Social action

Finding Common Ground through Creativity, a community-based action research project was activated with the purpose of engaging the community, cross-culturally, by exploring the values and connections surrounding land. The project was to create shared-spaces for promoting place-based dialogue around a theme accepting of the intersections of contexts relating to the land, such as the need for decolonization, healing, and reconciliation.

Se hace en este articulo una reflexion abierta sobre el uso practico del conocimiento a partir de una investigacion del sentimiento de comunidad realizada en un barrio muy cohesionado de la ciudad de Barcelona. Tras describir la investigacion, se lleva a cabo la "devolucion" de la informacion y los contactos posteriores con el barrio, se identifican sus problemas y recursos y se hace una integracion global y dinamica de la comunidad sugiriendo soluciones. A continuacion, se extraen conclusiones de la experiencia y sus resultados, reflexionando sobre los aspectos criticos del proceso de generacion, difusion y uso practico del conocimiento contemplado como conflicto de lealtades psicologicas. Se presentan despues distintas formas de usar el conocimiento en la accion social-y la accion social para generar conocimiento- como variante de la relacion entre investigacion y accion, y se describe, finalmente, un modelo emergente de uso del conocimiento propuesto en el campo del tra...

HCI projects are increasingly evaluating technologies in the wild, which typically involves working with communities over extended periods, often with the goal of effecting sustainable change. However, there are few descriptions of projects that have been successful in the long-term. In this paper we investigate what factors are important for develop- ing long lasting community ICT interventions. We do this by analysing a successful action research project and provide five recommendations for facilitating sustained community engagement. CrowdMemo aimed to preserve local heritage in a town in rural Argentina and the project was set up so that it could be continued by the community once researchers had left. Participants created videos about personal memories of the town and over 600 people attended the premiere where they were first screened. The impact has not just been short-term and there has been sustained engagement with the project by stakeholders in the town and wider region: the lo- cal school integrated digital storytelling into its curriculum; the approach has been adopted by two nearby towns; and the project has influenced regional government educational policy.

The following text attempts, without pretending completeness, to analyze approaches to action research based on where and how they position themselves socially , on how they work, and on their actual basic distinctions. The result is a tentative typology presented roughly historically, which cuts through the many labels typical of current action research. Different approaches are useful, each for different purposes. Still, most circle consciously or subconsciously around some form of "practice" which works as a standard of measurement or quality criterion. The conclusion is that there is a certain sine qua non in the field of action research, i.e. a form "toward which, ways of doing things tend to evolve from a wide variety of starting points".

This article presents a case study of academic language instruction in a high school “English Learner Science” course. It illustrates how a teacher's understanding of academic language affects her instruction and students’ opportunities for learning. We examine a transcript of classroom discourse for the “didactic tension” that exists between this educator's teaching of science vocabulary and students’ development of conceptual understanding in science. We assert that the teacher's emphasis on vocabulary serves to obscure important semantic relationships among the phenomena she is teaching about in her lesson, as well as ignores the linguistic resources needed to express those relationships. We propose that the social action accomplished by this didactic tension may be to produce an economy of discourse for English Learners which, contrary to the goals of academic language instruction, serves to withhold from them opportunities to not only to talk, but think, like scientists. We use our findings to call for further research into teachers’ beliefs, practices, and discourse related to academic language instruction and the impact of these on students’ language as well as content learning.

In this chapter I review the potential diversity of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age identities in Britain, by placing those aspects of identity currently represented in the archaeological literature within a comparative anthropological context. Rather than singling out one arena of ...

Proponiamo qui, senza alcuna pretesa di completezza, una serie di atteggiamenti divfondo da riconoscere e da valorizzare in vista di una rinnovata − e non illusoria −veducazione all’azione sociale e politica che sia capace di ispirarsi, in maniera intelligente e responsabile, alle vie del Vangelo.

