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Book part
Publication date: 4 December 2009

George Steinmetz

Anthropologists have long discussed the ways in which their discipline has been entangled, consciously and unconsciously, with the colonized populations they study. A foundational…

Abstract

Anthropologists have long discussed the ways in which their discipline has been entangled, consciously and unconsciously, with the colonized populations they study. A foundational text in this regard was Michel Leiris' Phantom Africa (L'Afrique fantôme; Leiris, 1934), which described an African ethnographic expedition led by Marcel Griaule as a form of colonial plunder. Leiris criticized anthropologists' focus on the most isolated, rural, and traditional cultures, which could more easily be described as untouched by European influences, and he saw this as a way of disavowing the very existence of colonialism. In 1950, Leiris challenged Europeans' ability even to understand the colonized, writing that “ethnography is closely linked to the colonial fact, whether ethnographers like it or not. In general they work in the colonial or semi-colonial territories dependent on their country of origin, and even if they receive no direct support from the local representatives of their government, they are tolerated by them and more or less identified, by the people they study, as agents of the administration” (Leiris, 1950, p. 358). Similar ideas were discussed by French social scientists throughout the 1950s. Maxime Rodinson argued in the Année sociologique that “colonial conditions make even the most technically sophisticated sociological research singularly unsatisfying, from the standpoint of the desiderata of a scientific sociology” (Rodinson, 1955, p. 373). In a rejoinder to Leiris, Pierre Bourdieu acknowledged in Work and Workers in Algeria (Travail et travailleurs en Algérie) that “no behavior, attitude or ideology can be explained objectively without reference to the existential situation of the colonized as it is determined by the action of economic and social forces characteristic of the colonial system,” but he insisted that the “problems of science” needed to be separated from “the anxieties of conscience” (2003, pp. 13–14). Since Bourdieu had been involved in a study of an incredibly violent redistribution of Algerians by the French colonial army at the height of the anticolonial revolutionary war, he had good reason to be sensitive to Leiris' criticisms (Bourdieu & Sayad, 1964). Rodinson called Bourdieu's critique of Leiris' thesis “excellent’ (1965, p. 360), but Bourdieu later revised his views, noting that the works that had been available to him at the time of his research in Algeria tended “to justify the colonial order” (1990, p. 3). At the 1974 colloquium that gave rise to a book on the connections between anthropology and colonialism, Le mal de voir, Bourdieu called for an analysis of the relatively autonomous field of colonial science (1993a, p. 51). A parallel discussion took place in American anthropology somewhat later, during the 1960s. At the 1965 meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Marshall Sahlins criticized the “enlistment of scholars” in “cold war projects such as Camelot” as “servants of power in a gendarmerie relationship to the Third World.” This constituted a “sycophantic relation to the state unbefitting science or citizenship” (Sahlins, 1967, pp. 72, 76). Sahlins underscored the connections between “scientific functionalism and the natural interest of a leading world power in the status quo” and called attention to the language of contagion and disease in the documents of “Project Camelot,” adding that “waiting on call is the doctor, the US Army, fully prepared for its self-appointed ‘important mission in the positive and constructive aspects of nation-building’” a mission accompanied by “insurgency prophylaxis” (1967, pp. 77–78). At the end of the decade, Current Anthropology published a series of articles on anthropologists’ “social responsibilities,” and Human Organization published a symposium entitled “Decolonizing Applied Social Sciences.” British anthropologists followed suit, as evidenced by Talal Asad's 1973 collection Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. During the 1980s, authors such as Gothsch (1983) began to address the question of German anthropology's involvement in colonialism. The most recent revival of this discussion was in response to the Pentagon's deployment of “embedded anthropologists” in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East. The “Network of Concerned Anthropologists” in the AAA asked “researchers to sign an online pledge not to work with the military,” arguing that they “are not all necessarily opposed to other forms of anthropological consulting for the state, or for the military, especially when such cooperation contributes to generally accepted humanitarian objectives … However, work that is covert, work that breaches relations of openness and trust with studied populations, and work that enables the occupation of one country by another violates professional standards” (“Embedded Anthropologists” 2007).3 Other disciplines, notably geography, economics, area studies, and political science, have also started to examine the involvement of their fields with empire.4

Details

Political Power and Social Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-667-0

Article
Publication date: 24 September 2020

Sid Lowe and Nirundon Tapachai

This paper aims to explore the implications of applying a Bourdieusian meta-framework to business interaction and relationship building within networks. The motive is to advocate…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the implications of applying a Bourdieusian meta-framework to business interaction and relationship building within networks. The motive is to advocate the use of Bourdieu’s work in its entirety rather than sub-optimal use of selected concepts in isolation.

