First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Intersectional scholarship has become increasingly important, largely because it is more nuanced than scholarship emphasizing only class, race, or gender. Much intersectional scholarship is limiting, however, in curtailing our conceptualizations of how many intersecting identities might be relevant for explaining crime. The older literature on deviant subcultures, including gang studies, actually addressed issues of intersectionality, and in a less restrictive manner, also acknowledging the importance of youth and neighborhood ecology. Drawing on early and more recent subcultural scholarship, the theoretical (...) importance of Weberian and ethnomethodological themes is illustrated, suggesting the value of closely empirical research sensitive to theoretical issues including how social categories are used in explaining crime and how patterns of offending are carried by individuals subject to categorization. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the struggle of alternative subcultures for recognition from a philosophical perspective. This examination makes use of Honnethian critical theory to examine the philosophical dimensions of the formation of subcultural groups. More specifically, this article makes use of the Goth subculture as a case study in order to shed light on the centrality of the concept of recognition to the activities of subcultures, and to outline the material harms that follow from (...) a lack of recognition. (shrink)

The article examines the views of the prominent Russian politician and publicist Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin, whom the author considers to be the largest ideologist of the “chieftain” political subculture in Russian political culture. Following Shulgin, the author distinguishes two fundamentally different models of power: “monarchical” type of power and “chieftain” type of power. V.V. Shulgin was one of the first Russian thinkers who, after Alexander Pushkin and Sergei Solovyov, considered the “golden age” of the Russian society to be under the (...) rule of “leaders-heroes”. Shulgin explained many of the problems of Russian statehood revealed in the early 20th century by the degradation of the Russian ruling class and specifically the Romanov dynasty. Under these conditions, the national leader P.A. Stolypin, able to bring the country out of crisis by evolution, had appeared “next to the monarch,” but he has not been appreciated by Russian society and it has caused a national catastrophe. The First World War has accelerated the degradation of the Russian government. The “democratic forces” that came to power in Russia for a short time could not nominate a new “leader” from their ranks. Shulgin foresaw that “intermediate figures” like the White generals or the Red diarchy of Lenin and Trotsky would eventually give way to the autocratic rule of an all-Russian “Chief,” who would combine the ideology of the Whites and the will of the Reds. (shrink)

Tests of models of reciprocal interactions of testosterone and behaviour patterns in honour subcultures, if based on adult samples measured at a single point in time, would be aided by measures of behaviour in such samples that indirectly index basal testosterone levels at earlier developmental ages, for example, hand preference and other measures of cerebral dominance. Such models raise questions about the social preconditions of honour subcultures, and their indirect effects on health.

Intersectionality has utilized various feminist theories that continue subculture of violence thinking about Black men and boys. While intersectional feminists often claim that intersectionality leads to a clearer social analysis of power and hierarchies throughout society and within groups, the categories and claims of intersectionality fail to distinguish themselves from previously racist theories that sought to explain race, class, and gender, based on subcultural values. This article is the first to interrogate the theories used to construct the gendered categories and (...) the assumptions behind Black male positionality under intersectional analyses. Contrary to its promises for more liberated Black identities, intersectionality merely replicates the pseudo-science of racist criminology and presents decades old theories as cutting-edge gender analyses. In short, while intersectionality has allowed Black women to create nuanced experiences and epistemological accounts of Black womanhood, the very same theory has confined Black male experience to the perpetration of violence and defined Black manhood as lesser—merely the exemplification of white masculinity’s pathological excess. (shrink)

Although popular music is increasingly recognized as an important area of inquiry in philosophy of art, many organizing principles have been taken over from other fields without scrutiny. This article selects heavy metal as an example of the value of applying philosophy of criticism to discourse about popular music. Metal is now in its fifth decade, and its combination of longevity and diversity have made it an attractive topic in popular music studies. In accounts of metal by musicologists and social (...) science researches, metal is almost always referred to as a genre of music, and the genre is said to unify diverse metal subcultures, which are associated with diverse styles of metal. An examination of the concepts of genre and subculture as they are typically understood in popular music studies generally, and in metal studies in particular, suggests that they do not function to delineate metal as a unitary category. However, contemporary philosophy of art provides several theoretical principles that provide criteria for identifying a unified genre. The relevant theories are historical definitions of art and Kendall Walton's account of style. Viewed in terms of these philosophical developments, metal should be seen as an evolving assemblage of related styles, only some of which are associated with fans who constitute a subculture. However, it is not a "category" in Walton's sense of that term. Video abstract. (shrink)

