scholarly journals The Bacas and the Priests: How Old Adversaries Came Together to Revive and Reinterpret Tradition

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-23
Author(s):  
Pawel Sendyka
Keyword(s):  
Winter Season ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
Public Event ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
Alpine Pastures ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The Individual

Abstract In the Polish pastoralist tradition there have always been two seminal community events which bracketed the winter season. There was the autumn event of “Redyk Jesienny” when the sheep brought back from the summer alpine pastures were given back to their owners and there was also a spring “Redyk” also called “Mieszanie Owiec” which literally means the Mixing of Sheep. Historically, it was an important event in which the head shepherd, or the baca had to use his magical knowledge to ensure that the big herd made up of sheep from the individual owners would keep together as one and produce enough milk to make this summer venture profitable. To do that he used magic spells and performed rituals learned from his predecessors. The bacas' magical knowledge was frequently in opposition to the powers of the priests who viewed them with suspicion. Today, this spring event of “Mieszanie Owiec” is much changed. It is no longer a private affair of the baca and the sheep owners. Frequently, it is a public event, a tourist attraction, with the priests often taking centre stage. There is even a new, “invented” tradition of region wide “Mieszanie” at the sanctuary of Ludźmierz. There, a small herd of around 200 sheep is symbolically used to bless all the herds going up the mountain pastures for the season. The paper examines how these traditions changed from old ethnographic descriptions and how they are evolving in a modern economic and social reality.

scholarly journals Do facial first impressions reflect a shared social reality?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Sutherland ◽  
Gillian Rhodes ◽  
Nichola Burton ◽  
Andrew Young
Keyword(s):  
Case Series ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Observer Agreement ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
First Impressions ◽  
Dimensional Approach ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Common Structure ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Individual

Influential facial impression models have repeatedly shown that trustworthiness, youthful-attractiveness and dominance dimensions subserve a wide variety of first impressions formed from strangers’ faces, suggestive of a shared social reality. However, these models are built from impressions aggregated across observers. Critically, recent work has now shown that inter-observer agreement in facial impressions is less than perfect, raising the important question of whether these dimensional models are meaningful at the individual-observer level. We addressed this question using a novel case series approach, building individual models of facial impressions for different observers. Strikingly, three dimensions of trustworthiness, youthful/attractiveness and competence/dominance appeared across the majority of individual observer models, demonstrating that the dimensional approach is indeed meaningful at the individual level. Nonetheless, we also found striking differences in the stability of the competence/dominance dimension across observers. Taken together, results suggest that individual differences in impressions arise in the context of a largely common structure that supports a shared social reality.

scholarly journals Once We Were Shepherds: Górale Ethnic Identity in Celebrations Revived and Reinterpreted

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Pawel Sendyka
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
National Parks ◽  
Social System ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Pastoral System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alpine Pastures ◽  
Second World

Abstract The Górale of the Polish highlands are seen as a people apart from the rest of Poles. They are afforded this special status through the romanticisation as Poland’s very own “noble savages” by the writers and travellers of the 19th century. This was the time of Poland’s search for nationhood (when its territory was occupied by Russia, Prussia and Austria). The Górale have always been described, even in those early accounts, as pastoralists. During the season, when the sheep went up to the alpine pastures, the villages were almost deserted. In the 20th century the pastoral system dissolution took place starting with the establishment of national parks after the Second World War. Further unfavourable developments decimated what was left of it since the late 1980s. As a result of the dissolution of the pastoral system the Górale chose to amplify their internal unity by strengthening the ethnic identity. The revival of pastoralism as it currently presents itself today, may be seen as yet another rallying call around Górale identity. It is a come back to the pastoralist “core” of the highland culture, while changing and re-inventing the tradition to suit new economic, social and political circumstances. In the Polish pastoralist tradition there have always been two seminal community events which bracketed the winter season. There was the autumn event of “Redyk Jesienny” when the sheep brought back from the summer alpine pastures were given back to their owners and there was also a spring event of “Mieszanie Owiec” which literally means the Mixing of Sheep. Historically, they were very important events of the pastoral calendar, while the pastoral system itself has been crucial fixture and backbone of the social system of the Górale people. The paper examines how these traditions changed from old ethnographic descriptions and how they are being re-invented in the context of reaffirming the Górale identity today.

Augmented Reality: Breaking into What World?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4-2) ◽  
pp. 351-371
Author(s):  
Vladimir Ignatyev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Augmented Reality ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Relational Theory ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Biological Substrate ◽  
The Individual

