This article understands codes of ethics as written documents that represent social actors in specific ways through the use of language. It presents an empirical study that investigated the codes of ethics of the German Dax30 companies. The study adopted a critical discourse analysis-approach in order to reveal how the code-texts produce a particular understanding of the various internal social groups for the readers. Language is regarded as social practice that functions at creating particular understandings of (...) individuals and groups, how they are interrelated, and how they should behave. Findings show that codes of ethics do not represent employees as a group that is empowered or morally enlightened; instead they are positioned as passive receivers of rules and regulations. Furthermore, codes of ethics classify employees as having a need to be monitored and controlled by the higher levels of the corporate hierarchy. Overall, code language enforces compliance through maintaining existing and building new asymmetries between the different groups within a company. As a consequence, the article discusses a somewhat different understanding of code effectiveness. Reproducing and reemphasizing hierarchical relations could also lead to code compliance, perhaps without any need for developing the moral employee that is committed to ethical values. (shrink)

What is the appropriate degree of abstraction from existing social facts when engaging in normative political theory? Through a focus on American Indian and other indigenous claims over historically expropriated lands, this essay argues that highly abstracted forms of normative analysis can often misunderstand the core moral problems at stake in real cases, and that they can pose moral dangers when they do so. As argued, the hard moral issues involved in indigenous land claims within countries such as Canada (...) and the United States often have far more to do with questions about competing uses for public lands than with abstract property theory as such. The essay argues that normative theorists will often do more social good, and pose fewer dangers, when they pay close attention to the real moral challenges that social actors face on the ground than when they become captured by abstract questions with ambiguous practical importance. (shrink)

For the contemporary reader of Psychoanalysis: Its Image and Its Public the analyses of communicative systems in the book provides a challenging occasion for reconsidering current social psychological thinking about the character of social groups. In Moscovici's careful delineation of the communicative systems of diffusion, propagation and propaganda through his content analysis of the French press, one can also see the description of different types of group structured through distinctive social psychological organisations. Moscovici himself suggests that the (...) genres of diffusion, propagation and propaganda are each linked to the construction of a specific type of social-psychological object, opinion, attitude and stereotype respectively. But one can also identify different forms of affiliation corresponding to each communicative genre, and consequently also different representations of the people who constitute both the in-group and the out-group in each instance. The affiliative bonds might be described as forms of sympathy, communion and solidarity. (shrink)

This research investigates the representations of gendered social actors within the subversionary discourse of equal educational opportunities for males and females in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) books. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework, the authors blend van Leeuwen’s (Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Routledge, London, 2003) ‘Social Actor Network Model’ and Sunderland’s (Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2004) ‘Gendered Discourses Model’ in order to examine the depictions of male (...) and female social actors within this gendered discourse. The gendered discourse of equal opportunities was buttressed by such representations within a tight perspective in proportion to gender ideologies prevailing in Iran. Resorting to CDA, we can claim that resistance against such gendered discourse in Iranian EFL textbooks militates against such gender norms. These representations of male and female social actors in school books are indicative of an all-encompassing education, reinforcing that the discourse of equal opportunities is yet to be realized in the education system of Iran. (shrink)

A number of authors from different theoretical perspectives have called for new interdisciplinary ways of considering learning within the higher education context. Peter Jarvis’s lifelong learning perspective offers a viable alternative, but lacks a strong theory of the person as self, agent and actor. In response I propose that Margaret Archer’s realist social theory has a particular utility for bridging ‘common dualisms’ as part of an interdisciplinary enquiry into higher education learning, and offers a strong theory of the person.

