This book takes a radical look at organizational crime and deviance through the prism of Cultural Theory derived from anthropology. It does so through case studies and by introducing new concepts such as 'organizational perversion', 'tyranny' and 'organizational capture'. Exploring the effects of change and environmental influences such as globalization, new technologies and trade-cycles on the nature and potency of criminogenic communities such as ports and holiday resorts, the book gives special attention to the justification of ethics and to the analysis of behaviours that have contributed to the current economic downturn. The Appendix offers a practical guide to the ethnographic assessment of links between organizations and varying types of crime and deviancy using a Cultural Theory framework.
The idea of risk has recently risen to prominence in political debate and in matters of public policy. Cognitive psychology treats decision-making as a private personal act. But in real life dangers are presented in standardized forms which pre-code the individual's choices. This collection follows on from the programme for studying risk and blame that was implied in Purity and Danger and has been developed in subsequent publications. Its first six essays argue that any analysis of risk perception that ignores cultural and political bias is worthless. For the sake of a mistaken idea of objectivity, research on risk perception tries to avoid politics, but the idea of nature is inherently politicized. The study of risk needs a systematic framework of political and cultural comparison. The next five essays range over questions in cultural theory. A culture is viewed as a way of life which standardizes concepts and values. It is held steady by the institutions in which it is articulated. Questions of autonomy, credibility and gullibility, the social origins of wants, and the recognition of distinctive thought styles are at present only beginning to be treated systematically in a framework of cultural analysis. Now that risk is moving centre-stage as the dominant idiom of policy analysis, many other key topics, such as the notion of the self, will need to be radically revised. In Risk and Blame, Mary Douglas argues that the prominence of risk discourse will force upon the social sciences a programme of rethinking and consolidation which will include the anthropological approaches studied in these pages.
What are the various forces influencing the role of the prison in late modern societies? What changes have there been in penality and use of the prison over the past 40 years that have led to the re-valorization of the prison? Using penal culture as a conceptual and theoretical vehicle, and Australia as a case study, this book analyses international developments in penality and imprisonment. Authored by some of Australia’s leading penal theorists, the book examines the historical and contemporary influences on the use of the prison, with analyses of colonialism, post colonialism, race, and what they term the ‘penal/colonial complex,’ in the construction of imprisonment rates and on the development of the phenomenon of hyperincarceration. The authors develop penal culture as an explanatory framework for continuity, change and difference in prisons and the nature of contested penal expansionism. The influence of transformative concepts such as ‘risk management’, ‘the therapeutic prison’, and ‘preventative detention’ are explored as aspects of penal culture. Processes of normalization, transmission and reproduction of penal culture are seen throughout the social realm. Comparative, contemporary and historical in its approach, the book provides a new analysis of penality in the 21st century.
One of the most important works of modern anthropology. Written against the backdrop of the student uprisings of the late 1960s, the book took seriously the revolutionary fervour of the times, but instead of seeking to destroy the rituals and symbols that can govern and oppress, Mary Douglas saw instead that if transformation were needed, it could only be made possible through better understanding. Expressed with clarity and dynamism, the passionate analysis which follows remains one of the most insightful and rewarding studies of human behaviour ever written.
Based on a rigorous construction of theoretical categories and on a close scrutiny of the common challenges confronting Europe and its Turkish neighbour long considered ‘other’ with regard to the accommodation of religious difference, this book sheds light on the possibilities for Europe to find new ways of arranging the relationship between the secular and the religious. As such, it will appeal to scholars of social theory, the sociology of religion, secularisation and religious difference, and social change.
This is a book about the use of personal influence, protektzia, in Israel. All over the world, in both democratic and socialist societies, there exists some degree of recognition of the rights of citizens to complain about unjust treatment in organizational encounters. While the goals and actual functioning of complaint-handling devices may vary, bureaucratic role relations are ideally governed by the principles of universalism, specificity, and affective neutrality. In fact, patterns of actual behavior frequently differ dramatically from this model, giving rise to practices from bribery and embezzlement to nepotism, patronage, and what is referred to in the United States as "pulling strings." In Israel, protektzia is widespread. This book is a major contribution to the systematic sociological study of this phenomenon. Drawing on the literature on the functioning of public administration around the world, Danet develops a theory about the conditions under which deviations from universalistic norms occur, distinguishing four patterns of organizational culture. The theory is then tested in a case study of bureaucratic encounters in Israel. Danet's fascinating study brings new insights to the debate regarding the cultural contradictions that continue to confront the still-emerging Israeli society. The conclusions and classifications of her theory prove invaluable as well to all those interested iorganizational culture, comparative public administration, and dispute-processing in general.
