Individualization

Em 07/02/2019, a Coordenação Geral de Saúde Mental, Álcool e outras Drogas (CGMAD) do Ministério da Saúde publicou a Nota Técnica n.º 11/2019 (NT 11/2019), com esclarecimentos sobre mudanças na Política Nacional de Saúde Mental. A NT 11/2019 foi recebida pelos movimentos da Reforma Psiquiátrica como um grande ataque às realizações e à institucionalização da chamada luta antimanicomial como política pública oficial do setor, uma espécie de manifesto de Anti-Reforma, um verdadeiro "ataque a símbolos e ganhos da luta antimanicomial brasileira", como acertadamente escreveu Dunker. Impressionou, ao ler a Nota, como a linguagem deste ataque à Reforma adotou os mesmos princípios e diretrizes construídos pela própria Reforma Psiquiátrica ao longo dos anos: integralidade da assistência, reconhecimento da complexidade do adoecimento mental, eficiência e humanização da assistência, ampliação do acesso, adoção de projetos terapêuticos singulares que considerem o contexto cotidiano dos usuários e assim por diante. Mas com um twist perverso: o ressurgimento do Hospital Psiquiátrico (HP) e da internação como estratégias centrais para garantir estes princípios e diretrizes assistenciais. Ainda que seja verdade o que disse Saramago-"as palavras são umas desgraçadas, fazemos com elas tudo o que queremos"-chamou a atenção como estes princípios se mostraram tão intercambiáveis entre projetos eticamente tão distintos. Seguiram-se à NT 11/2019 diversas manifestações de militantes, professores e profissionais em defesa da Reforma. O psiquiatra Paulo Amarante-um dos mais influentes teóricos brasileiros da Reforma (LEÃO, 2018) i-lançou vídeo em que critica a NT 11/2019 por contradizer as políticas públicas do setor, contestando seu caráter técnico. Ele parece estabelecer uma disputa entre a Reforma e a Anti-Reforma por quem seria afinal mais técnico, e segue comparando dados e números, avaliações de eficácia, gastos orçamentários, indicações diagnósticas, a melhor técnica terapêutica e assim por diante, mesmo quando trata de uma dos pontos mais polêmicos da NT 11/2019: a Eletroconvulsoterapia (ECT), atualização da técnica-1 Mestre e Doutor em Ciências pela Faculdade de Saúde Pública da USP (FSP/USP). Pós-Doutorando do Programa

In this article I explore the contemporary normative meanings of friendship, unpacking the subject through two different questions: “what is a good friend?” and “what is an intimate friend?” Drawing on survey data from a national representative sample (n = 1142), the topic is explored in the context of a southern European country (Portugal) that represents an interesting case study, for its characteristics of late, though abrupt, entrance into late modernity. Statistical analysis of the results enabled the construction of an exploratory typology of representations of friendship, according to the meanings ascribed to friends: family-oriented; trust-oriented; self-oriented; and presence-oriented. Results inspire a two-folded interpretation. On the one hand, they point to a pervasiveness of hegemonic representations such as friendship as trust and self-disclosure, namely among the younger and more educated. On the other hand, they highlight the pervasiveness of kinship ties in the definition of friendship, namely among the elderly and less educated. This suggests that patterns of suffusion may not only refer to more individualized and plural arrangements of personal life, but also to the persistence of more traditional representations and practices, characterized by an ideological commitment to the family in its more institutional forms.

Il saggio approfondisce in chiave sociologica il concetto di individualizzazione, ne traccia il percorso storico-sociale, ne sottolinea la duplicità di esperienza personale e di processo sociale, ne evidenzia i risvolti negli ambiti del lavoro, della politica, dell'intimità e della religione calandolo nell'attualità.

Although the 2017 revival of the #MeToo campaign has received mass media praise, it’s direct contribution to the current social shift fighting for social and political justice has yet to be empirically documented. Did this campaign provide temporary catharsis further inhibiting enactment within the social and political spheres? Understandings of social media campaigns’ role in social action is still limited in the literature. Using Bowers, Ochs, & Jensen (1971) explanations of rhetoric of agitation and control, I analyze news and social media accounts of the #MeToo campaign activity and the possible unfolding of social actions or inactions, including planned and forthcoming public events or campaigns over the next few months. This paper will place #MeToo within the context of feminism rhetoric and socio-political change. This analysis contributes to our understanding of social media’s role in political action and the position of feminist discourse within the public rhetoric to end sexual abuse, assault, and exploitation.

