Making meaning in women’s spiritual autobiography: Language, materiality, and agency in colonial New Granada

Semiotica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (207) ◽  
pp. 31-64
Author(s):  
Constance G. Janiga-Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Spiritual Autobiography ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
New Granada ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Made In

AbstractThis article examines the multiple ways in which meaning is made in female spiritual autobiography by studying a specific text, the Vida by the Colombian Poor Clare nun Mother Gerónima del Espíritu Santo, neé Jerónima Nava y Saavedra (1669–1727). First, it analyzes this life story as a socially constructed assemblage of written words that have been shown by critics to create agency (dominant reading). Then, the article discusses how the materiality of its N1 manuscript also makes meaning and creates agency (non-dominant reading). Using the work of Van Leeuwen, Björkvall, and Karlsson, the study offers valuable insight into the meaning-making of Early Modern script in New Granada, an area that until now has not been placed under this particular branch of semiotic analysis. It also studies how the social practices surrounding the penitent/confessor relationship in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the exigencies of reading and editing today are strong forces in shaping manuscript material into meaning. The article concludes that the materiality of the N1 Vida documents the shades and hues of agency that the language of the manuscript alone cannot.

scholarly journals Life Story of Helge Fossmo, Former Pastor of Knutby Filadelfia, as Told in Prison

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liselotte Frisk ◽  
Susan Jean Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Psychiatric Care ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Social Resource ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

In January 2004 the religious community of Knutby Filadelfia gained notoriety in Sweden after a young woman was shot dead and a young man seriously wounded. One of the pastors, Helge Fossmo, the husband of the murdered woman, was later found guilty of incitement or conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to life in prison. The actual perpetuator was, however, one of his mistresses, who was committed to psychiatric care. The case became subject to extraordinary media attention, with focus on the congregation’s charismatic head pastor, Åsa Waldau, and the innovative teachings of the group. This article is based on a narrative analysis of an interview in prison with the former pastor Helge Fossmo, as a step towards understanding the psychological, social and ideological forces that may have contributed to the violence in the Knutby case. Narratives are culturally framed and draw on cultural resources, are socially constructed, and become consolidated by repetition. The narrative of Fossmo draws upon the cultural resource of the “evil cult narrative,” as well as the social resource of his therapist, whose perspective is strikingly similar to the one Fossmo presents.

scholarly journals Social Representations of Diagnosis in the Consultation

Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 1185-1199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Sanders ◽  
Diane Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Negotiated Order ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Sciatic Pain ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Pain Symptoms

Observations of physiotherapy consultations and qualitative interviews with patients were conducted to explore the clinical explanation for sciatic pain. We report three themes which illustrate the contested and negotiated order of the clinical explanation: anchoring; resistance; and normalisation. We show using the theory of social representations how the social order in the physiotherapy consultation is maintained, contested and rearticulated. We highlight the importance of agency in patients’ ability to resist the clinical explanation and in turn shape the clinical discourse within the consultation. Social representations offer insights into how the world is viewed by different individuals, in our case physiotherapists and patients with sciatic pain symptoms. The negotiation about the diagnosis reveals the malleable and socially constructed nature of pain and the meaning-making process underpinning it. The study has implications for understanding inequalities in the consultation and the key ingredients of consensus.

scholarly journals Silhouettes of a Silent Female’s Authority: A Psychoanalytic and Feminist Perspective on the Art of Kara Walker

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angeliza Peres ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Antebellum South ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
American Artist ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Historically Situated ◽  
Female Slave ◽  
Made In