In the last decades sociological research documented a fragmented and changing plurality of practices, identities, forms of aggregation and youth models. Studies on musical subcultures are a privileged field for the confirmation of survey results; in this field we can see the contrast between the positions based upon the orthodox categories of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) – though adequated to new contexts and integrated with references to previously disregarded subcultures (McRobbie and Garber, Willis, Stanley Cohen, (...) Clarke, Frith) – and the positions inspired by postmodern theories, proposing a post-subcultural studies approach. Examples of the latter are Thornton’s studies on subcultural capital, Redhead’s, Melechi and Rietveld works on hedonistic subcultures, and the studies on fluid and emotional “neo-tribes”, theorized by Maffesoli and analyzed in the field of marketing by Cova and in the field of lifestyle by Shields, Hetherington, Muggleton, Malbon and Bennett. (shrink)

The year 2000 computer software problem is framed as a technological boundary and cultural object. The author documents and analyzes three subcultures' constructions of Y2K. The three subcultures are millennial Christians, militia-patriot survivalists, and computer professionals. Each subculture interpreted, received, comprehended, and explained the cultural object of Y2K. Combining the data from content analysis and interviews, the author creates a detailed picture of each subculture's response to Y2K. She compares and contrasts the three subcultures. Each subculture created (...) a subcultural filter based on previously held value and belief systems, attitudes toward technology and computers, and interpretations of social environments to create a unique picture of Y2K. She examines how each of the subcultures framed technology through the framing of it as a technological object. Each response was located within the technological determinism versus social determinism debate and juxtaposed with its place in the technology as utopian or dystopian. (shrink)

Salespeople have long been considered unique employees. They tend to work apart from each other and experience little daily contact with supervisors and other organizational employees. Additionally, salespeople interact with customers in an increasingly complex and multifunctional environment. This provides numerous opportunities for unethical behavior which has been chronicled in the popular press as well as academic research. Much of the research in sales ethics has relied on conceptual foundations which focus on individual and organizational influencers on ethical decision making. (...) While significant, contributors to this research suggest that alternative theoretical perspectives and methods of investigation should be utilized and call for more research on the status of professional selling as a whole. We answer this call by exploring an alternative and complementary perspective based on the theory of occupational choice, social learning, and work groups to gain insight on how the sales profession evolves as its own subculture that extends beyond individual and organizational boundaries. First, we discuss the characteristics of the sales profession and empirically examine the relationship between typical individual and organizational factors and sales professionals’ perceptions of ethical behavior. Second, we offer a theoretical explanation that our findings may be due to how salespeople choose and are socialized into the subculture of the sales profession. Third, we examine this theoretical perspective via qualitative in-depth interviews with experienced sales professionals. Results and implications are discussed in terms of a sales profession code of ethics and future research directions. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The article presents exploring the cultural and anthropological traits of consumers and producers of cultural services and products in the digital epoch. There have been singled out two types of cultural subjectivity according to the aim of a person’s activity in the virtual net: either production of things, services, and technologies or the consumption and creative use of all mentioned innovations. So these sociocultural formations are called "geek" and "chic" subcultures. _Theoretical basis._ The historical genealogy of the definitions (...) was analyzed, so as the changes in social esteem of the contribution of geeky persons to modern art and design practices. Social and cultural identities of those who belong to the modern youth-subcultural communities have been formed according to the topology and temporality of digital trends. To explain the worldview characteristics of the members of those subcultures the concept of "the New Middle Ages" was used to discover the values and pursuits of those who represent geek and chic subcultures. The study is based on the theoretical works of such classical authors as A. Toffler, and Z. Bauman, as well as current investigators of youth cultures. They are Calum Finister, Thomas V. Pollet, Nick Neave, Jessica McCain, Billy Wong. The chic subculture is oriented toward the imitation of visual images, consumer habits, and the way of life of successful (or seemed to be such) people. Glamorous followers need to receive approvals and likes from like-minded people. The geek subculture is more inner-sense-oriented. It unites intellectuals and activists who have common creative intentions. _Originality._ There have been analyzed the main attributes and features of such modern subcultures were conditionally named chic and geek. They were analyzed in the context of the concept of the New Middle Ages. _Conclusions._ The virtual user’s life world seems to be diverse only quantitatively, but qualitatively it is as narrow, mythopoetic, and esoterically uncritical as the world of the Medieval person, who used to live the whole life in the same place, mai in one’s village. But thanks to the merger of the IT industry with effective social management, the geek culture becomes a powerful super-subculture that defends values of social good, industrial productivity, and cultural creativity. Chic subculture creates new trends in fashion and art discourse. It develops modern lifestyles, its visual images with which our era will be associated in the future. (shrink)