Ce rapport rend compte de la recherche évaluative et prospective commanditée par le SPP intégration sociale, à la demande du Ministre fédéral de l’intégration sociale,  et menée entre avril et octobre 2015 auprès des Centres Publics d’Action Sociale (CPAS) de Belgique à propos du PIIS (Projet Individualisé d’Intégration Sociale) qui est un instrument « de type contractuel », par lequel les CPAS formalise l’accompagnement des bénéficiaires du Droit à l’Intégration sociale.

La recherche a comporté deux volets. Dans un premier temps, tous les CPAS du royaume ont été invités à répondre à une enquête quantitative, complétée dans un second temps par des entretiens approfondis réalisés dans une quinzaine de CPAS, afin d’appréhender les représentations relatives à la contractualisation de l’aide sociale et les usages de l’outil PIIS. Les enseignements ont été mis débat avec des acteurs et experts de l’action sociale et ont conduit à la formulation de recommandations par les chercheurs.

Contexte politique de la recherche :
La loi du 26 mai 2002 sur le Droit à l’Intégration sociale (DIS) prévoit que «toute personne a droit à l’intégration sociale. Ce droit peut prendre la forme d’un emploi et/ou d’un revenu d’intégration, assortis ou non d’un projet individualisé d’intégration sociale» (Art. 2).
Jusqu’en 2016, l’établissement d’un PIIS était obligatoire pour les jeunes de moins de 25 ans, et facultatif pour les autres catégories d’usagers. Le gouvernement fédéral (gouvernement Michel, issu des élections fédérales de mai 2014) a souhaité un élargissement du PIIS à d’autres bénéficiaires. Ainsi, la déclaration gouvernementale stipule : « Il y aura lieu également d’élargir le PIIS à d'autres bénéficiaires de l'intégration sociale et de services, en concertation avec le secteur. Un trajet clair vers plus d'autonomie y sera défini de commun accord et des moments d'évaluation seront prévus. »
Ce sont l’opportunité et les conditions de cette possible extension du PIIS que la présente recherche visait à instruire, compte tenu notamment de la grande diversité des pratiques et des philosophies d’action sociale d’un CPAS à l’autre.

En avril 2016, le Ministre de l’Intégration a présenté la réforme du PIIS qui sera d’application à partir de septembre 2016. Elle consiste notamment à généraliser la mise en œuvre du PIIS à toutes les catégories d’usager, en prévoyant des possibilités de sanction pour les usagers qui ne respecteraient pas le « contrat » établi avec le CPAS.

Ces orientations politiques sont sur plusieurs points éloignées des recommandations des chercheurs.

La recherche a été menée conjointement par le Centre d’Etudes Sociologiques de l’Université Saint Louis-Bruxelles ES (Promoteur : Abraham Franssen ; chercheuse : Louise Méhauden) et l’Expertisecentrum Krachtgericht Sociaal Werk van de Karel de Grote Hogeschool (promotrice : Kristel Driessens, chercheur : Jan Depauw)

This paper focuses on a discussion of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social action and his main concepts that are habitus, capital and field. Related to his theory, the conceptions of praxis and power are also analyzed. Praxis is the center of Bourdieu's theory of social action and power is the key concept to analyze society. Additionally, Bourdieu's sociological understanding, namely reflexive sociology, is discussed. Lastly, the second purpose of this paper is to make some connections between Bourdieu's conception of structure and Durkheim, Marx, and Weber's conceptualization of social action. Pierre Bourdieu'nun Toplumsal Eylem Kuramı ÖZET Bu makale Pierre Bourdieu'nun toplumsal eylem kuramı ve habitus, kapital (capital) ve alan (field) kavramlarının tartışması üzerinde odaklanmıştır. Bu kuram ile ilgili olarak praksis (praxis) ve güç/iktidar (power) kavramları da incelenmiştir. Praksis, Bourdieu'nun toplumsal eylem ve güç/iktidar kuramında (theory of social action and power) toplumu incelemede kullandığı temel kavramdır. Ek olarak, Bourdieu'nun toplumbilimsel yaklaşımı da, Reflexive Sosyoloji olarak adlandırılır, bu çalışma içerisinde tartışılmıştır. Son olarak, bu yazı Bourdieu'nun yapı kavramı (conception of structure) ile Durkheim, Marx ve Weber'in toplumsal eylem (social action) kavramlaştırmaları arasında bir bağ kurmayı amaçlamıştır.