The focus of my research centers on the contemporary work of Georgia-based artist, Kara Elizabeth Walker. In conducting extensive research on the life of the artist as well as three select artworks which recall the antebellum slave era within the south, I argue the explicit presence of the power of the enslaved prepubescent girl and young woman. The three select works that I intend to analyze are Burn, a cut-paper silhouette on canvas created in 1998, The Invisible Beauty, a mixed media piece made in 2001, and Cut, a paper cut-out silhouette made in 1998. In a time where one’s power and freedom were both stripped away upon entering the prison-like confines of a plantation home, the life of a slave (a female slave in this case) was committed to grueling housework, the rearing of her slave master’s children in the place of her own, sexual exploitation and merciless beatings, humiliation, submission to her white counterparts, and in many cases, the occasion of rape. Walker’s intense, overtly erotic and disturbing life-size (and larger than life size) interpretations of the Antebellum south force a stirred emotion within her viewers, so as to implicate them upon viewing. Utilizing methodologies such as formal analysis, feminist deconstruction, semiotic analysis, and psychoanalytic theory, I will prove that Walker’s work is not only a provocative rendition of the horrors of the slave era, but also a way to deconstruct the notion of the female slave as a powerless individual and counter that thought process with a more powerful, authoritative, aggressive, and sexually autonomous image of a female slave, as well as the authority reflected in herself as a contemporary African American artist. *As a disclaimer and out of personal respect to my readers, I caution that there are phrases in my article that may be considered offensive, given their racial nature. The artist has used these terms as a way to describe the figures in her works of art. While they may be offensive, I feel they are necessary to bolster my arguments of racial stereotypes of enslaved females, which over time have been socially constructed and historically situated.

Local program of surmounting of post grade: A proposed methodological for your application in the territorial development.

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-331
Author(s):  
Mercedes Vera Quintana
Keyword(s):  
Local Development ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Program ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Branch Office ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Made In

The work had as object of study the content and application of the postgraduate programs that it is imparted in the branch office of technical sciences (FCT) of "October 10 ", of the ISPJAE (CUJAE), due to your important role in the social appropriation of the knowledge for the local development. In it a deep analysis of the process of formation of postgraduate and your particular characteristics are made in function of implementer a new pedagogic conception, all the who constitutes an instrument of value invaluable for the historical studies, logical and related prospective with this themes. This study has as objective it develops in practice educational of our professionals a sustained methodology in a local program of surmounting of Postgraduate (PLSP), by keeping in mind your level of impact and pertinence for the territory. This proposed methodological is made to this process through the investigation carried out, the who reveals your possibilities of application to validate your effects and as of the positive results, it elaborates a synthesis that constitutes the main objective by keeping in mind the more advanced focusing of the consulted literature.

Wilde and the Emergence of Literary Drama, 1880–1895

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare L. E. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Greek Drama ◽  
Social Elite ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Made In ◽  
Performance Text

This chapter examines Wilde’s championship of serious theatre and the authentic performance text by analysing his reviews of the first so-called ‘archaeological’ productions of Greek plays and Shakespeare. It offers a wider context in which to understand the rapidity of his disaffection with Greek plays, as practised among the social elite; and it suggests some ways in which his early enthusiasm for authentic Greek drama and Shakespeare is related to his own later classically informed playwriting, which combines old ideas of theatre as about and for its audiences with new ideas of drama as the appreciation of a literary object. Wilde’s own work as a dramatist straddled that change, prefigured by a comment he made in 1885: ‘An audience looks at a tragedian, but a comedian looks at his audience.’ He combines both these directions of gaze in his 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest.

The New Frontier

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
Equal Opportunity Employer

Does the burgeoning Indian Information Technology (IT) sector represent a deviation from the historical arc of caste inequality or has it become yet another site of discrimination? Those who claim that the sector is caste-free believe that IT is an equal opportunity employer, and that the small Dalit footprint is due to the want of merit. But they fail to consider how caste inequality sneaks in by being layered on socially constructed ‘pure merit’, which favours upper castes and other privileged segments, but handicaps Dalits and other disadvantaged groups. In this book, Fernandez describes how the practice of pure and holistic merit are deeply embedded in the social, cultural, and economic privileges of the dominant castes and classes, and how caste filtering has led to the reproduction of caste hierarchies and consequently the small Dalit footprint in Indian IT.

scholarly journals Social constructivism in mathematics? The promise and shortcomings of Julian Cole’s institutional account

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Rytilä
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Mathematical Practice ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Mathematical Reality