Abstract: I argue that for psychological and social reasons, the traditional “Conflict Model” of science and religion interactions has such a strong hold on the nonexpert imagination that counterexamples and claims that interactions are simply more complex than the model allows are inadequate to undermine its power. Taxonomies, such as those of Ian Barbour and John Haught, which characterize conflict as only one among several possible relationships, help. But these taxonomies, by themselves, fail to offer an account of why different (...) relationships prevail among different communities and how they succeed one another within particular communities—that is, they contain no dynamic elements. To undermine the power of the “Conflict Model,” we should be seeking to offer alternative models for science and religion interactions that can both incorporate the range of stances articulated by scholars like Barbour and which can offer an account of the process by which differing attitudes succeed one another. As a step toward this goal, I propose a general “interacting subcultures model” and illustrate its applicability in a small number of mini-case studies from Early Modern Britain and France and with glances toward contemporary America. (shrink)

The subject of this work is the worldview of subculture and its complex interaction with the elements and structure of these groups. To do this, various types of subcultures are analyzed in detail in order to identify their unique ideological features and characteristics. The main purpose of the research is to find links between the worldview of subcultures and their structural elements, as well as to understand the impact of these links on socio-cultural processes. By analyzing these issues, (...) the study seeks to expand our understanding of subcultural dynamics and their place in the modern sociocultural context. The results of this work can be useful for further research in the field of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, as well as for the development of practical strategies for managing and supporting subcultural communities. To achieve the goals of the study, an anthropological analysis of subcultures is used, which includes an analysis of synchronous and diachronic aspects of the subcultural worldview, as well as comparative analysis. The scientific novelty of this work is manifested in a deep and comprehensive analysis of the diversity of types of worldview representation in various subcultures and their impact on a wide range of socio-cultural processes. The analysis presented in the study reveals unique aspects of the subcultural worldview and its diverse manifestations, which not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics of modern society, but also expands our knowledge of the mechanisms of formation and functioning of subcultural communities. The conclusions of this work are important both for academic research in the field of anthropology and sociology, and for practical applications, for example, those aimed at effective management and support of subcultural groups in modern society, including the development of policies and programs that promote inclusivity, cultural diversity and socio-cultural harmony. (shrink)

Consumer (in)vulnerability is studied via a quasi-ethnographic longitudinal study of adolescents aged 11–15. The study focuses on how adolescents define their vulnerabilities within their adolescent consumption subcultures, the factors enhancing this vulnerability, and the social actors involved in their experience of vulnerability. The findings contribute to consumer vulnerability literature in three ways. First, by adopting an adolescent-centric approach based on an emic perspective, we go beyond the monolithic approach of studying one source of vulnerability at a time seen in (...) present marketing literature. Instead, we introduce a polyadic or multiple simultaneous approaches that can consider risk sources. Second, the findings show that adolescents’ perceptions of consumer vulnerability are anchored within their consumption subcultures. This study introduces the concept that young consumers experience vulnerability in multiple ways, including imposed by adults or by adolescents deliberately engaging in risky behaviors. Third, this research provides ethics policy-makers and scholars with the conceptual framework of adolescent-centric vulnerability, which can help them to develop actions based on both imposed and deliberate sources of vulnerability from the perception of the adolescent. (shrink)

Mainstream science, technology, and society scholars have shown little interest in engineering ethics, one going so far as to label engineering ethics activists as “shit shovelers.” Detachment from engineering ethics on the part of most STS scholars is related to a broader and long-standing split between the scholar-oriented and activist-oriented wings of STS. This article discusses the various STS “subcultures” and argues that the much-maligned activist STS subculture is far more likely than the mainstream scholar subculture to have a (...) significant impact on engineering ethics education and practice. (shrink)

