In Amsterdam and Beirut, Abdallah has ethnographically researched interactional dynamics between disadvantaged young people, regarding experiences of success, in settings of education, work, sports, and music. He analyzed how focus, mood, and bodily deployment produced shared symbols, emotional contagions, and situated solidarities and moralities.He came to characterize constructive interactions as a main context for young people to experience three components of success: boosts, elevation, and grounding. Combinations of these experiences have important restorative effects for young people who suffer from an abundance of adversity and discouragement. Tensions arise for young people between, on the one hand, their loyalties toward old settings of belonging with their short-term, at times destructive, tendencies and, on the other hand, their success in new settings which demanded of them new types of discipline and commitments. Continued success depends partly on young people’s abilities, but more so on the availability of constructive interaction rituals helping them manage such tensions, without necessarily committing to one loyalty over the other. Next to young people’ s dynamics and processes, Abdallah has focused on the input of NGO professionals and volunteers in such constructive interactions to learn how their involvement can help young people in their struggles for success.The analysis employs concepts of sociological studies of emotions, such as interaction rituals, emotion management, and embodied dispositions to clarify how emotion, experience and energy act as driving forces in young people’s activities and development.
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One might wonder how intuitive art can connect to neuroscience and how this could be accomplished. In this descriptive article, research connecting art therapy and neuroscience has been collected and a workshop on Intuitive Painting has been described in detail. The connection was made by the author based on an article by Barker (2017), ‘4 Rituals to be more Happy,’ who writes a popular science blog. The rituals: gratefulness, expressing negative emotions, decision making and human touch were combined with Dr. Pinkie Feinstein’s method of Intuitive Painting in a small group setting. Although subjective, it would seem that at least for that moment in time, a small amount of happiness was achieved through combining art and science.
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Events are per definition limited in time and space. However, the social interaction taking place during events can continue virtually. This can result in hybrid communities, existing of an offline and an online dimension. This paper explores the construction of hybrid event communities based on the following research questions: (1) What type of online practices can be identified before, during and after the event? (2) How do online and offline event practices and rituals influence each other? (3) How do combinations of online and offline practices contribute to the creation and maintenance of hybrid event communities? The practices of three events were studied using qualitative methods. Fifty-six interviews were conducted, and participant observation took place during 11 editions of the events. This was complemented with an online study. The findings identify different types of online practices around events such as connecting practices, recruiting practices and creative practices. Moreover, the combinations of practices lead to different types of event communities. The paper develops a framework of online/offline interaction processes that result in different types of event communities, contributing to our knowledge about the role that events can play in the contemporary network society.
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This paper examines the (collective) performance of identities in an event context. During events, the participants not only engage in face-to-face performances, but also in the collective performances of crowds and audiences. This study analyses collective performance using Collins’ framework of Interaction Ritual Chains, which combines Goffman’s performance metaphor with Durkheim’s work on rituals and collective effervescence. This provides a more complete analysis of the ways identities are performed and (re)constructed during an event. This qualitative study presents the case of the Redhead Days, the world’s largest gathering of redheads. Visitor interviews and participant observation over four editions of the event show how a temporary majority of redheads is created, which greatly impacts both face-to-face and collective performance. Social practices that facilitate performance include photographing and storytelling. The data reveal that collective performance is inherently different from face-to-face performance, and that the combination of the two contributes to a change in narrative identities of the event attendees
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Previous investigations of consumer subcultures in the CCT tradition focused primarily on consumer behaviours, feelings, experiences and meanings of consumption. This paper advocates that in order to deeply understand and interpret a particular subculture, researchers in consumer culture should consider more thoroughly the interaction between consumers and producers in consumption markets. This argument is illustrated with a research project on lifestyle sports. From the results of this study it appears that producers play a vital and interdependent role in meaning and interpretation processes. It is argued that processes in which consumers give meaning to activities can not be isolated from the processes in which producers ascribe meanings to activities, settings and markets. In this 'circuit of culture', production and consumption are not completely separate spheres of existence but rather are mutually constitutive of one another (Du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay, & Negus, 1997).
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For delayed and long-term students, the education process is often a lonely journey. The main conclusion of this research is that learning should not be an individual process of the student connected to one lecturer, but rather a community where learning is a collective journey. The social interaction between lecturers, groups of delayed students and other actors is an important engine for arriving at the new knowledge, insights and expertise that are important to reach their final level. This calls for the design of social structures and the collaboration mechanism that enable the bonding of all members in the community. By making use of this added value, new opportunities for the individual are created that can lead to study success. Another important conclusion is that in the design and development of learning communities, sufficient attention must be paid to cultural characteristics. Students who delay are faced with a loss of self-efficacy and feelings of shame and guilt. A learning community for delayed students requires a culture in which students can turn this experience into an experience of self-confidence, hope and optimism. This requires that the education system pays attention to language use, symbols and rituals to realise this turn. The model ‘Building blocks of a learning environment for long-term students’ contains elements that contribute to the study success of delayed and long-term students. It is the challenge for every education programme to use it in an appropriate way within its own educational context. Each department will have to explore for themselves how these elements can be translated into the actions, language, symbols and rituals that are suitable for their own target group.
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