This article sets out to show that Wittgenstein and Freud have exerted a considerable - though narrow - influence on Bourdieu’s sociology. But their influence also pervades the theoretical development of two other currents that have emerged in French sociology in the last few years, and that were developed by L. Boltanski and L. Thévenot on the one hand, and B. Lahire on the other. Although they do not make it explicit, the advocates of these two currents have nevertheless been (...) influenced by Wittgenstein and Freud. Thus Boltanski has drawn on Wittgenstein to develop a sociology which gives primacy to the social actor’s interpretation of his or her situation through lay theorizing. Lahire’s work clearly pays a debt to Freud with his psychological sociology. It would therefore be interesting, in the first instance, to tease out how Wittgenstein and Freud, respectively, have influenced these two systems to demonstrate that they can indeed be used to generate new sociological currents, other than Bourdieu’s own. This would then allow us to explore how they could be used to fill any gaps in Bourdieu’s work, thus giving the latter renewed relevance and staunching its stagnating tendencies. Ultimately, this analysis aims to show how Wittgenstein’s and Freud’s theoretical influences can lead the way towards a theoretical synthesis between Bourdieu’s critical sociology, Boltanski’s social actor theory and Lahire’s psychological sociology. Currently, these three currents operate independently of each other, without any kind of dialogue. And yet, far from being incompatible, these sociologies offer opportunities for exploring how they might complement and mutually enrich each other. (shrink)

Verbs in the passive voice have been described as linguistic features which can exert ideological effects because they typically omit the agent, or ‘doer’ of an action. These missing agents are said to be potentially ‘mystified’ to readers. But to what extent are these agents actually mystified to readers, and can we predict when mystification is likely to occur? A text-based analytical framework for inference prediction focusing on agency mystification was applied to two corpora of US newspaper editorials. Eighty-four percent (...) of passive verbs were predicted not to mystify agency for casual readers. To test this method of inference prediction, a reader response study was carried out in which readers were asked to identify agents that had been deleted from texts via the addition of agentless passives. By a standard of 50% accuracy, 74% of passives were found to be non-mystifying. These results suggest that agents missing from texts are likely to be inferred correctly by readers in a majority of cases and that mystification may be predictable from text analysis. (shrink)

The present work proposes to explore the discourse on migration in Arabic language media outlets. Present scientific literature in discourse analysis studies consistently analyzed discourses on migration and displayed the consistency of its features. In this paper, we will analyze how the Arabic discourse on migration in the Mediterranean area, either inbound or outbound, are realized and if they are shaped by the European discourse, in order to add an Arabic language contribution to the scientific discussion. The research showed that, (...) while most established categories typical of discourses of racism were present, others were put into discussion, and a context-bound system of representation emerged, with its specificities concerning the reality of migration into and from Arabic countries. However, the European discourse resulted a strong presence, even in the representation of outbound migration of the specific ingroup. (shrink)

This article is based on narrative, autobiographic interviews with domestic workers in Peru focusing on their migration and work experiences. The interviewees evoke a border discourse that divides and hierarchizes Peruvian society and stigmatizes migrants, especially migrant domestic workers. As domestic service leads to intense social interactions at this ‘border’, the interviewees are constantly forced to ‘translate’ when constructing their identity. The discourse-analytical bottom—up perspective focusing on membership categorization devices evaluates the performativity of the discourses of those considered as (...) ‘oppressed’; it analyses processes of subjection and subjectification: whereas some of the interviewees internalize the discursively attributed inferior ‘Me’, others use the constructed borders as an opportunity to develop hybrid discourse strategies that cross and even deconstruct social categorizations. By focusing on the agency of ‘border-crossers’, the article aims at scientifically ‘rethinking the social with cultural difference as a constitutive feature’. (shrink)

Much social theory takes for granted the core conceit of modern culture, that modern actors-individuals, organizations, nation states-are autochthonous and natural entities, no longer really embedded in culture. Accordingly, while there is much abstract metatheory about "actors" and their "agency," there is arguably little theory about the topic. This article offers direct arguments about how the modern (European, now global) cultural system constructs the modern actor as an authorized agent for various interests via an ongoing relocation into (...) society of agency originally located in transcendental authority or in natural forces environing the social system. We see this authorized agentic capability as an essential feature of what modern theory and culture call an "actor," and one that, when analyzed, helps greatly in explaining a number of otherwise anomalous or little analyzed features of modern individuals, organizations, and states. These features include their isomorphism and standardization, their internal decoupling, their extraordinarily complex structuration, and their capacity for prolific collective action. (shrink)

Latour is a world famous and widely published French sociologist who has written with great eloquence and perception about the relationship between people, science, and technology. He is also closely associated with the school of thought known as Actor Network Theory. In this book he sets out for the first time in one place his own ideas about Actor Network Theory and its relevance to management and organization theory.

