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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2009.03445.x | DOI Listing |
Front Sociol
January 2025
Section Sociology of Social Differentiation and Socio-culture, Department of Social Work and Social Welfare, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany.
This paper challenges the prevailing belief that assistance dogs inherently love their roles, arguing that the notion of "unconditional love" in discourses on assistance dog perpetuates a human-centric perspective and reinforces speciesism. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing the affective experiences of these working animals and of acknowledging the interdependence between people with disabilities and assistance dogs. The paper has four main objectives: (1) critiquing the concept of unconditional love attributed to assistance dogs, (2) recognizing the physical and affective labor of assistance dogs, (3) highlighting the importance of interdependence over independence, and (4) exploring the intersections of ableism and speciesism in the context of assistance dogs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh Educ (Dordr)
January 2024
Università della Svizzera italiana, Institute of Communication and Public Policy, Lugano, Switzerland.
Unlabelled: Using a dataset of higher education institutional alliances within the framework of the European University initiative (EUi), we test empirically whether the policy-defined goal of a relative balance between and within the scheme has been achieved. Specifically, we provide a descriptive and analytical account of the diversity of the higher education institutions (HEIs) participating in the EUi, the composition of-as well as the mechanisms behind-the formation of individual alliances. We observe that alliance formation activated the deep sociological mechanisms of hierarchisation, with the alliances largely reproducing the existing .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSociol Health Illn
January 2025
Department of Sociological Studies, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
First-person representations of illness have been studied as key to the cultural fabric disrupting dominant practices of ill health or disease regimes. However, the role that digital platforms play in shaping this fabric in contemporary societies has been mostly overlooked. We address this gap by investigating how mainstream social media, as mundane spaces modelled by corporate-driven techno-commercial structures, frame specific forms of visuality or ways to see ill health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Neurobiol
July 2024
STS Lab, Institute of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
In this chapter, we identify three distinct avenues of research on the philosophical, historical, and sociopolitical dimensions of engram research. First, we single out the need to refine philosophical understandings of memory within neuroscientific research on the engram. Specifically, we question the place of constructivist and preservationist philosophical claims on memory in the formulation of the engram concept and its operationalization in contemporary neuroscience research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBr J Sociol
December 2024
School of Social and Political Science, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK.
How are we to understand the contemporary preoccupation-at least in many English-speaking societies-with 'random acts of kindness' and the idea of kindness more generally? Should this be seen as a challenge to the logic of capitalism or reinforcing of it, an example of commodification of emotion within our everyday lives? By introducing and mapping the contours of an emergent 'kindness industry', placing emotion (and enchantment) at the heart of how attachment to the idea of kindness is theorised, and marshalling existing empirical research on contemporary framings of everyday kindness, I argue that there is a need for a critical sociological engagement with the 'pro-social' that does justice to its profound ambivalence. In the case of contemporary kindness this involves understanding both the regulatory nature of the enchantment sold by a kindness industry and the problem-solving potential of the enchantment of kindness in the everyday, where it both helps address contemporary feelings of hopelessness and shame and facilitates the possibility of making life materially liveable.
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