The Sociological Imagination

Add SI on Twitter and Facebook

Sociological Imagination — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:00:53 +0000

This is a reminder that the Sociological Imagination has a presence on facebook. Please do add us as a friend and feel free to get in contact. We’re always open to ideas and suggestions so please don’t hesitate if there’s anything you would like to say!

Sociological Imagination

Twitter News Wire

Twitter Updates

Opening Up the Ivory Tower? Access and Academic Publishing

Sociological Imagination — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:09:59 +0000

Are you interested in being a Postgraduate Forum Convenor for the British Sociological Association?

Sociological Imagination — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:00:54 +0000

Are you interested in being a Postgraduate Forum Convenor?

Our existing team work together to make sure that student members of the Association are kept up-to-date with matters of specific interest to them. They will also facilitate contact between student members and the BSA Council. In return for their hard work and dedication.

Postgraduate Forum Convenors are offered a free place at BSA events and all travel expenses are reimbursed.

The Convenors’ tasks include:

Circulating information to other postgraduates via the PG Forum email distribution list
Maintaining the PG Forum pages of the BSA website & the Facebook fan page.
Supporting and hosting PG Focus podcasts
Making contributions to Network
Assisting with the processing of BSA Support Fund applications by joining the panel of members who grant awards from the Fund
Helping organise the Postgraduate workshops/events at the BSA Annual Conference
Representing the interests of Postgraduate members at Council meetings

Since the PG Focus podcasts were launched to great success in 2009, they have become an increasingly important part of the PG Forum activities. We are therefore particularly interested in having someone join us who has knowledge about, or an interest in learning, skills relating to the compiling, editing, uploading, and online maintenance of the blog and PG Focus podcasts.

The successful applicant will work with current convenors to become
proficient at assisting with the online and media aspects of the PG Forum’s activities. The new convenor(s) will also share other duties, including attending on average one Council meeting and two PG Forum meetings per year; quickly and efficiently dealing with email correspondence regarding Support Fund applications and other business; overseeing the organization of a session for the PG Day and spearheading new initiatives that will benefit the PG Forum community.

While the time commitment for this role is flexible, with responsibilities shared between convenors, and the workload varies over the year, applicants can expect to devote between 4 and 16 hours per month to PG Forum
responsibilities.

If you have questions about what being a convenor entails, please contact us at PGForum@britsoc.org.uk

Include a letter explaining why you think you are suitable for this role.
Deadline for applications: 1 March 201

What are universities?

Sociological Imagination — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:00:18 +0000

Note the date…

Up to now the universities have been the secular refuge of mediocrity,
the salary of ignorance, the safe hospital for all intellectual invalids and–
what is even worse–the place where all forms of tyranny and insensibility
found the chairs where they could be taught. The universities have thus
become faithful mirrors of these decadent societies which offer the sad
sight of a senile immobility. That is why science, facing these closed and
shuttered houses, remains silent or mutilated and grotesque, merely serves
bureaucracy. When in a fleeting period of liberalism the university opened
its doors to some loftier minds, it very soon repented and made the existence
of those minds within its walls impossible. That is why under such
regimes the dominant forces carry education towards mediocrity and that
is why the vital development of our universities is never the fruit of an
organic process, but only the result of revolutionary upsurges.

(from Student Power in Latin America: The Cordoba Manifesto 1918, (Transl & reprinted in Minerva, 1968))

A round up of recent social media & academic publishing articles

Sociological Imagination — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:00:32 +0000

Tales of Christmas past #1 The Invisible Christmas

Amy Louise Webber — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:00:13 +0000

Copyright © Franko B 2011
Photo taken by artist Franko B – the rest of the collection is well worth seeing:

The building looked different to how I’d seen it previously.. that is before the guests had arrived. The hall was large and it was the only area that both guests and volunteers had access to. In the corner a TV blared. Groups of tables and chairs were set out, next to areas for clothing distribution and a hatch were guests were given hot drinks and food. Bowls of crisps, sweets and biscuits were everywhere. This felt slightly odd. Creating a party atmosphere was perhaps well intended but seemed a little disingenuous to the reality of the circumstances.

Regardless of the training sessions I’d attended I felt apprehension. The situation, we had been warned, could be unpredictable. Violence sometimes occurred but this was usually outside and between guests. The biggest threat was overdose. The year before a guest had died at the shelter on New Years Eve. Although beds were checked every 15 mins the wheezing ‘or death rattle’ had not been identified in time. Most guests I’d been told, had been philosophical about this. ‘He had died with a warm meal inside him in a safe bed surrounded by his mates’. ‘God bless’ they wrote in the art workshop the next day.

I was working front of house – so this meant companionship, tea fetching and board games although my first official task was toilet duty. Drugs and alcohol were not permitted but addiction, I witnessed, was a relentless master. Toilet checks were performed under the neon lights every 15 minutes for substance use, overdose or other illicit activity. There was no real bother on any of my shifts.