En el siglo XIX se desarrolla en La Paz un particular combate a pedradas entre dos bandos de jóvenes varones al norte de la ciudad. Se convierte en una tradición ampliamente practicada, tolerada y delimitada, que canaliza la violencia colectiva de una manera controlada. La popularidad de la tauromaquia, la escolarización masiva en La Paz y el crecimiento de la ciudad llevan a la desaparición de esta violenta práctica lúdica, que ha dejado una inesperada huella en el carnaval contemporáneo.
In the 19th century took place in La Paz a peculiar stone-throwing fight between two youth gangs in the north of the city. It became a broadly practiced tradition, tolerated and limited to some places and people that helped to channel collective violence. Popularity of bullfighting, massive schooling in La Paz and the growth of the city brought to the disappearance of this violent recreational practice that has left unexpected traces in the contemporary carnival.

Two standard interpretations of traditional action are rejected. Traditional action is not subjectively meaningful in the sense of having what Talcott Parsons calls a 'normative orientation'. But nor is traditional action a matter of blind habit. I contend, instead, that traditional action is subjectively meaningful insofar as the actor's seemingly aberrant behavior can be rendered intelligible by appeal to shared exemplars. I provide further evidence for the proposed interpretation of traditional action by showing how it illuminates Weber's account of traditional authority. The traditions that legitimize a traditional master consist, not just in rules or decisions, but in exemplars and precedents as found in the 'documents of tradition'. I conclude with a discussion of how the proposed account of traditional action and authority illuminates charismatic authority and Weber's notion of the irrational.

Middle-class progressives in the early 20th Century wanted to transform a corrupt and chaotic industrial America into an "authentic" democracy. But they were led astray by their privilege. Focused on enhancing the voices of individuals, generations of progressives remained blind to the rich culture of "democratic solidarity" infusing labor unions and organizing in poor communities. This book traces the problematic evolution of progressive democracy in America, focusing on schools as a key site of progressive practice. At the same time, it examines alternative strategies for developing more empowering approaches to democratic education and collective action.

This essay argues that the tendency to invoke modern historical thinking in trying to make sense of the Anthropocene amounts to an untenable, self-contradictory, and self-defeating enterprise. There is a fundamental contradiction between the prospect of unprecedented change as entailed by the Anthropocene and the deep continuity of a processual historical change. On the one hand, conceiving the Anthropocene as the prospect of the unprecedented creates a demand for immediate action to prevent future catastrophe. On the other hand, pointing out the inequalities in the historical process of bringing about the Anthropocene creates a demand for social justice. Although both are legitimate and important demands, they are incompatible. They represent different temporalities, different conceptions of change, and different modes of action. Inasmuch as the Anthropocene appears as unprecedented, it does not have a processual history; and inasmuch as it has a processual history, it is not the Anthropocene.

Lacking decent educational, employment and cultural opportunities, globally, generations of young people struggle to cultivate their potential and act upon their dreams for a better future. Those living amidst poverty and violence are particularly exposed to vulnerabilities that limits their ability to escape from exclusion and move up the social ladder. Generally, youth facing marginalization are approached either as a problem to be dealt with through repressive policies or passive objects of social action, rather than subjects, rights-holders, and creators of innovative solutions to contemporary societal challenges. As we consider more inclusive and context-sensitive ways to work for and with young people, emancipatory education offers a relevant framework of theory and practice that can inform efforts to capacitate, empower, and more actively engage youth in local development processes.
Informed by the theoretical lens of critical pedagogy and employing a qualitative case study methodology, this dissertation explores the opportunities and constraints of applying elements of a Freirean emancipatory education in non-formal youth education provisions as
an instrument to promote individual and territorial transformation in communities at the margins. Drawing from qualitative and quantitative data from an entrepreneurship program supporting hundreds of youth from the favelas and peripheries of Rio de Janeiro in advancing their own projects for change, the study investigates into three central thematics concerning: the lifeworld of participants and outcomes at the individual level; project creation and community impact; and program methodology vis-a-vis the underlying dimensions of critical pedagogy and applicability lessons.
Following the systematization and linkage of theories, processes, methods, and experiences, the study findings demonstrate the program’s relevance to broader opportunity schemes in youth empowerment, youth-led community transformation, and a youth-centered emancipatory education, contributing to a better understanding of critical pedagogy as a platform of possibility for young people in poverty-stricken territories. Together, these practical tools for capacity building, protagonism and participation - which draw from youth’s social history and knowledge - provides an illustration of how young people take part in social action, exercise their agency, and promote their cultural identities, while creating new platforms to challenge exclusion and advance practices of positive social regeneration

