Social Constructions of Reality

LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTS OF SHRIMP FARMING IN TAM GIANG LAGOON, VIETNAM. TUONG PHI LAI A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Science (Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture) Submitted to: Norwegian University of Life Sciences Department of International Environment and Development Studies June, 2005 ii The Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, is the international gateway for the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB). Eight departments, associated research institutions and the Norwegian College of Veterinary Medicine in Oslo. Established in 1986, Noragric’s contribution to international development lies in the interface between research, education (Bachelor, Master and PhD programmes) and assignments. The Noragric Master theses are the final theses submitted by students in order to fulfil the requirements under the Noragric Master programme “Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture” (MNRSA), “Development Studies” and other Master programmes. The findings in this thesis do not necessarily reflect the views of Noragric. Extracts from this publication may only be reproduced after prior consultation with the author and on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation contact Noragric. © Tuong Phi Lai, June 2005 E-mail: tuongphilai@yahoo.com Noragric Department of International Environment and Development Studies P.O. Box 5003 N-1432 Ås Norway Tel.: +47 64 96 52 00 Fax: +47 64 96 52 01 Internet: http://www.umb.no/noragric Formatted: French (France)Formatted: English (U.S.) iii DECLARATION I, Tuong Phi Lai, do hereby declare to the Senate of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, that this dissertation is entirely the product of my own original research work, unless where it is acknowledged, and that it has not been submitted to any other University or academic institution for award of any degree. ------------------------- ------------------ (TUONG PHI LAI) Date iv Acknowledgements I am thankful for Dr Nguyen Viet Nam and Msc Tran Van Nhuong - who paved the way for me to attain a NORAD scholarship by giving information and encouragement. I also would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Ian Bryceson, my main supervisor for his patience in correction of my English and straightforwardness in guidance for completion of this study. My hearty thanks are also given to my local supervisor Dr Le Thanh Luu for his valuable guidance and administrative support during my fieldwork. Special thanks NORAD for awarding me the scholarship provided an opportunity to improve my knowledge. Many gratitude are given to to all Noragric staff for their academic presentations and hosting me in Norway. I am thankful to Mr Nguyen Luong Hien, Mr Nguyen Quang Vinh Binh, Ms Vo Tuyet Hong, Mr Tran Xuan Binh and Ms Lam Thi Thu Suu for providing me valuable information and academic knowledge for carrying out the fieldwork in the study area. Personally, I heartily would like to express many thanks to Mr Phan Van Xuan, Mr Chau Ngoc Phi and Mr Le The Nhan who worked so hard with me in field and helped me a lot in primary collecting data. Additionally, I would like to thank all the people as to whom I can not name all here: Ngo Trung Nhat Quang, Pham Quang Anh Khoi, Phan Thanh Anh Dung and all participants from three communes for Social Constructions of Reality Social Constructions of Reality Bởi: OpenStaxCollege Who are we? What role we play in society? According to sociologists, we construct reality through our interactions with others In a way, our day-to-day interactions are like those of actors on a stage (Photo courtesy of Jan Lewandowski/flickr) Until now, we’ve primarily discussed the differences between societies Rather than discuss their problems and configurations, we’ll now explore how society came to be and how sociologists view social interaction In 1966 sociologists Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann wrote a book called The Social Construction of Reality In it, they argued that society is created by humans and human interaction, which they call habitualization Habitualization describes how “any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be … performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort” (Berger and Luckmann 1966) Not only we construct our own society, but we accept it as it is because others have created it before us Society is, in fact, “habit.” For example, your school exists as a school and not just as a building because you and others agree that it is a school If your school is older than you are, it was created by the agreement of others before you In a sense, it exists by consensus, both prior and current This is an example of the process of institutionalization, the act of implanting a convention or norm into society Bear in mind that the institution, while socially constructed, is still quite real 1/6 Social Constructions of Reality Another way of looking at this concept is through W.I Thomas’s notable Thomas theorem which