Esta dissertação pretende compreender a analítica proposta pelo filósofo francês Michel Foucault no curso realizado no Collège de France intitulado Nascimento da Biopolítica (1978-79) a respeito da arte de governar neoliberal. Buscamos apreender a relação entre a análise do neoliberalismo e outros momentos e conceitos da produção bibliográfica foucaultiana, tais como as noções de biopolítica, de governamentalidade e de poder disciplinar. Para tal, realizamos uma incursão em diversas obras do filósofo, como As palavras e as coisas (1966), Vigiar e Punir (1975), História da Sexualidade I A vontade de saber (1976), além dos cursos Em defesa da sociedade (1975-1976) e Segurança, Território, População (1977-78). Por fim, o texto também se propõe a realizar contribuições ao estudo do neoliberalismo como um todo, explicitando as veredas abertas pela teoria de Foucault e apontando para além de um exercício de exegese teórica da experiência filosófica foucaultiana. / This dissertation aims to comprehend the analytics carried out by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his lectures at the Collège de France entitled The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-79) regarding the neoliberal art of government. We seek to apprehend the relation between the analyses of Neoliberalism and other moments and concepts of the foucauldian bibliographical production, such as the notions of biopolitics, governmentality and disciplinary power. In order to accomplish such task, we approach several works written by Foucault, such as The order of things (1966), Discipline and punish (1975), The History of sexuality volume 1 The will to knowledge (1976), as well as the lectures Society must be defended (1975-76) and Security, Territory, Population (1977-78). To conclude, this text also contributes to the study of Neoliberalism as a whole, emphasizing the paths opened by Foucaults theory and pointing beyond an exercise of theoretical exegesis of the foucauldian philosophical experience.

O objetivo desse trabalho é rastrear a dimensão de influências específicas que moldaram Jürgen Habermas na construção da Teoria do Agir Comunicativo. Em sua obra maior, a pretensão habermasiana foi harmonizar um vasto leque de autores e teorias que uma vez trabalhados em suas especificidades convergissem para a existência de um projeto emancipador possibilitado por uma racionalidade de teor comunicativo. Com esse propósito, a atenção está voltada para o segundo volume dessa obra, em especial para o papel de Talcott Parsons e sua teoria de sistemas, a sociologia de Émile Durkheim que faculta a interação por meio da linguagem e seu entrelaçamento com Habermas por mais de uma via, as discussões metodológicas com Popper e a disputa com o positivismo, bem como a presença da teoria crítica e seus personagens diversos. / The aim of this work is to track the size of specific influences that shaped Jürgen Habermas in the construction of the Theory of Communicative Action. In his major work, the habermasion intention was to harmonize a wide range of authors and theories that treated in their particularity would be able to converge to an emancipatory project made possible by a rationality of communicative content. For this purpose, the attention is focused on the second volume of this work, especially on the role of Talcott Parsons and his systems theory, on the sociology of Émile Durkheim that provides interaction through language and its relationship with Habermas through several ways, on the methodological discussions with Popper and the dispute with positivism, and on the presence of critical theory and its many characters.