This essay analyzes the balance achieved in Buddhism between sweeping social reform and deep internal contemplation by tracing the history of Buddhism as a religion as well the historical precedent a differences between Theravada, Mahayana, and Zen Buddhism.

In this paper we articulate an empirical approach to the study of social action in digitallymediated contexts. Our approach extends Carl Couch’s theory of cooperative action, which is based on a set of “elements of sociation”: acknowledged attentiveness, mutual responsiveness, congruent functional identities, shared focus, and social objective. Three additional elements of sociation, adapted from studies of jazz performance, are added to the list of elements that characterize coordinated action: a formal theory of task performance, an informal theory of task performance, and synchronicity of individual actions. Using audio-visual recordings of gameplay, the minutiae of social action were captured and subjected to repetitive, reflexive and collaborative analysis in order to identify these patterns, including their potential causes and consequences. We use data from two games—the single-player real-time strategy game Eufloria and the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft...

PowerPoint on new book, Bahá’í Faith: The Basics (Routledge, 2021), for invited Zoom presentation, Sunday, June 27, 2021, on “Baha’i Explorations” program hosted by the Baha’is of Clearwater, FL, https://clearwaterbahais.org/blog/bahai-explorations.html. (Zoom video to be posted online soon.)

SLIDE #37:

Dynamic Bahá’í Principles
— Expressed as Actions —

    1.  Search for truth.
    2.  See humankind as one.
    3.  See religion as one.
    4.  Religions should unify.
    5.  Religion respects science.
    6.  Women and men are equal.
    7.  Abolish every prejudice.
    8.  Promote world peace.
    9.  Provide education for all.
    10. Economic problems require spiritual solutions.
    11. The Universal House of Justice is unique.
    12. The special Bahá’í “Covenant” protects Bahá’í unity.
    13. Adopt a universal auxiliary language.
    14. Work is worship.
    15. The Bahá’í Faith offers other “new principles.”

Source: Buck, Bahá’í Faith: The Basics (2021), Chap. 3.

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant-observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.

This paper argues for an Austin-inspired conception of speech acts as context-changing social actions. It explores some ways of conceiving of context in order to determine how context should be defined in this framework. It observes that the context against which Austin assesses infelicities consists of aspects of the world, while according to other speech act theorists, starting from John Searle, felicity conditions require that speakers have certain intentions and other appropriate attitudes. It argues that the context of a speech act should be considered as constructed as opposed to merely given, limited as opposed to extendible in any direction, and objective as opposed to cognitive. It explores whether these claims might be incompatible with each other, concluding that they are consistent. Finally, it takes into consideration the context-changing role of speech acts and the difference between its illocutionary dimension and its perlocutionary one.

Max Webers Religionssoziologie als eine Typologie und Soziologie des Rationalismus ist von Interesse geblieben, da in ihr nicht nur Einsichten in die Einstehung der Teilordnungen des modernen Gesellschaftssystems, sondern auch in die Entwicklung- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte des Okzidents überliefert sind. Diese Untersuchung nimmt im Kontext des Forschungsstandes eine Neubewertung seiner Religionssoziologie vor. Sie möchte zu einen Zugang zu Webers leitender Fragestellung beitragen und die Grenzen herausfinden, die uns heute von seiner Soziologie trennen.

