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Difference between revisions of "Ideas for Future Research"
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==Superseding dichotomies== | ==Superseding dichotomies== | ||
Anthropological and sociological theories are often based on purpose-made dichotomies. Chris Jenks’ Core Sociological Dichotomies critically assesses the principal types. Christian Giordano, in his recent article, argues that for the past 150 years dichotomies have been a fundamental aspect of sociological and anthropological thought. He illustrates how dichotomies, aside from the risk of essentializing, i.e. of creating static constructs of reality, are useful if not indispensable for a social analysis and for the creation of theoretical conceptions in social and cultural sciences. Do they help or impede our grasp of grey areas and blurred boundaries? | Anthropological and sociological theories are often based on purpose-made dichotomies. Chris Jenks’ Core Sociological Dichotomies critically assesses the principal types. Christian Giordano, in his recent article, argues that for the past 150 years dichotomies have been a fundamental aspect of sociological and anthropological thought. He illustrates how dichotomies, aside from the risk of essentializing, i.e. of creating static constructs of reality, are useful if not indispensable for a social analysis and for the creation of theoretical conceptions in social and cultural sciences. Do they help or impede our grasp of grey areas and blurred boundaries? | ||
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'''Brainstorming session from the Brainstorming Workshop, 22 March 2018, UCL, London''' | |||
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In the session: | |||
*'''Dr Mark Pyman, Senior Fellow, Institute for Statecraft, London, Honorary Research Fellow, Strategy and Security Institute, University of Exeter''' | |||
*Prof Tony Fang, Stockholm Business School | |||
*Yuri Tsarik, Head of Supervisory Board, Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies | |||
*Dr Abel Polese, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, Dublin City University | |||
*Prof Christian Giordano, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Fribourg | |||
The definition of dichotomy was “Two terms with opposite meanings”. | |||
I love this encyclopaedia. We discussed four examples of how this encyclopaedia helps: | |||
1. Language is how we construct our realities. Having a more sophisticated understanding of all these words that expose in detail the unspoken rules of how we engage with each other is revelatory, and it materially deepens our ability to understand difficult policy issues. | |||
2. It enables new way of thinking about the language of policy-making that is more sophisticated than choices between opposites. This encyclopaedia starts to show us how the space between the two ‘opposites’ is filled with many words that have ambivalent meanings, or are deliberately unclear, or have multiple meanings depending on the context. Example Chinese mandarin language, which has no word for dichotomy. Example: Chinese has words for East and West but does not suggest them as opposites. The language reality is saying that opposites always co-exist. | |||
3. This work will change some of the core concepts of governance. Such an example is of the dichotomy between the ‘Good governance model’ of economic development and the economic growth model (laissez faire approach; corruption s implicitly OK) of economic development. Research now saying that some countries have developed as an intricate, co-existing mixture of the two, not as one or the other (See Yuen Yuen Ang, 2017). Some of the space in between is filled by informal language. | |||
Another example is between corruption in aid giving: 'results or receipts' Charles Kenny 2017) and the informal words that donors use to mask what is inevitable but cannot be said: The development agencies have developed phrases that represent tolerance of corruption whilst seeming to mean the opposite. Legitimising discussion of what is really happening (it’s not bad, just inevitable and politically difficult to admit to) by being open about what these phases really mean is a big deal. | |||
4. Deepen understanding of what constitutes corrupt relationships. The analysis of corruption is much more than what is legal or illegal; and this encyclopaedia helps move is forward. Not just on informal words and euphemisms for corruption. One of the toughest question in corruption and good governance work/research is the question of relationships. People in each society have a very sophisticated understanding of which sorts of relations which are corrupt, and which are not. This is an area which has been filled up with informal words to express the complexity of these relationships. This research deepens the understanding how the norms of acceptable corruption are expressed and communicated. It may also allow us to track how the meanings of these words change – or are manipulated - as part of active efforts to change the norm. | |||
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==Cyber-informality== | ==Cyber-informality== | ||