This book is an attempt to formulate a sociological theory of the phenomena which is otherwise known as substance abuse and substance dependency in the medical field. The first step toward such a theory is a critique of how DSM-IV presents diagnostic criteria for substance abuse and substance dependency as if these criteria are valid and reliable ways of measuring mental illness and bodily dysfunction. I point to the fact that these criteria neither are valid or reliable variables for measurement nor theoretically grounded defi nitions of the phenomena. My point is that diagnosis is an elaborate way of disguising moral judgments as medical assessments of illness or dysfunction. The second step towards the formulation of my theory goes via my empirical study of nine men and women who call themselves sex and love addicts. By conducting deep interviews with them I conclude that it is impossible to talk about sex and love addiction without constantly referring to stereotypes and widely held assumptions of alcoholics and drug addicts. Moreover it is apparent that these men and women are making moral judgments about themselves rather than pointing to some form of genuine disruption which they cannot control. From my critique and my empirical study I am able to identify a number of areas that a theory of addiction, as opposed to the medical view where this phenomena are being broken down in two sub categories (abuse and dependency), must be able to handle to explain addiction generally and specifically in relation to alcohol, drugs, sex and other forms of social deviance. A number of philosophical hallmarks of medicine is also identifi ed and seen as part of the problem, therefore I mean that a successful theory of addiction must transcend the mind body dualism of Descartes as it is a cornerstone in the medical view upon and understanding of humans. By reconstructing the habitus and field concepts in Pierre Bourdieus theory of practice I mean that it is possible to understand addiction from an action theory point of view. This discussion is also broadened by a pragmatist discussion of the mind and a neo meadian theory of the emotional self. My conclusion is that addiction can be understood and explained within an action theory which focus upon individual as well as collective action and understand this as habitual practice that is partly embodied and therefore not discursive – habits of which we cannot easily speak is seen as one of the compelling components in addiction rather than a mythical loss of control which is nowhere to be found but as a rhetoric grip stemming from the AA view upon addiction as a disease.

Although Talcott Parsons’s sick role theory, as described in 1951 in The Social System, has been severely criticized for its inapplicability to chronic illnesses, a portion of the theory is still a relevant and necessary factor in terms of understanding and treating chronic illness today. Using data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey, this study looks at the individual effects of sex, age, race, cohabitation, education and region of residence on the likelihood of chronically ill patients considering themselves limited in their amount or kind of work as an indicator of sick role adaptation. Results show statistically significant relationships between work limitation and sex, age, cohabitation, education and region of residence, when controlling for the duration of the respondents’ condition. Further evaluation of these results is provided.

Durkheim’s socioeconomic hypothesis of suicide has been a popular theory to test for sociologists. However the results have been mixed, offering very little cumulative sociological knowledge. Previous theory and research have found that there are contradictory results in the direction of the income regression coefficients used to study the relationship between income and suicide rates depending on if a time-series or a cross-sectional approach has been used. It has been hypothesised that the contradictory results are caused by a specification bias, namely failing to account for lagged income, which is influencing the direction of the regression coefficients. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of income on the Swedish municipalities’ suicide rates by replicating a study published in The American Journal of Sociology by Carl B. Barnes from 1975, in which he argued that the effect of income on the suicide rate is always negative. This cross-sectional analysis is based on municipality data on male, female and overall suicide in 2002 to 2004 from the Swedish Centre for National Prevention of Suicide and Mental Ill-Health at Karolinska Institutet among the working-age population (25-64 years). Control variables are the hypothesised lagged variable causing the specification bias, education, and three other possible contributing factors to suicide; unemployment, alcohol consumption and divorce. The results of the correlation and regression coefficients show that there is a negative effect of income on suicide for those aged 25 to 64 years when the other variables are held constant for both sexes; however the male results are not statistically significant. These results speak against the socioeconomic hypothesis of suicide, but generally confirm earlier findings of a negative relationship between median income and suicide. Low education is positively related to the suicide rate for males but there is no such relationship for female suicide. The findings also confirm alcohol consumption as an important factor in explaining the suicide rate. Unemployment and divorce show mixed results for the male and female suicide rates. The female unemployment rates are negatively related to suicide while male unemployment rates are not significant, on the other hand the divorce rates show a strong positive association with the female suicide rate and a negative association with the male suicide rate.

The main subject of the presented work is the question of power within the context of sociological theory, and in relation to the mechanism of psychological mimesis and the phenomenon of the sacred. Our starting point is René Girard's mimetic theory, which systematizes the relationship between the mechanism of psychological mimesis and the sacred - in the light of the phenomenon of violence. We, firstly, present Girard's mimetic theory, explicate its main concepts, and situate all into a broader context. Further, we critically examine Girard's theoretical scheme and come to the conclusion that his theoretical and conceptual framework calls for a revision, if it is to be utilized within the context of sociology and social theory. Consequently, we try to "sociologize" Girard's thinking. First, we position his line of thought into the wider sociological context, and then examine his theory in the light of thinking of two classical sociologists, Gabriel Tarde and Émile Durkheim. We then project this examination into a theoretical and conceptual synthesis on the basis of which we formulate our own conceptual scheme, which is based on the assumption of psychological mimesis as an anthropological constant, and which overcomes the main shortcomings of Girard's theoretical framework. On the basis of this...