states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas 1928) That is, people’s behavior can be determined by their subjective construction of reality rather than by objective reality For example, a teenager who is repeatedly given a label—overachiever, player, bum—might live up to the term even though it initially wasn’t a part of his character Like Berger and Luckmann’s description of habitualization, Thomas states that our moral codes and social norms are created by “successive definitions of the situation.” This concept is defined by sociologist Robert K Merton as a self-fulfilling prophecy Merton explains that with a self-fulfilling prophecy, even a false idea can become true if it is acted upon One example he gives is of a “bank run.” Say for some reason, a number of people falsely fear that their bank is soon to be bankrupt Because of this false notion, people run to their bank and demand all their cash at once As banks rarely, if ever, have that much money on hand, the bank does indeed run out of money, fulfilling the customers’ prophecy Here, reality is constructed by an idea Symbolic interactionists offer another lens through which to analyze the social construction of reality With a theoretical perspective focused on the symbols (like language, gestures, and artifacts) that people use to interact, this approach is interested in how people interpret those symbols in daily interactions For example, we might feel fright at seeing a person holding a gun, unless, of course, it turns out to be a police officer Interactionists also recognize that language and body language reflect our values One has only to learn a foreign tongue to know that not every English word can be easily translated into another language The same is true for gestures While Americans might recognize a “thumbs up” as meaning “great,” in Germany it would mean “one” and in Japan it would mean “five.” Thus, our construction of reality is influenced by our symbolic interactions The story line of a self-fulfilling prophecy appears in many literary works, perhaps most famously in the story of Oedipus Oedipus is told by an oracle that he will murder his father and marry his mother In going out of his way to avoid his fate, Oedipus inadvertently fulfills it 2/6 Social Constructions of Reality Oedipus’s story illustrates one way in which members of society contribute to the social construction of reality (Photo courtesy of Jean-Antoine-Theodore Giroust/Wikimedia Commons) Roles and Status As you can imagine, people employ many types of behaviors in day-to-day life Roles are patterns of behavior that we recognize in each other that are representative of a person’s social status Currently, while reading this text, you are playing the role of a student However, you also play other roles in your life, such as “daughter,” “neighbor,” or “employee.” These various roles are each associated with a different status Sociologists use the term status to describe the responsibilities and benefits a person experiences according to their rank and role in society Some statuses are ascribed—those you not select, such as son, elderly person, or female Others, called achieved statuses, are obtained by choice, such as a high ... LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTS OF SHRIMP FARMING IN TAM GIANG LAGOON, VIETNAM. TUONG PHI LAI A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Science (Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture) Submitted to: Norwegian University of Life Sciences Department of International Environment and Development Studies June, 2005 ii The Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, is the international gateway for the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB). Eight departments, associated research institutions and the Norwegian College of Veterinary Medicine in Oslo. Established in 1986, Noragric’s contribution to international development lies in the interface between research, education (Bachelor, Master and PhD programmes) and assignments. The Noragric Master theses are the final theses submitted by students in order to fulfil the requirements under the Noragric Master programme “Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture” (MNRSA), “Development Studies” and other Master programmes. The findings in this thesis do not necessarily reflect the views of Noragric. Extracts from this publication may only be reproduced after prior consultation with the author and on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation contact Noragric. © Tuong Phi Lai, June 2005 E-mail: tuongphilai@yahoo.com Noragric Department of International Environment and Development Studies P.O. Box 5003 N-1432 Ås Norway Tel.: +47 64 96 52 00 Fax: +47 64 96 52 01 Internet: http://www.umb.no/noragric Formatted: French (France) Formatted: English (U.S.) iii DECLARATION I, Tuong Phi Lai, do hereby declare to the Senate of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, that this dissertation is entirely the product of my own original research work, unless where it is acknowledged, and that it has not been submitted to any other