This Handbook offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in the study of religion. Its fifty-one chapters, written by authors from twelve countries, are organized into seven systematic parts. Part I (“Religion”) comprises chapters on definitions and theories of religion, history/translation, spirituality, and non-religion. Part II (“Theoretical Approaches”) reviews cognitive science, economics, evolutionary theory, feminism/gender theory, hermeneutics, Marxism, postcolonialism, semantics, semiotics, structuralism/poststructuralism, and social theory. Part III (“Modes”) addresses communication, materiality, narrative, performance, sound, space, and time. Part IV (“Environments”) relates religion to economy, law, media, nature, medicine, politics, science, sports, and tourism. Part V (“Topics”) discusses belief, emotion, experience, gift and sacrifice, gods, initiations and transitions, priests/prophets/sorcerers, purity, and salvation. Part VI (“Processes”) de...

In a mere quarter century, Mainland China has grown into a hotspot of international self-help. Though the self-help industry has a centuries-long tradition in the Anglo-American realm, this particular, commercial type of life advice is relatively new in Mainland China, first emerging in the wake of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. Nonetheless, self-help books counseling individuals about the art of life have conquered China’s book market, while US-style ‘self-help gurus’ now play an important role in China’s speaker circuit and mass media. At first, the Chinese mainland simply imported foreign self-help books (translated from English to Mandarin), yet it eventually gave birth to a glocalised and creatively assertive cultural industry. Individual-oriented, US-style self-help now flourishes in the heart of the Middle Kingdom, blatantly defying the dichotomy between ‘Western individualism’ and ‘Eastern collectivism.’

This chapter will first outline the young history of US-style self-help in mainland China and discuss the glocalised character of Chinese self-help culture. Second, it will discuss the structural transformation of the Chinese book market and mass-mediated public sphere which enabled and continues to facilitate the prominence of the self-help industry on the Chinese mainland. Third, it will sketch self-help’s role in public life, which involves touching upon its limited autonomy and weak delineation as a cultural field, its relatively privileged position vis-à-vis institutionalised religion, and its significance as a source of guidance to uprooted individuals chasing after the ‘Chinese Dream’ in the rat race of China’s new market economy.

This study uses the UNDP/UNICEF Social Exclusion Survey in Macedonia and Serbia and focus on the questions of (i) why are there sometimes no differences in emigration intentions between unemployed and employed groups, and (ii) why many gainfully employed individuals still intend to migrate to another country for employment. This research differs from the majority of studies, which do not distinguish between various types of jobs and variation in emigration intentions stemming from employment stratification. Employment sectors and individuals’ occupations have been taken as the main forms of job segregation, but since the 1990s some scholars have claimed that traditional labour market stratification is losing its relevance. We contribute to the migration literature by testing the “individualization hypothesis” – that specific characteristics of employees serve as better covariates of emigration intentions than “umbrella” concepts of industry and social class. Our findings suggest that emigration intentions among employed individuals are more likely to be affected by the type of contract and job security than by standard job-related variables such as sector and occupation of employment.

This article addresses the complementary work of psychological notions and courts in handling suicides occurring in the course of military service. We suggest the category of mutuality between individuals and social settings as an analytic perspective for the study of suicide, illuminating not only how suicide is constructed, but also theorizing the effects of this construction. Our findings rest on content analysis of 34 verdicts on cases of suicide occurring within the Israeli military. In these verdicts, mostly issued to resolve disputes between bereaved parents and state authorities, Israeli courts decided on the causes of death and the responsibilities of the military and state for soldiers’ suicides. Courts base their decisions on the ambiguous psychological concept of suicidal individuals, explaining self-demise as the result of an internal malaise and avoid addressing the coercive circumstances within which Israeli soldiers operate. By conclusively linking self-demise to suicidality, courts produce an idea of death-seeking soldiers, who fail to ensure their own well-being as well as to defend the common good. Courts render the difficulties encountered during military service mental and personal, thereby contracting, standardizing, and individualizing the idea of mutuality between soldiers, families, and state. To explain these repercussions of juridification and psychologization processes, we draw attention to Durkheim’s conceptualization of contractual obligations and non-contractual sentiments. We elaborate on the Durkheimian connection between solidarity and suicide, by highlighting the outcomes of their interrelated management, especially the courts’ shaping of thin mutuality when arbitrating suicide disputes. Adopting psychological reasoning and assessing personal responsibility, courts potentially fail in their constitutive role of discussing matters of collective concerns.

Informal urban street trade is a prevalent feature across the Global South where much of the production and/or buying and selling of goods and services is unregulated. For this reason, local authorities have historically seen it as backward, inefficient and detrimental to the development of urban areas and have thus developed formalisation programmes aimed to control and ultimately make it disappear. Critics argue that the design and implementation of these programmes can marginalise and disempower informal traders as it acts against the traders’ livelihoods and long-established practices they have developed for decades. This research speaks to these concerns and aims to investigate how informal urban street trade manages to continuously reproduce itself despite formalising efforts to make it vanish. The study follows a post-structuralist approach informed by post-development sensibilities (Escobar, 2011). The purpose is two-fold. First, to critically investigate the implications of imposed power-knowledge essentialism inherent to formalisation processes (Foucault, 1980). Second, to analyse the ways in which cultural and socioeconomic development is enacted through the daily assembling of informal urban street trade (Farías and Bender, 2012; McFarlane, 2011).