This work is a guide to the life, thought and activities of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), the great fifteenth-century philosopher, theologian, jurist, author of mystical and ecclesiastical treatises, cardinal and reformer. It is intended not only for advanced scholars, but also for beginners and those simply curious about a man who has been called 'one of the greatest Germans of the fifteenth century' and a 'medieval thinker for the modern age'. The book provides a series of detailed but readable essays on ideas, persons, and places, a work developed over the course of nearly three decades. First, it contains articles on the important events and concepts that affected Cusanus--philosophical, religious, intellectual and political. Then it turns to his precursors and contemporaries, both friendly and critical. These include philosophers, theologians, politicians, and canon lawyers. And third, the book follows the footsteps of the man from Kues and examines various sites where he lived, studied, or visited. Because the author has also visited many of these sites, he can contribute personal observations to enliven the journey. To add to the book's usefulness as a resource and reference tool, each entry is followed by a bibliography containing both recent and older works. The purpose of the volume is to gain a greater appreciation of Cusanus and his legacy by striving for a total view of his thought and experience instead of narrowly focusing on specific philosophical, theological or intellectual ideas, or certain periods of his activities in isolation from other facets of this compelling figure.
With the recent Sokal hoax--the publication of a prominent physicist's pseudo-article in a leading journal of cultural studies--the status of science moved sharply from debate to dispute. Is science objective, a disinterested reflection of reality, as Karl Popper and his followers believed? Or is it subjective, a social construction, as Thomas Kuhn and his students maintained? Into the fray comes "Mystery of Mysteries," an enlightening inquiry into the nature of science, using evolutionary theory as a case study. Michael Ruse begins with such colorful luminaries as Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) and Julian Huxley (brother of novelist Aldous and grandson of T. H. Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog" ) and ends with the work of the English game theorist Geoffrey Parker--a microevolutionist who made his mark studying the mating strategies of dung flies--and the American paleontologist Jack Sepkoski, whose computer-generated models reconstruct mass extinctions and other macro events in life's history. Along the way Ruse considers two great popularizers of evolution, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, as well as two leaders in the field of evolutionary studies, Richard Lewontin and Edward O. Wilson, paying close attention to these figures' cultural commitments: Gould's transplanted Germanic idealism, Dawkins's male-dominated Oxbridge circle, Lewontin's Jewish background, and Wilson's southern childhood. Ruse explicates the role of metaphor and metavalues in evolutionary thought and draws significant conclusions about the cultural impregnation of science. Identifying strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the "science wars," he demonstrates that a resolution of the objective and subjective debate is nonetheless possible.
Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer in this century. Joining Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell as a key member of the 1920s musical avant-garde, she went on to study with modernist theorist and future husband Charles Seeger, writing her masterpiece, String Quartet 1931, not long after. But her legacy extends far beyond the cutting edge of modern music. Collaborating with poet Carl Sandburg on folk song arrangements in the twenties, and with the famous folk-song collectors John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s, she emerged as a central figure in the American folk music revival, issuing several important books of transcriptions and arrangements and pioneering the use of American folk songs in children's music education. Radicalized by the Depression, she spent much of the ensuing two decades working aggressively for social change with her husband and stepson, the folksinger Pete Seeger. This engrossing new biography emphasizes the choices Crawford Seeger made in her roles as composer, activist, teacher, wife and mother. The first woman to win a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in music composition, Crawford Seeger nearly gave up writing music as the demands of family, politics, and the folk song movement intervened. It was only at the very end of her life, with cancer sapping her strength, that she returned to composing. Written with unique insight and compassion, this book offers the definitive treatment of a fascinating twentieth-century figure.
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