University or academic institution for award of any degree. ------------------------- ------------------ ! SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE PERFECT CRIME: TOWARDS THE DEATH OF REALITY, REPRESENTATION AND THE MURDER OF RESISTANCE. DERRICK NG GUAN LIN B.SOC.SCI (HONS), NUS A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF THE MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NEW MEDIA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2014 ! ! Acknowledgements: Yay. iii! ! ! Table of Contents: Declaration ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract vi 1. Blinded by the Media 1.1 The Dominance of Technological thinking 2. From Mass to Social: The Ideology of Progress 1 11 21 2.1 Outsmarted by the Machine 21 2.2 The Liberation of Media 29 2.3 The beginnings of Social Media 32 2.4 The Reversible: Consumer to Producer 37 3. The Narrative of Participation: Participation as resistance 43 3.1 Participation as opposition to the Spectacle 45 3.2 Theatre, Film and Participation 49 3.3 From Art and Film to Social Media 54 4. Participation in the age of Social Media 59 4.1 Participation as the myth of co-creation 60 4.2 The Obscenity of Participation 65 iv! ! ! 5. The Perfect Crime: The Murder of Reality and Resistance 75 5.1 Decrypting the ‘Like’ Button 75 5.2 Death of Reality or the Murder of the Real 82 5.3 Of fools in Hyper Reality 88 5.4 The Murder of Resistance 92 5.5 Deep(?) Learning 95 6. Death, of the End to come [l’avenir] 105 7. Bibliography 113 v! ! ! Abstract This thesis seeks to contemplate the nature of active participation today in the context of social media. Social media, exemplified by platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., as the interface of the technology that produces the ‘social’, is increasingly seen as a site of resistance, allowing for new subjectivities as well as a space for challenging dominant ideologies or systems of power. While participation in general has traditionally been seen as a form of resistance and the enactment of agency, particularly in the domain of politics and art, I argue that within social media, the antithesis is also true, for active participation amongst its users, because of the cybernetic form of participation, is performing the exact opposite function, by symbolically ‘killing off’ representation and denying resistance to its very users. Participation in social media, I argue, has also become voluntarily ‘obscene’ in the Baudrillardian sense, encouraged by the technical forms of mediated participation such as the ‘like’ or ‘share’ button, resulting in the generation of an over-excess of information as well as a capacity to obliterate difference as noise. This combined effect and interplay of cybernetic simulation and obscenity of active participation in the age of social media culminates in what Baudrillard termed the ‘Perfect Crime’. Social media, I conclude, therefore embodies the perfect crime, for reality gets murdered, resistance dies and representation becomes annihilated. vi! ! ! Chapter One: Blinded by the Media The revolution would surely be tweeted. This statement, when left by itself, without a context, seems to lend its support to popular Internet intellectuals who argue that we are on the brink of a social media revolution1. At the same time, this appears to directly oppose Malcolm Gladwell’s claim in The New Yorker that the revolution would not be tweeted2. Consider this scenario then, there is a terrorist attack in a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, and the terrorists have taken hostages in a violent three day shoot-out with the Kenyan police that killed more than 60 people. To counter the threat of terrorism and assuage the fear of the Kenyan public, the Kenyan police started ‘livetweeting’ the hostage scenario in real-time (Abad-Santos, n. pag.)3. One of their tweets read: “We have taken control of all the floors. We're not here to feed the attackers with pastries but to finish and punish them4.” Or consider the next scenario The Boston Marathon held on 15 April, 2013, where two homemade bombs exploded, killing three people and injuring 264 PENGUIN BOOKS THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY Peter L Berger is Professor of Sociology at Boston University and Director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture He has previously been Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York He is the author of many books including Invitation to Sociology, Pyramids of Saa!fice, Facing up to Modernity, The Heretical Imperative and The Capitalist Revolution, and is co-author (with Hansfried Kellner) of Sociology Reinterpreted and (with Br igitte Berger) of Sociology: A Biographical Approach and The War over the Family Thomas.Luckmann is at present Professor of Sociology at the University of Constance, German Previously he taught at the University of Frankfurt, at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York, and was fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioural Sciences in Stanford He has published widely, and his titles include The Invisible