Sociology

Permanent URI for this community

https://hdl.handle.net/10468/197

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 158

Afterword: Ireland's mysterious minority - A French-Irish comparison
(Cork University Press, 2019-02-11) Ruane, Joseph; d’Alton, Ian; Milne, Ida
How Irish Protestants see themselves and their place in the wider society is one of the remaining mysteries of Irish life. In a society where virtually every social category and institution has been brought into focus, meditated on and moralised about, this one remains elusive. It might be attributed to their very small numbers. But they loom larger in the public imagination than the numbers alone might warrant. They are central to the history of the island; their imprint is on the landscape and on its cultural institutions; their churches, schools and hospitals occupy central places in its cities and towns; they occupy leading positions in key sectors of the society; they are formally represented at public events; their historic university - Trinity College - remains at the centre of Irish cultural life; their cathedrals and once great houses are must-see places for foreign tourists. There is more than enough to talk about. Instead there is a wariness and a silence that points to a reluctance on both sides to engage with the issue. Protestants prefer to deal with matters of concern privately and discreetly, and Catholics are happy to oblige. This is consistent with the general pattern of majority-minority relations. Majorities tend not to think of minorities unless they are powerful, influential, or troublesome. Minorities feel vulnerable and dislike drawing attention to themselves. But there are also issues specific to the Irish case: the long history of Catholic-Protestant conflict on the island, the circumstances in which independence was secured, the question of how Southern Protestants were treated by the new state. One consequence has been a reluctance on the part of Protestants to be too explicit about how they see themselves, the wider society, and their place within it.
The Barretstown experience
(University College Cork, 2011-12) Kearney, Peter James; Keohane, Kieran
The thesis was prompted by a simple clinical observation. Seriously ill children returning from Barretstown Holiday Camp appeared changed. Barretstown ‘magic’ confuses the issue but indicates real and clinically evident transformations. The project sought to understand the experience and place it in a recognisable framework. The data was collected by interviews, observations as camp Paediatrician, memberships of the Child Advisory Committee and the Association’s criteria assessment team, participation in volunteer training and visits to international camps. The research presents evidence that the concepts of rite of passage, graceful mimesis and salutogenesis clarify operative social processes. The passage stages of separation, transition and reaggregation can be identified. Passage rites reorder personal and social upsets to fresh arrangements that facilitate change. Interviews confirm the reordering impact of achievements in play activities. These are challenging experiences closely guided by their Masters of Ceremonies – the Caras. The Cara/camper relationship is crucial and compatible with Girard’s theory of external mimesis. Visits to four camps confirm an inspirational process in contrast to a reported camp with a predetermined formative influence. Charismatic Caras/Councillors inspire playful mimesis and salutogenic transformations. Health is more than correction of pathogenic deficits and restoration of homeostasis. Salutogenic health promotes heterostasis – a desire for optimal experiences underpinned by a sense of coherence and adequate resources. Some evidence is presented that children have an improved sense of coherence after camp, which enables them to cope better with the demands of ill health. The camps enable sick children to up regulate risk taking towards more heterostatic experiences rather than down regulate their expectations. The heterostatic impulse can explain the disability paradox of good quality of life in the presence of severe disability. The salutogenic power of Barretstown can trump the pathogenic effects of childhood cancer and other serious illnesses.