Introduction. The rapid dynamics of the present world results in its complication and construction. Reality turns out to be woven from many quote fragments, representing a collage that a person creates and comprehends through the prism of various texts. Constantly transformable forms come to the fore and, as a result, there exists a plurality of meanings. Models of the world are continuously generated, replacing the actual reality with a multi- tude of spectacular simulacra. The search for ways to comprehend reality (...) through the identification of markers of its transformations is noted, and under- standing becomes the basis of ontology and one of the dominants of consciousness in the last quarter of the 20th and first quarter of the 21st centuries. Signs and symbols of subculture, determined by the context of culture and presented by various means, become one of the markers of the social reality transformations. The purpose of the study is to show the markers of the transformation of the total communication society. Methods. Methodological framework is in G. Gadamer’s hermeneutic approach and the provi- sions of M. Halliday’s social semiotics to coding/de- coding the meanings of operators-markers of social transformations. In addition, other methods were used in the work - methods of analogy, analysis and synthesis. Fragments of the study devoted to the study of chanson as a creolized text required the use of a systematic method. Scientific novelty of the research. The authors re- vealed the specificity of the chanson as a creolized text and present understanding of the subculture as a marker of the social reality transformations, which is manifested by sign-symbolic forms of con- tinuously generated creolized texts, thanks to the technique and technologies of communication. Results. Markers of social reality transformations represent them in the format of creolized texts. What is broadcast in them is filled with a person and, consequently, his responsibility for their con- tent is growing. Semiotic methodology based on the synthesis of the intellectual capital of hermeneutics and linguistics makes it possible for us to consider them as a product of human sign-symbolic activity and decode the content. Conclusions. The specificity of human existence is determined by the existence of a person in the lin- guistic aspect of the world around him - the world is given by language, which involves the search for meaning and understanding of the world. Thinking and language are ontologically connected: mean- ing is expressed by linguistic means. Although the nature of the markers of social reality transforma- tions is different, nevertheless, it is presented and framed as a text, the understanding of which is one of the ways to comprehend social reality. (shrink)

This article maps a controversy in network science over the last 15 years, dividing the field about the epistemic status of a central notion, scale-freeness. The article accounts for the two main disputes, in 2005 and in 2018, as they unfolded in academic publications and on social media. This article analyzes the conflict, and the reasons why it reignited in 2018, to the surprise of many. It is argued that the concept of complex networks is shared by the distinct (...) class='Hi'>subcultures of theorists and experimentalists; and that these subcultures have incompatible approaches to knowledge: nomothetic and idiographic. Following Galison, this article contends that network science is a trading zone where theorists and experimentalists can trade knowledge across the epistemic divide. (shrink)

Subcultures are cultures formed by a social minority group that does not belong to the mainstream, and youth subcultures are subcultures specifically of youths. Youth subcultures have distinct clothing styles that differentiate them from popular culture and through which they express their values and individuality. Korea has a short history of subcultures, but it has quickly formed numerous unique subcultures influenced both by existing subcultures of Euro-America and Korean society. The purpose of this (...) research was to examine Korean youth subculture styles in terms of how they have evolved in a short period of time and how they have been affected by foreign and domestic elements. It provides insight on the symbolization of Korean youth subculture styles and how the changing styles reflect the state of mind and values of Korean youths today. (shrink)

Introduction. The article examines the role of youth culture (in particular, counterculture and subculture) in reformatting the modern sociocultural space. As long ago asin the 1970s. the researchers pointed out that young people, showing their active position, change the realities of the socio-cultural space in which their parents lived. The research is based on the materials of the graffiti and street art subculture, as an informal artistic practice. The graffiti subculture emerged among African American teenagers in the 1970s in New (...) York City. The first label that this subculture has been endowed with by society and city authorities is vandalism. However, in the late 1970s early 1980s graffiti is involved in the sphere of the art world institutions activities (private galleries) and becomes in demand among collectors. Street art emerges under its influence. The aim of the study is to reveal due to what characteristics of the socio-cultural space the transition from deviation (vandal practice) to the asserting norm became possible. Methods. The methodological basis of the research is the theory of generations by K. Mannheim and his concept of «fresh contact», which indicates the rethinking of the previously assimilated sociocultural experience by the subjects of culture. Another methodological basis is the concept of rhizome, introduced into scientific circulation by the philosophers J. Deleuze and F. Guattari. Scientific novelty of the research. It is shown how the rhizomatic principle of organizing culture is realized during the transition of youth practice from the space of deviant, in accordance with social norms, actions into the institutionalized space of the art world. Results. Using the example of the metamorphosis that the youth subculture of graffiti underwent in the late 20th — early 21st centuries, the author shows how the boundaries between norm and deviation are shifting in modern society. Conclusions. The rhizom principle, clearly manifested in the organization of the space of postmodern culture, allows graffiti and street art to make the above transition. The fall of the great narrative in the art world leads to the loosening of hierarchies and creates an opportunity for the integration of once marginal phenomena into the space of official art. K. Mannheim’s concept of «fresh contact» is effective in the study of postmodern culture. (shrink)