This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected (...) to present their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)

In recent years, research on morality in organizational life has begun to examine how organizational conduct comes to be socially constructed as having failed to comply with a community’s accepted morals. Researchers in this stream of research, however, have paid little attention to identifying and theorizing the key actors involved in these social construction processes and the types of accounts they construct. In this paper, we explore a set of key structural and cultural dimensions of apparent noncompliance that (...) enable us to distinguish between four categories of actors who engage in constructing the label of moral failure: dominant insiders, watchdog organizations, professional members, and publics. The analysis further clarifies which category of actor is more likely to succeed in constructing the label of moral failure under which circumstances, and what accounts they are likely to use, namely scapegoating, prototyping, shaming, and protesting. (shrink)

The notion of transgenerational community is usually based on two diachronic interactions. The first interaction consists of present generations taking up the legacy (not only economic, but also institutional, artistic, cultural, and so forth) of past generations and giving it continuity, exercising a form of active agency. The second interaction occurs when present generations pass on their legacy to future generations. This is supposed to expand the boundaries of the community in a transgenerational sense (both backward- and forward-looking). In this (...) article we argue that the transgenerational community can be grounded on a different ontological insight: future generations play the role of fictional actors for present generations, i.e., present generations entertain a present-time interaction with future generations, insofar as future generations are functional for the realization of transgenerational actions. This lays the foundations for more solid community-based bonds of intergenerational justice. (shrink)

This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected (...) to present their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)

This paper analyzes two contemporary,?third-generation? perspectives within critical theory - Nancy Fraser?s and Axel Honneth?s - with the aim of examining the degree to which the two authors succeed in grounding the normative criteria of social critique in the perspectives of?ordinary? social actors, as opposed to speculative social theory. To that end, the author focuses on the influential debate between Fraser and Honneth Redistribution or Recognition? which concerns the appropriate normative foundations of a?post-metaphysical? critical theory, and (...) attempts to reconstruct the fundamental 29 disagreements between Fraser and Honneth over the meaning and tasks of critical theory. The author concludes that both critical theorists ultimately secure the normative foundations of critique through substantive theorizations of the social, which frame the two authors??reconstructions? of the normativity of everyday social action, but argues that post-metaphysical critical theory does not have to abandon comprehensive social theory in order to be epistmologically?non-authoritarian?. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has used findings in social psychology to put pressure on the claim that our moral beliefs can be non-inferentially justified. More specifically, he has suggested that insofar as our moral intuitions are subject to what psychologists call framing effects, this poses a real problem for moral intuitionism. In this paper, we are going to try to add more fuel to the empirical fire that Sinnott-Armstrong has placed under the feet of the (...) intuitionist. Along the way, we first provide an overview of what Sinnott-Armstrong calls the Master Argument against intuitionism. Then we examine some of the literature on framing effects—especially as it pertains to moral philosophy. Finally, we present the results of a new study which create yet another hurdle intuitionists must clear if they want to motivate their view. It appears that in addition to being influenced by framing effects, our moral intuitions are also influenced by an actor–observer bias as well—a bias whereby we hold other people to different moral standards than we would hold ourselves even if we were in the same situation. If we’re right, the burden is on the moral intuitionist to explain why we should have faith in our moral intuitions despite the gathering evidence concerning their seeming unreliability. And by our lights, this is something that simply cannot be done from the armchair. (shrink)