Between respectability and disgrace: schismogenesis and the regeneration of inequality, stigma and social exclusion in Limerick
(University College Cork, 2014) Byrne, Lorcan; Keohane, Kieran; O'Connell, Cathal; Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences
The thesis examines cultural processes underpinning the emergence, institutionalisation and reproduction of class boundaries in Limerick city. The research aims to bring a new understanding to the contemporary context of the city’s urban regeneration programme. Acknowledging and recognising other contemporary studies of division and exclusion, the thesis creates a distinctive approach which focuses on uncovering the cultural roots of inequality, educational disadvantage, stigma and social exclusion and the dynamics of their social reproduction. Using Bateson’s concept of schismogenesis (1953), the thesis looks to the persistent, but fragmented culture of community and develops a heuristic ‘symbolic order of the city’. This is defined as “…a cultural structure, the meaning making aspect of hierarchy, the categorical structures of world understanding, the way Limerick people understand themselves, their local and larger world” (p. 37). This provides a very different departure point for exploring the basis for urban regeneration in Limerick (and everywhere). The central argument is that if we want to understand the present (multiple) crises in Limerick we need to understand the historical, anthropological and recursive processes underpinning ‘generalised patterns of rivalry and conflict’. In addition to exploring the historical roots of status and stigma in Limerick, the thesis explores the mythopoesis of persistent, recurrent narratives and labels that mark the boundaries of the city’s identities. The thesis examines the cultural and social function of ‘slagging’ as a vernacular and highly particularised form of ironic, ritualised and, often, ‘cruel’ medium of communication (often exclusion). This is combined with an etymology of the vocabulary of Limerick slang and its mythological base. By tracing the origins of many normalised patterns of Limerick speech ‘sayings’, which have long since forgotten their roots, the thesis demonstrates how they perform a significant contemporary function in maintaining and reinforcing symbolic mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion. The thesis combines historical and archival data with biographical interviews, ethnographic data married to a deep historical hermeneutic analysis of this political community.
Book review: Progressive Business: An Intellectual History of the Role of Business in American Society, by Christian Olaf Christiansen, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 275 pp. ISBN: 978-0198701033
(2018-10) Kaucz, Błażej
Borders, risk and belonging: Challenges for arts-based research in understanding the lives of women asylum seekers and migrants 'at the borders of humanity'
(Intellect Ltd., 2019-04-01) O'Neill, Maggie; Erel, Umut; Kaptani, Erene; Reynolds, Tracey; Leverhulme Trust; ESRC National Centre for Research Methods, University of Southampton
This article critically discusses the experiences of women who are seeking asylum in the North East of England and women who are mothers with no recourse to public funds living in London to address the questions posed by the special issue. It argues both epistemologically and methodologically for the benefits of undertaking participatory arts-based, ethno-mimetic, performative methods with women and communities to better understand women’s lives, build local capacity in seeking policy change, as well as contribute to theorizing necropolitics through praxis. Drawing upon artistic outcomes of research funded by the Leverhulme Trust on borders, risk and belonging, and collaborative research funded by the ESRC/NCRM using participatory theatre and walking methods, the article addresses the questions posed by the special issue: how is statelessness experienced by women seeking asylum and mothers with no recourse to public funds? To what extent are their lived experiences marked by precarity, social and civil death? What does it mean to be a woman and a mother in these precarious times, ‘at the borders of humanity’? Where are the spaces for resistance and how might we as artists and researchers ‐ across the arts, humanities and social sciences ‐ contribute and activate?
Bridge-builder feminism: the feminist movement and conflict in Northern Ireland
(Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group, 2021-02-03) O'Keefe, Theresa
While gender has been widely used as an analytical category to understand the dynamics of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland, surprisingly little has been written on the ways in which the conflict has shaped or constrained feminist organising. Singular focus on groups or initiatives like the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, Peace People or the Women's Support Network has overshadowed the contested history and intricacies of the wider feminist movement. Adopting a more holistic view, this article takes the concept of ‘bridge-builders' as conceptualised by Ruane and Todd in The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland (1996) to examine the fractured development of the feminist movement in the North. It charts how ‘bridge-builder feminism' became a distinguishable feature of the feminist movement during the Troubles and was used as a mechanism to transgress what Todd calls the ‘grammars of nationality’ (Todd, 2015). I argue that although this organising approach pioneered some changes in Northern Irish society, it overlooked key feminist struggles and thrived at the expense of an inclusive, intersectional feminism. Though the movement has undergone significant changes in the last two decades, the legacy of bridge-builder feminism continues to impact the capacities of the movement to address key feminist issues.
The causes and consequences of gangland violence in the Republic of Ireland
(Nova Science Publishers, 2019-09) Windle, James; Lombardo, Robert M.
