Towards the Role of Self, Worth, and Feelings in (Re-)Producing Social Dominance: Explicating Pierre Bourdieu's Implicit Theory of Affect

In this theoretical article it is argued that Pierre Bourdieu’s Social Theory pro-vides us with a convincing account of how the subjectivated social actor, social evaluation procedures, and affective states are inherently intertwined. Therefore, it contains an implicit theory of affect offering not only a better understanding of the role affective states play within sociological theory building, but also in the (re-)production of social order, especially in terms of social inequality or social domination in (late) modernity. In doing so, it also illuminates processes of social transformation. A twofold analysis is provided: A reconstruction of Bourdieu’s perspective on the general structure of (late) modernity especially emphasizing his (late) modern anthropology, as well as an examination of his theoretical considerations of the habitus. As a result, on a social theoretical level, feelings, emotions, sensations, etc. appear as a specific, particularly naturalized evaluative social practice. On the level of societal analysis feeling appreciated as the result of practically referring appreciatively towards oneself emerges as the legitimate (late) modern subject structure

Unschuldiges Fleisch - Unschuldige Subjekte?

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich in einer ersten Annäherung mit der Biotechnologie "Clean Meat" (CM). Diese verspricht einen Fleischkonsum ohne schlechtes Gewissen, da die Produktion von Fleisch mittels der CM-Technologie (fast) ohne tierisches Leiden und Sterben auskomme und eine radikal geringere Umweltbelastung darstelle. Um ergründen zu können, inwiefern CM ökologische Sensibilitäten und Gerechtigkeiten stärkt und derart unserem Leben auf Kosten Anderer entgegenwirkt, nähere ich mich dieser als einer Verweltlichungspraxis aus einer relational symbolisch-materiellen Perspektive vor dem Hintergrund der Arbeiten von Donna Haraway, Jane Bennett sowie Annemaie Mol und Marilyn Strathern an, mit der sich jenseits einer den Dualismus von Natur und Kultur reproduzierenden Perspektive danach fragen lässt, was es ist, was wir mit CM essen und was wir insofern werden. Ich komme dabei zu dem Schluss, dass CM u.a. unseren Glauben an die Legitimität unseres "Berechtigungssubjekt"-Daseins sowie an die Überlegenheit unserer westlich-modernen Wissenspraktiken nährt und insofern eher eine Radikalisierung der westlich-(spät-)modernen Lebensweise denn deren Transformation darstellt

Evaluationsverfahren aus laborkonstruktivistischer Perspektive

"Einrichtungen der Wissenschaft werden mit zunehmender Selbstverständlichkeit evaluiert. Damit bekommt auch die alte Debatte um angemessene Verfahren und Kriterien der Qualitätsbewertung eine neue Aktualität. Das Papier hebt die Bedeutung von Verfahrensregeln für den Urteilsprozess hervor. Evaluationen werden als Verfahren im Sinne Luhmanns (1969) angenommen. Als eigenständige Systeme entwickeln sie ein gewisses Maß an Eigendynamik. Gleichzeitig sind die durch eine Vielzahl von vorgelagerten Selektionsleistungen begrenzt. Die Analyse fokussiert auf eben diese Selektionsleistungen. Untersucht wird, wie sich Verfahrensregeln in unterschiedlichen Evaluationsregimes unterscheiden und welche strukturierende Wirkung auf den Bewertungsprozess jeweils damit angenommen werden kann. Gegenstand der Analyse sind die Verfahrensregeln der Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gemeinschaft in Deutschland, des 'Standard Evaluation Protocol for Public Research' in den Niederlanden und des 'Research Assessment Exercises' (RAE) in Großbritannien. Als heuristische Folie wird der laborkonstruktivistische Ansatz von Knorr-Cetina verwendet, weil damit auch die soziale Komponente von Regeln und Techniken gut herausgearbeitet werden kann." (Autorenreferat)"Today, it is increasingly common to evaluate scientific organisations. Consequently, the old debate on adequate procedures and criteria for the assessment of scientific quality is relevant again. The paper emphasizes the impact of the codes of practice on the process of judgement. Following Luhmann (1969), evaluations are conceptualized as procedures - as independent social systems they develop a certain momentum of their own. At the same time, they are limited by a number of previous selections such as roles and required techniques. The analysis focuses on these selections. The main question is to which extent there are different codes of practices in different regimes of evaluation and to which extent we can assume them to have a structuring impact on the process of assessment. Subjects of our analysis are the codes of practice of the Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gemeinschaft in Germany, the 'Standard Evaluation Protocol for Public Research' in the Netherlands an the 'Research Assessment Exercises' (RAE) in Great Britain. A constructivist perspective as Karin Knorr Cetina has offered, serves as an heuristic foil to reveal the social components of rules and techniques." (author's abstract

