Author: Professor Mary Douglas Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136490116 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
First published in 1992, this volume follows on from the programme for studying risk and blame that was implied in Purity and Danger. The first half of the book Douglas argues that the study of risk needs a systematic framework of political and cultural comparison. In the latter half she examines questions in cultural theory. Through the eleven essays contained in Risk and Blame, Douglas argues that the prominence of risk discourse will force upon the social sciences a programme of rethinking and consolidation that will include anthropological approaches.
Author: Michael Pearn Publisher: Gower Publishing, Ltd. ISBN: 9780566079962 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
This book is about mistakes and what we can learn from them. It faces up to, and explains how organizations can escape from 'blame cultures', where fearful conformance and risk avoidance lead to stagnation, to 'gain cultures' which tolerate and even encourage mistakes in the pursuit of innovation, change and improvement. Ending the Blame Culture was written as a result of systematic analysis of the content of over 200 accounts of real mistakes within businesses and organizations. This analysis provides both insight and understanding into the type of mistakes made, the context they were made in and how they helped learning and development. As a result the authors are able to distinguish between intelligent and undesirable mistakes: those which should be tolerated and those which must be avoided. The result is a book which gives sound advice on how individuals learn, practical measures that organizations can adopt to enhance learning through better management of mistakes, and the promotion of a culture which supports and fosters experimentation and risk taking.
Author: Professor Mary Douglas Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136489274 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 202
Book Description
Purity and Danger is acknowledged as a modern masterpiece of anthropology. It is widely cited in non-anthropological works and gave rise to a body of application, rebuttal and development within anthropology. In 1995 the book was included among the Times Literary Supplement's hundred most influential non-fiction works since WWII. Incorporating the philosophy of religion and science and a generally holistic approach to classification, Douglas demonstrates the relevance of anthropological enquiries to an audience outside her immediate academic circle. She offers an approach to understanding rules of purity by examining what is considered unclean in various cultures. She sheds light on the symbolism of what is considered clean and dirty in relation to order in secular and religious, modern and primitive life.
Author: Mary Douglas Publisher: Syracuse University Press ISBN: 9780815602064 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 164
Book Description
Do institutions think? If so, how do they do it? Do they have minds of their own? If so, what thoughts occupy these suprapersonal minds? Mary Douglas delves into these questions as she lays the groundwork for a theory of institutions. Usually the human reasoning process is explained with a focus on the individual mind; her focus is on culture. Using the works of Emile Durkheim and Ludwik Fleck as a foundation, How Institutions Think intends to clarify the extent to which thinking itself is dependent upon institutions. Different kinds of institutions allow individuals to think different kinds of thoughts and to respond to different emotions. It is just as difficult to explain how individuals come to share the categories of their thought as to explain how they ever manage to sink their private interests for a common good. Douglas forewarns us that institutions do not think independently, nor do they have purposes, nor can they build themselves. As we construct our institutions, we are squeezing each other's ideas into a common shape in order to prove their legitimacy by sheer numbers. She admonishes us not to take comfort in the thought that primitives may think through institutions, but moderns decide on important issues individually. Our legitimated institutions make major decisions, and these decisions always involve ethical principles.
Author: Paul Farmer Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520083431 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 362
Book Description
In this book ethnographic, historical and epidemiologic data are brought to bear on the subject of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Haiti. The forces that have helped to determine rates and pattern of spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) are examined, as are social responses to AIDS in rural and urban Haiti, and in parts of North America. History and its calculus of economic and symbolic power also help to explain why residents of a small village in rural Haiti came to understand AIDS in the manner that they did. Drawing on several years of fieldwork, the evolution of a cultural model of AIDS is traced. In a small village in rural Haiti, it was possible to document first the lack of such a model, and then the elaboration over time of a widely shared representation of AIDS. The experience of three villagers who died of complications of AIDS is examined in detail, and the importance of their suffering to the evolution of a cultural model is demonstrated. Epidemiologic and ethnographic studies are prefaced by a geographically broad historical analysis, which suggests the outlines of relations between a powerful center (the United States) and a peripheral client state (Haiti). These relations constitute an important part of a political-economic network termed the "West Atlantic system." The epidemiology of HIV and AIDS in Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean is reviewed, and the relation between the degree of involvement in the West Atlantic system and the prevalence of HIV is suggested. It is further suggested that the history of HIV in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas is similar to that documented here for Haiti.