Design/methodology/approach

The aim of this conceptual paper is to explore how a Bourdieusian framework benefits understanding of structure/agency relations as a mutually constituted duality within business networks. The concept of duality regard relationships as emergent from synergies between structure and agency made possible by the translational capacity of “habitus”. Habitus is, therefore, the main intersection, catalyst or chiasmus between structure and agency facilitating enacted, emergent properties of business relationships.

Findings

The Bourdieusian framework suggests that structures and practices are related by multiple dualities brokered by multiple knowledge forms. The main contribution that this triadic framework brings to debates on structure-agency relationships is mostly contained in the concept of “habitus”, which is identified as a translation vehicle provides critical brokerage between actors’ resource structures and activities. It is a key concept that helps us understand how structures and agentic behaviours are equally important and mutually constituting influences upon emergent properties of business interaction. For business marketing, this means that the habitus of actors’ schemas are both embodied and cognitive. Habitus acts as the main catalyst for emergent and diverse capital resources and a plural set of skills essential for effective practical activities.

Research limitations/implications

The research focus of a Bourdieusian framework is upon investigating a triadic understanding of concepts of habitus, field and practice as elements of a “pan-relational” or mutually constituted amalgam facilitated by a corresponding triadic relationship between three types of knowledge; namely, “illusio”, “phrónesis” and “poíesis”.

Practical implications

By adopting a Bourdieusian framework, this paper can regard the practical development of durable business relationships as involving interactions that adequately co-ordinate the different habitus, sub-fields and practices of parties as shared. The implication is that the practitioner needs to be equally competent in their use of “illusio”, “phrónesis” and “poíesis” as different knowledge forms whose sum is greater than its parts.

Originality/value

The approach reveals that habitus emphasizes that structures are never entirely conscious and calculated schemas as they contain unconscious, embodied habits fuelled by tacit, cultural knowledge infused with symbolism, mythologies and rituals, which are communicated mostly indirectly through analogical reasoning, narrative, heuristics and embodied gestures.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 36 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 October 2013

Antony J. Puddephatt

George Herbert Mead developed a sophisticated social and pragmatist model of science, which has escaped the attention of most modern-day scholars and symbolic interactionists…

Abstract

George Herbert Mead developed a sophisticated social and pragmatist model of science, which has escaped the attention of most modern-day scholars and symbolic interactionists. While Mead’s insights have much to offer to contemporary interactionist studies of science and technology, they are not without their shortcomings. In his analyses, Mead tends to put most of his emphasis on the concrete micro-foundations of knowledge production and the functional necessity of science as a problem-solving institution par excellence, yet he fails to seriously question the role of power and domination within the competitive terrain of scientific fields. Lonnie Athens has attempted to reconstitute the basic assumptions of symbolic interactionism by insisting that domination, rather than mere sociality, is the foundation of human existence, since the root of all social acts are comprised of super- and subordinate relations. Changing our fundamental assumptions about social action thus forces us to ask new questions about the micro- and macro-processes we explore in our research. By applying this radicalized lens to Mead’s view of science, I attempt to forge a new interactionist approach, which would better connect with and contribute to the critical wing of the science studies tradition.

Article
Publication date: 6 July 2015

Nebojsa B. Raicevic and Nikola Raicevic

Underground cables can produce higher electromagnetic fields directly above them than an overhead line. The majority of cable failures on distribution system are caused by defects…

Abstract

Purpose

Underground cables can produce higher electromagnetic fields directly above them than an overhead line. The majority of cable failures on distribution system are caused by defects in the cable accessories. Nowadays, significant research has been carried out worldwide into examining whether electricity, and in particular, the presence of electric and magnetic fields have an adverse impact on health, especially the occurrence of cancer and childhood leukemia. The purpose of this paper is to optimize the electric field distribution in underground cable accessories. This reduces the impact of the harmful effects of the fields on living beings and humans.