The volunteers were plenty. They outnumbered the guests on some evenings and encompassed a wide range of people. Food was donated generously, was in excess at times and of top quality. Some of Bristol’s best chefs were doing shifts in the kitchen. Three meals a day were given out, sweets crisps and biscuits in-between and the shelter tried to ensure that no one was turned away from the 50 beds available. Most guests moved in and stayed for the two week Christmas period. This was usually the most stable place they had been for the entire year normally moving on every night.

The guests were of all ages, and came from all walks of life. Some were local residents who were alone at Christmas and wanted company. Some were ‘hidden homeless’ – who survived by kipping on mates sofas and gave their usual hosts a break over the festive period. Most though were homeless the year through and stuck in unbreakable cycles of addiction, unemployment, mental health illness and prostitution.

It was a Christmas bubble. We all knew that the situation wasn’t real. That nothing would change. But for those two weeks of the year, life was made more bearable for the guests. Jokes were exchanged, games were lost and won. Second hand clothes were traded. Tea was drunk and songs were sung.

It was difficult to see how some of the guests had ended up there. Clever, funny, personable, educated. Others illustrated the miserable and mostly hopeless reality of those living in the grip of addiction. Missing person cards were handed out to us at the beginning of the shift in the hope that amongst the guests a specific friend or loved one could be identified. Occasionally people were recognised, but often they didn’t want to be found ‘Give them the message I’m alrite’ They would say.

Nicholas was seventeen. He had problems with his family and at school and had been crashing on mate’s sofas for over a year. The first thing I noticed about him was how clever he was. If he was engaged in something he was really bright. He would win at nearly all the games he played and would teach others. He was extremely patient at my totally inability to pick up a lot of the games we played. Nicholas didn’t have an obvious class A or alcohol addiction (although I’m not medically qualified to make any kind of assessment especially given it was only three shifts I volunteered). He talked about wanting to go to college and said he spent most of his time smoking weed. I saw so much potential there. Don’t drop anchor here, I thought.

Edward and Rosa seemed to be a couple - both alcoholics. They were in their forties would have once been well dressed had it not been for the dirt and tatter of their clothes. I found them the most difficult to sit with. He would insult her constantly, both to her face in front of other people. A consistent barrage of verbal abuse. She had swollen ulcers on her hands and feet – infected track marks. She seemed indifferent to the constant degradation.

Alan scared me. He was very tall, he may have been in the forces once. He observed the room and stood apart from everyone. He was always watching. Always looking for an opportunity, assessing the power relationships and dynamics in the room. Street life teaches you a different set of survival skills. There was something intimidating which overwhelmed me yet in a flash it was gone and he was crying like a baby.

Ricardo was from Brazil. I spent my first evening almost exclusively with him. He was in his twenties. He was a rent boy – and extremely distressed. I held his hands as he cried for hours. He told me stories of life on the streets, of rape. Of concerns over HIV and the stigma amongst homeless communities about homosexuality. He had been a dancer. He delighted at dressing up and ransacked the clothing piles for fuchsia fur coats and sequin handbags which quickly got traded for cigarettes and other favours. The only thing I could do was be with him and see him and hear him for who he was and what he had been through.. He cried so many tears that night. I really felt that I had helped. The next day I was happy to see him again and bounced over to catch up on how he was doing. He didn’t remember me.

It was a year ago I volunteered. I know I helped but ultimately found it hard to feel good about my contribution. The shelter was over staffed – some shifts even had waiting lists. Food flowed as did the goodwill to almost obscene amounts…what a lot of Christmas spirit… But where are we the rest of the year I wondered? The shelter struggles to find staff outside of Christmas. Sure. A brief respite from the trauma and danger of life on the street, but the ‘guests’ in reality were lost. This was a bitter pill to swallow. The experience stayed with me but it was a good lesson. Anyone can be homeless. Anyone can be the victim of abuse or suffer mental illness or become an addict. And it happens all year round. I decided that it’s more important to contribute in a way which were sustainable and longer term. But I guess most of us didn’t get around to being that altruistic yet.

There are other stories from the shelter of course, but its Christmas and there is shopping to be done and I guess you won’t have much time to read them all.. I’m lucky that I get to choose not to be at the shelter this year. I’ll never forget my experience. I’d like to think that the same ‘guests’ will make it through to 2012 but then ….I will never know.

Has the snow revolution donned a mink coat?

Sociological Imagination — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:00:06 +0000

Elena Omel’chenko and Nastya Min’kova, MYPLACE team members at Centre for Youth Research, Higher School of Economics (St Petersburg) on the latest from Russia’s ‘Snow Revolution’ (27th December 2011)

This article was initially posted to the MYPLACE blog. For more information on the MYPLACE project, follow them on Twitter or visit the project’s website: HERE

The snow revolution in Russia continues. The pro-Kremlin movement activists are still searching for evidence of the involvement of the US State Department and the residents of Russia’s cities are attending protest meetings for the third Saturday in a row. Among them are many young people. Among them are many who regularly engage in street politics. But among them too are many who have never taken to the streets before. The following blog collates links to all communications about protest meetings in Russia and abroad which took place on 24 December:

http://podosokorskiy.livejournal.com/1426720.html#.