AbstractThe core idea of social constructivism in mathematics is that mathematical entities are social constructs that exist in virtue of social practices, similar to more familiar social entities like institutions and money. Julian C. Cole has presented an institutional version of social constructivism about mathematics based on John Searle’s theory of the construction of the social reality. In this paper, I consider what merits social constructivism has and examine how well Cole’s institutional account meets the challenge of accounting for the characteristic features of mathematics, especially objectivity and applicability. I propose that in general social constructivism shows promise as an ontology of mathematics, because the view can agree with mathematical practice and it offers a way of understanding how mathematical entities can be real without conflicting with a scientific picture of reality. However, I argue that Cole’s specific theory does not provide an adequate social constructivist account of mathematics. His institutional account fails to sufficiently explain the objectivity and applicability of mathematics, because the explanations are weakened and limited by the three-level theoretical model underlying Cole’s account of the construction of mathematical reality and by the use of the Searlean institutional framework. The shortcomings of Cole’s theory give reason to suspect that the Searlean framework is not an optimal way to defend the view that mathematical reality is socially constructed.

scholarly journals The Social Production of Invited Spaces: Toward an Understanding of the Invitational Character of Spaces for Citizens’ Initiatives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Visser ◽  
Jitske van Popering-Verkerk ◽  
Arwin van Buuren
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Public Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Organizing ◽  
Formal Rules

AbstractThe rise of citizens’ initiatives is changing the relation between governments and citizens. This paper contributes to the discussion of how governments can productively relate to these self-organizing citizens. The study analyzes the relation between the social production of invited spaces and the invitational character of such spaces, as perceived by governments and citizens. Invited spaces are the (institutional, legal, organizational, political and policy) spaces that are created by governments for citizens to take on initiatives to create public value. We characterize four types of invited spaces and compare four cases in Dutch planning to analyze how these types of invited spaces are perceived as invitational. From the analysis, we draw specific lessons for governments that want to stimulate citizens’ initiatives. We conclude with a general insight for public administration scholars; in addition to formal rules and structures, scholars should pay more attention to interactions, attitudes and meaning making of both government officials and citizens.

scholarly journals Music to My Ears: A Material-semiotic Analysis of Fetal Heart Sounds in Midwifery Prenatal Care

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110051
Author(s):  
Annekatrin Skeide
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Prenatal Care ◽  
Fetal Heart ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Parental Love ◽  
The Social ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic

Unlike sonographic examinations, sonic fetal heartbeat monitoring has received relatively little attention from scholars in the social sciences. Using the case of fetal heartbeat monitoring as part of midwifery prenatal care in Germany, this contribution introduces music as an analytical tool for exploring the aesthetic dimensions of obstetrical surveillance practices. Based on ethnographic stories, three orchestrations are compared in which three different instruments help audiences to listen to what becomes fetal heartbeat music and to qualify fetal and pregnant lives in relation to each other. In the Doppler-based orchestration, audible heartbeat music is taken as a sign of a child in need of parental love and care cultivated to listen. The Pinard horn makes esoteric fetal music that can be appreciated by the midwife as a skilled instrumentalist alone and helps to enact a child hidden in the belly. The cardiotocograph brings about soothing music and a reassuring relationship with a child but also durable scripts of juridical beauty. This material-semiotic analysis amplifies how well-being is shaped in midwifery prenatal care practices.

Studies in the Social and Economic History of Ostia

1938 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 152-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick H. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Made In

The first of these Studies was concerned chiefly with the history of Ostia during the period when the city was still growing and its prosperity increasing. Even so, during the period already considered, the prosperity of Ostia, though real, was to this extent artificial, in that it depended upon factors over which the citizens themselves had no control. Ostia was the port of Rome, and nothing else, and in consequence any lowering of the standard of living in, or reduction of imports into the capital city must have had immediate and marked repercussions upon her prosperity. She even lacked to a great extent those reserves of wealth which in other cities might be drawn upon to tide over bad times. The typical citizen of Ostia came to the city in the hope of making his fortune there; but when he had made it, he usually preferred to retire to some more pleasant town, such as Tibur, Tusculum, Velitrae, or Rome itself, where he could enjoy his leisure. Few families seem to have remained in the city for more than two, or, at the most, three generations. Whilst therefore fortunes were made in Ostia, wealth was not accumulated there.

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