Design/methodology/approach

Cable terminations and joints are designed to eliminate the stress concentration at the termination screen to avoid the breakdown of the cable and high values of electric field at these points. Any improvement in the cable termination and joints construction is of great interest. There are several methods for the solution of electric field distribution. These can be summarized as analytical, experimental, free-hand field mapping, analogue methods and numerical methods. In this paper cable accessories are modeled by using multilayer dielectric system and very thin deflector’s cones.

Findings

This model includes specific insulators design and smart choice of electrodes position. Stress-grading nonlinear materials in form of tapes and tubes were used with much success. In order to optimize the cable joint parameters, two criteria were monitored – total electric field magnitude and magnitude of the tangential component. More than 30 percent is reduced impact of cables on the environment.

Originality/value

In order to investigate the accuracy of the applied numerical model, various configurations of the cable accessories are studied. The first time is applied new Hybrid Boundary Elements Method on the protection of the environment.

Details

COMPEL: The International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, vol. 34 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 December 2022

Ibticem Ben Zammel and Rim Hachana

By positioning this study within the theoretical lenses of Bourdieu’s practice theory, this paper aims to provide a more contextual understanding of training transfer (TT) with a…

Abstract

Purpose

By positioning this study within the theoretical lenses of Bourdieu’s practice theory, this paper aims to provide a more contextual understanding of training transfer (TT) with a particular focus on the duality between objectivity and subjectivity that characterize social structures within two different fields (a public post office company and a multinational evolving in the ICT high-tech sector).

Design/methodology/approach

Multiple case study.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that TT cannot be dissociated from social interaction dynamics in the workplace, where objective and subjective structures play a strategic role. In fact, capital dispatching, power disparities and cultural imperatives influence TT practice in both cases. However, this influence differs from one field to another.

Practical implications

Top management team should pay more attention to power and particularly to symbolic power as it can influence TT intentions and effectiveness. They must be aware that not only the economic capital is sought after but also the cultural and the symbolic capital.

Originality/value

This study aims at lessening the gap between theory and practice on the TT problem, in an effort to increase comprehension of the social roots of the transferring process. This research deepens the analysis of the complexity of socialization structuring TT practice in two different fields.

Details

The Learning Organization, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-6474

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 February 2021

Beatriz Lima Zanoni, Rafael Borim-de-Souza, Eric Ford Travis and Jacques Haruo Fukushigue Jan-Chiba

The aim of this study is to analyze the capitals moved in decisions about sustainability in narratives from and referring to Samarco Minerações, S.A. under a perspective guided by…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to analyze the capitals moved in decisions about sustainability in narratives from and referring to Samarco Minerações, S.A. under a perspective guided by Bourdieusian sociology.

Design/methodology/approach

Oriented by historicist ontology and historical epistemology, this research is classified as qualitative, descriptive and documentary, with narrative analysis and case study. The selected organization-case was Samarco Minerações, S.A. The documentary sources considered were sustainability reports, social networks channels and news published in Brazilian newspapers of high circulation. The collected information was submitted to the narrative analysis method.

Findings

Samarco Minerações, S.A. maintained the sustainability posture before and after the ore tailings dam rupture. The decision models adopted (decentralized) and the moved capitals (economic and technological) after the ecocide revealed a change in the organizational practices in front of a new instability scenario, and the organization’s attempt to reach acknowledgment, legitimacy and power.

Social implications

The organization was selected because of its involvement in an ecocide. The crime generated economic (suspension of tax collection caused by the organizational inactivity), social (unemployment and deaths) and environmental (iron ore tailings contaminated the region’s ecosystem) impacts.

Originality/value

The greatest value and contribution this paper offers is an alternative intermediary methodological approach using Bourdieusian micro-sociology to analyze narratives based on capitals dynamics and doxa. This theoretical and methodological approach can prove fruitful for further research in sustainability studies on other topics, and even in other fields.

Propósito

Analisar, bajo orientación de la sociología bourdieusiana los capitales movidos en decisiones sobre sustentabilidade, desde narrativas referentes a Samarco Minerações S.A.

