abstract: Coalescence is a distinctive process of village aggregation that creates larger, socially cohesive communities from smaller, scattered villages. This dissertation asks: how do individual and collective social relationships change throughout the process of coalescence, and how might these relationships contribute to the social cohesiveness of a coalescent community? Coalescent communities share characteristics that reveal the relationship between collective action and collective identities in their social dynamics. Collective identity is a shared sense of oneness among members of a group. It can be understood as the product of two processes: categorical and relational identification. Categorical identification is a shared association with a specific category, such as an ethnic group or a religious association. Relational identification is the product of direct, interpersonal interaction. The potential for a group to engage in collective action is linked to the intensity (prominence as compared to other aspects of identity) and scale (social unit and size of group) of categorical and relational identification. Patterns in the intensity and scale of categorical and relational identification are used to trace changing social dynamics through the process of community coalescence. The case study is a sequence of four sites that were successively occupied by the same Ancestral Wendat (Iroquoian) community over a period of 150 years in south-central Ontario. The intensity of categorical identification is assessed by measuring the consistency of decorative styles among pottery vessels. The intensity of relational identification is assessed by measuring production variability among ceramic pots and pipes using microscopic characterization. The analyses reveal a correlation between the intensity and scale of categorical and relational identification and village-scale social cohesion and collective action. Village-scale categorical identification was less intensive during the period of initial aggregation, with a subsequent increase in intensity observed at fully coalesced sites where evidence of social cohesion and village-scale collective action is present. As coalescence progressed, the intensity of relational identification at the village scale decreased. This evidence suggests that changing dynamics of categorical and relational ties among community members were intertwined with the development of social cohesion and the increased potential for village-scale collective action at the culmination of coalescence. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2018

Appeals to practices are common the humanities and social sciences. They hold the potential to explain interesting or compelling similarities, insofar as similarities are distributed within a community or group. Why is it that people who fall under the same category, whether men, women, Americans, baseball players, Buddhists, feminists, white people, or others, have interesting similarities, such as similar beliefs, actions, thoughts, foibles, and failings? One attractive answer is that they engage in the same practices. They do the same things, perhaps as a result of doing things at the same site or setting, or perhaps as a result of being raised in a similar way among members of the same group. In the humanities, appeals to practices often serve as a move to point out diversity among different communities or diversity within the same community. Communities are distinct from one another in part because their members do different things or do things in different ways. The distinct and varied ways in which different communities enact social norms or formulate law, state institutions, and public policy might be explicable in part by the different practices their members are socialized into. Appeals to practices hold the promise of explaining these differences in terms of the different background practices of the groups, cultivated through a kind of cultural isolation or sense of collective identity. In the social sciences, appeals to practices have played a central role in fundamental theorizing and theory building. Appeals to practices in the social sciences are often much more systematic and theoretical, forming the core of the systematic theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens in Anthropology and Sociology. Practice theory has thus become a growth industry in social scientific investigation, offering the promise of a central object of investigation that explains both unity and difference within and across communities and groups. But it is unclear just what practices are and what role, both ontological and explanatory, that practices are supposed to play. The term `practices' is used to pick out a wide range of things, and its relation to other terms, from `tradition' or `paradigm' to `framework' or `presupposition', is unclear. Practices are posited as ubiquitous, yet they are difficult to isolate and pin down. We are all said to participate in them, but they remain hidden. Their role, whether causal, logical, or hermeneutical, remains mysterious. After locating the historical origins of appeals to practices in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, my dissertation uses Stephen Turner's broad and systematic critique of appeals to practices to develop a new type of account. My account is a phenomenological account that treats practices as human doings that show up to people in material and social environments and make themselves available for specific responses in those environments. I argue that a phenomenological account is an effective alternative to accounts that treat practices as either shared objects with properties or shared and implicit presuppositions. I use a phenomenological account of practices to treat important debates in feminist philosophy and the philosophy of the social sciences, particularly debates over pornography's subordination of women and the classification of mental disorders in psychiatry.