Moscow is beating all records: http://zyalt.livejournal.com/499063.html. On 24th December on Sakharov Square 50-100,000 people gathered. The figures provided by the city police and the by the meeting’s organizers vary significantly and this has become the source of much humour. The web columnist (at ru.net), Aleksandr Pliushchev, published in his blog photographs of various events from Sakharov Square (http://www.flickr.com/photos/plushev/6564495887/). In the first case, the police estimated that there were more than 50,000 participants of the pro-Kremlin movement ‘Nashi’ while in the second, they claimed there were 29,000 participants at the opposition meeting.

The Moscow protest set the town for people’s creative input. Many placards took up the theme of ‘Putin and his condoms’ because, a day earlier, the Prime Minister had likened the white ribbons, which have become a symbol of protest against the dishonest elections, to contraceptives. On the 15^{th December, during a live TV broadcast and in response to a question about whether the ribbons might become a symbol of a new ‘colour’ revolution, Putin said, ‘Even though it is a little unseemly, I will tell you honestly that I thought they were promoting the battle against AIDS, that they were some kind of contraceptives’. At the meeting a group of young people distributed condoms under a sign saying, ‘You didn’t like that rubber?’ Pick another! You have a choice!’ [Translator’s note: in the original Russian this is a play on words since the word for ‘elections’ (vybory) is the plural form of the word for ‘choice’ (vybor).]}

Another humorous theme have been source of humour has for jokes has been the ‘bandar-logs’ in reference to the same direct address to the people on the 15th December when Putin explained how he would work with the opposition by equating them to the ostracized anarchic ‘monkey people’ of Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’: ‘All citizens must be treated with. Of course there are people who have Russian Federation passports but who act in the interests of a foreign state and using foreign money. We will also try to establish contact with them although often it is pointless or impossible. “Come to me, Bandar-logs”. From childhood I have loved Kipling.’ The news site newsru.com created a selection of the funniest protest materials:

^{http://newsru.com/arch/russia/25dec2011/saharov_creo.html}^{(select ‘all photos’/ ‘ВСЕ ФОТО’).}

On the tide of these feelings, there appeared on the official Russian prankster site, a recording of a conversation conducted by the prankster nicknamed Vovan222 with the head of the Central Electoral Commission, Vladimir Churov. The young man introduced himself as a well known Kremlin official and, on behalf of the ‘twins’ [Medvedev and Putin], told Churov he had been sacked. Judging by the conversation, the prank worked; Churov, whose responsibility it was to deliver the vote count at the elections, believed he had been fired. The audio file was quickly disseminated via the diaries of Live Journal contributors (^{http://www.livejournal.ru/themes/id/42793?from=twitter}^).

The authorities have responded already; some representatives of the Presidential administration have called people attending protest meetings ‘sympathetic’ or ‘worthy’. And recently Putin’s deputy, Sergei Ivanov, declared recent events to indicate ‘genuine freedom of speech’ in Russia. However, despite the protestors finally having been noticed, and even shown on central TV channels (previously the subject had been ignored), the authorities remain deaf to their demands. Dmitrii Medvedev has promised the people that he will restore some of their power to elect regional governors, but so far nothing more.

Breaking the ‘Fukuyama taboo’— a journey through the global crisis with Slavoj Žižek.

Arianna Giovannini — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:00:48 +0000

Love him or hate him, Slavoj Žižek is no ordinary thinker, with a reputation for his always provocative and take-no-prisoners approach to social analysis. In an interview for Al-Jazeera released at the end of the year just passed, the Slovenian philosopher takes the audience through an intellectual journey across the momentous changes and the subsequent upheavals that have shaken the global financial and political system. As ever, his analysis is controversial and yet fascinating. It starts from the protests movements, and goes on touching the widest possible span of issues, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the rise of China, challenging our understanding of the world order as we (think we) know it.

In the wake of the most severe global crisis of our times, Žižek suggests that the much needed ‘revolutionary change’ will not come about in the form of a miraculous solution. Change is already taking place, and it is manifesting itself though the growing, fast-spreading awareness that the difficulties we are all confronting are neither temporary nor compartmentalised. The current global issues have not been merely caused by some bad, greedy guys operating in an otherwise good system—they are part and parcel of the system itself, and the recent protest movements have clearly shed light on this. Hence, what really matters in this specific conjuncture is not to find fast solutions, but to break what Žižek calls ‘the iconic Fukuyama-taboo’—the so far largely unquestioned “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism” and its assumed irreplaceability.

From this angle, the very remarkable achievement of the protests lies in the way in which they have exposed how the system is not simply ‘faulty’ and needing fixing but, rather, it is likely to implode— because it has lost its self-evidence and ‘automatic legitimacy’. This is why, in Žižek’s view, it is beyond the remit of protest movements such as ‘Occupy’ to make realistic demands or to suggest for stable solutions to the global crisis. Their truly revolutionary aim has been fulfilled: they have removed the lid of one of the most cumbersome Pandora’s boxes of our age—they have revealed the limits of the “End of History”, and released a large flux of energy of protest in this way. However, Žižek concludes, what the future has in store for us is uncertain, because it will depend on the result of the final and most difficult of the battles— the struggle for who will appropriate such great energy.

To find out more about Žižek’s work, check out our Žižek bundle