Search results

In 1985, I was moving along a more or less definable disciplinary path, writing qualitative sociology guided by my understanding of leading symbolic interactionist texts, productively disturbed by affection for Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology. Although there were prior lines of influence, my writing then was focused especially on various “social constructionist” projects, first with Peter Conrad (Conrad & Schneider, 1992 [1980]; Schneider & Conrad, 1983) and then with Malcolm Spector and John Kitsuse (Kitsuse & Schneider, 1984, 1989). I also read closely and had many conversations with Anselm Strauss about how to do what he and Barney Glaser called “grounded theory” and with Howard Becker about “doing sociology.” Not only did I feel that I was getting better at doing ethnography or field work and “writing it up,” as we put it in Sociology, I felt I was engaged in an epistemologically superior practice relative to the more quantitative and structurally oriented work that was then and still is defined as “mainstream” (a land from which I had emigrated, gradually, after the Ph.D.).

Purpose: This chapter focuses on the relations between aging and the perception about the families’ quality of life in a medium-sized Portuguese city. Departing from the descriptions of individuals living with at least one child under 14 years of age, particular emphasis is put on how young adults perceive and incorporate into their speeches the presence and role of non-cohabiting elderly, namely their parents and in-laws, as an expression of the quality of life they experience.

Design/methodology/approach: Data rely on episodic interviews conducted with both men and women with young children (3–14 years old), within a broader sociological research devoted to the study of family rituals. The data collected was analyzed using qualitative techniques of content analysis with the help of NVivo software (QSR). The data is presented recurring to contextualized narratives.

Findings: Data analysis allows to conclude that geography matters in the perception that young adults have when reflecting upon the role of the elderly surrounding them, either their parents or in-laws. The presence and coexistence of generations are perceived as “priceless,” a “fortune,” and a “privilege,” possible in a medium-sized city, where everything is close enough to thicken the informal intergenerational solidarities between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. Behind the scenes, data, furthermore, discloses unpredictable tensions arising mainly regarding children’s education, rules, and behavior.

Originality/value: This chapter contributes to shed light into the daily life of elderly people who are still independent and active, and the seemingly invisible presence and unimportant role they play in their children and grandchildren’s lives.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

In Mesoamerica, the processes of making and using hand-woven cloth are well known ritual and mundane practices often regarded as markers of primordial identity and clear indications of deep historical continuities with the pre-Columbian past. This chapter analyzes a set of commemorative wall hangings from Tecpán, Guatemala from the perspective of ritual economy to argue that ritual weaving persists in contemporary Mesoamerica within global economic contexts. The Tecpán textiles contain multiple significations that, in addition to indicating cultural continuities and community identity, symbolically link hamlets to the municipality, represent development projects completed, and symbolize the connections these hamlets have to the broader global economy. This analysis of weaving and cloth is contextualized within the cultural and economic conditions of Tecpán in order to discuss the interrelationship between the ritual and the mundane, as well as what hand-woven cloth means to contemporary Maya weavers.

As the title of this volume suggests, its unifying theme is the interdependence between nature, knowledge, and negation. How we aspire to achieve knowledge is intrinsically related to how we conceive of and exist in and with nature. In turn, how we think about and relate to nature is a function of the kinds of knowledge we pursue and the purposes we ascribe to the pursuit of knowledge. Yet, efforts related to facilitating and accumulating knowledge are intrinsically entwined with concrete socio-historical contexts, as are modes of existing in nature. Depending on the values and priorities that shape as well as represent social life in a particular society, its inhabitants are likely to regard nature as a dimension of reality that must be protected, nurtured, dominated, subjugated, or exploited. If most members of a given society would be fully cognizant of the perimeter circumscribing the relationships between that society and nature, the need for social theory should be limited, and the importance of critical theory close to negligible. As social philosophers and theorists of society have been trying to verbalize for more than two centuries, rigorous awareness of the character of prevailing society–nature (or culture–nature) links in modern societies has required focused and steady intellectual effort, as in societies of this type, the mode of relating to nature is not only highly dynamic, but also – under the aegis of industrialization – constructive and destructive at the same time. According to much of the history of social theory (its actual history, as opposed to the history of misinterpretations of social theories), from Hegel to Marx, to Weber, to the Frankfurt School theorists, to Foucault, Beck, and many others, how a society “sees” its relationship to nature is not likely to be conducive to grasping the real character of the relationship. Rather, how modern societies are contingent on a kind of conditioning that prevents human beings from facing the facts of what makes modern society possible shapes how humans perceive nature. Those perceptions are more likely than not integral features of modern society that are difficult to access without the help of social as well as critical theory, due to the kind of gravity they exert on human existence (Lemert, 2007). Put differently, without the willingness to “negate” the programming of individual as well as group consciousness that modern societies require to maintain stability and to function, “reality” will remain hopelessly elusive, and the ability to face facts a skill that is as difficult to sustain as the recognition of and commitment to a truly meaningful conduct of life. Without the practice of determined negation in Adorno's sense becoming integral to the life of humanity, socially compelling notions of “reality” and “meaning” will remain fleeting at best.¹