What is the structure of society? Many thinkers have pondered the regularities. Way of life theory (WOLT) shows the relationship of every rational, social issue to every other rational, social issue. ¶ From two dichotomised, theoretical dimensions called grid and group, Mary Douglas deduced four ways of life usually called individualism, hierarchy, egalitarianism, and fatalism. WOLT shows the same four ideal types may be deduced from any significant pair of social issues, including competition, cooperation, coercion, freedom, justice, self-identity, nature, human nature, and more. Since four types may be divided pair-wise in three ways, there are three, not two, dimensions or axes. ¶ WOLT also deduces Douglas’s fifth type (the hermit) and resolves the long-standing logical anomalies of grid-group theory. ¶ In all, seven social theorists have independently deduced four types from various dimension pairs. Mistakes aside, they find the same four theoretical types. Evidently, the four types are natural kinds. Between them these theorists use three axes. ¶ Numerous intuitive theorists from across social science have developed types without dimensions, and dimensions without types. Though incomplete, they show no significant disagreement. ¶ It appears that every issue that must be taken into account to live socially fits the three axes. There is no flexibility: each issue fits the axes one way. Geometrically, three dichot¬omised dimensions yield eight types, however four of them are not viable and do not arise. Given just four valid points, the number of dimensions is necessarily limited to three. The axes generate thousands of predictions. ¶ Since deduction yields the same four types whatever issues are placed on the dimensions, the four types are, like objects of natural science, independent of any theorist. In turn, these four types control which issues fit and how they fit, delimiting the scope and refining the meaning of the issues—which places the issues, too, beyond any theorist’s determination. ¶ As in natural science, the sphere of application is set by the deductive theory, not by a theorist’s pronouncement: what fits, fits. The domain appears to cover matters which people must take a position on to live socially. Emotional and internal personal issues will not fit. ¶ WOLT sharpens meaning, formalises structure and extends connections in areas as diverse as equality, liberalism, game theory, corporate culture, national culture, political right and left, religion, and working-class health. ¶ Like a natural science theory, WOLT is relational, not only taxonomic. As in natural science, no person, organisation, or social situation will conform exactly to its ideal types. It is falsifiable by deducing, or finding empirically, rival social types or a social phenomenon that will not fit. Empirical testing of the theory as a whole is awkward owing to its structure and to parochial effects. Three data sets failed to refute it. ¶ WOLT reveals how every social issue relates to every other social issue, providing a tool for analysing worldview, social structure, and social behaviour.

Fondée sur trois séjours d’enquête ethnographique, cette recherche propose une analyse du système social de communautés rurales non indiennes de l'Amazonie péruvienne. Durant les années 1920, après l'effondrement de l'économie du caoutchouc et afin d'échapper à la domination des patrons latifundistas, un petit nombre de familles décident d'aller s’installer sur la partie haute de la rivière Momón (Alto Momón), un sous-affluent de l’Amazone, à proximité d’Iquitos. Sans aucune concertation préalable, en occupant l’espace alors dépeuplé de l’Alto Momón, ces « pionniers » saisissent l’opportunité d’inaugurer un mode de vie singulier combinant l'autosubsistance, l'échange marchand urbain et le travail saisonnier d'extraction du bois. Dans cette configuration, en étant à la fois proches du marché d’Iquitos mais relativement autonomes par rapport aux contraintes structurelles de la société capitaliste, les habitants de l’Alto Momón vont élaborer et rendre pérenne un système social alternatif aussi bien de l'univers urbain que de celui des autochtones amérindiens proches. Si au départ, ces nouveaux occupants n'entretiennent entre eux que de simples rapports de voisinage, aujourd’hui, près d’un siècle plus tard, ils se sont organisés en communautés acéphales et égalitaristes fondées sur un usage communautaire original des modes de communication (en langue espagnole). La thèse présente la genèse historique de ces communautés pour décrire et analyser ensuite leurs institutions et leurs pratiques matérielles. / This research, based on three ethnographic fieldtrips, analyses the social system of rural non-Indian communities in Peruvian Amazonia. During the 1920s, a few families decided to settle down on the higher part of the Momón river (Alto Momón), a sub-affluent of the Amazone, close to Iquitos, after the collapse of the rubber industry. Those “pioneers” occupied depopulated Alto Momón, without preliminary consultation, and took the opportunity to create a specific life style, which combines subsistence farming, urban economic exchanges and seasonal work for wood extraction. With this specific configuration (being close to the Iquitos market but relatively autonomous from the structural constraints of capitalism) the dwellers of Alto Momón created an alternative social system, which they managed to reproduce in the long run. This system departs both from the urban world and from the neighboring autochthonous Amerindian communities. At first, those new dwellers were only neighbors, but one century later, they are organized as acephalous and egalitarian communities, with an original communitarian use of communication (in the Spanish language). This dissertation presents the historical genesis of those communities, and then describes and analyses their institutions and material practices.

MGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies / See the attached abstract below

Denna studie syftar till att analysera hur fäders syn på faderskap i relation till hegemonisk maskulinitet och jämställdhet kan påverka föräldraskapet. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten som användes var Connells teori om hegemonisk maskulinitet samt kritiken riktad mot den. Urvalet består av sex fäder där somliga var föräldralediga, några studerade och resterande arbetade. Deras yrkesbakgrunder varierade mellan socialt arbete, data och IT, skolväsendet och hantverkarbranschen. Det empiriska materialet samlades in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer och analyserades med tematisk analys. Resultaten har visat att traditionell och ny maskulinitetsideologi verkar tävla om inflytande vad gäller hegemonisk status, men även att fäder i jämställdhetens namn både kan upprätthålla och göra avkall på en överordnad position i föräldraskapet. Utifrån resultaten har studien konstaterat att fäders tankesätt kring arbetsfördelning, ansvar och avlastning till viss del leder till att modern blir familjens projektledare och att fadern konstrueras till en andrahandsförälder, likväl som fädernas medvetenhet och engagemang för jämställdhet i föräldraskapet kan motverka denna problematik. Avslutningsvis har studien sammanlänkat fäders resonemang om jämställdhet och maskulinitet i relation till delaktighet och ansvar i faderskapet, vilket synliggjort hur det potentiellt finns samband mellan strukturella och relationella problem på individ- och familjenivå. / This study aims to analyze how fathers' views on fatherhood in relation to hegemonic masculinity and egalitarianism can affect parenthood. The theoretical framework was Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity and the critique against it. The sample were six fathers whom either worked, studied or were on parental leave. Their professional backgrounds varied between social work, data and IT, school, and craftsmanship. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed with thematic analysis. The results have shown that traditional and new masculinity ideology seem to compete for influence in terms of hegemonic status, but also that fathers use egalitarianism both to maintain and relinquish a superior position in parenthood. Based on the results, the study has found that father's mind-set about division of labor, responsibility and relief to some extent leads to the mother becoming the family's project manager and that the father is constructed as a second parent, but also that fathers' awareness and commitment to equality in parenthood can counteract this problem. In conclusion, the study linked fathers' reasoning about equality and masculinity in relation to participation and responsibility in paternity, which later showed how it potentially can cause relational problems at the individual and family level.

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This thesis defends John Rawls’s constructivist theory of justice against three distinct challenges. Part one addresses G.A. Cohen’s claim that Rawls’s constructivism is committed to a mistaken thesis about the relationship between facts and principles. It argues that Rawls’s constructivist procedure embodies substantial moral commitments, and offers an intra-normative reduction rather than a metaethical account. Rawls’s claims about the role of facts in moral theorizing in A Theory of Justice should be interpreted as suggesting that some of our moral beliefs, which we are inclined to hold without reference to facts, are, in fact, true, because certain facts obtain. This thesis and the acknowledgement of the moral assumptions of Rawls’s constructivism help to show that Rawls does not, and does not need to, deny Cohen’s thesis. Part two defends the characterization of the decision problem in Rawls’s original position as a decision problem under uncertainty. Rawls stipulates that the denizens of the original position lack information that they could use to arrive at estimates of the likelihood of ending up in any given social position. It has been argued that Rawls does not have good grounds for this stipulation. I argue that given the nature of the value function we should attribute to the denizens of the original position and our cognitive limitations, which also apply to the denizens of the original position, their decision problem can be characterized as one under uncertainty even if we stipulate that they know that they have an equal chance of being in any individual’s place. Part three assesses the claim that a true commitment to Rawls’s difference principle requires a further commitment to an egalitarian ethos. This egalitarian ethos is offered as a means to bring about equality and Pareto-optimality. Accordingly, I try to undermine the case for an egalitarian ethos by challenging the desirability of the ends it is supposed to further or by showing that it is redundant. I argue that if primary goods are the metric of justice, then Pareto optimality in the space of the metric of justice is undesirable. I then argue that if the metric of justice is welfare, depending on the theory of welfare we adopt, an egalitarian ethos will either be redundant or will have objectionably paternalistic consequences.

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