The research offers a thick ethnographic inquiry, conducted over a one year-long period (2014-2015) in the urban centre of Recife, Northeast capital of Pernambuco state, Brazil. Recife is a particularly rich site to investigate these issues as informal urban street trade has historically been pervasive of its squares and streets and the municipally has in place a formalisation programme aimed to gather information about traders, license them and relocate them into purposefully-built facilities. The ethnographic inquiry focused on the practices, knowledges, materials and technologies associated with the daily work of both informal traders, selling on the streets, and governing officials implementing the formalisation programme, both on the streets and on the City Council office. Primary data collection was gathered through ethnographic observations and fieldnote diaries enriched with pictures and audio recordings of the day-to-day sensorial experience of informal urban street trade. This was enhanced with informal conversations as well as semi-structured and unstructured interviews with governing bodies’ officials, licenced and unlicensed street traders, formal shop owners, and a diversified set of urban citizens.

The thesis highlights that formalisation, through the introduction of regulations, classification schemes and practices of classifying traders through an information system, seeks to establish and expand an individualistic developmentality among all actors. Through this, formalisation aims to shape and normalise their everyday practices to focus on the City Council’s agenda of rendering informal street trade as problematic and turning the solution of formalised trade not only unquestionable, but desirable by all. More problematically, the formalisation programme’s overdetermination of what a socioeconomic order is to be and its imposition of individualising subjectivities to assist in its implementation acts against the traders’ collective and community-based understanding of work and livelihoods which, contrary to the formalisation discourse, greatly benefit the cultural and socioeconomic development of these communities. This is achieved through the traders’ daily assembling of work, value and supply on the streets. The findings reveal that the collective organisation of traders’ work is strongly based on a ‘cooperative ethos’ that is not only efficient in taking advantage of and adapting to the challenging conditions of street markets, but also is key on the ongoing fostering and strengthening of the local community identity. The findings also show that traders, through their tacit knowledge of the best fits between products, services and sites, are key in shaping the valuation of both formal and informal enterprises as well as urban sites thus bolstering the local economy. Lastly, the findings also reveal that, through their interactions with formal and informal supply circuits, street traders are fundamental for the distribution and promotion of local artists and producers thus helping on the support and fostering of local culture.

The main contribution of this research is it offers novel empirical and theoretical insights on the ways in which formalisation and informality are performed. It richly reveals the contested nature of development that is negotiated daily between the individualist developmentality imposed by formalisation and the communitarian- based development possibilities which are enacted through informal trading practices. These developmental possibilities are turned invisible by formalisation as classification enforces a strong reading of street trade which is ontologically distant and even contrary to the community-based values which make street trade not only resilient to formalising efforts but also adaptive to the challenging conditions and, more importantly, central to the cultural and socioeconomic development of these communities.

Given the ubiquity of social media today, it is important to consider how their use might affect our communication and relationships. This study explores the question of whether social media, given their self-focus, lead us to define community in more individualistic terms. A literature review provides a starting point for addressing this question, touching on themes such as the ubiquity of individuation within modernity, traditional and modern communities, changes in North American communities over the last several decades, characteristics of social media, and cases for and against technological determinism. Building on this review, interviews with 10 subjects help explore the question in a more focused way. Findings suggest a positive correlation between substantial social media use and a largely individualistic understanding of community. I then discuss the implications of this relationship, as well as the roles of education and public policy in facilitating understanding of the potential of social media.

In this paper I offer a contribution to the recent conceptual debate that has taken place regarding the understanding and use of Ulrich Beck’s theory of individualisation in the sociology of youth. I seek to defend Beck’s position against the vast hostility it has faced from authors working in this field by showing how much of this critique has been premised on very problematic and easily countered interpretations of his perspective. In particular, I argue many have failed to properly grasp the complex and contradictory nature of this approach because they miss the emphasis he places on the way in which individualisation is fundamentally institutionalised under contemporary conditions. In order to illustrate this point, I will discuss several examples in which this trend towards institutionalised individualisation can be observed. By highlighting this aspect of Beck’s work that has thus far been largely unexplored, I hope to help foster an understanding of the individualisation thesis which renders it as productive in youth research as more than simply an object of critique. In order to help clarify and operationalise my argument I draw upon writings from social policy and the life-course approach, since these areas have engaged with the topic of individualisation in a more sophisticated and grounded manner than in youth studies.

Explores the growing individualization permeating all areas of Chinese social, economic and political life.

In spite of the intense preoccupation with individual and self in modern Western thought, the social sciences have tended to focus on groups and collectives and downplay (even disregard) the individual. This implicit view has also coloured the study of social life in China where both Confucian ethics and Communist policies have shaped collective structures with little room for individual agency and choice.