Design/Metodología/Enfoque

Orientado por una ontología historicista y epistemología histórica, esa pesquisa se clasifica como: cualitativa, descriptiva y documental, con el analisis de narrativa y estudio de caso. La organización elegida fue Samarco Minerações S.A. Las fuentes documentales fueron: informes de sustentabilidad, canales en redes sociales y notícias publicadas en periódicos brasileños de gran circulación. Las informaciones recogidas fueron sometidas al método de analisis narrativa.

Resultados

La Samarco Minerações S.A. mantuvo la postura de sustentabilidad antes y después del rompimiento de la represa. Los modelos de decisiones adoptados (descentralizado) y los capitales manejados (económico y tecnológico) después el ecocidio, revelaron un cambio en las prácticas organizacionales frente una escena de instabilidad, y el intento de la organización de alcanzar reconocimiento, legitimidad y poder.

Impacto social

La organización fue elegida por su participación en un ecocidio. El crimen generó impactos económicos (interrupción de recaudación de los impuestos causado por la inaticvidad organizacional), impacto social (desempleo y muertes), impacto ambiental (desechos de minério del hierro contaminarón al ecosistema de la región).

Originalidad/valor

El principal valor y contribución que el artículo ofrece es un enfoque metodológico intermedio y alternativo que se utiliza de la microsociología bourdieusiana para analisar narrativas basadas en la dinamica de los capitales y de la doxa. El enfoque teorico metodológico puede ser benéfico para las nuevas pesquisas en los estudios de sustentabilidad, de las narrativas, en otros temas y hasta mismo en otros campos.

Propósito

Analisar, sob orientação da sociologia bourdieusiana, os capitais movimentados em decisões sobre sustentabilidade, a partir de narrativas da e referentes à Samarco Minerações S.A.

Design/Metodologia/Abordagem

Orientada por uma ontologia historicista e epistemologia histórica, essa pesquisa classifica-se como: qualitativa, descritiva e documental, com análise de narrativa e estudo de caso. A organização selecionada foi a Samarco Minerações S.A. As fontes documentais foram: relatórios de sustentabilidade, canais em redes sociais e notícias publicadas em jornais brasileiros de grande circulação. As informações coletadas foram submetidas ao método de análise narrativa.

Resultados

A Samarco Minerações S.A. manteve a postura de sustentabilidade antes e após o rompimento da barragem. Os modelos de decisão adotados (descentralizado) e os capitais movimentados (econômico e tecnológico) após o ecocídio, revelaram uma mudança nas práticas organizacionais diante de um cenário de instabilidade, e a tentativa da organização de alcançar reconhecimento, legitimidade e poder.

Impacto social

A organização foi selecionada por seu envolvimento em um ecocídio. O crime gerou impacto econômicos (suspensão de arrecadação de impostos causada pela inatividade organizacional), impacto social (desempregos e mortes), impacto ambiental (rejeitos de minério de ferro contaminaram o ecossistema da região).

Originalidade/valor

O principal valor e contribuição que o artigo oferece é uma abordagem metodológica intermediária e alternativa que se utiliza da microssociologia bourdieusiana para analisar narrativas baseadas na dinâmica dos capitais e da doxa. A abordagem teórico-metodológica pode ser benéfica para novas pesquisas em estudos de sustentabilidade, de narrativas, em outros temas e até mesmo em outros campos.

Article
Publication date: 25 May 2010

Leonel Prieto and Lei Wang

The purpose of this paper is to propose Bourdieu's theory of practice (TOP) as a useful framework for conceptualizing agents' strategizing by considering players' strategizing as…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose Bourdieu's theory of practice (TOP) as a useful framework for conceptualizing agents' strategizing by considering players' strategizing as based on their habituses and capitals as well as their assessments of their relevant field(s).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on Bourdieu's theory to better understand the strategizing of some of China's major players. The basic concepts of the model – strategy, field, habitus, and capital – are defined and developed for the major players studied.

Findings

This paper conceptualizes the strategizing as a dynamic set of players playing within and between multiple fields. It applies the fractality – in social space – of Bourdieu's TOP into specific agents or fields not only encompassing but going beyond isolated cognitive, cultural, and institutional considerations of one or more players to offer the possibility of taking into account structure and agency, variability and commonality and diverse degrees of granularity and heterogeneity.

