universal, and Últimas Noticias, and the international ones as The New York Times, (...) The Guardian, El País, and Le Monde participated in the Venezuelan political conflict and constructed the respective political narratives through Instagram. The findings show that both national and international press participated as external narrators in the political conflict and highlight the role of newspapers as political actors and social media as a tool in their hands. (shrink)