While the Republic of Ireland is a relatively peaceful country, with a homicide rate significantly lower than the global average, it has experienced a number of violent feuds between criminal gangs. This chapter will explore the consequences and causes of these gangland feuds. While gangland feuding is often identified as a form of systematic drug market violence, this chapter argues that the roots of feuding can be found in a historical context of colonialism combined with the contemporary decline in traditional working-class jobs, at a time of increased pressure to exhibit the trappings of the financial success of the family. It is argued that feuding is concentrated in small pockets of economically disadvantaged urban areas where alternative sources of income are, or were, scarce and violent subcultures have emerged. The second half of the chapter identifies some of the significant psychological, physical and social harms which have inflicted family members involved in the feuds, local communities and the Republic of Ireland itself. It has been suggested that the long-term impact of these feuds may be felt when children who are raised in these contexts, experience multiple forms of trauma, and grow into adults themselves in the absence of pro-social supports.
‘Ceci n’est pas du terrorisme: this is not terrorism’: representation of far-right and jihadi terrorism in the terrorism studies literature
(University College Cork, 2021) Ahmed, Yasmine; Lynch, Orla; Swirak , Katharina
This thesis examines how terrorism is imagined, constructed, and researched by examining the output of scholars in key research journals. The aim of this work is to understand exactly what it is we are talking about when we research about terrorism, not to examine how we define terrorism, but how we define the problem of terrorism. This representation becomes manifest in the research areas we prioritise, the different ways we talk about different ideological motivations, the methods we use to gather data and to analyse terrorism in two of its major manifestations: jihadi terrorism, and far-right terrorism. By examining how we define the problem of terrorism it becomes clear that as an area of study, Terrorism Studies as a manifestation of its time and place (western and post 9/11), is imbued with conservative notions of securitised state centred narratives and is influenced in its analysis by the ideological claims of the perpetrators. This thesis will demonstrate that the way we talk about jihadism as opposed to how we talk about the far-right is a manifestation of the field of terrorism studies. It will also demonstrate that in order to further the academic endeavour of research into terrorism we need new ways of thinking about the field, moving away from the influence of Western, state-centric dominant definitions and towards a framework that prioritises on an empirically based and grounded approach to understanding what the problem appears to be.
Changing perspectives on natural resource heritage, human rights and intergenerational justice
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2018-12-11) Skillington, Tracey
This paper observes how the social, political and legal life of rights continues to evolve in response to growing natural resource scarcity and deteriorating climate conditions worldwide. In particular, it assesses the type of interpretive repertoires actors bring to bear on issues of justice between generations and human rights eligibility, documenting arguments put forward in defense, as well as against assigning a rights status to those not yet born. It notes how scientific research documenting the ‘forcing effects’ of escalating atmospheric pollution on long-term planetary wellbeing triggers a new conversation on the limits of traditional approaches to environmental justice and highlights the need to consider once again how a more long-term perspectivism on duties, rights and responsibilities can be institutionally applied.
Civilizing processes and accelerating spirals: The dynamics of social processes, after Elias
(2010-10) Szakolczai, Árpád
Cognition and recognition: on the problem of the cognitive in Honneth
(SAGE Publications, 2012-05-08) Strydom, Piet
While concurring with Honneth’s reconstruction of reification as a form of forgetfulness, this article questions the way in which he arrives at that conclusion as well as the conceptual status he ascribes to recognition – the instance with reference to which reification is exhibited as distortion or deformation. It argues, first, that Honneth’s dualistic mode of argumentation falls behind the left-Hegelian tradition which he himself seeks to revitalize, thus causing a serious architectonic problem; and, second, that while polemicizing strongly against the cognitive approach, he at crucial points actually reverts to the very resources made available by that mode of thinking. Being the central concern of the article, this latter aspect is treated as the cognitive problem in his work, especially in his Tanner Lectures.
