Browsing by Subject "Solidarity"
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Item A historiographical and artistic survey of confraternities from the later middle ages to the early renaissance(Texas Tech University, 2005-05) Ziegler, Tiffany A.; D'Amico, Stefano; Howe, John M.The last twenty to thirty years of confraternal research have yielded ground breaking results in the field. However, while historiographical surveys appear throughout the literature of confraternal scholars, both contemporary and past, the works tend to focus on the origins of confraternal studies up through the cultural and social shift of the 1960s. Thus, many modern historians and their contributions to confraternal research have been recently ignored; no body of literature exists which attempts to create a synthesis of these works. I propose that a modern survey of historiographical research is needed before confraternal studies can progress any further. A historiography of modern works would make available to current historians the needed knowledge to proceed in their fields and would bring the scholarship of confraternal historians to the forefront, providing them with the recognition they deserve for their collaborated efforts. Furthermore, a confraternal historiography considering a number of areas and genres would demonstrate the significant role that confraternities played in the past. Furthermore, while the roles of confraternities in society and their implications concerning culture have not been neglected by historians of the present, only just recently historians have put a twist on social and cultural confraternal research in relation to artwork. Artwork commissioned by confraternities can yield explanations that some archival records, such as membership lists, statutes, enrollment charts and death registers cannot. However, even though clearly aware of the benefits of artwork, there has been little exploration in the field of confraternal artwork; thus I contend that efforts should be initiated to bring confraternal artwork and confraternal patronage to the forefront of modern scholarship. I propose that specific confraternal images can produce meanings about the confraternities that in turn provide information concerning the culture in which they inhabited. It is thus necessary to perform a cultural analysis of confraternal artworks grounded in cultural theory and iconography in order to understand confraternities and society. The best evidence for the culture and cultural changes is confraternal artwork from the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance as the visual sources with their contractual counterparts provide a clear transition of the events that occurred. However, before delving into an analysis of the works of art, it will first be necessary to examine the evolving relationships between the institutional Church and confraternities in general, which will provide a context for the confraternities and their artwork. With the foundation in place, the study of confraternal artwork may proceed. Overall, the analysis will allow for a closer examination of not just the culture of a particular confraternity, but also the cultural values, ideals, and practices of an entire community in one period of time. Furthermore, the examination of confraternal artwork will prove important, as it will demonstrate the unique power of confraternities.Item A historiographical and artistic survey of confraternities from the later Middle Ages to the early Renaissance(2005-05) Ziegler, Tiffany A.; D'Amico, Stefano; Howe, John M.The last twenty to thirty years of confraternal research have yielded ground breaking results in the field. However, while historiographical surveys appear throughout the literature of confraternal scholars, both contemporary and past, the works tend to focus on the origins of confraternal studies up through the cultural and social shift of the 1960s. Thus, many modern historians and their contributions to confraternal research have been recently ignored; no body of literature exists which attempts to create a synthesis of these works. I propose that a modern survey of historiographical research is needed before confraternal studies can progress any further. A historiography of modern works would make available to current historians the needed knowledge to proceed in their fields and would bring the scholarship of confraternal historians to the forefront, providing them with the recognition they deserve for their collaborated efforts. Furthermore, a confraternal historiography considering a number of areas and genres would demonstrate the significant role that confraternities played in the past. Furthermore, while the roles of confraternities in society and their implications concerning culture have not been neglected by historians of the present, only just recently historians have put a twist on social and cultural confraternal research in relation to artwork. Artwork commissioned by confraternities can yield explanations that some archival records, such as membership lists, statutes, enrollment charts and death registers cannot. However, even though clearly aware of the benefits of artwork, there has been little exploration in the field of confraternal artwork; thus I contend that efforts should be initiated to bring confraternal artwork and confraternal patronage to the forefront of modern scholarship. I propose that specific confraternal images can produce meanings about the confraternities that in turn provide information concerning the culture in which they inhabited. It is thus necessary to perform a cultural analysis of confraternal artworks grounded in cultural theory and iconography in order to understand confraternities and society. The best evidence for the culture and cultural changes is confraternal artwork from the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance as the visual sources with their contractual counterparts provide a clear transition of the events that occurred. However, before delving into an analysis of the works of art, it will first be necessary to examine the evolving relationships between the institutional Church and confraternities in general, which will provide a context for the confraternities and their artwork. With the foundation in place, the study of confraternal artwork may proceed. Overall, the analysis will allow