What is actually happening, however, is a growing individualization of China – not only changing perceptions of the individual but also rising expectations for individual freedom, choice and individuality. The individual has also become a basic social category in China, and a development has begun that permeates all areas of social, economic and political life. How this process evolves in a state and society lacking two of the defining characteristics of European individualization – a culturally embedded democracy and a welfare system – is one of the questions that the volume explores.

A strength of this volume is that its authors succeed in depicting the individualization process in conceptually acute and empirically sensitive terms, and as something with its own distinctively Chinese profile. That makes this book a ‘must read’ for all those wanting to understand present-day Chinese society, with all of its ambivalences, contingencies and contradictions.

Moreover, the volume makes an essential contribution to the current debate in sociology about how the meaning of ‘modernity’ should be conceptualized and redefined from a cosmopolitan perspective.

Ripropongo, con poche modifiche, il testo di un editoriale pubblicato nel fascicolo 5-6 di "Cadmo" (1994). È una prima risposta alle molte richieste che mi pervengono di chiarimenti circa un progetto sperimentale di individualizzazione didattica sviluppato agli inizi degli anni Novanta con Mauro La Torre e Emma Nardi. A distanza di tanti anni ho l'impressione che la direzione allora individuata meriti ancora di essere seguita.

Predmet rada su familizam kao ideološki konstrukt i individualizacija kao teorijski konstrukt i njihova kontekstualizacija na primeru roditeljstva u Srbiji. U prvom delu izlaganja se ukratko prikazuje i problematizuje ideologija familizma, kao i njeni elementi u obrascima, normama i praksama roditeljstva u Srbiji prema rezultatima skorijih domaćih socioloških istraživanja. U sledećem delu izlaganja obrazlaže se i problematizuje u odnosu na domen porodice teza o individualizaciji kao konstrukt iz korpusa teorija kasne " refleksivne " modernizacije. Trendovi individualizacije roditeljstva u Srbiji prikazuju se u sledećem delu izlaganja sintetičkim prikazom rezultata domaćih socioloških istraživanja sprovedenih u protekle dve decenije. Završni deo predstavlja diskusiju o ograničenjima detradicionalizacije roditeljstva uopšte i specifičnostima individualizacije roditeljstva u odnosu na dominantan familistički kontekst u Srbiji. Ključne reči: familizam, individualizacija, roditeljstvo, Srbija. Parenthood between familism and individualization: The case of Serbia The paper deals with familism as the ideological construct and individualization as the theoretical construct and their contextualization on the case of parenthood in Serbia. In the first part, I briefly present and problematize the ideology of familism, followed by an exploration of its influence on patterns, norms and practices of parenthood in Serbia. The next paper section deals with the problematizing of the individualization thesis from theories of late " reflexive " modernity related to family domain. The trends of individualization of parenthood in Serbia are presented in the next part through synthesis of the findings from domestic sociological studies in the last two decades. The concluding part presents the discussion of constraints to de-traditionalization of parenthood in general and particularities of individualization of parenthood within the familistic context in Serbia.

This paper aims to discuss the dynamics of romantic relationships with a sociological approach by comparing pre-modern love and modern relationships in the era of individualization. The works of Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman and Eva Illouz are examined and discussed to better understand the frailty of modern human relationships and what it means to society.

This article analyses the schism of a contemporary grouping of 'learned magic', the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT), which took place in the early 1990s and is often referred to as the 'Ice Magick War'. After embedding the IOT's background doctrine – Chaos Magick – within the overall history of 'Western learned magic', its foundation is interpreted as a fascinating attempt at 'institutionalising religious individualisation'. Even though the IOT created grade structures, stipulated prearranged teaching documents and ritual scripts, and engaged in group events and rituals, its founders were well aware of the implications of group formation and did their best to construe the IOT as an embodiment of what Chaos Magick was in total standing for: "a current of eclecticism and a rejection of the principles of absolutism, guruship and totalitarianism" (Carroll 1997). Against this backdrop, the Ice Magick War and the schism that arose out of it seem to illustrate the tension between a strikingly individualist, anti-hierarchical, anti-dogmatic agenda on the one hand and competing dynamics of dogmatisation, authoritarianism, secrecy and power abuse on the other – and may thus point to inherent ambivalences in the notion of 'institutionalising religious individualisation'.

This is the final version published in Martin Fuchs et al. (eds.), Religious Individualisation. Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives, Berlin: de Gruyter 2020, 759-96. In contrast to the version previously uploaded on academia, the final version includes novel insights based on a first-hand interview with Ralph Tegtmeier...

Ancient religions are usually treated as collective and political phenomena and, apart from a few towering figures, the individual religious agent has fallen out of view. Addressing this gap, the essays in this volume focus on the individual and individuality in ancient Mediterranean religion.