Based on data from a national survey and personal interviews with more than 300 religiously committed Protestants, this analysis assesses the range and location of attitudes toward feminism among conservative Protestants. Findings suggest that evangelicals are not uniformly antifeminist. Rather, the majority are both supportive and appreciative of the gains of liberal feminism as well as concerned that feminism has gotten off track by promoting an excessive individualism that undermines stable, meaningful, and caring relationships. For most evangelicals, feminism is neither (...) a significant subcultural religious boundary nor a focus of political mobilization or action. Political conservatism, embeddedness in conservative local religious subcultures, belief in husbands’ headship and authority, and affiliation with particular subgroups and denominations help to locate and specify the sources that create, reinforce, and sustain more negative attitudes toward feminism within this diverse religious subculture. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on the media's framing of non-mainstream body modification as a social problem. I demonstrate, through an analysis of a sample of 35 newspaper articles on body modification, that a mutilation discourse is one of the dominant frames of meaning used to make sense of body modifiers in the mainstream media. This framing, which effects the pathologization of body modifiers, utilizes the claims making of mental-health experts and relies on a gendered account of body modification as (...) a social problem. While news accounts are a medium for presenting body modification to a large `community of speakers', I find that they have precluded the legitimacy of the claims of subcultural actors. I argue from a poststructuralist perspective that body modifiers' `claims from the underside' are subjugated by accounts that problematize body modification through the dominant discourse of the mental-health model. I suggest that this frame is problematic for its silencing of `underside' or marginal embodied knowledges, which include, for example, alternative accounts of female embodiment. (shrink)

The Anxiety-Buffering Properties of Cultural and Subcultural Worldviews: Terror Management Processes among Juvenile Delinquents Terror management research indicates that people reminded of mortality strongly affirm values and standards consistent with their cultural worldview and distance themselves from values and standards inconsistent with it. However, limited research has addressed how individuals holding beliefs inconsistent with the dominant worldview cope with death-related anxiety. The present article aims to determine which worldview subcultural groups rely on when reminded of mortality: mainstream or subcultural? Juvenile (...) delinquents living in residential reformatories in Poland were invited to participate in a terror management study examining the anxiety-buffering strategies of individuals belonging to a group largely outside mainstream culture. Following reminders of mortality, juvenile delinquents increased support for values consistent with the mainstream cultural worldview and decreased support for values consistent with the subcultural worldview, as compared to control conditions. The present results suggest that when faced with existential threat, the subcultural worldview does not provide an adequate anxiety buffer, leading members of this subcultural group to display increased identification with mainstream cultural values. Additionally, participants' state anxiety following death reminders was mediated by mainstream cultural worldview defense. (shrink)

One of the most significant cultural manifestations in buyer behavior may be the way in which a product is evaluated as a function of its various attributes. People from different cultures have different experiences and value structures which may cause them to view products differently. This purpose of this study was to examine variation in product evaluation across three consumer ethnic subcultures in Malaysia: Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Mobile phone was chosen as the target product in this study. Exploratory (...) factor analysis, comparison of means, and analysis of variance were employed to analyze the data collected through a questionnaire survey. The results indicate that image, reference group influence, media, and post-sale services best distinguish the three ethnic groups in their evaluation of mobile phone attributes. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed. (shrink)

This article consists of textual analysis of a highly successful television series, Inspector Morse, combined with qualitative audience study. The study of Morse and the fan culture surrounding it is presented in the context of a discussion of recent feminist work on the texts and audiences of popular culture. The textual analysis focuses on those elements of the programmes which contribute to its success as ‘quality’ television, and particularly on Morse as an example of the role played by nostalgic representations (...) of Englishness in ‘quality’ media texts of the 1980s. The article goes on to discuss whether the presence of such representations in these programmes leads inevitably to a convergence of ‘quality’ and conservative ideology. The discussion of the ideological subtexts of the programmes then focuses on the area of gender representation, and on the extent to which feminist influences are discernible in this example of quality popular culture, particularly in its representations of masculinity. The second part of the article presents an analysis of a discussion group involving fans of the series, which was organized as part of a larger qualitative study of the fan culture surrounding the programmes. There is a detailed discussion of the impact of the social dynamics of the group on their readings of Morse. The analysis also focuses on the ways in which the discourses identified in the textual analysis, such as gender representation, quality and Englishness, are mobilized in talk about the programmes. Finally, the nature of the group made it possible to discuss the construction of a feminist subcultural identity in talk about a mainstream media text, and to identify irony and critical distance as key components of that identity, particularly in the discussion of the pleasures offered by the romance narratives of the programmes. (shrink)

