Stigma and discrimination: social encounters, identity and space; a concept derived from HIV and AIDS related research in the high prevalence country Botswana

How do social encounters conjure up stigma and discrimination? How do social identities emerge and how do people reject or integrate each other in local settings and social space? How do individuals affected build their self-identities and cope with the socially divisive effects of their stigma? The book provides an unconventional view on the subject matter. It is based on empirical fieldwork on the social effects of HIV and AIDS in Botswana. A broad review of geographical, sociological, psychological and social psychological literature, as well as the consideration of works of applied sciences helps to lift the empirical findings to a more general and theoretical level. Different lines of theory are disentangled and integrated into a concept of stigma and discrimination. With its standpoint of pragmatist epistemology and the special focus on the spatial character of social distances the book is of interest not only for social geographers. Both stigma and discrimination are socially highly relevant phenomena. They not only induce social segregation in such a manner that people are forced to subordinate themselves. Especially stigmatisation leads people to exclude themselves out of shame. People also refrain from seeking support from relevant services. It is therefore of elementary importance in many social fields (e.g. the public health sector, social work, etc.) to understand the processes of stigma and discrimination. First published as: Geiselhart, Klaus (2009): The Geography of Stigma and Discrimination. HIV and AIDS Related Identities in Botswana. Saarbrücken (Studies in Development Geography, 36

A Simmelian reading of Goffman

The sociologies of Georg Sirrurel (1858-1918) arid Erving Goffman(1922-1982) are compared and contrasted in order to present aSirnrnelian interpretation of Goffnian. It is proposed that this isone appropriate way of lendinq coherence to Goffman's work anddealing with some of its interpretive difficulties. The firsttwo chapters trace the development of the work of Sirr!mel andGoffman and address the issue of its systernaticity. Chapterthree considers certain substantive affinities andcorrespondences. The formal method employed by Simrr'el andGoffman is discussed in chapter four. Methodoloqical auestionsare also pursued in chapter five which reviews aspects ofSimirel's and Goffman's rhetoric. Chapter six compares theirviews on the nature of the individual. A case study applyingtheir analytical apparatuses to aspects of game show htnrour isappended. Throughout, the aim is to demonstrate the relevance ofone of socioloqy's major classical thinkers for an understandingof a leading contemporary

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

The stalking ground: Some varieties of human conduct seen in and through a frame of ritual.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D37562/81 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

The psychasthenia of deep space: evaluating the 'reassertion of space in critical social history'

The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed `spatial turn' in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new `structure of feeling' towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja's misunderstanding of Borges' story The Aleph, argues for an `alephic vision', an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an `ecstatic vision', which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the `respatialization' literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain `real world' phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final `speculative epilogue' I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates

The sexed and gendered body as a social institution: a critical reconstruction of two social constructionist models: Bourdieu's theory of habitus and the performative theory of social institutions

By highlighting the embodied forms of social life, contemporary debates in Social Sciences have created new necessity to explore two major binary oppositions, that of nature and society and structure and individual. The definition of these core notions from different sociological perspectives is currently engendering tensions which indicate a need to advance a more detailed analysis. The aim of this thesis is to explore new understandings of social constructionist accounts of the body by focusing on sex/gender identity and by critically comparing two constructionist views: Bourdieu's Theory of Practice and its core notion of habitus, and The Performative Theory of Social Institutions, the social theory of The Strong Programme (a brand of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge developed by Barnes and Bloor).I argue that whereas Bourdieu's novelty is that he locates social effects at the level of the body, his theory, by envisaging this socialization as a Parsonian model of early internalization resulting in permanent fixidity, suffers from an over-deterministic bias. On the other hand The Performative Theory of Social Institutions' basic tenet that social life is the self-referential (performative) achievement of the interactive activity of a collective of heterogeneous but mutually susceptible individuals stands in stark contrast with Bourdieu's notion of the stability of the habitus as the individual internalization of preexisting macro-structures.The Performative Theory, although not specifically concerned with the body, provides an analytical framework that challenges Bourdieu's materialistic account which tacitly reifies the social as a external 'objective' entity. 1 present Butler's performative theory of sex and gender identity to further reveal the analytical implications of Bourdieu's model of habitus as an 'externalist' structuralist model and its application to a sex/gender habitus as exposing an unacknowledged biological essentialist bias. By introducing Kusch's notion of artificial kinds, closely connected with the main tenets of the performative theory of social institutions, I develop a definition of an embodied habitus as a 'social institution', that is, as the result of the constitutive power of the performative practices of individuals. With the introduction of the work of Kusch and Scheff I also identify the constitutive role of social sanctioning in protecting meaning stability. With this I reconstruct two core themes of Bourdieu's structuralist model: that of the stability of doxic formations as the result of individuals' interactive activity (thus advancing a new understanding of the dualism between macro- and micro-phenomena) and the social genesis of the physicality of the human body (revealing new paths to explore for the nature/culture debate). The sexed body is thus the result of individuals' performative activity (verbal or otherwise), which constitutes the materiality of the body and our conceptions of it according to collective beliefs about the category of' sex'.The political scope of this discussion is highlighted by comparing Bourdieu's theory of symbolic power with the Foucauldian notion of 'productive power', reconstructed by Kusch as an internal-essential relationship. This reconstruction advances new understandings of the constructionist claim that 'power constitutes subjects'. This is a framework which better accounts for radical constructivist claims, like that of Butler, that the (sexed) body is a discursive construction, and enables the further questioning of Bourdieu's 'externalist' structuralist commitment. In comparison, I present the performative theorists as an 'internalist' structuralist model which presents a more accomplished understanding of the constitution of social life.With the critical comparison between Bourdieu's sociological model and that of The Performative Theory of Social Institutions, this thesis exposes two radically distinct sociological models which I claim represent a profound rift current within sociological enquiry. Comparing the 'materialist' sociological account of Bourdieu's model with that of the 'idealist' position of the performative theorists (and Butler, Foucault and Kusch) allows me to draw on two different definitions of 'objective' macro structure, one derived from an 'externalist' metaphysical understanding of macro-phenomena and another which contends that macro-phenomena are 'internal' and exist in and through social activity. This critical comparison also allows me to introduce new understandings of the process of sex and gender acquisition, to shed light on the analytical problems inherent in the sex/gender distinction, and thus to contribute to the feminist debate on antiessentialism and the epistemological and political value of the sex/gender distinction