Even in antiquity, individual religious action was not determined by traditional norms handed down through families and the larger social context, but rather options were open and choices were made. On the part of the individual, this development is reflected in changes in 'individuation', the parallel process of a gradual full integration into society and the development of self-reflection and of a notion of individual identity. These processes are analysed within the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, down to Christian-dominated late antiquity, in both pagan polytheistic as well as Jewish monotheistic settings. The volume focuses on individuation in everyday religious practices in Phoenicia, various Greek cities, and Rome, and as identified in institutional developments and philosophical reflections on the self as exemplified by the Stoic Seneca.

Readership: For students and scholars interested in ancient history, classical studies, and the history of religion.

Diese Arbeit analysiert im Detail die Lehre des Johannes Duns Scotus zur "natura comunis", im Zusammenhang des Universalienstreits und der Frage nach dem Individuationsprinzip. Alle relevanten Textstellen aus Ordinatio II, d.3, p. 1, qq. 1- 6 werden untersucht und aus dem lateinischen übersetzt.
This paper offers an overview of Duns Scotus' teaching on common nature in the context of the dispute concerning the problem of universals and the principle of individuation. All relevant passages in Ordinatio II, d.3, p. 1, qq. 1- 6  are reported in Latin (and translated into German).

In the course of state-led rural urbanisation over the past few decades, millions of Chinese peasants have been expropriated and relocated. After establishing a definition of these “landless peasants” as a heterogeneous social group connected mainly by the fact that its members had to give up their land-use rights, this article sets out to examine subsequent processes of identity formation – a topic that has been largely neglected in existing research. Drawing on Beck’s individualisation thesis, I suggest that structural and institutional changes in the process of rural modernisation have initiated a further thrust of individualisation in people’s lives which manifests not only in the objective domain of life situations but also in the subjective domain of identity. This hypothesis is substantiated through an ethnographic case study based on seven months of fieldwork (2016–2018) in Huaming Model Town in the Dongli District of Tianjin. As a first step towards conceptualising what landless peasants are becoming, I will propose to start focusing on recombinant identities and class differentiations evolving among the people.

For the ancient world, "archaeology of religion" has established itself as a field of interdisciplinary research that presupposes basic methodology on the part of the archaeologists and basic knowledge of the history of religion on the part of ancient historians and scholars of religion. As a consequence, a companion should neither aim to explain archaeological methodology using religion as an example nor to explain the structure of ancient religions concentrating on the relevant archaeological sources. The interest and the difficulties of the field lie in the interpretive problems, i.e. when scholars of various disciplines attempt to relate archaeological evidence to social actions and structures that are specific by being classified as or seen through the lenses of "religion". "Archaeology of religion" (and its Companion) should not aim at reifying religion, but of understanding the role of objects in cultural practices of constructing religion and encountering and appropriating such a "religion" as objectified representations of the sacred. The concept of "archaeology of religious experience" (which avoids a too pervasively constructivist perspective) seems to catch this perspective. It would serve as a thread pervading all the chapters as an interpretive perspective, that is, a pervasive problem of interpretation.  Thus, it will not be used to exclude any material from consideration or any interpretive perspective (like ritual, organisation, gender, power) that proves more fruitful in a given case.
The underlying concept of religion stresses individual experience at home as in the usage of public religious infrastructure ("lived religion" pace M. McGuire). Public religion is seen as the attempt at creating order and boundaries rather than a normative system only imperfectly reproduced by the citizens. Understanding of religion as “lived religion”, the chapters take a view on religion as informing experiences, as offering media of expressiveness, constantly informed by and at the same time construing shared and encoded meanings.
In terms of geographical and chronological range, the chapters will cover the whole Mediterranean area including distant Roman provinces from the archaic period down to late antiquity; insofar Jewish and Christian material will be covered, too. The chapters are focused on problems of reconstructing religion in the sense of experiences, actions, structures, occasionally beliefs and will offer exemplary case studies and discuss their generalization, thereby employing material from all over the ancient world.

Aims
The volume aims to help its readers
- develop an understanding of religion as “lived religion”, informing experiences, offering media of expressiveness, constantly informed by and at the same time construing shared and encoded meanings;
- develop an appreciation of the different dimensions of religiosity in antiquity;
- reflect about the relationship of material culture and religious practices and beliefs in different perspectives;
- relate features of sanctuaries, instruments and representation to basic as complex ritual procedures;
- acquire a broad range of methodological approaches to seemingly intransigent phenomena; the presuppositions and limits of these approaches will be made explicit;
- acquire knowledge about graphic presentations/analysis of usage of sites; and
- offer basic information about the most important types of religious localities and institutions (made accessible by a detailed index).

