This thesis is the first dedicated sociological attempt to offer a critical response to cultural studies and allied discourses that concern themselves with the relationship between technology and violence. A critical reconstruction is necessary because these cultural theorists have failed to adequately contextualize their arguments in relation to both the globally ascendant neoliberal policy outlook and its associated social Darwinian technoculture: the combined pernicious effects of which could be described as the logic of ???social constructionism as social psychosis???. The most prominent manifestation of this theoretical psychosis has to do with an interest in biotechnology in particular. The problem I identify in the treatment of this theme is how easily it can be used to support a technologically determinist position. One undesirable side effect is that these determinists are able to project from present trends a dystopian exhaustion of all critique through their focus on violence. In the thesis of ???bioglobalism??? this state of affairs is also deployed to take sociologists to task for insufficient recognition of processual ???network??? forms of distributed agency in technological processes. At stake therefore is the recovery of sociological critique. It follows that the core of my thesis is the radical reworking of two related heuristic devices: seriality and contingency. Seriality is taken to refer to social practices as diverse as the possible relationships between the social problem of rationality, case studies of individuals who have run amok, and the functioning of network characteristics. I use contingency to eschew seriality???s deterministic accounting of the social. Here I propose a new conceptual relationship between creativity and action. Emphasis is accordingly placed upon two related normative projects: Raymond Williams???s cultural materialism, and three of the ???problematiques??? Peter Wagner has identified as inescapable for theorizing modernity: the continuity of the acting person, the certainty of knowledge, and the viability of the political order. I conclude with a renewed conception of the role of normative critique as a form of conceptual therapy for bioglobal projections of seriality.

This thesis documents a period of ecological and cultural change on a Willamette Valley, Oregon landscape. In particular, this study examines the Peavy Arboretum area and the cultural changes that accompanied the transformation of the landscape from an oak savannah in the mid-nineteenth century to a dense Douglas-fir forest in the early twentieth century. Culturally, the inhabitants of this period included late-prehistoric native people, Euro-American based fur industry personnel, and Euro-American settlers. As a student of history and archaeology, I have used a combination of methods and sources for this study including surface surveys for cultural materials and features, archaeological excavations and analysis, and documented materials. Knowledge gained as a result of surveys and excavations are studied within the context of other Willamette Valley archaeology, and likewise, documented materials concerning this landscape and its historic features and people are compared against larger patterns in the history of the American West. Geographically, the study area was in a fortunate position to witness cultural events. Located along the edge of the foothills of the Willamette Valley, its many desirable features attracted both native people and the first white settlers. The study area was also located along a main route of travel that was used by natives, fur company personnel, travelers, and Euro-American settlers. The section of trail has been a part of regional travel routes known at different times as the Hudson's Bay Company Trail, the California Trail, the Southern Route (Scott-Applegate Trail), and the Territorial Road. The objective of this thesis was to see what kind of information could be retrieved for a given landscape using a variety of methods practiced in history and archaeology. I believe such a multi-disciplinary approach allowed me to be more flexible and open to all pertinent sources of information. This type of investigation also provided an example of the type of work that could be done professionally when determining the cultural significance of a property. My fascination with the study of landscapes and their cultural features was also influential in my selection of a thesis topic. / Graduation date: 1999

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

Proactive socialization tactics, measures that organizational newcomers take to facilitate their own adjustment, have been shown to predict adjustment and more distal work-related outcomes, such as organizational commitment and intent to remain with the organization. Several cognitions and behaviors are considered to be types of proactive socialization tactics, but research has yet to distinguish between different types. Also, several individual dispositions have been identified as antecedents of proactive socialization tactics, but there has been little focus on identifying contextual or non-dispositional individual difference antecedents. The purpose of this research was to propose a dual-mode conceptualization of proactive socialization tactics and to distinguish between tactics directed toward changing oneself and those directed toward changing one's environment. This research also examined the role of contextual factors, the newcomer's age, and the newcomer's work experience as antecedents of proactive socialization tactics. The results of this research suggest that job and workgroup characteristics do indeed play a role in predicting proactive socialization tactics. Age and work experience were predictors as well, but not as strong as expected. Both self-directed and environment-directed proactive socialization tactics predicted desirable adjustment outcomes, but self-directed tactics were clearly stronger predictors of these outcomes. There was some evidence to suggest that newcomers' early fit perceptions moderated relationships between antecedents, such as workgroup characteristics, and proactive socialization tactics. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