Social interactions are essential aspects of social relationships. Despite their centrality, there is a lack of a standardized approach to systematize social interactions. The present research developed and tested a taxonomy of social interactions. In Study 1, we combined a bottom-up approach based on the grounded theory with a top-down approach integrating existing empirical and theoretical literature to develop the taxonomy. The resulting taxonomy comprises the components Actor, Partner, Relation, Activities, Context, and Evaluation, each specified by (...) features on three levels of abstraction. A social situation can be described by a combination of the components and their features on the respective abstraction level. Study 2 tested the APRACE using another dataset with 1,899 descriptions of social interactions. The index scores of the six components, the frequencies of the features on the most abstract level, and their correlations were largely consistent across both studies, which supports the generalizability of the APRACE. The APRACE offers a generalizable tool for the comprehensive, parsimonious, and systematic description of social interactions and, thus, enables networked research on social interactions and application in a number of practical fields. (shrink)

Most of human-robot interaction (HRI) research relies on an implicit assumption that seems to drive experimental work in interaction studies: the more anthropomorphism we can reach in robots, the more effective the robot will be in 'being social.' The notion of 'sociomorphing' was developed in order to challenge the assumption of ubiquitous anthropomorphizing. This paper aims to explore the notion of sociomorphing by analysing the possibilities offered by actor-network theory (ANT). We claim that ANT is a valid framework to (...) re-think the conceptual couple anthropomorphizing / sociomorphing and answer the following question: What kind of negotiation process and social practices can be developed in HRI, given the notion of sociomorph interactional networks? (shrink)

The Evolving Social Responsibilities of Internet Corporate Actors: Pointers Past and Present Content Type Journal Article Category Commentary Pages 455-461 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0049-0 Authors Robert Madelin, Directorate General Information Society and Media, European Commission, BU25 06/183, 1049 Brussels, Belgium Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433 Journal Volume Volume 24 Journal Issue Volume 24, Number 4.

In this article, I address the question whether or not robots should be social actors and suggest that we do not have much choice but to construe collaborative robots as social actors. Social cues, including emotional displays, serve coordination functions in human interaction and therefore have to be used, even by robots, in order for long-term collaboration to succeed. While robots lack the experiential basis of emotional display, also in human interaction much emotional expression is (...) part of conventional social practice; if robots are to participate in such social practices, they need to produce such signals as well. I conclude that if we aim to share our social spaces with robots, they better be social actors, which may even include the display of emotions. This finding is of empirical as well as philosophical relevance because it shifts the ethical discussion away from the question, how social collaborative robots should be, to the question, what kinds of human-robot collaborations we want. (shrink)

In this article, I address the question whether or not robots should be social actors and suggest that we do not have much choice but to construe collaborative robots as social actors. Social cues, including emotional displays, serve coordination functions in human interaction and therefore have to be used, even by robots, in order for long-term collaboration to succeed. While robots lack the experiential basis of emotional display, also in human interaction much emotional expression is (...) part of conventional social practice; if robots are to participate in such social practices, they need to produce such signals as well. I conclude that if we aim to share our social spaces with robots, they better be social actors, which may even include the display of emotions. This finding is of empirical as well as philosophical relevance because it shifts the ethical discussion away from the question, how social collaborative robots should be, to the question, what kinds of human-robot collaborations we want. (shrink)

La relación entre maternidad y trabajo ha sido materia de políticas públicas desde comienzos del siglo XX, pero en las últimas décadas ha adquirido nuevas connotaciones por el aumento de la participación laboral femenina. Ello no ha conducido a una eliminación de las discriminaciones que enfrentan las trabajadoras por su condición (real o potencial) de madres, ni a una organización del mercado de trabajo que permita articular demandas laborales y familiares, ni una redistribución del trabajo reproductivo. Para analizar cómo actores (...) involucrados en la formulación de políticas relacionadas con esta temática concebían la relación entre trabajo y maternidad y las tensiones que derivaban de ella, se entrevistó a un grupo de actores sociales provenientes de tres ámbitos. Dos ideas caracterizan sus concepciones: las normas de protección a la maternidad en el trabajo afectan negativamente la empleabilidad femenina y la relación maternidad trabajo es difícil porque la organización del mercado de trabajo dificulta la articulación de responsabilidades laborales y familiares. Respecto de las tensiones, se constataron en diferentes dimensiones: económica, demográfica, ejercicio de derechos y sociocultural. (shrink)