Το βιβλίο εστιάζει την προσοχή του στους νέους,
μορφωμένους Έλληνες, ως φορείς μιας πιο ώριμης
(εν σχέσει με αυτήν των γονέων τους) ατομικότη-
τας, που ήδη ξεπροβάλλει μέσα από τα χαλάσματα
τις κρίσης, αλλά και από τις ριζικές πολιτισμικές με-
ταβολές που φέρει μαζί του ο 21ος αιώνας. Η Ιωάννα
Τσιβάκου, αφού επεξεργάζεται το διαθέσιμο εμπει-
ρικό υλικό, συμπεραίνει πως βρισκόμαστε πλέον μα-
κριά από το οικογενειακό άτομο των προηγουμένων
δεκαετιών. Οι μορφωμένοι νέοι της ελληνικής κοι-
νωνίας ως προς τις αξιακές τους πεποιθήσεις ευθυ-
γραμμίζονται λίγο ή πολύ με τους νέους του δυτικού
κόσμου, καθώς δίνουν προτεραιότητα στην προσω-
πική τους αυτοπραγμάτωση και αυτοεκτίμηση.
Ωστόσο, η αναζήτηση από τους νέους μιας αυτο-
πραγμάτωσης και ελευθερίας συμβατών με τα ιδε-
ώδη της φιλελεύθερης δημοκρατίας, παρότι φθά-
νει αργοπορημένα στην ελληνική κοινωνία, μοιάζει
ανερμάτιστη και ανεδαφική, ωθώντας τους νέους
ν’ αποζητούν υπέρτατες ατομικιστικές αξίες, χωρίς
εμβάθυνση στα ερωτήματα «ποιος είμαι» και «από
πού προέρχομαι». Εξ αιτίας αυτού, η εκ μέρους τους
ένθερμη υποστήριξη της προσωπικής αυτογνωσί-
ας προσκόπτει, πέραν των θεσμικών εμποδίων, και
στην μη ηθική προσέγγιση του προσώπου του άλλου.
Επίσης, ελλιπής μοιάζει και η αντίληψή τους για τη
φιλία, η οποία προβάλλεται μεν ως σχέση ουσιαστική για τη ζωή τους, εν τούτοις, το συναίσθημα με
το οποίο την επενδύουν μαρτυρεί την αναγωγή της σε πεδίο ναρκισσιστικής επιβεβαίωσης του εγώ.
Τις ανεπάρκειες μιας τέτοιας αυτοπραγμάτωσης και φιλίας επιχειρεί το βιβλίο να αναδείξει, επιχει-
ρώντας να ρίξει λίγο φως στον πλούτο των νοημάτων και των κοινωνικών καταστάσεων που έχουν
αναγάγει τις εν λόγω έννοιες σε πολύτιμα πνευματικά αποκτήματα του ανθρώπου.

Resumo: Las sociedades tradicionales se caracterizan por el predominio de visiones religiosas del mundo en contrapunto con las sociedades modernas, lo que abre otras vías de sentido, además de la expresión religiosa. Con este estudio se pretende conocer la influencia de los valores de las sociedades modernas en los cambios religiosos, entre 90 y 2000. Lo hacemos recorriendo a los datos de la Encuesta de los Valores Europeos para 8 países de tradición católica. El cuestionario del EVS contempla una serie de orientaciones en diversos ámbitos de la vida. Se han construido varias escalas con la pretensión de presentar las orientaciones de valor. En
nuestro análisis hemos seleccionado dos constructos: recorriendo a la tesis de Inglehart, que nos permite explicar el cambio de valores, y a la batería de preguntas de Rokeach para determinar los valores que los individuos consideran esenciales para la vida. Los resultados nos han permitido concluir que estamos asistiendo a una reconfiguración de la mentalidad que tiene como sujeto determinante las generaciones más jóvenes que asimilaron los valores de la independencia y determinación y los valores del bienestar y auto-realización, una vez que su contexto socio-cultural y económico les fue favorable.

Abstract: Traditional societies are characterized by the predominance of religious worldviews, in contrast to modern societies, which open up other avenues of sense, besides religious expression. This study aims to determine the influence of the values of modern societies on religious changes, between 1990 and 2000. We have recourse to data from the European Values Survey for eight Catholic countries. The EVS questionnaire provides a set of guidelines in various areas of life. Several scales have been built with the aim of presenting value orientations. In our analysis we selected two constructs: following Inglehart's thesis, which enables us to explain the change in values, and the Rokeach set of questions to determine the values that individuals considered essential for life. The results allowed us to conclude that we are witnessing a reconfiguration of the mindset that has a decisive influence on younger generations who have assimilated the values of independence and determination and the values of welfare and self-realization, once the socio-cultural and economic context was favourable.

