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A Social Connection Model

Iris Marion Young

in Responsibility for Justice

This chapter proposes an alternative conception of responsibility called the social connection model of responsibility. The social connection model finds that all those who contribute by their ... More

This chapter proposes an alternative conception of responsibility called the social connection model of responsibility. The social connection model finds that all those who contribute by their actions to structural processes with some unjust outcomes share responsibility for the injustice. This responsibility is not primarily backward-looking, as the attribution of guilt or fault is, but rather primarily forward-looking. Being responsible in relation to structural injustice means that one has an obligation to join with others who share that responsibility in order to transform the structural processes to make their outcomes less unjust. The chapter contrasts the social connection model of responsibility with the conception usually applied in legal and moral discourse, called the liability model. While some people might think the best strategy for theorizing responsibility for structural injustice is to extend and adapt the liability model, there are problems with this approach. There are good practical as well as theoretical reasons for saying that responsibility in relation to structural injustice is a special kind of responsibility, rather than a variation on responsibility understood as guilt, blame, fault, or liability.Less

Responsibility across Borders

Iris Marion Young

in Responsibility for Justice

This chapter first discusses the inference that political responsibility is sometimes global in its implications. It takes the theoretical steps toward making the social connection model of ... More

This chapter first discusses the inference that political responsibility is sometimes global in its implications. It takes the theoretical steps toward making the social connection model of responsibility practically manageable. It then carries the social connection model across borders. It agrees with theorists who argue against the still widely held position that the scope of obligations of justice must be restricted to members of the same nation-state. Some structural social processes are global in scope and condition the lives of many people within diverse nation-state jurisdictions. The chapter introduces an extended example of structural injustice that involves relationships across the world in the global apparel industry. This is a useful example for thinking about what it means to take responsibility for transnational injustice, because in recent years a transborder anti-sweatshop movement has involved a great many people and achieved some success in creating public discussion about the injustice of working conditions, as well as some changes in institutions and practices.Less

Epistemic Responsibility and Culpable Ignorance

José Medina

in The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination

This chapter elucidates the relationship between responsible agency and knowledge. I argue that responsible agency requires only minimal self-knowledge that need not include explanatory knowledge of ... More

This chapter elucidates the relationship between responsible agency and knowledge. I argue that responsible agency requires only minimal self-knowledge that need not include explanatory knowledge of the mental causation of one’s actions. I argue that responsible agency also requires minimal social knowledge of others and minimal empirical knowledge of the world. I subsume these epistemic implications of responsible agency under what I call the thesis of cognitive minimums: the requirement that one be minimally knowledgeable about one’s mind, the social world, and the empirical world. Focusing on the cognitive minimums of self-knowledge and social knowledge, I argue that there are different ways in which we may partake in shared culpable ignorance about non-mainstream subjects, groups, and experiences, and I begin to develop an account of shared responsibility with respect to epistemic justice for the correction of blind spots and social insensitivities associated with racism and (hetero)sexism.Less

People Seeking People: Craigslist, Online Dating, and Social Stigma

Jessa Lingel

in An Internet for the People: The Politics and Promise of craigslist

This chapter looks at what made craigslist personals distinctive from other online dating platforms, focusing on shifting norms around anonymity and a persistent social stigma. More than any other ... More

This chapter looks at what made craigslist personals distinctive from other online dating platforms, focusing on shifting norms around anonymity and a persistent social stigma. More than any other section, the personals demonstrate a Web 1.0 vision of social connection, where experimentation and risk were valued over trust infrastructure. Craigslist's politics of openness and inclusion were contested most fiercely when it came to sex and dating, demonstrated by legislation like Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) as well as the tendency to stigmatize craigslist personals and the people who use them. Like newspaper classified ads of the past, craigslist personals were often viewed suspiciously by the general public, sensationally by the media, and as a gateway to the margins by academics. By being so open and accessible, craigslist invited spectators and voyeurs, as well as critics. Stigma here emerges as a response to the gap between social expectations of sex and dating and the messy, shady, serendipitous reality of the web.Less