This PhD project is undertaken by publication and thus this exegesis offers an explication and linking interpretation of the publications and DVD's listed in section two. The exegesis 'frames-up' what has been an ongoing interpretive inquiry exploring constructive frontline child protection social work undertaken by the author in collaboration with practitioners in Europe, North America and Australasia that has given rise to the publications and DVDs. Taking the lead from Geertz's ideas of interpretive anthropology the aim of this inquiry and publication work is to develop descriptions and theories of practice drawing upon insiders' local knowledges and sense-making of what constitutes good child protection social work. 'The natives' or insiders toward which this interpretive project directs its attention are first and foremost, frontline child protection social workers and wherever possible the child protection service recipients who have experienced the practice of those workers. The publication component of this project is a vital and integrated part of the research process since it is through the writing and production work that the usually overlooked, often deemed 'tacit' knowledges of service delivers and recipients are brought into the formal domain and made accessible to others. / This project is undertaken with transformative intent. The first intent being to distil the wisdom of insiders' knowledges into richly detailed formal accounts of good practice that speaks directly to the practitioner's condition thereby enhancing their professional reflexivity, hope and capacity. The second intent is to provide constructive on-the-ground 'news of difference' for a child protection field that is over-organised by anxiety, worst-case outcomes and an obsession with managers' measures. The exegesis is formulated around the research question, What potential does interpretive social theory have for transforming child protection social work? My conclusion is that while interpretive social theory offers significant epistemological and methodological resources for transforming the practices and orientation of child protection social work, this potential will not be realised until the social work displays renewed ontological commitment and faith in the knowledges and everyday experience of frontline practitioners.

This study identifies informal networks as the most accepted method of sharing information. Enhancing service delivery is shown as being a key trigger of coordination while rigid funding approaches are perceived to be a major inhibitor. Organisational type, position, practice approaches and location are shown to influence people's perception of coordination.

This work examines the ways in which the relationship between society and nature is problematic for social theory. The Frankfurt School’s notion of the dialectic of enlightenment is considered, as are the attempts by Jurgen Habermas to defend an ‘emancipatory’ theory of modernity against this. The marginalising effect Habermas’ defence of reason has had on the place of nature in his critical social theory is examined, as is the work of theorists such as Ulrich Beck and Klaus Eder. For these latter authors, unlike Habermas, the social relation to nature is at the centre of contemporary society, giving rise to new forms of modernisation and politics. ¶ Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics and governmentality is examined against the background of his philosophical debate with Habermas on power and rationality. The growth of scientific ecology is shown to have both problematised the social relation to nature and provided the political technology for new forms of regulatory intervention in the management of the population and resources. These new forms of intervention constitute a form of ecological governmentality along the lines discussed by Foucault and others in relation to the human sciences. ¶ However, Foucault’s work is not sufficiently critical of the relationship between the natural sciences and power. Extending Foucault’s biopolitics to environmental discourse is consistent with his general approach to power, but his incomplete critique of political sovereignty meant that for him agency remained tied to an idealised notion of the autonomy of the human subject. He therefore made too strong a distinction between the human and natural sciences and between power and the capacities of non-human entities, and continued to view the natural sciences as separating themselves from power in a way that was not possible in the human sciences. ¶ A more general critique of epistemic sovereignty reveals that the natural sciences (including ecology) are subject to disciplinary and normalising practices similar to those of the human sciences. Foucault’s key inadequacy is that he linked agency to human autonomy and sovereignty. The work of Bruno Latour and other actor network theorists show that an unambiguous ontological distinction between nature, material technologies and active human subjects is highly problematic. In the place of a separate ‘society’ and ‘nature’, this thesis argues that it is preferable to see these as a single socio-nature populated by the hybrid products of translation networks. ¶ By drawing together the insights of recent governmentality studies and the approach of actor network theory to agency and translation, Foucault’s concept of biopolitics can be adapted to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the ecological programs of government that have emerged around the problem of nature in second half of the twentieth century.

<p>This thesis proposes an alternative perspective to the general neglect of toy materials from deeper analysis in archaeology. Based on a study of selected toy artefacts from the Classical Harappan settlement at Bagasra, Gujarat, it suggests a viable way of approaching the objects when considering them within a theoretical framework highlighting their social aspects. The study agrees with objections in e.g. parts of gender archaeology and research on children in archaeology to the extrapolating from the marginalized child of the West onto past social structures. Departing from revised toy definitions formulated in disciplines outside archaeology, it proceeds with the objects’ toy identifications while rejecting a ‘transforming’ of these into other interpretations. Thus entering a quite unexplored research field, grounded theory is used as working method. As the items indicate a regulated pattern, the opinion on toy artefacts as randomly scattered around becomes questioned. Using among others the <i>capital</i> concept by Bourdieu, the notion of <i>micropower</i> by Foucault and parts of the newly developed ideas of <i>microarchaeology</i>, the toy-role of the artefacts is emphasized as crucial, enabling the items to express diverse social uses in addition to their possible function as children’s (play)things. With this, the notion of the limiting connection of toys to playing children becomes unravelled, opening for a discussion on enlarged dimensions of the toys and a possible re-naming of them as the materialities of next generation. While suggesting the items to indicate various social strategies and structurating practices, the need for traditional boundaries and separated entities successively becomes eliminated. The traditionally stated toy obstacles with cultural loading and elusive distinctions can with this be proposed as constructions, possible to avoid. The toy concept simultaneously emerges as particularly useful in highlighting the notion of change and continuity within the social structure and children’s roles in this.</p>