Religion, The Sociology of Language, Life-IMJrld and Social Realities and The Structures of the Life-!MJrld (with Alfred Schiitz) He is editor of Phenomenology and Sociology and The Changing Face of Religion (with James A Beckford) Peter L Berger and Thomas Luckmann The Social Construction of Reality Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge A Penguin Books Contents PENGUIN BOOKS PREFACE Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 STZ England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia IN TRODUCTION · Penguin Books Canada Ltd 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902 NSMC, Auckland New Zealand The Problem of the Sociology of Knowledge I I Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth Middlesex England First published in the USA 1966 Published in Great Britain by Allen Lane ONE THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE I · The Penguin Press 1967 Published in Penguin University Books 1971 Reprinted in Peregrine Books 1979 Reprinted in Pelican Books 1984 Reprinted in Penguin Books 1991 10 The Reality of Everyday Life 33 Social Interaction in Everyday Life 43 3· Language and Knowledge in Everyday Life 49 Copyright © Peter L Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 1966 All rights reserved Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St lves plc Set in Monotype Plantin Except in the United States of America this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser TWO · SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY 63 Institutionalization 65 Organism and Activity 65 Origins of Institutionalization 70 Sedimentation and Tradition 85 Roles 89 Scope and Modes of Institutionalization 97 Legitimation IO Origins of Symbolic Universes I 10 Conceptual Machineries of Universe-Maintenance 122 Social Organization for Universe-Maintenance 134 CONTENTS THREE • Preface SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY 147 Internalization of Reality 149 Primary Socialization 149 Secondary Socialization 57 Maintenance and Transformation of Subjective Reality 166 3· 4· Internalization and Social Structure, Theories about Identity 94 Organism and Identity CONCLUSION • 183 201 The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory 205 NOTES INDEXES • Subject Index 237 Aberrance, Agency and Social Constructions of Women Offenders A Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Carol Quadrelli BA (Hons) Griffith University, GradDipEd, Queensland University of Technology School of Justice Studies Faculty of Law Queensland University of Technology 2003 Key Words Aberrance; agency; essentialism; resistance; criminal justice system; female offenders; women’s prisons; women’s experiences of the criminal justice system i Abstract Traditionally offending women are framed through essentialist discourses of pathologisation and the family Hence, good women are constructed as passive, compliant, vulnerable to victimisation, and nurturers Offending women are constructed within criminal justice processes as disordered, physiologically and psychologically flawed Censure or sympathy dispensed to women within the system is contingent on a number of key factors: the type of offence, the category of women involved, and the way in which women interact and negotiate the discourses used to construct their aberrance The focus of this thesis is offending women and how they are socially constructed through legal and penal discourses within the court and the prison However this thesis rejects the essentialist framework which positions women as passive recipients of an omnipotent patriarchal criminal justice system and thus having no agency Nor is this thesis about creating a new entity to encompass all offending women Instead an antiessentialist approach is adopted that allows the body, power, and women’s agency to be theorised This approach provides a more complex and detailed account of women’s aberrance that acknowledges the diverse range of women, their experiences and negotiations of criminal justice processes The combination of real women’s lived experiences and an alternative theoretical framework provides a very different perspective in which to understand female offending ii Table of Contents KEY WORDS i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF APPENDICES vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix DOCUMENT SOURCES IX OTHER ABBREVIATIONS IX GLOSSARY OF TERMS x STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii CHAPTER ONE - RAISON D’ÊTRE .1 1.1 INTRODUCTION ... out of his way to avoid his fate, Oedipus inadvertently fulfills it 2/6 Social Constructions of Reality Oedipus’s story illustrates one way in which members of society contribute to the social. .. different sides of you 3/6 Social Constructions of Reality As in a play, the setting matters as well If you have a group of friends over to your house for dinner, you are playing the role of a host... to us are like a mirror in which we are reflected 4/6 Social Constructions of Reality Summary Society is based on the social construction of reality How we define society influences how society