In 1948 and 1949, three doctoral students in sociology and anthropology conducted ethnographic fieldwork in York, SC (called Kent), a mill town. Through interviews, white town elites, black mill workers, and white mill workers revealed their lives to the scholars. What resulted were three remarkable studies on southern town life in the immediate post World War II period. Although segregation had begun to weaken in the face of postwar socioecomic change, it still held whites and blacks in its grip. The “thick description” of community life provided by the ethnographic interviews, as well as the authors’ analysis of life in York, makes these three books invaluable still to scholars of the history and sociology of the South.

This thesis applies methodological and micro-sociological insights derived from the pioneering social psychologist Georg Simmel (1858-1918) to the contemporary social media platform, Facebook. In opposition to previously-reported one-sided, polarized analyses (i.e. either/or, pessimistic or optimistic), this study suggests a more nuanced judgment: interaction viewed as social exchange reveals that individuality is often promoted though can occasionally be hindered; while most exchanges are ill-suited for sustaining interpersonal value, they ironically facilitate enhanced trust; and finally, the unique structure of site-based exchange generally facilitates rather than undercuts constructive conflict.

In the present study, I analyze adolescent girls’ smoking through a unique combination of a quantitative survey of impressions and a theoretical analysis based on new elaborations of Bourdieu’s concept symbolic capital. The method of the study is three-fold. First, focus-group interviews elicit relevant impressions of adolescents in the eyes of peers. Second, a questionnaire survey distributed to adolescent peers quantitatively investigates how impressions of a girl on a picture differ depending on whether or not she has a cigarette. Third, a theoretical analysis based on elaborations of Bourdieu’s theories scrutinizes the results of the questionnaire survey. The results of the questionnaire survey indicate that smoking adolescent girls generate impressions of being significantly less likable, more popular, more conceited, less kind, less shy, more liable to bully, less funny, more deceitful, and less compassionate than non-smoking adolescent girls. In the elaborations of Bourdieu’s theories, I introduce a division of symbolic capital into two forms: symbolic virtue capital, generated through impressions of virtues, and symbolic power capital, generated through intimidating impressions of destructive power. According to the theoretical analysis of the results, smoking adolescent girls have relatively much symbolic power capital but relatively little symbolic virtue capital compared to adolescent girls that do not smoke.