Zur sozialstrukturellen Bedeutsamkeit hedonistischer Praktiken

Der Beitrag untersucht ausgehend von Befunden der SINUS-Milieu-Studien die sozialstrukturelle Bedeutsamkeit hedonistischer Praktiken verstanden als freud-, lust- und genussgenerierende Praktiken. Hintergrund dabei bildet eine affekt- und werttheoretische Erweiterung der Habitustheorie Bourdieus, vor deren Hintergrund der praktisch-wertschätzende Selbstbezug im Sinne einer Selbstwertnorm als legitime Subjektivierungsform unserer Gesellschaft herausgearbeitet werden konnte. Ein solcher Selbstbezug ist dabei typischer für obere soziale Milieus unserer Gesellschaft, denn für untere. Freude, Lust und Genuss ist demnach, also bei Beachtung nicht nur des subjektiven Sinns, sondern v.a. des objektiven Sinns, als typischer für obere soziale Milieus anzusehen. Es kann darüber hinaus gezeigt werden, dass die Selbstwertnorm nicht nur Einfluss auf die vertikale Stratifizierung der Gesellschaft hat, sondern auch auf die Unterscheidung von normalen und unnormeln im Sinne von psychisch kranken Verhalten- und Seinsweisen. Insofern zeigt der Beitrag die doppelte Ordnungsfunktion des praktisch-wertenden Selbstbezugs im Zusammenhang mit der Selbstwertnorm auf. Er leistet darüber hinaus einen Beitrag zum besseren Verständnis der Ess/xistentialisierung sozialer Strukturen

Habitus und Lebensverläufe von hauptamtlichen Mitarbeitern der DDR-Staatssicherheit

Krähnke U, Zschirpe A, Finster M, Reimann P. Habitus und Lebensverläufe von hauptamtlichen Mitarbeitern der DDR-Staatssicherheit. In: Matthäus S, Kubiak D, eds. 'Der Osten' . Neue sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven jenseits von Verurteilung und Verklärung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS; 2016: 71-98

Arsenite Impairs BRCA1-Dependent DNA Double-Strand Break Repair, a Mechanism Potentially Contributing to Genomic Instability

BRCA1 is a key player in maintaining genomic integrity with multiple functions in DNA damage response (DDR) mechanisms. Due to its thiol-rich zinc-complexing domain, the protein may also be a potential target for redox-active and/or thiol-reactive (semi)metal compounds. The latter includes trivalent inorganic arsenic, which is indirectly genotoxic via induction of oxidative stress and inhibition of DNA repair pathways. In the present study, we investigated the effect of NaAsO2 on the transcriptional and functional DDR. Particular attention was paid to the potential impairment of BRCA1-mediated DDR mechanisms by arsenite by comparing BRCA1-deficient and -proficient cells. At the transcriptional level, arsenite itself activated several DDR mechanisms, including a pronounced oxidative stress and DNA damage response, mostly independent of BRCA1 status. However, at the functional level, a clear BRCA1 dependency was observed in both cell cycle regulation and cell death mechanisms after arsenite exposure. Furthermore, in the absence of arsenite, the lack of functional BRCA1 impaired the largely error-free homologous recombination (HR), leading to a shift towards the error-prone non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). Arsenic treatment also induced this shift in BRCA1-proficient cells, indicating BRCA1 inactivation. Although BRCA1 bound to DNA DSBs induced via ionizing radiation, its dissociation was impaired, similarly to the downstream proteins RAD51 and RAD54. A shift from HR to NHEJ by arsenite was further supported by corresponding reporter gene assays. Taken together, arsenite appears to negatively affect HR via functional inactivation of BRCA1, possibly by interacting with its RING finger structure, which may compromise genomic stability

Impact of preconditioning with retinoic acid during early development on morphological and functional characteristics of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are a suitable tool to study basic molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurodevelopment. The directed differentiation of hiPSCs via the generation of a self-renewable neuronal precursor cell line allows the standardization of defined differentiation protocols. Here, we have investigated whether preconditioning with retinoic acid during early neural induction impacts on morphological and functional characteristics of the neuronal culture after terminal differentiation. For this purpose we have analyzed neuronal and glial cell markers, neuronal outgrowth, soma size, depolarization-induced distal shifts of the axon initial segment as well as glutamate-evoked calcium influx. Retinoic acid preconditioning led to a higher yield of neurons vs. glia cells and longer axons than unconditioned controls. In contrast, glutamatergic activation and depolarization induced structural plasticity were unchanged. Our results show that the treatment of neuroectodermal cells with retinoic acid during early development, i.e. during the neurulation phase, increases the yield of neuronal phenotypes, but does not impact on the functionality of terminally differentiated neuronal cells

Contextual Social Cognition Impairments in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

Background: The ability to integrate contextual information with social cues to generate social meaning is a key aspect of social cognition. It is widely accepted that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders have deficits in social cognition; however, previous studies on these disorders did not use tasks that replicate everyday situations.Methodology/Principal Findings: This study evaluates the performance of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders on social cognition tasks (emotional processing, empathy, and social norms knowledge) that incorporate different levels of contextual dependence and involvement of real-life scenarios. Furthermore, we explored the association between social cognition measures, clinical symptoms and executive functions. Using a logistic regression analysis, we explored whether the involvement of more basic skills in emotional processing predicted performance on empathy tasks. The results showed that both patient groups exhibited deficits in social cognition tasks with greater context sensitivity and involvement of real-life scenarios. These deficits were more severe in schizophrenic than in bipolar patients. Patients did not differ from controls in tasks involving explicit knowledge. Moreover, schizophrenic patients’ depression levels were negatively correlated with performance on empathy tasks.Conclusions/Significance: Overall performance on emotion recognition predicted performance on intentionality attribution during the more ambiguous situations of the empathy task. These results suggest that social cognition deficits could be related to a general impairment in the capacity to implicitly integrate contextual cues. Important implications for the assessment and treatment of individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, as well as for neurocognitive models of these pathologies are discussed.</p