This article opens a new methodological pathway towards the persistent problem of so-called ‘critical categories’ in the (post)modern Study of Religion: How should scholars deal with versatile or polyvalent concepts that lack generally accepted conceptualizations and continuously evoke misunderstandings or even fierce debates about their proper usage? Instead of arbitrarily reducing the semantic complexity of such categories by means of ‘definitions’, the article calls for acknowledging polysemantics as a core feature or inescapable quality of many, if not all, basic categories in the Study of Religion. Accordingly, the article introduces a new methodological strategy – here coined ‘polysemantic analysis’ –, which consists of two parts: first, through discourse analysis and conceptual reverse-engineering a disputed category is dissected into its components in the form of a semantic matrix, or ‘net of notions’, which may then, second, be applied to religious data. This procedure allows for applying a polysemantic concept to religious data without losing any of its potential analytical value, thus opening the floor for more nuanced and fine-grained analyses. In the article, said strategy is applied to the concept of ‘religious individualization’, a process category that has caught enhanced scholarly attention over the past years. ‘Polysemantic analysis’ reveals a matrix with no less than 26 different notions of the category, which are grouped in four basic domains. This ‘net of notions’ is then applied to the conceptual history of ‘magic’, both to polemical and affirmative discourses. The textual-ritual tradition of ‘Western learned magic’ triggers a wide range of notions ascribed to ‘religious individualization’ and might therefore be interpreted as a particularly noticeable example case of such dynamics, even though there remain some ambiguities to the matter.

The Third sector is often identified as the response to the new societal challenges thanks to its ability to create relation. This implied the progressive mixture between the Third sector and economic and political sphere. The aim of this thesis is to use the Third sector as empirical referent in order to comprehend the implications of its changes on social solidarity. Several literatures and statistical data today report Third sector changes: towards and individualization of participation; an increasing marketization and professionalization, bureaucratization and a growth in the number of organizations; and the development of distrust. The thesis start describing the crisis of solidarity and the solution found in a re-affirmation of more social paradigms, starting with the development of the Third sector. Subsequently the work proceeds with the concepts of social solidarity and of Third sector. Solidarity is a polysemic concept, full of dualisms. The literature about Third sector highlights that if originally its definition was based on a negative characterization – the lack of profitness – subsequently it became more and more different from the State and the market, thus it qualified itself for its ability to create solidarity and social relation. Yet, these qualities are now challenged. The empirical analysis takes place in the field of advocacy and human rights associations in Italy. The research focused on volunteering and fundraising activities. In particular, the analysis is about the changing styles of volunteering, from collective to individual, and the face-to-face fundraising, as encounter between social and economic sphere. The methodological perspective is intended to hold together the subject with the structure. The changes of the Third sector, and specifically of the human rights and advocacy associations, imply the re-elaboration of the relationship between subject and structure and the hybridization of the Third sector with the others social spheres. That also means the hybridization of the ways of actions of the subjects. Individualization challenges collective action as has usually been represented, but it does not exclude different ways to re-elaborate the social sphere. Hybridization implies risks of instrumentalization and reduction of participative and social aspects of the Third sector. Simultaneously hybrid action, if reflexively re-elaborated, allows to combine different logic of action: social, instrumental and bureaucratic. In a context where the Third sector is losing its purely relational nature it opens to lose unconditional trust from the public and the institutions. This distrust is part of a process of reflexive re-elaboration of the concept of Third sector. At the same time, these dynamics do not imply just diminished relationality and depoliticization of the Third sector, but they also define phenomena of re-politicization. It is clear that NGOs, volunteering, Third sector and even human rights now are more conflictual than before, losing their neutral and impartial nature. In conclusion, the change of solidarity is defined as the affirmation of an individualized, re-politicized and hybrid solidarity.

This Handbook offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in the study of religion. Its fifty-one chapters, written by authors from twelve countries, are organized into seven systematic parts. Part I (“Religion”) comprises chapters on definitions and theories of religion, history/translation, spirituality, and non-religion. Part II (“Theoretical Approaches”) reviews cognitive science, economics, evolutionary theory, feminism/gender theory, hermeneutics, Marxism, postcolonialism, semantics, semiotics, structuralism/poststructuralism, and social theory. Part III (“Modes”) addresses communication, materiality, narrative, performance, sound, space, and time. Part IV (“Environments”) relates religion to economy, law, media, nature, medicine, politics, science, sports, and tourism. Part V (“Topics”) discusses belief, emotion, experience, gift and sacrifice, gods, initiations and transitions, priests/prophets/sorcerers, purity, and salvation. Part VI (“Processes”) de...

Drawing on the theory of second modernity and individualization postulated by Ulrich Beck and his colleagues, Japanese sociologists have noted that a radical shift in Japan's societal structure and modes has occurred since the mid-1990s, when institutions that had so far maintained a stable social order and integrated society started to collapse (Suzuki et al. 2010). In this context, religion too has no longer been able to provide stability and support to individuals, and its role in public life has been reduced. One of the most cited consequences has been the lack of trust in religious institutions that has led individuals to sever their ties with them. This has affected religious organizations dependent on traditional family ties, in particular Buddhist temples. Against this backdrop, this paper reflects on how some recent outreach activities carried out by religious institutions in contemporary Japan are the result of a crucial transformation of their configurations and structure rather than a representation of the same old patterns in new clothes. To this end, the paper focuses on the attempts made by the resident priest of an urban temple to come to terms with conditions proper to second modernity, where uncertainties and "risks" have replaced stability and security, and categories such as the family and religion have been destabilized.