The article considers the phenomenon of augmented reality as a special hybrid reality and a part of social space. The author compares the differences in approaches to the interpretation of reality in philosophy, social theory and natural science. The provisions of phenomenological sociology are used as a methodological basis for the study. The author substantiates the necessity of conjugation of ontological and epistemological perspectives of interpretation of the “multilayer” social reality. The lack of concentration of attention in most studies on distinguishing these angles leaves the category of social reality on the periphery of the construction of social ontologies. And this is not a paradox, but a desire to avoid difficulties in choosing a research position when solving a problem of a certain class each time that arises: either to build ontological models of each layer of the social, or to re-enter into polemics about the permissible limits of avoiding solipsism. The article shows one of the possible ways out of the vicious circle of polemics about the demarcation of ontology and epistemology by presenting the concepts of ‘social reality’ and ‘social actuality’ as a means of separating research angles. Their application makes it possible to establish that the environment formed by augmented reality is much more complex than it seems to the individual in his direct perception. It includes four spaces: 1) the objective world; 2) the mental world; 3) a hybrid world as a symbiosis of real and imaginary worlds; 4) symbiosis of fragments of the real world - torn apart in space and time and combined with the help of technologies in devices, which make it possible for an individual to be present while observing their combined existence and to operate with them. The author comes to the conclusion that this feature of the organization of space with the help of augmented reality implies the specificity of the changed social space in which individuals have to interact. There is a transformation of the basic ‘cell’ of society - the system of social interaction. It has been established that augmented reality technologies provide additional, qualitatively new opportunities for influencing individual pictures of the world. Augmented reality also complicates virtual reality, introducing, in addition to fictional characteristics, the content of practical actions. Augmented reality not only ‘comprehends’ the world, but is in direct practical contact with it, turning into a special side of constant reality. It was found that the interaction of augmented reality with social reality is reversible. Thanks to this process, social reality from ‘augmented’ reality is transformed into a ‘complex’ one, the qualitative determination of which can be designated as ‘hybrid social reality’. Its mode of existence is more complex than that of the human community, and is inaccessible to them as long as they retain the biological substrate of their corporeity. But no less significant consequence for social and anthropogenic transformation is the emergence in society of its new structural unit - a techno-subject, as an actor of a new species and a new agent that forms a hybrid society. It has been established that the user of augmented reality transforms the provided visual effects in his imagination into really (beyond imagination) existing things and phenomena (ontologization). A reverse movement also takes place - from illusions fixed in the imagination as objects (created by augmented reality), back to pure illusions (reverse hypostatization). The distinction between the observed and the hidden through the introduction of the concepts of social reality and social actuality makes it possible to discover a more complex structure of the social - its multi-layered nature, supplementing the ontology of social reality and, in particular, P. Donati’s relational theory of society, with ideas about such layers as actual and potential, virtual and valid. The article considers the possibility of extending the idea of the heterarchical principle of the structure of society (developed in the works of I.V. Krasavin on the basis of the model of W. McCulloch) to the further development of the augmented reality ontology. The formation of space connections using AR technology is a continuation of the embodiment of the heterarchy principle, which brings the social structure beyond the structures of a constant society.

scholarly journals Predictable and Unpredictable Aspects of U.S. West Coast Rainfall and El Niño: Understanding the 2015/16 Event

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (10) ◽  
pp. 2843-2868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Cash ◽  
Natalie J. Burls
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
West Coast ◽  
El Niño ◽  
El Nino ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Seasonal Forecasts ◽  
The North ◽  
Dry Conditions ◽  
The Individual

AbstractCalifornia experienced record-setting drought from 2012 to 2017. Based on both seasonal forecast models and historical associations, there was widespread expectation that the major El Niño event of 2015/16 would result in increased winter-season precipitation and break the drought. However, the 2015/16 winter rainy season ultimately resulted in slightly below-average precipitation and the drought continued. In this work we analyze data from both observations and seasonal forecasts made as part of the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) to better understand the general relationship between El Niño and U.S. West Coast rainfall, focusing on Southern California (SOCAL) rainfall, Pacific Northwest (PNW) rainfall, and the 2015/16 event. We find that while there is a statistically significant positive correlation between El Niño events and the SOCAL and PNW rainfall anomalies, this relationship explains at most one-third of the observed variance. Examination of hindcasts from the NMME demonstrates that the models are capable of accurately reproducing this observed correlation between tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and California rainfall when information from the individual ensemble members is retained. However, focusing on the multimodel ensemble mean, which deliberately reduces the influence of unpredicted variability, drastically overestimates the strength of this relationship. Our analysis demonstrates that much of the winter rainfall variability along the U.S. West Coast is dominated by unpredicted variations in the 200-hPa height field and that this same unpredicted variability was largely responsible for the unexpectedly dry conditions in 2015/16.

scholarly journals Toward an Integrated Model for Soft-Mobility

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (19) ◽  
pp. 3669 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Chapman ◽  
Agneta Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Cold Climate ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Photo Elicitation ◽  
Outdoor Activity ◽  
Mental Mapping ◽  
Constant State ◽  
The Individual

A key urban design challenge is to create built environments that encourage outdoor activity all year round. This study explores a new model for soft-mobility that places the interaction between the urban form, the seasonal climate and climate change, and the individual at the center of people’s soft-mobility choices, or in more general, their modal choice. The research methods used were comparative studies of documents, surveys, mental mapping, and photo elicitation. These studies were undertaken to research people’s outdoor activity in the built environment during the winter season of a cold climate settlement. The results were analyzed against the three-dimensions of the model. In the discussion it is argued that in places with significant climate variation, the interaction between the urban form, the season, and the individual together influence soft-mobility choices. In turn, these interactions influence people’s level of outdoor activity and the individual health benefits such activity can afford. In conclusion, it is highlighted that all three dimensions of the model are in a constant state of change and evolution, especially in relation to planning and development processes and climate change.