Background The world is urbanizing rapidly; more than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, leading to significant transition in lifestyles and social behaviours globally. While offering many advantages, urban environments also concentrate health risks and introduce health hazards for the poor. In Bangladesh, although many public policies are directed towards equity and protecting people’s rights, these are not comprehensively and inclusively applied in ways that prioritize the health rights of citizens. The country is thus facing many (...) issues that raise moral and ethical concerns. Methods A narrative literature review was conducted between October 2016 and November 2017 on issues related to social justice, health, and human rights in urban Bangladesh. The key questions discussed here are: i) ethical dilemmas and inclusion of the urban poor to pursue social justice; and ii) the ethical obligations and moral responsibilities of the state and non-state sectors in serving Bangladesh’s urban poor. Using a Rawlsian theory of equality of opportunity to ensure social justice, we identified key health-related ethical issues in the country’s rapidly changing urban landscape, especially among the poor. Results We examined ethical dilemmas in Bangladesh’s health system through the rural–urban divide and the lack of coordination among implementing agencies. The unregulated profusion of the private sector and immoral practices of service providers result in high out-of-pocket expenditures for urban poor, leading to debt and further impoverishment. We also highlight policy and programmatic gaps, as well as entry points for safeguarding the right to health for Bangladeshi citizens. Conclusions The urban health system in Bangladesh needs a reform in which state and non-state actors should work together, understanding and acknowledging their moral responsibilities for improving the health of the urban poor by engaging multiple sectors. The social determinants of health should be taken into account when formulating policies and programs to achieve universal health coverage and ensure social justice for the urban poor in Bangladesh. (shrink)

This paper examines the consequences of a culture of “personal ethics” when using new methodologies, such as the use of social media sites as a source of data for research. Using SM research as an example, this paper explores the practices of a number of actors and researchers within the “Ethics Ecosystem” which as a network governs ethically responsible research behaviour. In the case of SM research, the ethical use of this data is currently in dispute, as even (...) though it is seemingly publically available, concerns relating to privacy, vulnerability, potential harm and consent blur the lines of responsible ethical research behaviour. The findings point to the dominance of a personal, bottom-up, researcher-led, ‘ethical barometer’ for making decisions regarding the permissibility of using SM data. We show that the use of different barometers by different researchers can lead to wide disparities in ethical practice - disparities which are compounded by the lack of firm guidelines for responsible practice of SM research. This has widespread consequences on the development of shared norms and understandings at all levels, and by all actors within the Ethics Ecosystem, and risks inconsistencies in their approaches to ethical decision-making. This paper argues that this governance of ethical behaviour by individual researchers perpetuates a negative cycle of academic practice that is dependent on subjective judgements by researchers themselves, rather than governed by more formalised academic institutions such as the research ethics committee and funding council guidelines. (shrink)

In order to delimit the realm of social phenomena, sociologists refer implicitly or explicitly to a distinction between living human beings and other entities, that is, sociologists equate the social world with the world of living humans. This consensus has been questioned by only a few authors, such as Luckmann, and some scholars of science studies. According to these approaches, it would be ethnocentric to treat as self-evident the premise that only living human beings can be social (...) actors. The methodological consequence of such critique is a radical deanthropologization of sociological research. It must be considered an open question whether or not only living human can be social actors. The paper starts with a discussion of the methodological problems posed by such an analysis of the borders of the social world, and presents the results of an empirical analysis of these borders in the fields of intensive care and neurological rehabilitation. Within these fields it must be determined whether a body is a living human body or a symbol using human body. The analysis of these elementary border phenomena challenges basic sociological concepts. The relevant contemporary sociological theories refer to a dyadic constellation as the systematic starting point of their concept of sociality. The complex relationship between at least two entities is understood as the basis of the development of a novel order that functions as a mediating structure between the involved parties. Based upon empirical data, I argue that it is necessary to change this foundational assumption. Not the dyad but the triad must be understood as the foundational constellation. This implies a new understanding of the third actor, which is distinct from the concepts developed by Simmel and Berger and Luckmann. (shrink)