Keywords: religion in Japan, Japanese Buddhism, second modernity, individualization, Ulrich Beck, Honkōji

Longtemps, la sociologie pragmatique a considéré qu’elle ne pouvait rien énoncer sur les jeux de pouvoir. Une de ses règles de méthode exigeait de s’en remettre aux acteurs eux-mêmes dès lors qu’ils entreprennent de dévoiler, au fil de polémiques et de procès, des figures du pouvoir ou de la domination. En s’appuyant sur de nombreux dossiers l’article montre comment infléchir l’enquête pragmatique pour appréhender autrement la critique des rapports de pouvoir, dont le degré de visibilité publique dépend de la trajectoire suivie par des acteurs pris dans une logique de crise ou de conflit. Les ressorts principaux d’une emprise réussie et sur lesquels porte tout travail de déprise sont tour à tour exposés : impératif de justification, entretien d’un besoin de reconnaissance, contrôle des instruments d’évaluation, production d’un échange inégal invisible.

当代中国社会从未停止变化，新近在诸多方面的激进变动更是从本质上改变了社会的结构。个体的崛起，就是这样一种转型性的变革。个体的崛起在很大程度上改变了社会关系的结构，导致了中国社会的个体化。在公共领域，特别是20世纪90年代后期以来城市化背景下的公共领域，个体的角色变得更为复杂和重要。对于当代的中国青年而言，个人幸福和个体自我的实现无疑成为了人生的终极目标。
那么，如何理解正在崛起的个体、及其在中国和世界范围内广泛而深远的影响。根本的问题在于：中国社会，是否像西方社会一样，正在经历一种个体化的进程？
作为一项持续数年的实证合作研究，《"自我中国":现代中国社会中个体的崛起》深刻地揭示了：在中国，个人已经成为一个基本社会范畴的事实。中国已经出现了一种发展趋势，并渗透到社会生活的各个方面。这种发展不仅决定了私人领域、家庭结构和两性关系，也决定了经济的组织方式和灵活的就业，以及同样重要的，个人与国家之间的关系。同时，《"自我中国":现代中国社会中个体的崛起》也从不同的角度表明，这一中国式的个体化进程具有其独特性，它并非是对欧洲个体化路径的单纯复制。
因此，所有想要了解当今中国社会基本构成——包括其两面性、偶然性和矛盾性等——的读者，都必须读一读《"自我中国":现代中国社会中个体的崛起》。

The article analyzes the technological shifts which took place in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries and forecasts the main shifts in the next<br> half a century. On the basis of the analysis of the latest achievements in innovative technological directions and also on the basis of the opportunities provided by the theory of production revolutions the authors present a detailed analysis of the latest production revolution which is denoted as 'Сybernetic'. The authors give some forecasts about its development in the nearest five decades and up to the end of the 21st century. It is shown that the development of various self-regulating systems will be the main trend of this revolution. The authors argue that at first the transition to the beginning of the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution will start in the field of medicine (in its some innovative directions). In future we will deal with the start of convergence of innovative technologies which wi...

Chapitre 7 de la thèse de doctorat de Bruno Restif, soutenue en décembre 2004 à l'Université Rennes 2 Haute-Bretagne sous la direction d'Alain Croix : La Paroisse, cadre d'application de la Réforme catholique en Haute-Bretagne (diocèses de Rennes, Dol et Saint-Malo). Histoire d'un processus de transformation religieuse et culturelle (XVIe et XVIIe siècles). Titre du chapitre 7 : Transformation des pratiques et conversions intérieures. Intériorisation, souci de perfectionnement et usages de l'image-objet.

Within the human resources development sector, workplace identities are theorised heavily in terms of psychological predispositions and socio-psychological structures. This thesis aims to broaden the conception of workplace identity through exploring the effects of institutional policy and programs in the development of an academic identity. Using Michel Foucault’s ‘governmentality’ theory, the discourses contained within publicly accessible policy and planning documents are analysed for their contribution to the development of a ‘mentality’ of government. These mentalities are historically-bound and dependent upon contemporary technologies, knowledge, expertise and practical developments. This study explores the construction of an enterprising academic identity implicit within Monash University’s Performance Development Online (PDO) technology. This performance management platform, combined with periodic supervisorial reviews is characteristic of what Foucault terms a ‘technology of the self’. PDO is positioned as a gateway which requires academics to reflect upon the development of their careers and identities within the academia, encouraging the production of marketable identities. Secondarily, this thesis aims to map the discursive underpinnings of the present governmentality of academic selfhood within wider discourses of ‘advanced liberal’ governance. This work of social commentary aims to open up the possibilities for thinking about, and acting upon, our selves.