for a closer examination of not just the culture of a particular confraternity, but also the cultural values, ideals, and practices of an entire community in one period of time. Furthermore, the examination of confraternal artwork will prove important, as it will demonstrate the unique power of confraternities.Item Contemporary cowboy culture and the rise of American postmodern solidarity(Texas A&M University, 2007-09-17) Homann, Ronnie DeanIn this dissertation, I build on contemporary theoretical perspectives to interpret characteristics of contemporary cowboy culture. Specifically, I target the image of the cowboy in relation to solidarity. I assume that contemporary cowboy culture is an illusion or simulacra of something, something maybe once authentic. Now, it is built around language games, illusion, image and many other postmodern phenomena. Even so, in this work I explore how postmodernism is useful, which many are hesitant to do. This is a new twist or at least an interesting study in contrast to the enlightenment project. I rely heavily on theoretical discussion, qualitative analysis, participant observation and interpretive interactionism to accomplish this study and engage this culture. I integrate this approach into the continuing question about progress and the relationship between postmodernism and modernism, which is characterized here by McDonaldization. I find contemporary society provides opportunities to celebrate the benefits and development of postmodern social bonding. As a result, postmodernism, characterized by chaos, contradiction, and especially illusion is found to actually create solidarity and allow for Jungian rebirth of something authentic.Item Differentiation and social cohesion: returning to Durkheim for a unitary theory of deviance(Texas Tech University, 2000-08) Carter, Bradley W.Of all the classical sociologists, Emile Durkheim is perhaps the most influential in the field of deviance. Innovations from his work undergird two competing theoretical approaches to explaining deviance today. Durkheim's arguments in The Division of Labour in Society(1933) and Suicide (1966) about how variations in the collective conscience and anomie produce deviant conduct contribute to the basis for several theoretical developments that offer explanations for why people violate norms. These developments, which stem from a fianctional/consensus paradigm include strain, cultural deviance, social control, and social disorganization theories. On the other hand, his recognition that deviance often enhances social cohesion provides the foundation for theories that examine why deviant labeling occurs. His observations not only anchor conflict labeling theory (Void, Bernard, and Snipes 1998:124-125), but they also undergird historical and contemporary explanations for why the labeling process seems to have its own rhythmic ebb and flow (Erickson 1966; Lusane 1977). Durkheim's contributions to deviance theory, however, emerge in different works as distinct and even competing theories. Throughout the literature, social differentiation, or the increasing division of labor, drives variations in the collective conscience and anomie, which ultimately provide explanations for deviant behavior. On the other hand, the topic of social differentiation is not to be found in Durkheim's consideration of how labeling has an impact on social solidarity because these considerations only apply to his "primitive societies." How is it, then, that labeling theory has borrowed from a construct that applies to Durkheim's primitive societies in various effortsto explain deviance labeling in highly differentiated, contemporary societies? I propose that these seemingly distinct theoretical perspectives that provide answers to conflicting questions mask a single, unitary theory of deviance that can be drawn from Durkheim's work. This theory can explain how differentiation ultimately produces not only deviant conduct, but also deviant labeling in today's highly differentiated societies. After examining the two separate theoretical perspectives in the remainder of this chapter. Chapter II provides a critique of Durkheim's assertion that mechanical solidarity becomes increasingly less important as a source of social cohesion as societies differentiate. This critique provides the foundation for developing a unitary theory in which differentiation can ultimately explain deviant labeling. I close this thesis by offering three implications for a unitary theory of deviance.Item Digital intifada : a discourse analysis of the Palestine solidarity groups in social media(2016-08) Almahmoud, Meshaal Abdullah; Atkinson, Lucinda; Love, BradfordThis thesis investigates the discourse adopted by Palestine solidarity groups utilizing Facebook. Three pro-Palestine groups were highlighted as a case study for this thesis: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, International Solidarity Movement and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement. The research questions address the methods of discourse Palestinian solidarity groups' employ, utilization of different contents and themes, level of engagement, selection of format, news resources, and impact of 2014 Gaza war. This study analyzes variations among the three groups and components influencing differentiations. The literature review highlights transformation in both individual and collective communication and social media's changing social and political structures. Research includes the usage of social media to frame social movements’ platform and social media benefits for collective action and how framing is achieved and collective identity developed. Lastly, it illuminates the trend of connective action and personalization. The discourse analysis approach was applied to investigate the set of selected Facebook posts in 2014. The results show that the three solidarity groups generally applied resource mobilization theory. Posts reporting some form of a violation contained the most correlating content. Human rights theme rose to the majority of the total number of posts. The most used contents in the posts aim for audience sympathy, responsibility and being connected, as for a shared pursuit to occur. Reporting a violation, the most used content, triggers sympathy. Responsibility is motivated by calling followers for action, which is the second