Originality/value

Most strategy research considers strategizing from either a structuralist or a rational perspective. The paper adds comprehensiveness to strategy studies and improves strategy's identification by applying Bourdieu's TOP. In addition, the paper expands the level of attention previously given by Bourdieu's TOP to commonality and diversity as well as to multiple levels by visualizing Bourdieu's TOP in a fractal fashion.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 23 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 5 April 2012

Thomas Medvetz

This chapter uses the case of American think tanks to develop the idea of a “boundary organization,” or a formal organization that acquires its distinctiveness and efficacy from…

Abstract

This chapter uses the case of American think tanks to develop the idea of a “boundary organization,” or a formal organization that acquires its distinctiveness and efficacy from its intermediate location in the social structure. Traversing, overlapping, and incorporating the logics of multiple institutional spheres – including those of academia, politics, business, and the market – think tanks at first seem to be organizations “divided against themselves.” However, by gathering complex mixtures of otherwise discordant resources, they create novel products, carry out novel practices, and claim for themselves a crucial mediating role in the social structure. This chapter's ultimate aim is to consider the implications of this idea for theories of organizational power. With respect to this aim, I argue that boundary organizations – and organizational boundary-making processes in general – underscore the need to think about power in relational and processional terms.

Details

Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-665-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 January 2020

Nedjma Abdelhafidi, Nour El Islam Bachari, Zohra Abdelhafidi, Ali Cheknane, Abdelmotaleb Mokhnache and Loranzo Castro

Integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) using parabolic trough collector (PTC) technology is a new power plant that has been installed in few countries to benefit from the use of

Abstract

Purpose

Integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) using parabolic trough collector (PTC) technology is a new power plant that has been installed in few countries to benefit from the use of hybrid solar-gas systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges in modeling the thermal output of the hybrid solar-gas power plant and to analyze the factors that influence them.

Design/methodology/approach

To validate the proposal, a study was conducted on a test stand in situ and based on the statistical analysis of meteorological data of the year 2017. Such data have been brought from Abener hybrid solar-gas central of Hassi R’mel and used as an input of our model.

Findings

The proposal made by the authors has been simulated using MATLAB environment. The simulation results show that the net solar electricity reaches 18 per cent in June, 15 per cent in March and September, while it cannot exceed 8 per cent in December. Moreover, it shows that the power plant responses sensibly to solar energy, where the electricity output increases accordingly to the solar radiation increase. This increase in efficiency results in better economic utilization of the solar PTC equipment in such kind of hybrid solar-gas power plant.

Practical implications

The obtained results would be expected to provide the possibility for designing other power plants in Algeria when such conditions are met (high DNI, low wind speed, water and natural-gas availability).

Originality/value

This paper presents a new model able to predict the thermal solar energy and the net solar-electricity efficiency of such kind solar hybrid power plant.

Article
Publication date: 30 May 2008

Q.W. Wang, D.J. Zhang, M. Zeng, M. Lin and L.H. Tang

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the overall flow and temperature field of the air in the whole power plant, especially around the air‐cooled heat exchanger (ACHE) to…

3552

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the overall flow and temperature field of the air in the whole power plant, especially around the air‐cooled heat exchanger (ACHE) to evaluate the feasibility of the thermal plant project.

Design/methodology/approach

The commercial computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT with standard kε turbulent model was used. The buoyancy of the air was also considered.

Findings

It is concluded that plume recirculation occurs in each case due to the wind effect and the suction of the fan. Installing a side board below or above the fan platform (side board I or side board II) is an effective method of avoiding the plume recirculation and, the higher the board, the better the effect. When the height of the side board I H1≥10 m or the height of the side board II H2≥12 m, the temperature distributions of the fan platform will be sufficient to meet the requirement.

Research limitations/implications

A proper distance between the adjacent high buildings and the ACHE should be found with further investigation.

Practical implications

The paper presents a very useful numerical method for the prediction of the flow and temperature field around ACHE or in a large space.

Originality/value

The paper provides the numerical simulation of the flow and heat transfer inside the whole thermal power plant. Suggestions which can effectively avoid the unfavorable influence and ensure the whole system in safe conditions are offered. The study gives some useful information to the design of a thermal power plant with an ACHE system.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 25 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

11 – 20 of over 143000