Cognitive fluidity and climate change: a critical social-theoretical approach to the current challenge
(SAGE Publications, 2015-04-24) Strydom, Piet
This article seeks to enrich the social-theoretical and sociological approach to climate change by arguing in favour of a weak naturalistic ontology beyond the usually presupposed methodological sociologism or culturalism. Accordingly, attention is drawn to the elementary social forms that mediate between nature and the sociocultural form of life and thus figure as the central object of a critical sociological explanation of impediments retarding or preventing a transition to a sustainable global society. The argument is illustrated by a comparison of the current situation of climate change to a similar situation some 10,000 years ago which conditioned the transition from hunting-gathering to farming. The crucial factor in the prehistoric transition had been the newly acquired cognitive fluidity, which not only became the defining feature of the modern human mind, but is also foundational of the corresponding social form of life. The cognitively fluid mind made possible new generative practices and the imagination of counterfactuals possessing an incursive force that is capable of transforming existing practices and social structures. The ultimate question, then, is twofold: whether there is enough potential left in the cognitively fluid mind for its societal significance to be activated to the benefit of a transformation of the current recalcitrant social formation; and whether we today are able and willing to recognize such potential and corresponding realizable possibilities upon which to act.
Collective responsibility in the risk society: health as a catalyst for socio-technological innovation, ecological citizenship and sustainability
(University College Cork, 2015) Mooney, Robert; Mullally, Gerard
In 1987 the Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This widely employed definition has successfully promoted a sustainable approach to social and environmental policies and human rights across countries which have signed up to it. While climate change discourses have prompted discussions about of the future trajectory of human society, this thesis argues that the concept of sustainability has failed to be anchored conceptually to the everyday practices of global citizens. These discourses have encouraged social and technological innovations which focus on meeting these risks. There remain, however, significant inequalities among the world’s citizens in their capacity to access resources and their capacity mitigate climate risks. this thesis explores the risk factors which climate change poses, the sustainability discourses which have emerged from these debates, and their role in promoting an equitable, open, transparent and accessible form of cosmopolitan ecological citizenship. This is examined through desk research exploring policy and legislation, a review of case studies including social and technological innovators working in the field of sustainability, and primary qualitative research. I propose a model of ecological citizenship based on the premise that climate change poses risks to the physical, social and psychological health and wellbeing of the individual and communities, and that these risks are universal. This I label the Biopsychosocial Model of Ecological Citizenship, or BiMEC for short. I argue that these risks represent breaches of fundamental rights to health. Further, upholding the right to health is a collective responsibility for all human beings and these collective responses to these risks emerge in the form of social and technological innovations which address them. Finally, I argue that they are realisable through equal access to these fundamental rights.
Community policing: a critique of recent proposals
(The Economic and Social Research Institute, 1985-01) McCullagh, Ciaran
In this article the proposals by the Association for Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, for a scheme of Community Policing, are outlined and discussed. Their innovatory nature is recognised but a number of problems — the notion of community which they use, difficulties in implementing such schemes and the question of whether they constitute a scheme of community policing — are considered. Finally the question is posed as to whether the Gardai could make the changes required to produce genuine community policing.
Considering quality of care for young adults with diabetes in Ireland
(BioMed Central Ltd., 2013-10-29) Balfe, Myles; Brugha, Ruairí; Smith, Diarmuid; Sreenan, Seamus; Doyle, Frank; Conroy, Rónán M.; Health Research Board; Diabetes Ireland; Medical Research Charities Group, Ireland
Background: Research on the quality of diabetes care provided to young adults with Type 1 diabetes is lacking. This study investigates perceptions of quality of care for young adults with Type 1 diabetes (23–30 years old) living in the Republic of Ireland. Methods: Thirty-five young adults with Type 1 diabetes (twenty-nine women, six men) and thirteen healthcare professionals (ten diabetes nurse specialists, three consultant Endocrinologists) were recruited. All study participants completed semi-structured interviews that explored their perspectives on the quality of diabetes services in Ireland. Interviews were analyzed using standard qualitative thematic analysis techniques. Results: Most interviewees identified problems with Irish diabetes services for young adults. Healthcare services were often characterised by long waiting times, inadequate continuity of care, overreliance on junior doctors and inadequate professional-patient interaction times. Many rural and non-specialist services lacked funding for diabetes education programmes, diabetes nurse specialists, insulin pumps or for psychological support, though these services are important components of quality Type 1 diabetes healthcare. Allied health services such as psychology, podiatry and dietician services appeared to be underfunded in many parts of the country. While Irish diabetes services lacked funding prior to the recession, the economic decline in Ireland, and the subsequent austerity imposed on the Irish health service as a result of that decline, appears to have additional negative consequences. Despite these difficulties, a number of specialist healthcare services for young adults with diabetes seemed to be providing excellent quality of care. Although young adults and professionals identified many of the same problems with Irish diabetes services, professionals appeared to be more critical of diabetes services than young adults. Young adults generally expressed high levels of satisfaction with services, even where they noted that aspects of those services were sub-optimal. Conclusion: Good quality care appears to be unequally distributed throughout Ireland. National austerity measures appear to be negatively impacting health services for young adults with diabetes. There is a need for more Endocrinologist and diabetes nurse specialist posts to be funded in Ireland, as well as allied health professional posts.