<p>In the year 2007 the Swedish National Heritage Board released directions for how the contractarchaeology in Sweden should carry out their work. These directions stressed that a differentapproach to the archaeological finds should be used – that would lead to a higher degree ofselection than before. The purpose of this essay is to find the reason why this change indirections occurred, and this is done by a study of the history of the rescue archaeology inSweden. The other purpose of this essay is to examine if the excavation strategies inarchaeological excavation reports from different times, correlates with the general guidingprinciples for the contract archaeology in Sweden of that time.There are several reasons why the change in directions occurred, but it seems as the mainreasons are practical. The handling of archaeological finds is relatively expensive andarchaeological researches of today generally don’t need to take care of all the finds for theinterpretation. Consequently there is no reason to save everything. The study of theexcavation reports show that there is correlation between the excavation techniques used, andthe general guiding principles for the contract archaeology of that time.</p>

This thesis proposes an alternative perspective to the general neglect of toy materials from deeper analysis in archaeology. Based on a study of selected toy artefacts from the Classical Harappan settlement at Bagasra, Gujarat, it suggests a viable way of approaching the objects when considering them within a theoretical framework highlighting their social aspects. The study agrees with objections in e.g. parts of gender archaeology and research on children in archaeology to the extrapolating from the marginalized child of the West onto past social structures. Departing from revised toy definitions formulated in disciplines outside archaeology, it proceeds with the objects’ toy identifications while rejecting a ‘transforming’ of these into other interpretations. Thus entering a quite unexplored research field, grounded theory is used as working method. As the items indicate a regulated pattern, the opinion on toy artefacts as randomly scattered around becomes questioned. Using among others the capital concept by Bourdieu, the notion of micropower by Foucault and parts of the newly developed ideas of microarchaeology, the toy-role of the artefacts is emphasized as crucial, enabling the items to express diverse social uses in addition to their possible function as children’s (play)things. With this, the notion of the limiting connection of toys to playing children becomes unravelled, opening for a discussion on enlarged dimensions of the toys and a possible re-naming of them as the materialities of next generation. While suggesting the items to indicate various social strategies and structurating practices, the need for traditional boundaries and separated entities successively becomes eliminated. The traditionally stated toy obstacles with cultural loading and elusive distinctions can with this be proposed as constructions, possible to avoid. The toy concept simultaneously emerges as particularly useful in highlighting the notion of change and continuity within the social structure and children’s roles in this.

The thesis presented here explores the relevance of the classical works of Emile Durkheim and George Herbert Mead to contemporary postmodern cultural critiques. Postmodern social theory specifically that of Richard Rorty and Jean Baudrillard have come to offer a type of social theory that challenges the notion of the social. This referential problem of the social becomes a striking attack on the epistemology of sociology, which purports to offer scientific knowledge about the human condition as a social process. The theoretical works of Durkheim and Mead especially their respective concepts of the "collective consciousness" and the "generalized other" are offered here as closely related articulations of the core sociological concept of "the social." It is argued that postmodernism, by postulating an excessively precarious social theory, falls short as a theory of society when juxtaposed to the classic sociologies of Durkheim and Mead. However, it is also noted that the transformation of the field of sociology from a primarily textual discourse to a quantitative enterprise increasingly exposes the field of sociology to uniquely postmodern critiques.

Architektur umgibt uns permanent. Sie ist so alltäglich wie Sprache, ebenso allgegenwärtig, meistens beiläufig. Diese Arbeit untersucht auf sozialtheoretischer Ebene am Beispiel der Architektur, inwiefern die sozialwissenschaftliche Kategorie der „Definition der Situation“ erweitert werden kann, um Kategorien wie Leiblichkeit oder Räumlichkeit adäquat für den Entwurf sozialer Handlungen zu berücksichtigen.