most used content by all groups. Reporting news as applied to many types of top used contents, resulted in the group member's feeling connected. The total average engagement for the three groups multiplied highly during the war in Gaza, but sank considerably after termination of the war. However, the average engagement subsequent to the war remains markedly higher than pre-war levels. The patterns of posting revealed tendencies not to post only text, without attaching another format. Posts with links or photo account for a higher proportion. The majority of the three solidarity groups' news resources come from five pro-Palestinian major news websites. Yet, numerous international sources, either mainstream or independent media, were utilized as well.Item Diversity, conflict, and systems leadership in project groups: a longitudinal study(Texas Tech University, 2002-12) Agar, Feride PinarThe changing demography of the workforce has made group composition the most actively researched determinant of group effectiveness. The present study examined the effects of a major aspect of group composition, group diversity, on intragroup conflict and group performance. The majority of research on group diversity has considered diversity to be stable and objective. This study proposed a model of diversity that emphasized its perceptual and transient nature. It was postulated that different types of diversity would be salient at different times in a group's life and that these different types of diversity would trigger different group processes. Further, the model proposed in this study incorporated systems leadership, which enabled diverse groups to avoid the unfavorable effects of diversity while reaping its benefits. Seventy-six student project teams in the capstone Strategic Management class offered in the college of business administration of a large southwestern state university participated in a longitudinal survey study to test specific hypotheses derived from the proposed model. The results indicated that diversity had a transient nature and that the salience of different forms of diversity changed throughout groups' development. Also, it was found that different forms of diversity led to different types of conflict, which in turn influenced group performance. Finally, it was found that systems leadership moderated between diversity and conflict.Item (Re)framing resistance and (re)forging solidarity : negotiating the politics of space, race, and gender in Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ Habla La Madre(2016-05) Townsend, Phillip A.; Smith, Cherise, 1969; Chambers, EdwardThis study provides one of the first examinations of Habla La Madre, a 2014 performance by Afro-Cuban artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons launched in the Guggenheim Museum. The performance stems from practices that resulted in the marginalization and exclusion of artists of color from hegemonic cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim. Habla La Madre concerns itself with the politics of identity in its desire to function as a tool for (re)building African Diasporic solidarity. The project looks at historical, cultural, religious, and mythological texts in order to investigate Habla La Madre as a manifestation of Campos-Pons’ hybridized “exilic,” “female,” “African,” and “Cuban” identities. (Re)Framing Resistance and (Re)Forging Solidarity: Negotiating the Politics of Space, Race, and Gender in Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ Habla La Madre situates the performance in a history of public performative acts of resistance enacted by enslaved Africans, Afro-Cubans, and African American communities which is a primary goal of this study. The project pays close attention to Habla La Madre as it intersects with the politics of space. A critical objective of this study is to understand the sociopolitical implications of Campos-Pons’ acts of spatial transformation and spatial appropriation around and within the museum. The project also looks at Campos-Pons’ introduction of Santería into the Guggenheim as an attempt at its institutionalization. A history of African and African Diasporic altar production structures an investigation into Campos-Pons’ construction of an altar within the Guggenheim. As a performance that challenges discriminatory practices of art institutions, Habla La Madre situates itself within the genre of institutional critique. The project highlights its consistencies, deviations, and contributions to the field. This research also draws upon conversations with the artist to determine the extent to which her peers have influenced the production and goals of Habla La Madre. Most prior research on Campos-Pons focuses on her practice as mourning; however, this project focuses on the cultural diffusion and celebration the performance brings about.Item Stories as capacious objects : narratives of belonging in LGBT community in Chennai, India(2015-05) Vasudevan, Aniruddhan; Ali, Kamran Asdar, 1961-; Stewart, KathleenThis report grows out of my observations and fieldwork notes made in the summer of 2014 in Chennai, India. It argues that when faced with conflicting pulls, varied levels of visibility and state recognition, and multiple axes of privileges, disenfranchisement and suffering, some members of the LGBT community in Chennai emphasized the importance of an additional set of implicit criteria for what constitutes solidarity: showing up; doing the work; making a timely gesture of support or help; being present in a moment of crisis; having shared experiences of fun, outrage, suffering, etc. They used narratives to emphasize friendships and longevity of associations across sexual orientation, gender identity, class, caste, etc., as a way to ameliorate the anxieties created by the questioning of solidarities. My claim is not that such a focus on relationships across social divides directly challenges or carries the potential to challenge larger social orders of gender, class, or caste in a systematic way. My desire, instead, is to focus on the very urge felt by actors involved to ameliorate through narratives the questioning of the legitimacy of the idea of a community. My aim has been to understand what attitudes to relationships and solidarities and what kinds of connections, affect, and slantedness towards one another these exercises reveal.