Christian apologetics has traditionally been understood as an intellectual endeavor for theologians to provide a rational defense {apologia) for Christianity. However, the history of Christian missions demonstrates another kind of apologetics that is often ignored by popular Christian apologists: apologetics through social action. Intentionally or unintentionally, missionaries and pioneering local Christians have used social action and grassroots reform efforts as a reasonable defense for their Christian beliefs. Hence, in this chapter I will put forth a case for social action as apologetics, which I term as social apologetics. To propose the case effectively, first I will evaluate contemporary approaches to apologetics and offer social action as an alternative apologetic mediod through a concise exegetical analysis of 1 Peter 3:13-16. Second, I will provide a brief account of the lives of Pandita Ramabai and Amy Carmichael, giving attention to their social efforts and ethical living in India that stands as a testament of lived Christianity, where evangelism1 and social action2 were held in a holistic nature to provide a social defense (apologetic) for the gospel against social injustices.

Since the turn of the millennium, many Caribbean social scientists have still been battling to understand and thus solve old as well as new and emerging problems facing Caribbean countries. The dominant approach to understanding these problems has generally focused on systems, resources social action, social practices and forces of structure or lack thereof as units of analysis. Recent scholarship in the global sphere has, however, suggested that these problems may be, rather, a result of language and discourse. Yet, only a few Caribbean social scientists have recognized this discovery. And, even within this select group, none has demonstrated any real appreciation of systematically analyzing the discourses surrounding Caribbean social life, leaving them open to criticisms regarding rigour and trustworthiness. This has wide implications for the research process, the acceptance of findings as well as for policy recommendations. This article thus attempts to expand the social practice level analysis to include discourse as a moment of social life. It also seeks to highlight and draw attention to one possible methodology and analytical tool for systematically analyzing discourse – Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis Approach. Such an approach aims to explore as well as articulate how language, power and (to some extent) ideology are related to social practices as broader social and historical contexts. Given the power dynamics of Caribbean social life, such an approach is indeed appropriate. Introduction The Caribbean today still faces a number of old problems while being additionally threatened by new and emerging ones. Some of these problems include: marketization and global capitalism, the transformation of everything into merchandise – the commodification of everything, gender, health, sexuality, class, cultural, ethnic, colour and national difference, unjust social relations caused by these differences, poverty, inequality and unemployment (which may be a consequence of this difference) the imposition of knowledge, oppression, in-civility, corruption, organized violence hegemonic transnational institutions and their control of nation states and social actors, global surveillance, issues of privacy and the manipulation of identities through global information and communication technologies, as well as underdevelopment. Despite the many research projects to address these problems they still persist.

This paper contends the public sphere is a restrictive approach to public action. Despite the dysphoric development of the public sphere in post-modern societies, public action and communicative activity can easily be discerned if one recognizes that rational-critical deliberation is not the exclusive means to exercise it.
I propose to separate what is an historical and idealized construct – the public sphere – from the socio-anthropological principle -publicness.
The former consubstantiates a specific normative principle of legitimate political decision-making, as well as a peculiar space of communication and an ensemble of specific publics. The latter cannot be reduced to the strict formulation of the public sphere. Publicness is, first of all, a matter of cohesion and consensus on values in a society, reached through a communicative process that occurs in almost every social interaction. It does not absolutely depend on a capital Public or on a public sphere model to emerge and be felt by all members of a society.
By tracing a brief panorama in the three main models of the public sphere (Habermas, Arendt, Negt & Kluge’s models), the paper suggests going beyond the public sphere by envisioning publicness as a socio-anthropological principle characterized as being an empirical reality, as being pre-political and pre-institutional, as well as a process linked to social imaginaries.

An interdisciplinary investigation of relations between creativity and constructions of identity, experimental performance in film and theatre, collaborative discourse and social action. The work describes how problem-solving strategies and internal resources that I name collectively as Adaptivism have shaped my creative methods in community art, as well as provided a theoretical base for explicating critical junctions between performance, affect and performativity.