Author: Barbara H. Harthorn Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313039208 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
Examines the diverse uses and abuses of risk by social actors across a wide range of cultural, ethnic, and geographical locales. The introductory chapter by the two co-editors analyzes and contextualizes current scholarly debates on the social, cultural, and political construction of risk. It is followed by an overview on the anthropology of harm reduction that outlines an innovative framework for culturally informed risk analysis. The remaining nine chapters are organized into three sections, The Cultivation of Fear, Perceptions of Health, Safety, and Hazard: Risk Makers and Risk Takers, and Regulating Risk and the Public's Health. The book aims to address a set of questions of theoretical and practical importance to anthropologists, sociologists, public health scholars and professionals, and public policy advocates, among others. These questions include: How do individuals conceptualize and respond to risk? Can risk be a tool of empowerment for individuals and communities who define themselves as at-risk? How has risk figured recently in the production of health inequality? Has the social contract to provide care in its broadest sense expanded or contracted around issues of risk? Are risk and the imperative to adhere to risk warnings used by experts as a means of social control? The volume's contributors, medical anthropologists and sociologists, provide rich, grounded ethnographic case material on the processes at work in everyday social life around the globe, as individuals and groups struggle to make saense of the health risks and inequities in their lives and communities. Authors address an array of urgent health concerns, ranging from food safety to environment, new technologies to infectious disease, in such contrasting locales as the US, Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and North Africa, and across diverse ethnicities and social classes.
Author: Jadwiga Leigh Publisher: Springer ISBN: 1137470097 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
In recent years child protection issues have dominated media and public discourse in the UK. This book offers a unique perspective by giving voice to those social workers working within a profession which has become increasingly embedded in a culture of blame. Exploring how statutory child protection agencies function, Leigh also reveals how ‘organisational culture’ can significantly affect the way in which social work is practised. Providing a comparative analysis between the UK and Belgium, Leigh uses ethnography to illuminate the differences between the settings by examining how interactions and affected atmospheres impact on their identities. This book reveals how practitioners perceive themselves differently in such environments and explores the impact this has on their identity as well as the work they carry out with children and families. Leigh’s enquiry and compelling critique into social work, identity and organisations calls for mutual understanding and respect, rather than a culture of blame.
Author: Rafaela Hillerbrand Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9400714335 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 1209
Book Description
Risk has become one of the main topics in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine and economics, and it is also studied by social scientists, psychologists and legal scholars. But the topic of risk also leads to more fundamental questions such as: What is risk? What can decision theory contribute to the analysis of risk? What does the human perception of risk mean for society? How should we judge whether a risk is morally acceptable or not? Over the last couple of decades questions like these have attracted interest from philosophers and other scholars into risk theory. This handbook provides for an overview into key topics in a major new field of research. It addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from decision theory, risk perception to ethics and social implications of risk, and it also addresses specific case studies. It aims to promote communication and information among all those who are interested in theoetical issues concerning risk and uncertainty. This handbook brings together internationally leading philosophers and scholars from other disciplines who work on risk theory. The contributions are accessibly written and highly relevant to issues that are studied by risk scholars. We hope that the Handbook of Risk Theory will be a helpful starting point for all risk scholars who are interested in broadening and deepening their current perspectives.
Author: Dan Gardner Publisher: McClelland & Stewart ISBN: 1551992108 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 510
Book Description
In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell, Gardner explores a new way of thinking about the decisions we make. We are the safest and healthiest human beings who ever lived, and yet irrational fear is growing, with deadly consequences — such as the 1,595 Americans killed when they made the mistake of switching from planes to cars after September 11. In part, this irrationality is caused by those — politicians, activists, and the media — who promote fear for their own gain. Culture also matters. But a more fundamental cause is human psychology. Working with risk science pioneer Paul Slovic, author Dan Gardner sets out to explain in a compulsively readable fashion just what that statement above means as to how we make decisions and run our lives. We learn that the brain has not one but two systems to analyze risk. One is primitive, unconscious, and intuitive. The other is conscious and rational. The two systems often agree, but occasionally they come to very different conclusions. When that happens, we can find ourselves worrying about what the statistics tell us is a trivial threat — terrorism, child abduction, cancer caused by chemical pollution — or shrugging off serious risks like obesity and smoking. Gladwell told us about “the black box” of our brains; Gardner takes us inside, helping us to understand how to deconstruct the information we’re bombarded with and respond more logically and adaptively to our world. Risk is cutting-edge reading.
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Author: Professor Mary Douglas
Author: Michael Pearn
Author: Mary Douglas
Author: Professor Mary Douglas
Author: Mary Douglas
Author: Paul Farmer
Author: Barbara H. Harthorn
Author: Jadwiga Leigh
Author: Rafaela Hillerbrand
Author: Dan Gardner