The article starts with the brief review of the history of the creation of actor-network theory (ANT), followed by the explanation of its basic notions. The author observes the difficulties of understanding and translation of the main ANT terms “actor” and “network”. In the main part of the article the author considers a famous episode from the history of giant airships known as “Miracle at Echterdingen” – that is a sudden revelation of the national spirit of German Empire as the (...) result of the flight and catastrophe of zeppelin LZ4 in august 1908. She discusses methodological limits of the historical reconstructions of “Miracle at Echterdingen” in Douglas Botting’s “The Giant Airships” (1980) and Peter Fritzche’s “Nation of Fliers” (1992). It is demonstrated that ANT allows to overcome not only the obvious weakness of the linear narrative that Botting followed, but also the oxydenthalism of Peter Fritsche’s approach and to confirm Latour’s thesis that “modernism’s accounts of itself may have no relation to what has actually happened to it”. As the result of the implementation of ANT, the network of forces which circulated in German society and lead to the Echterdingen phenomenon, is revealed. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales, thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche innovators can (...) become important actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program, to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey and in-depth interviews were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

This article presents a model of the production of human behaviour, grounded in a pragmatist perspective. The model has two components: a small set of considered behaviours, and a set of motivators which I group into four subsets: material, reproductive, and two sets of attributional motivators. The model is based on a minimum principle. A person performs that considered behaviour which comes closest to ideal in light of the person's motivators. I show that both declining marginal utility and satisfying follow (...) as deductions from the model. In addition, especially with the inclusion of attributional motivators, the model accounts for a variety of findings in social science. I also show how it can generate theory and testable empirical predictions. (shrink)

The question of judgment has become one of the central problems in recent social, political and ethical thought. This paper explores Hannah Arendt's decisive contribution to this debate by attempting to reconstruct analytically two distinctive perspectives on judgment from the corpus of her writings. By exploring her relation to Aristotelian and Kantian sources, and by uncovering debts and parallels to key thinkers such as Benjamin and Heidegger, it is argued that Arendt's work pinpoints the key antinomy within political judgment (...) itself, that between the viewpoints of the political actor and the political spectator. The paper concludes by highlighting some lacunae and difficulties in the development of Arendt's account, difficulties that set challenges for those theorists (such as Seyla Benhabib and Alessandro Ferrara) who wish to appropriate and extend Arendt's contribution into the field of contemporary critical theory. Key Words: action • aesthetics • community • freedom • history • judgment • reflection. (shrink)

El artículo presenta avances de una investigación realizada en San Carlos de Bariloche por un equipo de profesoras y estudiantes del IFDC Bariloche: "Condiciones que favorecen y obstaculizan la inclusión educativa de jóvenes y adultos/as con discapacidad intelectual en educación primaria, secundaria y técnico-profesional en San Carlos de Bariloche". Se comparten aportes jurídico-normativos, dimensiones del marco teórico, y avances a partir del análisis de entrevistas iniciales a equipos directivos, docentes, y a un estudiante con DI. Finalmente, se exponen facilitadores y (...) barreras para la inclusión educativa y social, y aportes para la discusión acerca de la temática. (shrink)