<p>Organizational Loyalty is a concept which is becoming increasingly important to discuss in today‘s society; employment agencies and consulting companies are losing staff by the hour however if that is a consequence of not being loyal to the employer, implies that people know what the term Organizational Loyalty actually means. Or not. This thesis‘s purpose was to investigate what Organizational Loyalty is within the consulting trade, to sensitize for the consulting business‘s the different factors that seem to influence loyalty and to give recommendations as to what might be done in order to make employees who work as consultants within the consulting trade experience more loyal to the organization which they are employed at. The analyzed material managed to reveal that loyalty is more than just a word within the consulting trade; it is an important mean of delivering high quality services to a company‘s customers and the only way for employers to attempt making employees more loyal to the organization is by respecting different factors that seem to influence loyalty to the organization and reinforcing these when they are in contact with the employees. By and large, the results suggest that there is a significance of defining Organizational Loyalty as something more than just a term within the consulting business; it is the underlying dimensions that together create the actual meaning of what it is and by knowing what the significance of Organizational Loyalty is, employers might be able to work better for reinforcing loyalty among their employees.</p>

This paper is about the re-establishment of a professional, that is, a neutral perspective on terror; most research on terrorism is partisan in terms of biased culturalist studies on the ‘index patients’ of an international conflict. At the same time, there is very little research on the forms and functions of so called anti-terror measures which are commonly treated as acts of self-defence. In contrast to this, from a sociological point of view we find that it takes two to make the terror: an act of violence, and an act of labelling this violence as terror, too. Thus, we argue that Western societies should take full responsibility for their own perceptions, attributions, and actions within an international conflict system, instead of continuing to externalize these. Finally, we state that sociology has a demand for research on the applicability of the concepts of systemic therapy on the field of the intervention into stable inter-cultural conflict systems.

Not available / text

Cognition and social values prevail in urban evolution. Analysis of these values reconstruct an era that has largely vanished; the context is historic downtown Tucson, and the significance is the Mexican enclave that had La Placita as its social focus. The historical evolution and the urban character of La Placita and its surrounding barrio is documented with emphasis on the social meaning of its change. A newly developed cognitive theory of vantages and coordinates provides a model to depict the viewpoints that defined urban development in Tucson. The analysis of personal viewpoint provides a statement of the manner that social values and cognition shaped architecture and urban change throughout the years of growth in the center of Tucson.

Organizational Loyalty is a concept which is becoming increasingly important to discuss in today‘s society; employment agencies and consulting companies are losing staff by the hour however if that is a consequence of not being loyal to the employer, implies that people know what the term Organizational Loyalty actually means. Or not. This thesis‘s purpose was to investigate what Organizational Loyalty is within the consulting trade, to sensitize for the consulting business‘s the different factors that seem to influence loyalty and to give recommendations as to what might be done in order to make employees who work as consultants within the consulting trade experience more loyal to the organization which they are employed at. The analyzed material managed to reveal that loyalty is more than just a word within the consulting trade; it is an important mean of delivering high quality services to a company‘s customers and the only way for employers to attempt making employees more loyal to the organization is by respecting different factors that seem to influence loyalty to the organization and reinforcing these when they are in contact with the employees. By and large, the results suggest that there is a significance of defining Organizational Loyalty as something more than just a term within the consulting business; it is the underlying dimensions that together create the actual meaning of what it is and by knowing what the significance of Organizational Loyalty is, employers might be able to work better for reinforcing loyalty among their employees.

Many scholars have argued that the education system in Brazil tends to strengthen the pattern that reproduces inequalities, where families with higher income are likely to be the ones holding the majority in education. The focus lies in ten interviewees, thereof five parents/caregivers and five professionals that works/worked with the children who were interviewed in Banco da Vitória /Ilhéus, south of Bahia, Brazil 2012. This qualitative study intends to analyse the underlying social causes from a sociological perspective in how the informants reflect upon the child´s/children learning difficulties at the elementary school, Casa da Criança /Escola Daniel Rebouças in the shantytown Banco da Vitória. It will try to answer questions such as; which are the main social causes that affect a child´s learning difficulties in Escola Daniel Rebouças, according to the informants/interviewees? How has the informant´s situation affected their own perception in the child´s/children’s learning difficulties? This paper studies marginalised people who lives in a marginalized district, Banco da Vitória. It will highlight home environment and education to show a continuing pattern that causes the child´s/children´s learning difficulties. This study will demonstrate the necessary cooperation between the school, government, teachers, and parents/caregiver in order to improve the children´s education and well-being.