Sociology Lens最新文献

Direklerarası, the core of Ramadan entertainment in late Ottoman Istanbul, rose to prominence toward the end of the nineteenth century at about the same time as entertainment hubs in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, and New York. Thanks to the legitimacy provided by the Holy Ramadan, which played a positive role in reducing public suspicion and uneasiness among Muslim families towards the products of early mass culture, Direklerarası seems to draw a larger children's audience compared to Pera and Galata, the epicenter of European-style entertainment and a location where non-Muslims were heavily populated. As a result, many children were introduced to emerging modern mass culture at Direklerarası, which offers a large variety of shows and spectacles grouped under the name of lubiyat in the Ottoman world, including theater, musical plays, juggling, circus, concerts, shadow theater and cinema. This article focuses on childhood experiences at Direklerarası using a wide range of primary sources from archival documents and official regulations to Ottoman periodicals and memoirs. It aims to discuss the moral and aesthetic concerns arising from the fact that the spheres of adults and children were not yet clearly separated from each other, as well as how this experience at Direklerarası was remembered later as a childhood memory.

The present study examines the recent ideological and cultural apparatuses aimed at the Islamization of children in Turkey through the example of the Children's Magazine, published periodically by the Directorate of Religious Affairs (DRA). Since 2002, under the Islamist government in Turkey, the Directorate of Religious Affairs has progressively evolved into an ideological apparatus that operates in alignment with the government's social objectives. The DRA, supported by significant state funding, has become an institution that holds discussions on matters of family, children, youth, and gender. Seeking to align the government's ideological goals with the Islamization of society, the Directorate of Religious Affairs has placed special emphasis on cultural policies, media, and publishing. The Children's Magazine is one of the monthly publications produced by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which has evolved into a significant cultural enterprise. The magazine conveys a religious pedagogy rooted in Sunni Hanafi Islam and a nationalist-conservative family ideology. It not only reinforces the prevailing ideology on religious matters but also promotes the political strategies of the government and the newly established official historical narrative.

Since slavery, racism and discrimination have continued to impact the social outcomes of Blacks despite efforts and laws put into place to alleviate the disadvantages. A contemporary project developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times called for the re-examination of the legacy of slavery. With re-examining the consequence of slavery, the lens has been widened, resulting in a more robust interpretation of racism. Social issues have historic roots and thus require a multilayered approach to map out and examine the culminated effects of phenomenon. In this paper, the author uses Beckert and Rockman’s DNA analogy (2016) to merge biology, history, and sociology to provide a critical overview of theories of racism that have emerged since slavery, and to detail the phenomenon of contemporary racism. By connecting past eras of racism using something familiar, racial discourse can potentially move beyond the frustration of racism being a permanent entity in society.

‘আড্ডা with Ahmed: an expanded online exchange & misconnection’ is a reflexive interpretation of a DM conversation between the author and Ahmed, their Bangladesh-based friend, presented as both text and imagetext video (Mitchell, 1994). The article examines the meaning and practice of the Bangladeshi pastime of adda/chatting in a digital context, while exploring the complexities of cultural, interpersonal and technological hybridity. Through excerpts from their adda, the author and Ahmed touch upon various themes, including cultural identity, politics, gender, and the challenges of cross-cultural communication. Their conversations reveal a dynamic interplay between agreement and disagreement, offering glimpses into their subjective experiences and perspectives. While adda contains the potential to transcend cultural boundaries and foster new forms of connection and understanding, the asynchronous nature of the exchange, coupled with linguistic limitations and enculturated modes of expression, troubles the interpretation of meaning and growth of understanding between the correspondents. While the article acknowledges the unresolvable nature of certain misconnections, online ‘adda’ is portrayed as space for curiosity, exploration, remembrance, and the coexistence of diverse perspectives and interpretations.

This paper aims to illustrate how several emotional mechanisms very probably played some causal and presumably significant role during the revolution that took place in Catalonia between July 1936 and May 1937 within the framework of the Spanish Civil War. Beyond this specific case study, the article contributes to the discussion on the role of emotions in large-scale collective action and the concept of enthusiasm. In this regard, it is argued that the analyzed case suggests hatred could be an emotional antecedent of enthusiasm.