Resumen: Algo particular de los estudios de la ciencia, tecnología y sociedad son sus formas de relacionar objetos y prácticas. La relación difiere del papel que tiene en la sociología de la ciencia y en la construcción social de la tecnología. Suele afirmarse en CTS, contradiciendo conocimientos humanistas, que la naturaleza de los actores sociales no estaría definida por adelantado. Asumir lo semiótico como algo excepcional del sujeto humano, donde los objetos sólo acreditan sus agencias a través de procesos (...) simbólicos, sería perder de vista la riqueza empírica de las prácticas colectivas que articulan lo humano y lo no-humano. En cambio, sujetos y objetos suelen pensarse en CTS como efectos sociomateriales reconfigurables de relaciones in situ. La figura del actor-red, la lectura situada de actores material-semióticos, el estudio de objetos frontera y el uso de métodos de ensamblaje son algunas de los virajes en este giro de la teoría de la acción. Aquí voy a delinear un recorrido parcial a través de sus argumentos, introduciendo el debate sobre las divisiones entre naturaleza y cultura, para examinar la noción de agencia con los conceptos de traducción, configuración, multiplicidad y no-coherencia. A modo de ejemplo, termino con una lectura sobre la socialidad y espacialidad de los cajeros automáticos.: Studies of science, technology and society are characteristics in relating objects and practices. The relationship differs from the role it has in the sociology of science and in the social construction of technology. It is usually affirmed in STS, contradicting humanities, that the nature of the social actors would not be defined in advance. Considering that the semiotic is something exceptional of the human subject, where objects only accredit their agencies through symbolic processes, would be to lose sight of the empirical richness of collective practices that articulate the human and the non-human. Instead, subjects and objects are often thought of in STS as reconfigurable sociomaterial effects of in situ relationships. The figure of the actor-network, the situated reading of material-semiotic actors, the study of boundary objects and the use of assembly methods are some of the conceptual turns in this variation of action theory. Here I will delineate a partial route to travel through its arguments, introducing the debate on the divisions of nature and culture, to examine the notion of agency with the concepts of translation, configuration, multiplicity and non-coherence. As an example, I finish with a reading on the sociality and spatiality of ATMs. (shrink)

One of the strikingly iconoclastic features of actor-network theory is its juxtaposition of the claim to be a realist perspective with denials that supposedly natural phenomena existed before scientists “made them up.” This paper explains and criticizes such arguments in the work of Bruno Latour. By combining referent and reference in the concept of assemblages, Latour provides a superficially viable way to reconcile these apparently incompatible claims. This paper will argue, however, that this conflation of referent and reference leads Latour’s (...) ontology into difficulties that can only be resolved by abandoning it in favor of a more conventional—critical—realism. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand the kind of activities that industrial actors develop in order to protect their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. A series of political unrest, insurgency, economic turmoil, deadly earthquakes, and economic embargo at the Indo- Nepal boarder escalated the industrial crisis in Nepal. The quest for sustainability of enterprises during the enduring nature of the crisis stimulated for a more detail conversation and survey. A perceptual survey of industrial actors accompanying conversation therein indicates that (...) trade union and association leaders develop positive attitude and advance specific activities for protecting their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. The study finds that an empathic nature helps to develop a positive attitude among the industrial actors, which seems contributory for enterprises to survive during crisis conditions. The actors tend to positively perceive significance of specific activities under the conditions of difficulties and hardships and enhance immunity to the industrial crisis. This paper argues that the empathic nature of the industrial actors becomes more effective to safeguard the pluralistic interests of the stakeholders of the enterprise than the self- centric nature of the actors. The actors are not only engaged in safeguarding their claims on the industry but are also contributing—beyond their routine work—positively to strengthen the enterprise immunity during difficulties. This paper concludes with an insight of shifting managerial attention from the generic concepts like cost minimisation and product differentiation to the concepts of regularity in supply of goods and services in the business network by expanding the scope of industrial relations vertically and horizontally. The empathic nature of industrial actors enhances the effectiveness of the general system theory and social network theory by developing understanding of the role of industrial actors’ relations in sustaining and operationalizing a business network under organizational crisis conditions. (shrink)

This article refers to the idea of Constitution, understood as a social contract. It is argued that the emergence of new actors in the Latin American constituent processes has made it possible to appreciate the Constitutions as increasingly complex pacts. It is not only a pact “between individuals” or “between citizens”, but it can also be understood as an agreement between cultures, between human beings and nature, and even between men and women. It ends by noting that, as (...) new groups participate in the constituent processes, the pacts will also become increasingly diverse, so that the concept of Constitution continues to be a concept in construction. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales (e.g., regional, national, international), thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime (...) where niche innovators can become important actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program (Postgraduate Diploma in Local Agroecological Dynamization at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey (n = 46) and in-depth interviews (n = 16) were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)