The Native American Church is examined as an illustrative example in the political anthropology of consciousness. Specific attention is paid to the Supreme Court's ignoring of accepted research on this tradition and its sacrament, Peyote, in the case of Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith. An anthropological reaction to the Smith decision is constructed, focusing on ethnographic findings regarding Peyote that contradict the Supreme Court's ethnocentric assumptions. This paper argues that Peyote's Schedule I status is not supported by the ethnographic (...) findings. Peyote, as used in the Native American Church, is recognized as safe and therapeutic. It is also argued that the Supreme Court's rationale for denying Peyotist religious freedom is not supported by the ethnographic findings nor by legal precedent. Not only is the Native American's right to use Peyote a matter of freedom of religion, it also involves other rights such as the right to raise one's children in one's own culture and the right to be treated using a culturally relevant therapeutic modality. (shrink)

This study explores the integration of data journalism within three European legacy news organisations through the lens of organisational structure and professional culture. Interviews with data journalists and editors suggest that professional routines resonate with established data journalism epistemologies, values, and norms that appear to be constitutional for an inter-organisational data journalism subculture. At the same time, organisational structure either integrates the journalistic subculture by increasing levels of complexity, formalisation, and centralisation or rejects it by not accommodating it structurally or (...) culturally. The three data teams work along epistemologies of computer-assisted reporting, investigative journalism, and data journalism but differentiate themselves through nuanced understandings of data journalism practice, driven by individual journalists. After a structureless episode, one team sets itself apart as it diverges from data-driven routines and orients itself towards technological and interdisciplinary interactive journalism. The findings show an interdependence of individual efforts, varying conceptualisations of data journalism practice, and interplay between organisational structure and professional culture. (shrink)

Given the original founders, texts, and location of Critical Legal Studies, its association with the 1960s counterculture is uncontroversial. However, this paper interrogates the assumption that CLS is itself a counterculture by proxy. Drawing from seminal work on subcultures, moral panics, and the emerging field of minor jurisprudence, this paper recategorises Critical Legal Studies as a legal subculture. An argument of clarification underpins this recategorisation, addressing the relationship between CLS and the dominant legal framework, its relationship with the counterculture, (...) and why the reactions CLS received from the legal community were to be expected. (shrink)

The article looks at how the Internet can be imagined as a kind of psychedelic technology – in the sense of ‘manifesting’ new realities – through the lens of different ideas associated with Deleuze and Guattari. It considers a darker strain of their ideas and their reception, initially looking back to discussions from earlier cybertheory before taking as its case study the production of ‘microfascist’ subjectivities on the notorious website 4chan – arguably the point of origin of both the ‘alt-right’ (...) and ‘QAnon’. To unpack this case study, the article develops the idea of ‘weird mediation’ (in dialogue with Gilbert Simondon), as well as considering some ‘shamanic’ aspects from Deleuze and Guattari’s thought (in dialogue with Carlos Castenada), which together offer insights and warnings about the power of mind manifesting technologies. (shrink)

Fasting during pregnancy is an enigma: why would a woman restrict her food intake during a period of increased nutritional need? Relative to the costs to healthy individuals who are not pregnant, the physiological costs of fasting in pregnancy are amplified, with intrauterine death being one possible outcome. Given these physiological costs, the question arises as to the socioecological factors that give rise to fasting during pregnancy. There has been little formal research regarding the emic perceptions and socioecological factors associated (...) with such fasting. This study therefore took an emic approach and investigated the types of fasts that are common in pregnancy, women’s perceptions of the consequences of fasting, and the socioecological models of pregnancy fasting in three Indian communities. This cross-sectional study took place in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha state, and Mysore, Karnataka state, among two populations of Hindu women and one population of Muslim women (_N_ = 85). In total, 64% of women fasted in prior pregnancies. Findings revealed variation in the number and types of fasts that are common in pregnancy across the three communities. Each community reported differences in positive and negative consequences of fasting, with varied emphasis on reproductive health, religiosity, and general health and well-being. Finally, quantitative analyses indicated that the best-fitting model for fasting during pregnancy was religiosity, and the poorest-fitting models were resource scarcity and general health. This study provides insight into motivations for such fasting and highlights the need to investigate the relationship between supernatural beliefs and maternal–fetal protection further, as well as social functions of pregnancy fasting within the family and community. (shrink)