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Material Reality (material + reality)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences80%

Selected Abstracts

Making schools and young people responsible: a critical analysis of Ireland's obesity strategy

HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2008
Michelle Share BA (Hons) MA PhD
Abstract Worldwide reports of an obesity ,epidemic' prompted the Irish government to appoint a multidisciplinary Taskforce, whose report was published in May 2005. This paper critically analyses the report and its recommendations for reducing health risks among families, children and young people. Using a Foucauldian perspective, we question the report's individualizing focus and support for a strategy which responsibilises schools, families and young people and relies on individuals to do ,the right thing'. Specifically, we examine the Taskforce recommendations for the education sector, and identify their dependence upon a discourse of governmentality, under categories of individualization, responsibilization and freedom of choice, participation and techniques for management of the self. We conclude that the report fails to address the multi-faceted and complex nature of obesity, and obscures the social, economic and material realities of the lives of pupils and schools. [source]

Suffering and Domesticity: The Subversion of Sentimentalism in Three Stories by Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 1 2006
Charlotte Woodford
The fiction of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830,1916) is set firmly in the material reality of the Habsburg Empire. Although realist in its commitment to reflecting contemporary society and its values, it has often been ,accused' of sentimentalism. This article argues that while Ebner's short stories indeed adopt some sentimental tropes, this should not be regarded as detracting from the complexity of her work. Rather, it is complex and worthy of examination in its own right. A closer and more differentiated analysis of sentimentalism in Ebner's fiction than is usually undertaken by modern criticism demonstrates that Ebner self-consciously uses sentimental strategies, such as religious imagery, the idealisation of characters or the death of a protagonist, in order to subvert the ethos of the conventional sentimental novel. This tended to reinforce women's domestic role and strengthen the reader's belief in the spiritual value of suffering. The stories ,Das tägliche Leben', ,Die Resel', and ,Der Erstgeborene' show how Ebner, by contrast, undermines the idea that suffering has any value in a religious sense, and takes issue with the idea that women should obediently submit to domestic unhappiness. [source]

The object of sectarianism: the material reality of sectarianism in Ulster Loyalism

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 3 2000
David Cairns
This article examines an important, and neglected, aspect of sectarianism in contemporary Northern Ireland: its embodiment in the material culture and everyday social practices of its antagonistic factions. Following a brief theoretical outline of sectarianism (characterized as a discursive formation), I describe this phenomenon as found in an Ulster loyalist community. I show how the material reality of sectarianism encompasses the everyday activities of these loyalists, including their ,traditional' culture of Orangeism and the spheres of sport, leisure, and entertainment. Within these everyday cultural practices, sectarian values are objectified and stored in fetishized objects, such as flags and banners, and in an oral culture of songs and slogans. [source]

LIVING A DISTRIBUTED LIFE: MULTILOCALITY AND WORKING AT A DISTANCE

ANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2008
Brigitte Jordan
In the last few years, new collaboration and communication technologies have led to a deterritorialization of work, allowing for the rise of new work- and lifestyles. In this article, I use my own transition from the life of a corporate researcher to that of a multilocal mobile consultant for tracking some of the patterns I see in a changing cultural and economic environment where work and workers are no longer tied to a specific place of work. My main interest lies in identifying some of the behavioral shifts that are happening as people are caught up in and attempt to deal with this changing cultural landscape. Writing as a knowledge worker who now moves regularly from a work,home place in the Silicon Valley of California to another in the tropical lowlands of Costa Rica, I use my personal transition as a lens through which to trace new, emergent patterns of behavior, of values, and of social conventions. I assess the stresses and joys, the upsides and downsides, the challenges and rewards of this work- and lifestyle and identify strategies for making such a life successful and rewarding. Throughout, there emerges an awareness of the ways in which the personal patterns described reflect wider trends and cumulatively illustrate global transformation of workscapes and lifescapes. These types of local patterns in fact constitute the on-the-ground material reality of global processes that initiate and sustain widespread culture change and emergent societal transformations. [source]