Social Pain: Experiential, Neurocognitive, and Genetic Correlates

Naomi I. Eisenberger

in Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of the Social Mind

This chapter suggests that the need for social connection is a fundamental need and that like other basic needs, a lack of social connection can feel “painful” an experience that has been termed ... More

This chapter suggests that the need for social connection is a fundamental need and that like other basic needs, a lack of social connection can feel “painful” an experience that has been termed “social pain”. It reviews two studies that utilized functional neuroimaging methodologies to examine whether the dorsal portion of the anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is sensitive to: (1) the experience of social pain in humans and (2) cues that predict social pain in humans (“disapproving facial expressions”). A third study examined the extent to which sensitivity to one type of pain relates to sensitivity to the other, as well as whether activating one type of pain heightens sensitivity to the other. The chapter then highlights some of the extensions of this work by reviewing three studies that examined whether neural responses to social pain relate to and can help us understand real-world social phenomena.Less

Social Beings

Kimberley Brownlee

in Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights and Freedoms

This chapter explains what follows normatively from the fact that we are fundamentally social creatures. The chapter distinguishes our contingent social desires from our non-contingent, morally ... More

This chapter explains what follows normatively from the fact that we are fundamentally social creatures. The chapter distinguishes our contingent social desires from our non-contingent, morally urgent social needs. The chapter appeals to empirical, phenomenological, and respect-based arguments to show that we have four core social needs for (1) basic social abilities, (2) adequate social opportunities, (3) access to persistent, stable social connections, and (4) the means to contribute directly to other people’s survival and well-being. These needs both to access and to contribute socially are encapsulated in our fundamental need to belong. After addressing worries about the normative standing of our core social needs, the chapter defends the belongingness hypothesis which gives rise to robust social rights.Less

Adolescents and the Internet

Linda A. Jackson

in The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media Since 1950

Although access to the Internet in U.S. and U.K. schools is almost universal, home Internet access is not. Large proportions of U.S. adolescents still do not use the Internet at all, and while there ... More

Although access to the Internet in U.S. and U.K. schools is almost universal, home Internet access is not. Large proportions of U.S. adolescents still do not use the Internet at all, and while there is no longer a gender gap, men use it more for commercial transactions, and women for social connections. The digital divide between those who do and do not have access could exacerbate inequalities and further divide people by education, race, and class. Concerns have also arisen about the dangers of excessive Internet use on youth. Although there is little evidence of the Internet benefiting adolescents' cognitive development, many of the negative social effects (e.g. cyberbullying) may be limited to those who are already depressed, anxious, or withdrawn. Nevertheless, many of the fears associated with increased Internet use have not materialized.Less

“Cool Piety”: How to Listen to Hip Hop as a Good Muslim

John O'Brien

in Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys

This chapter discusses how participation in hip hop culture could lead to recognition from non-Muslim peers. “Hip hopper” was for the Legendz a widely recognized and desirable identity that could ... More

This chapter discusses how participation in hip hop culture could lead to recognition from non-Muslim peers. “Hip hopper” was for the Legendz a widely recognized and desirable identity that could momentarily precede and eclipse that of “religious Muslim” in an interaction with non-Muslim peers. In making meaningful social connections with other urban youth based on a shared engagement with hip hop culture, the Legendz were following a pattern observed by sociologists among other second-generation immigrants whose participation in hip hop music and style allowed them to gain acceptance and make social inroads among young people from outside their immediate ethnic community. In addition to employing hip hop as a way to gain acceptance and make connections with a broader urban American community of non-Muslims, the Legendz also actively adapted the genre's music and culture in creative ways to develop their own in-group Muslim American identity and style. The resulting identity performance—referred to as cool piety—tapped into broader African American urban cool while still exhibiting a close association with local standards of Islamic behavior to produce a nuanced and multifaceted presentation of Muslim American self.Less

Friends

Ira W. Lit

in The Bus Kids: Children's Experiences with Voluntary Desegregation

This chapter pays attention to friendship formation and positive social connection of the Canford students to develop a picture of their school experience as they adjust to their new school. It ... More