This article explores the representation of peasants in colonial India, during the 1920s-1930s undivided Bengal. It examines how the historically marginalized and underrepresented rural population came to be constructed as objects of representation. It traces the development of representative claims made by various political parties and groups, both within and outside formal institutions of power, on behalf of rural society. The article discusses the challenges of categorizing the diverse rural population using the term "peasant" as an analytical category in the context of colonial Bengal. It highlights the dominance of the urban intelligentsia in provincial politics until the 1920s-1930s, which neglected rural issues. It then explores the emergence of different claims to represent peasants in electoral politics, with a particular focus on the political debates surrounding the Tenancy Reform in Bengal. Drawing on secondary sources and colonial archives, it raises questions about how substantive representation of peasants occurred, who championed their representation, and how they formulated their demands. Overall, the article sheds light on the complex dynamics of peasant representation. By examining the rise communal peasant politics in 1920-1930s Bengal, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the complexities of rural mobilization and the interplay between class and communal identities.

In the summer of 1976, prior to the United States presidential election between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease occurred in Philadelphia. After an epidemiological survey, 221 people with pneumonia or similar symptoms were identified, 34 of whom died. The outbreak prompted the advancement of legislation to exempt companies that produced influenza vaccines from liability for damages, resulting in significant losses for the government. The outbreak was a major economic blow to the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, an iconic historical hotel in Philadelphia, which was forced to close 16 days after the election. Following the outbreak, media coverage was extensive, and there was frustration over the inability to determine the cause of the outbreak in Philadelphia. The critical factor was that the cause of the outbreak was not determined to be rod-shaped bacteria, later named Legionella pneumophila, before the election date. While many aspects had an impact, it is possible that the Legionnaires' disease outbreak may have affected the outcome of the election, particularly in Pennsylvania. This study does not make definitive causal links but focuses on Legionnaires' disease and the 1976 elections.

This article explores the multifaceted role of films that disseminate critical views on public care for children in terms of their epistemic sensitivity towards the main challenges of constructing discursive practices around children and their subjectivity. Three cohorts of Eastern European films produced between the 1960s and 1990s are examined through the prism of two approaches to the deconstruction of the traditional objectified child and the development of his subjectivity, radical psychoanalysis and ‘child fundamentalism’. The diversity of critical arguments against residential care reverberates with a variety of gender-based approaches to presenting children’s subjectivity in the films. I explore the sustainable difference between the films with either male or female protagonists through political contexts concerning the production of films and the options to accept the mission of epistemic activism regarding the children deprived in their subjectivity, namely those placed in residential care. To conclude, I discuss the exodus of epistemic activism from the post-socialist Eastern European films about public care in favour of serving the mission of delegitimizing authoritative past and achieving positive public reception.

This article explores the significance of Jewish-Ethiopian historical narratives for the understanding of Ethiopian Jews' social reality in Israel. It emphasizes how these narratives have been crucial for the ongoing integration efforts of the Jewish Ethiopian community, especially during a period of significant challenges to the established Zionist historical canon. By analysing extensive archival sources, the study uncovers the grassroots emergence of these narratives, shaped by debates surrounding the position of Ethiopian immigrants in Israeli society. It demonstrates that the inclusion of historical perspectives not only strengthened the canonical Zionist historical narrative but also enabled it to withstand unprecedented challenges. This challenges the notion that immigration and social diversification undermine dominant historical canons and national identities. The research underscores the relevance of these historical narratives in revealing the experiences and struggles of Ethiopian Jews and their unique place within Israel's social fabric.

Fancy-dress skating was originally a comprehensive cultural activity integrating entertainment, social contact, and sports, introduced to China from the West in modern times. Since its introduction in China, it has spread widely throughout Beijing, and has undergone considerable variations. Taking Beijing as an example, this study systematically analyses and explains the development and variation of fancy-dress skating in China which was introduced by the West from the perspectives of public social opinion and organizational participants. Its dissemination and variations are typical examples of cross-cultural communication of the Western culture in the context of modern Chinese mass communication. It is also the epitome of the diversified interactions between entertainment and society. In modern Chinese history, fancy-dress skating gradually resonated with historical themes and finally took a new cultural form similar to, but different from what was originally based on the Western contexts.