The Metaverse has become a buzz-phrase among tech businesses. Facebook’s rebranding to Meta is symptomatic of this. Many firms and other actors are trying to shape visions of the Metaverse, leading ...to confusion about the term’s meaning. We use social construction of technology (SCOT) theory to disentangle the conflicting notions proposing that what the Metaverse is and will become relies on the collective sensemaking processes. We point out similarities and differences between various concepts presented in the public media and link them to individual actors’ monetary, political, or social motives. We describe the tensions that occur because of the conflicting interests. As the Metaverse is an emerging phenomenon, opportunities exist to reorient it toward humanist values rather than singular interests. However, the complexity of the social processes that shape the Metaverse requires a considerate approach rather than premature conclusions about the Metaverse’s characteristics. The analysis presents the Metaverse as a new, continually evolving sociotechnical phenomenon, and calls for research that explores it as a dynamic, moving target.
According to service-dominant logic (S-D logic), all providers are
service
providers, and service is the fundamental basis of exchange. Value is co-created with customers and assessed on the basis of ...value-in-context. However, the extensive literature on S-D logic could benefit from paying explicit attention to the fact that both service exchange and value co-creation are influenced by social forces. The aim of this study is to expand understanding of service exchange and value co-creation by complementing these central aspects of S-D logic with key concepts from social construction theories (social structures, social systems, roles, positions, interactions, and reproduction of social structures). The study develops and describes a new framework for understanding how the concepts of service exchange and value co-creation are affected by recognizing that they are embedded in social systems. The study contends that value should be understood as value-in-social-context and that value is a social construction. Value co-creation is shaped by social forces, is reproduced in social structures, and can be asymmetric for the actors involved. Service exchanges are dynamic, and actors learn and change their roles within dynamic service systems.
(Institutional) Re/production Nicolazzo, Z
Studies in gender and sexuality,
01/02/2023, Letnik:
24, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Reproduction as a social construct moves through people and institutions. As a result, people who are trapped in cycles of institutional violence may oftentimes be complicit in their furtherance, ...albeit without intent, malice, or blame. In some ways, those of us who are fetishized, commodified, and/or exoticized by institutional harm cannot help but be caught up in cyclical patterns of institutional harm. In this article, I detail my own personal narrative of this cycle, engaging memory work as a mode through which to remember and retell how institutional reproduction presses upon trans women. I then engage notions of freedom dreaming as one potential practice for imagining otherwises, elsewheres, and henceforwards unmarked by such reproductions.
Selecting labour migrants based on skill has become a widely practised migration policy in many countries around the world. Since the late twentieth century, research on 'skilled' and 'highly ...skilled' migration has raised important questions about the value and ethics of skill-based labour mobility. More recent research has begun to question the concept of skill and skill categorisation in both government policy and academic research. Taking the view that migrants' skill is socially constructed, we centre our discussion on three questions: Who are the arbitrators of skill? What constitutes skill? And how is skill constructed in the migration process and in turn, how does skill affect the mobility? We show that diverse actors are involved in the process of identifying, evaluating and shaping migrant skill. The interpretation of migrants' skill is frequently distorted by their ascriptive characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender and nationality, reflecting the influence of colonial legacy, global inequality as well as social stratification. Finally, this special issue emphasises the complex, and frequently reciprocal, relationship between skill and mobility.
This study aims to describe the construction and socio-religious implications of Abu Ibrahim Woyla in Aceh. The method used is qualitative with data collection through interviews and literature ...studies relevant to the research objectives. The results showed that the Acehnese acknowledged the existence of waliyullah in Islam, and they believe that Abu Ibrahim Woyla is a scholar close to Allah, so he has reached the "Waliyullah". The community's belief was driven by several extraordinary events in Abu Ibrahim Woyla, so Acehnese believed that these advantages were a spiritual value gift bestowed on him by Allah. People believe that the karamah on Abu Ibrahim Woyla is a sign of his guardianship. Abu Ibrahim Woyla never directly invited others to follow him. However, there are not a few people who want to follow in his footsteps to be able to stay Istiqomah close to Allah and His messenger.
Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan konstruksi dan implikasi sosial keagamaan Abu Ibrahim Woyla di Aceh. Metode yang digunakan adalah kualitatif dengan pengumpulan data melalui wawancara dan studi pustaka yang relevan dengan tujuan penelitian. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa masyarakat Aceh mengakui adanya waliyullah dalam Islam, dan mereka meyakini bahwa Abu Ibrahim Woyla adalah seorang ulama yang dekat dengan Allah, sehingga telah mencapai “Waliyullah”. Keyakinan masyarakat tersebut didorong oleh beberapa kejadian luar biasa dalam diri Abu Ibrahim Woyla, sehingga masyarakat Aceh percaya bahwa kelebihan tersebut merupakan anugerah nilai spiritual yang dianugerahkan Allah kepadanya. Orang-orang percaya bahwa karomah pada Abu Ibrahim Woyla adalah tanda perwaliannya. Abu Ibrahim Woyla tidak pernah secara langsung mengajak orang lain untuk mengikutinya. Namun, tidak sedikit orang yang ingin mengikuti jejaknya untuk bisa tetap Istiqomah dekat dengan Allah dan Rasul-Nya.
Organizational theory scholars typically see organizations as race-neutral bureaucratic structures, while race and ethnicity scholars have largely neglected the role of organizations in the social ...construction of race. The theory developed in this article bridges these subfields, arguing that organizations are racial structures—cognitive schemas connecting organizational rules to social and material resources. I begin with the proposition that race is constitutive of organizational foundations, hierarchies, and processes. Next, I develop four tenets: (1) racialized organizations enhance or diminish the agency of racial groups; (2) racialized organizations legitimate the unequal distribution of resources; (3) Whiteness is a credential; and (4) the decoupling of formal rules from organizational practice is often racialized. I argue that racialization theory must account for how both state policy and individual attitudes are filtered through—and changed by—organizations. Seeing race as constitutive of organizations helps us better understand the formation and everyday functioning of organizations. Incorporating organizations into a structural theory of racial inequality can help us better understand stability, change, and the institutionalization of racial inequality. I conclude with an overview of internal and external sources of organizational change and a discussion of how the theory of racialized organizations may set the agenda for future research.
One influential view is that at least some putatively natural human kinds are actually social constructions, understood as some real kind of thing that is produced or sustained by our social and ...conceptual practices. Category constructionists share two commitments: they hold that human category terms like “race” (and racial terms) and “sex” (and sexual terms) and “homosexuality” and “perversion” actually refer to constructed categories, and they hold that these categories are widely but mistakenly taken to be natural kinds. But it is far from clear that these two commitments are consistent. The sort of mismatch between belief and underlying nature constructionists’ suppose is often taken to indicate a failure of reference. Reliance on a causal‐historical account of reference allows the preservation of reference, but unfortunately, constructionists' appropriation of causal historical accounts of reference is beset by difficulties that do not attend natural kind theorists’ appeals to such accounts. Here, I set out these difficulties, but argue that they can be answered, allowing terms for apparently natural human kinds refer to some sort of social construction about which there is massive error.
Quantitative efforts to understand the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic need to be viewed through the lens of social construction. I begin by comparing the efforts to quantitatively measure the ...plague in London in 1665. Then I develop five propositions for studying the social construction of statistics: (1) facts are social constructions; (2) measuring involves making decisions, (3) counting is not straightforward; (4) all comparisons involve choices; and (5) social patterns shape numbers. After examining how these propositions affect what we know about COVID-19, I consider their implications for moving beyond mathematics when approaching numeracy.
To make sense of the complexity of the world so that they can act, individuals and institutions need to develop simplified, self-consistent versions of that world. The process of doing so means that ...much of what is known about the world needs to be excluded from those versions, and in particular that knowledge which is in tension or outright contradiction with those versions must be expunged. This is 'uncomfortable knowledge'. The paper describes four implicit strategies which institutions use to keep uncomfortable knowledge at bay: denial, dismissal, diversion and displacement. It concludes by suggesting that 'clumsy' arrangements may need to be constructed to ensure that uncomfortable knowledge is not excluded from policy debates, especially when dealing with 'wicked problems' where the accepted version excludes knowledge that is crucial for making sense of and addressing the problem.
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