This chapter pays attention to friendship formation and positive social connection of the Canford students to develop a picture of their school experience as they adjust to their new school. It analyzes what kinds of relationships are developed and explores the nature of their social roles in their school settings.Less

Changing Patterns of Social Connection across Interventions: Unravelling Aberrant Globalisation

Paul Battersby

in Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention in the 21st Century

International armed interventions in intrastate conflicts are planned with the expectation that order will be restored through the controlled application of limited military force. This persuasive ... More

International armed interventions in intrastate conflicts are planned with the expectation that order will be restored through the controlled application of limited military force. This persuasive orthodoxy, Paul Battersby argues in his Chapter Changing Patterns of Social Connection across Interventions: Unravelling Aberrant Globalisation, endures despite the erratic course of foreign interventions in the Middle East over the past two decades. Notions of order, equilibrium or stasis imply systemic balances that, where disturbed, can be restored through counteraction. Yet, while we can gather abundant conflict data, observe events from different vantage points, correlate variables and calibrate possibilities, the calculation of future trajectories of conflict events remains an imprecise and hazardous exercise. Thus, to anticipate only positive change from the rapid assertion of overwhelming military power into faraway places is to downplay the threads of happenings, decisions, ideas and beliefs that shape the subjective realities of global security. Globalisation is aberrant in its complexity, and global dynamics do not yield simple choices between binary opposites of order and disorder, control or chaos. The search for a more nuanced understanding of security leads inescapably towards the analysis of global patterns of connection and organisation that generate and sustain multiscalar supply chains of violence.Less

Introduction: Historians, the Nation, and the Plenitude of Narratives

Thomas Bender

in Rethinking American History in a Global Age

This introductory chapter discusses three main concepts: history, nation, and narratives. It starts by stating that history can be found in a plethora of narratives, which are necessarily reduced by ... More

This introductory chapter discusses three main concepts: history, nation, and narratives. It starts by stating that history can be found in a plethora of narratives, which are necessarily reduced by historiography. The discussion notes that the nation represents a certain narrative of social connection, and briefly examines the context of the earliest American national histories. This is followed by a study of the historical reflections of Frederick Jackson Turner, which serves as a relevant starting point for the reframing of American history. The chapter also covers topics such as the professional practice of history teaching and writing, American self-perceptions, and historicizing time. A summary of the following chapters is provided.Less

Understanding the meaning of neighbourhoods for people living with dementia: the value of a relational lens

Andrew Clark, Sarah Campbell, John Keady, Agneta Kullberg, Kainde Manji, Elzana Odzakovic, Kirstein Rummery, and Richard Ward

in Dementia and Place: Practices, Experiences and Connections

This chapter looks into the significance of neighbourhoods for people living with dementia in line with social connection, engagement, and interaction. It also includes the nature of associations ... More

This chapter looks into the significance of neighbourhoods for people living with dementia in line with social connection, engagement, and interaction. It also includes the nature of associations people have in the immediate locale in relation to geographic proximity. In literature, outdoor spaces, built environments, and everyday technologies are identified as the three domains of activity for neighbourhoods. According to the ESRC/NIHR-funded Neighbourhoods: Our People, Our Places research, relationships are constituted through a relationship sense of place that can facilitate belonging and inclusion. Moreover, local social connections act as channels for information, interaction, support, and metaphorical safety nets in exceptional circumstances. However, local connections for people with dementia could extend beyond the conventional neighbourhoods. Viewing neighbourhoods as relational phenomena gives the perspective of understanding the overlooked geographies of everyday life with dementia.Less

Eradicate Social Isolation

James Lubben, Elizabeth M. Tracy, Sandra Edmonds Crewe, Erika L. Sabbath, Melanie Gironda, Carrie Johnson, Jooyoung Kong, Michelle R. Munson, and Suzanne Brown

in Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society

Social isolation is a silent killer -- as dangerous to health as smoking. National and global health organizations have underscored the hidden, deadly, and pervasive hazards stemming from feeling ... More

