Conceptualizing Society

Conceptualizing Society
Author: Adam Kuper
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2002-03-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134926480

The social anthropologists represented in this volume share the view that, together, ethnography and theoretically informed comparison constitute a single, plausible enterprise, and they reject both the postmodernist criticism of ethnography as epistemologically problematic, and the opposing view that no theory could possibly do justice to the insights and complex descriptions of ethnography. In this volume, the first papers taken from the first conference of the newly-formed European Association of Social Anthropologists, the contributors discuss the various models at the disposal of the modern ethnographer. Their concerns range through structuralism, postmodernism and world systems theory, and the volume as a whole offers a lively account of the state of general theory in social anthropology today.

Conceptualizing Society

Conceptualizing Society
Author: Adam Kuper
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2002-03-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134926499

The social anthropologists represented in this volume share the view that, together, ethnography and theoretically informed comparison constitute a single, plausible enterprise, and they reject both the postmodernist criticism of ethnography as epistemologically problematic, and the opposing view that no theory could possibly do justice to the insights and complex descriptions of ethnography. In this volume, the first papers taken from the first conference of the newly-formed European Association of Social Anthropologists, the contributors discuss the various models at the disposal of the modern ethnographer. Their concerns range through structuralism, postmodernism and world systems theory, and the volume as a whole offers a lively account of the state of general theory in social anthropology today.

Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes

Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes
Author: Rolf A. Lundin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1461556910

There is a growing tendency to organize various aspects of business life by projects, and to set up temporary organizations in a competition where speed and adaptability becomes a major necessity. Organizing by projects is perceived as a good way to ensure action and to stress the importance of getting work done. However, there is a need to balance the stress on action so that learning capabilities are not only retained, but augmented. Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes provides examples of how different types of projects function from a learning or renewal perspective, taken from a wide variety of real-life environments in industrial and public organizations. This book illustrates the mistaken habit of assuming too much in the project area: for example, project notions are, in fact, culture-dependent; classical market-oriented contracting business relations do not fit with the learning dimension of projects; and long-term learning on core competencies and product development projects need to be connected. The book is also intended to represent many of the research frontiers in the project field. Enhancing learning capabilities is - or should be - of a mutual concern to researchers and managers alike.

Conceptualizing Politics

Conceptualizing Politics
Author: Furio Cerutti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317037502

Politics is hugely complex. Some try to reduce its complexity by examining it through an ideological worldview, a one-size-fits-all prescriptive formula or a quantitative examination of as many 'facts' as possible. Yet politics cannot be adequately handled as if it were made of cells and particles: ideological views are oversimplifying and sometimes dangerous. Politics is not simply a moral matter, nor political philosophy a subdivision of moral philosophy. This book is devised as a basic conceptual lexicon for all those who want to understand what politics is, how it works and how it changes or fails to change. Key concepts such as power, conflict, legitimacy and order are clearly defined and their interplay in the state, interstate and global level explored. Principles such as liberty, equality, justice and solidarity are discussed in the context of the political choices confronting us. This compact and systematic introduction to the categories needed to grasp the fundamentals of politics will appeal to readers who want to gain a firmer grasp on the workings of politics, as well as to scholars and students of philosophy, political science and history.

Conceptualizing Religion

Conceptualizing Religion
Author: Benson Saler
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781571812193

How might we transform a folk category - in this case religion - into a analytical category suitable for cross-cultural research? In this volume, the author addresses that question. He critically explores various approaches to the problem of conceptualizing religion, particularly with respect to certain disciplinary interests of anthropologists. He argues that the concept of family resemblances, as that concept has been refined and extended in prototype theory in the contemporary cognitive sciences, is the most plausible analytical strategy for resolving the central problem of the book. In the solution proposed, religion is conceptualized as an affair of "more or less" rather than a matter of "yes or no," and no sharp line is drawn between religion and non-religion.

Conceptualizing Music

Conceptualizing Music
Author: Lawrence M. Zbikowski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2002-11-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 019803217X

This book shows how recent work in cognitive science, especially that developed by cognitive linguists and cognitive psychologists, can be used to explain how we understand music. The book focuses on three cognitive processes--categorization, cross-domain mapping, and the use of conceptual models--and explores the part these play in theories of musical organization. The first part of the book provides a detailed overview of the relevant work in cognitive science, framed around specific musical examples. The second part brings this perspective to bear on a number of issues with which music scholarship has often been occupied, including the emergence of musical syntax and its relationship to musical semiosis, the problem of musical ontology, the relationship between words and music in songs, and conceptions of musical form and musical hierarchy. The book will be of interest to music theorists, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists, as well as those with a professional or avocational interest in the application of work in cognitive science to humanistic principles.

Crossing the Threshold; Embracing the Call: Conceptualizing, Co-Creating, and Building Community Through Rites of Passage

Crossing the Threshold; Embracing the Call: Conceptualizing, Co-Creating, and Building Community Through Rites of Passage
Author: Kamau Ptah
Publisher: Bookclick 360 Wordeee
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2024-09-04
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1959811592

Crossing the Threshold; Embracing the Call: Conceptualizing, Co-Creating and Building Community Through Rites of Passage is an important and seminal work that guides a new generation of educators, counselors, cultural custodians, life coaches, and Rites of Passage facilitators through timeless pillars, concepts, and frameworks on coming of age rituals for boys of African and Indigenous ancestry. The book contextualizes transformational initiation experiences that have occurred in their personal lives and provides the tools for designing passages for future generations. It also provides the foundation for harvesting affirmative identity, sacred gifts, and the actualization of one's Divine purpose by restoring sacred and timeless African rituals for optimal levels of community building. Crossing the Threshold represents a lifelong journey of Kamau Ptah's passages, coupled with thirty years of professional experiences conceptualizing, designing, implementing, co-creating, and facilitating rites of passage in every community he has served worldwide.

Conceptualizing Racism

Conceptualizing Racism
Author: Noel A. Cazenave
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1442252367

Conceptualizing Racism is a provocative book that confronts the language we use to discuss and understand racism. Author Noel A. Cazenave argues that American social science has, since its inception, practiced linguistic racial accommodation that blurs our understanding of systemic racism and makes it difficult to effect meaningful change. Conceptualizing Racism highlights how words matter in racism studies. The author traces the history of linguistic racial accommodation through the development of sociology as a discipline and illustrates how it is at play today, not only within the discipline but in public life.

On Society

On Society
Author: Anthony Elliott
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2012-04-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 074564841X

An erudite and original book that gets to grips with a central bone of contention in the social sciences and beyond: what do we mean by 'society'?