The contemporary Habermas: towards triple contingency?
(SAGE Publications, 1999-05-01) Strydom, Piet
Contesting, confusing, corrupting: Huizinga's foundational anthropology of play and its limits
(2012-02) Szakolczai, Árpád
Conversion as transformative experience: a sociological study of identity formation and transformation processes
(University College Cork, 2006-06) Twomey, Daniel P.; Szakolczai, Árpád
This thesis contributes to the understanding of the processes involved in the formation and transformation of identities. It achieves this goal by establishing the critical importance of ‘background’ and ‘liminality’ in the shaping of identity. Drawing mainly from the work of cultural anthropology and philosophical hermeneutics a theoretical framework is constructed from which transformative experiences can be analysed. The particular experience at the heart of this study is the phenomenon of conversion and the dynamics involved in the construction of that process. Establishing the axial age as the horizon from which the process of conversion emerged will be the main theme of the first part of the study. Identifying the ‘birth’ of conversion allows a deeper understanding of the historical dynamics that make up the process. From these fundamental dynamics a theoretical framework is constructed in order to analyse the conversion process. Applying this theoretical framework to a number of case-studies will be the central focus of this study. The transformative experiences of Saint Augustine, the fourteenth century nun Margaret Ebner, the communist revolutionary Karl Marx and the literary figure of Arthur Koestler will provide the material onto which the theoretical framework can be applied. A synthesis of the Judaic religious and the Greek philosophical traditions will be the main findings for the shaping of Augustine’s conversion experience. The dissolution of political order coupled with the institutionalisation of the conversion process will illuminate the mystical experiences of Margaret Ebner at a time when empathetic conversion reached its fullest expression. The final case-studies examine two modern ‘conversions’ that seem to have an ideological rather than a religious basis to them. On closer examination it will be found that the German tradition of Biblical Criticism played a most influential role in the ‘conversion’ of Marx and mythology the best medium to understand the experiences of Koestler. The main ideas emerging from this study highlight the fluidity of identity and the important role of ‘background’ in its transformation. The theoretical framework, as constructed for this study, is found to be a useful methodological tool that can offer insights into experiences, such as conversion, that otherwise would remain hidden from our enquiries.
Cooperation, coordination and the social bond: on integration from a critical cognitive social-theoretical perspective
(SAGE Publications on behalf of the Indian Sociological Society, 2013) Strydom, Piet
The coronavirus crisis and the legitimation crisis of neoliberalism
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2020-11-05) Condon, Roderick
This paper considers the societal consequences of the coronavirus crisis through the lens of critical social theory, advancing a social-theoretical perspective as its main contribution. The central argument is that the question of post-pandemic societal transformation be examined in terms of the pre-existing legitimation crisis of neoliberalism. This is developed through three steps. First, a theoretical framework is outlined for considering social transformation in terms of discursively mediated collective learning processes. Then, two loci of the legitimation crisis of neoliberalism are explored, the political crisis and the climate crisis, to delineate a series of antagonistic fronts shaping the contestation of this model. From this, two broad social movements contending for control of societal development emerge: radical-pluralism and reactionary-populism. Finally, the coronavirus crisis is briefly considered in terms of its interaction with this cleavage.

Browse

Browsing Sociology by Title

Results Per Page

Sort Options