Social isolation is a silent killer -- as dangerous to health as smoking. National and global health organizations have underscored the hidden, deadly, and pervasive hazards stemming from feeling alone and abandoned. Our challenge is to educate the public on this health hazard, encourage health and human service professionals to address social isolation, and promote effective ways to deepen social connections and community for people of all ages.Less

“Goods, Wares, and Merchandise”: Amsterdam's Intimate Atlantic

Angie Maxwell

in New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America

This chapter describes how kin and family played an essential role in the creation of the Dutch empire. Uncovering the work done by women and men tied by blood and marriage to those who sailed to ... More

This chapter describes how kin and family played an essential role in the creation of the Dutch empire. Uncovering the work done by women and men tied by blood and marriage to those who sailed to Holland's North American colony reveals that the formal, large-scale economy of the West Indian Company (WIC) depended on a diffuse, small-scale system created and inhabited by individual actors in Amsterdam and abroad. By looking after the interests of their own families, people in Amsterdam and beyond crafted webs of economic affiliations. These webs not only helped families survive the Atlantic economy, they enabled and supported that economy. By forming the bridge between the personal finances of the individual or household and emergent international commerce, interlocking social connections provided the material for empire.Less

Entomologist to U. S. Department of Agriculture: (Life in Washington as United States Entomologist, 1879–1881)

Anna Botsford Comstock

Karen Penders St. Clair (ed.)

in The Comstocks of Cornell-The Definitive Autobiography

This chapter describes Anna Botsford and John Henry Comstock's life in Washington, the entomologists who worked with the Comstocks there, and their social connections. On May 1, 1879, Henry became ... More

This chapter describes Anna Botsford and John Henry Comstock's life in Washington, the entomologists who worked with the Comstocks there, and their social connections. On May 1, 1879, Henry became the U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture. Thus, he entered upon his duties as entomologist to the Department of Agriculture and into a very cordial association with Commissioner William G. Le Duc. Following his appointment, Henry asked for a two-year leave of absence from Cornell University. This was granted on the condition that he return for a fortnight in May to complete his course of lectures. As soon as they were settled in Washington, Anna went to Henry's office every day to help him with the many details of the department. As a result of this, she was offered a position to work for her husband.Less

Pursuit of Ambition: Father and Son

Wen-Chin Chang

in Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants of Burma

In this chapter, the author tells the story of Mr. Li and his eldest son, Guoguang, both of whom she met during her third field trip to Taunggyi in June 2007. Guoguang and his wife ran a bookstore ... More

In this chapter, the author tells the story of Mr. Li and his eldest son, Guoguang, both of whom she met during her third field trip to Taunggyi in June 2007. Guoguang and his wife ran a bookstore that also provided copy services. Mr. Li held important positions in various organizations in Burma, including several local Chinese temples, Chinese schools, and two Kokang associations. In his conversation with the author, Mr. Li talks about his family history and migrations, his military life, mining businesses, and social connections as well as his involvement in the Ka Kwe Ye (KKY), or People's Volunteer Force. He also reflects on his importance and personal involvement in the making of history in Shan State in Burma and the border areas of northern Thailand.Less

Changing the Culture of One-Third of the World: How Christianity Spread from Palestine

Samuel Cohn

in All Societies Die: How to Keep Hope Alive

This chapter reviews evidence of the ability to produce massive change in global culture, considering the obvious case of the great religions of the world. There are three fundamental keys to growth. ... More

This chapter reviews evidence of the ability to produce massive change in global culture, considering the obvious case of the great religions of the world. There are three fundamental keys to growth. The first is interpersonal contact, because cultural change occurs person-to-person. People only change their minds on the counsel of people whom they deeply trust. Talking to people, building social connections, and creating network ties matter, because this is how one becomes a person of trust. The third is having one's religion associated with material success and cultural sophistication, while the fourth is commitment to proselytization. The chapter then looks at how Christianity spread from Palestine.Less