scholarly journals Thémis jako kategoria graniczna

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1(58)) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Gruszczyk
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Greek Religion ◽  
World Views ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Thémis as a Liminal Category Thémis is a concept deeply rooted in the culture of ancient Greece. As a category delineating the limits of “what’s right” as well as a personification of this very concept in Themis, the Titaness ruling the sphere of eternal order, justice, laws and mores in the Greek religion, thémis in ancient Greece was the ultimate boundary of the social reality. Situated on the crossroads between two spheres: the sacrum and the profane, this concept also served as the foundation of an impassable axio‑normative barrier between that which is human and which is other‑than‑human: either god‑like or beast‑like. Thémis as a philosophical and axio‑normative notion still remains a valid scientific category, which can be successfully used in the explication and analysis of the processes of emergence and transformation of contemporary social and individual boundaries. The examination of the socio‑cultural aspects of thémis facilitates the analysis of the communal factors influencing the individual world‑views, as well as those forming the limits and content of the prevailing ethics.

scholarly journals L'idéologie néolibérale

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Bihr
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
The Individual

The article aims to demonstrate the deeply ideological character of neo-liberalism. Therefore it begins recalling the three main elements of ideology: its theoretical element as an encompassing and cohesive discourse; its pragmatic element as a program of actions, may they be political, moral, ethic, pedagogic, etc., on social reality; its apologetic element as justification and even idealisation of the situation, the interests, the actions or the projects of a certain social group. Next, the article shows that one can find those three elements in neo-liberalism. So it first emphasises its consistency based on the representation of the individual as the atom of social reality with its three major attributes: private property, liberty and equality in front of law. Secondly, it stresses the efficiency of the neo-liberal politics against the interventionist state built after World War 2 and all kinds of non-merchant regulations of the salary relationship in order to promote a ‘society of individuals’. Finally, it highlights that neo-liberalism is merely the justification of financial fraction of capital’s interests which has conquered a hegemonic position among the bourgeoisie within the globalisation.

scholarly journals s.V Modalities, Ch.16 A Criminological Approach to the ICC’s Control Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smeulers Alette
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
The Social ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
The Individual

This chapter tackles the Control Theory of Perpetration, a German-inspired mode of participation that is applied only by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Control Theory, developed by the German scholar Claus Roxin, provides a doctrinal apparatus for distinguishing between principal perpetrators and mere accomplices. Instead of defining the principal perpetrator as the individual who performs the actus reus of the offence, or who has the mens rea for the offence, the Control Theory states that they who control the crime are the principal perpetrator, even if that person uses another individual, or even an organization, to carry out the crime. Although much has been said of this mode of liability, this chapter considers a far broader question: whether the Control Theory as applied by today’s ICC (or by other courts that have adopted it) accords with the social reality of how atrocities are committed. In other words, this chapter does not consider whether the Control Theory is a good criminal law theory, but rather whether it could pass a criminological test..

scholarly journals On the Difference of the Approaches of Searle and Durkheim to the Description of Social Reality

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
A. A. Sanzhenakov
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
John Searle ◽  
Common Features ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The Individual

The article is devoted to the comparison of the social ontology of John Searle with the social theory of Emile Durkheim. It was shown that the approaches of Searle and Durkheim have a number of similar features. These common features are the rejection of reductionism of the collective to the individual, attention to language as one of the most important conditions of the emergence of social reality, the recognition of unawareness and automatism in accepting the rules of social interaction by its participants. However, there are certainly differences between the conceptions of Searle and Durkheim, and therefore the possibility of influence of analytic philosophy represented by Searle on social theory is obvious. As the basis from which this discrepancy arises, the author points to the understanding of science and the level of objectivity of scientific research that have changed since by the time of Searle.

scholarly journals Simone Weil’s Radical Ontology of Rootedness: Natural and Supernatural Justices

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Alexandre A. Martins ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Spirit ◽  
The Real ◽  
The World ◽  
Transcendent Reality ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Human Condition

This paper argues that Simone Weil developed an anthropology of the human condition that is a radical ontology of the human spirit rooted in reality. Weil begins her account from the real, but this real is not only the historical or social reality. It is also what is true about the human person as a created being in connection with the transcendent reality. She believes that affliction reveals the human condition and provides an openness to transcendence in which the individual finds the meaning of the human operation of spirit. Therefore, Weil’s radical ontology is based on a philosophy of the human being as an agent rooted in the world. In order to be rooted, a human being needs decreation (the creation of a new human) and incarnation (cross and love in the world). In her radical ontology derived from attention to the real, Weil argues for an active incarnation in social reality that recognizes others, especially the unfortunates, for the purpose of empowering them and promoting their dignity. Her radical ontology incarnates the human in the world between necessity and good, that is, between the natural and the supernatural.

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