Depuis que l'animal humain a conçu un système de technologies pour la pensée abstraite grâce au langage, la guerre contre le monde sauvage est devenu une voie à sens unique vers l'aliénation, la civilisation et la littérature. Le but de ce travail est d'analyser comment les récits civilisationnels donnent une structure à l'expérience par le biais de la ségrégation, de la domestication, de la sélection, et de l'extermination, tandis que les récits sauvages démontrent les possibilités infinies du chaos pour découvrir le monde en toute sa diversité et en lien avec sa communauté de vie. Un des objectifs de cette thèse a été de combler le fossé entre la science et la littérature, et d'examiner l'interdépendance de la fiction et la réalité. Un autre objectif a été de mettre ces récits au cœur d'un dialogue les uns avec les autres, ainsi que de tracer leur expression dans les différentes disciplines et œuvres pour enfants et adultes mais également d’analyser leur manifestations c’est redondant dans la vie réelle. C'est un effort multi-disciplinaires qui se reflète dans la combinaison de méthodes de recherche en anthropologie et en études littéraires. Cette analyse compare et contraste trois livres de fiction pour enfants qui présentent trois différents paradigmes socio-économiques, à savoir, «Winnie-l'Ourson» de Milne qui met en place un monde civilisé monarcho-capitaliste, la trilogie de Nosov sur «les aventures de Neznaika et ses amis» qui présente les défis et les exploits d'une société anarcho-socialiste dans son évolution du primitivisme vers la technologie, et les livres de Moomines de Jansson, qui représentent le chaos, l'anarchie, et l'état sauvage qui contient tout, y compris des épisodes de civilisation. En axant la méthodologie de ma recherche sur la façon dont nous connaissons le monde, j'ai d'abord examiné la construction, la transmission et l'acquisition des connaissances, en particulier à travers la théorie de praxis de Bourdieu et la critique de la civilisation développée dans les études de Zerzan, Ong, et Goody sur les liens entre l'alphabétisation, la dette et l'oppression. Quant à la littérature pour enfants, j'ai choisi trois livres que j’ai connus pendant mon enfance, c'est-à-dire des livres qui sont devenus comme une «langue maternelle» pour moi. En ce sens, ce travail est aussi de «l’anthropologie du champ natif». En outre, j’analyse les prémisses sous-jacentes qui se trouvent non seulement dans les trois livres, mais dans le déroulement des récits de l'état sauvage et de la civilisation dans la vie réelle, des analyses qui paraissent dans cette thèse sous la forme d'extraits d’un journal ethnographique. De même que j’examine la nature de la littérature ainsi que des structures civilisées qui domestiquent le monde au moyen de menaces de mort, je trace aussi la présence de ces récits dans l'expression scientifique (le récit malthusien-darwinien), religieuse, et dans autres expressions culturelles, et réfléchis sur les défis présentés par la théorie anarchiste (Kropotkine) ainsi que par les livres pour enfants écrits du point de vue sauvage, tels que ceux des Moomines. / Ever since the human animal devised a system of technologies for abstract thought through language, the war on wilderness has become a one way path towards alienation, civilisation and literature. In this work, I examine how the civilised narrative orders experience by means of segregation, domestication, breeding, and extermination; whereas, I argue that the stories and narratives of wilderness project chaos and infinite possibilities for experiencing the world through a diverse community of life. One of my goals in conducting this study on children's literature as knowledge, culture and social foundation has been to bridge the gap between science and literature and to examine the interconnectedness of fiction and reality as a two-way road. Another aim has been to engage these narratives in a dialogue with each other as I trace their expression in the various disciplines and books written for both children and adults as well as analyse the manifestation of fictional narratives in real life. This is both an inter- and multi-disciplinary endeavour that is reflected in the combination of research methods drawn from anthropology and literary studies as well as in the content that traces the narratives of order and chaos, or civilisation and wilderness, in children's literature and our world. I have chosen to compare and contrast three fictional children's books that offer three different real-world socio-economic paradigms, namely, A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh projecting a civilised monarcho-capitalist world, Nikolai Nosov's trilogy on The Adventures of Dunno and Friends as presenting the challenges and feats of an anarcho-socialist society in evolution from primitivism towards technology, and Tove Jansson's Moominbooks depicting chaos, anarchy, and wilderness that contain everything, including encounters with civilisation, but most of all an infinite love for the world. Stemming from the basic question in research methodology on how we know the world, I first examine the construction, transmission, and acquisition of knowledge, particularly through the lens of Bourdieu's theory of praxis, as well as the critique of language and literacy through Zerzan's, Ong's, and Goody's studies on the links between literacy, debt and oppression. Regarding children's literature depicting the three socio-economic paradigms, I chose three books with which I have been familiar since childhood, i.e. in whose narratives I have “native fluency” and, in this sense, this work is also about “anthropology at home”. Moreover, I compared and contrasted the underlying premises not only in the three books, but also with the unfolding narratives of wilderness and civilisation in real life, that I inserted in the form of ethnographic/journal entries throughout the dissertation. As I examine the very nature of literature, culture, and language and the civilised structures that domesticate the world through the threat of death and the expropriation of food, I also trace the presence of these narratives in the scientific (the Malthusian-Darwinian narrative), religious, and other cultural expressions and the challenges provided by anarchist science and theory (Kropotkin) as well as wild children's books such as Jansson's Moomintrolls.