Vol 16, No 1 (2024)
Theoretical Discourses and Debates
To Invite or Not to Invite to Sociology? Thinking about P. Berger`s Critical Essay “Sociology: A Disinvitation?”
Abstract
The authors of an unpublished translation of P.L. Berger's essay, written in the early 1990s and published in the journal “Society” (1992), demonstrate the relevance and surprising timeliness of this work for a wide readership. Sociology sometimes experiences crises and deadlocks in theory and research. Contemporary global events exacerbate these crises, and sometimes it seems that sociology can no longer cope with the study and explanation of new phenomena and processes. From the point of view of the authors, P.L. Berger, while criticizing and lamenting the shortcomings of his contemporary sociological theory and the short-sightedness of sociologists, paradoxically does not disappoint or discourage sociology, but invites once again and more insistently to engage in this science, recalling what the classics of sociology wrote and did.
Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2024;16(1):10-27
10-27
Field Work Research
Evaluation of Contemporary Art in the Process of Production, Distribution and Consumption
Abstract
How does the art community evaluate contemporary art? This question is discussed based on 16 interviews with artists, gallery owners, curators, and collectors. The contemporary art market is conceptualized as a “creative industry that unites actors involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of art objects. The research methodology is based on the anthropological approach of Igor Kopytoff and the discursive psychology of Rom Harré, according to which the history of the movement of cultural objects through social space and the discourses accompanying them are sources of symbolic values. Market practices of art distribution are described: criteria for selecting artists by galleries, legal aspects of distribution and consumption of art objects, informal purchasing practices, moral and pragmatic taboos on buying art objects. Four logics of justifying the value of art objects — “commercial success,” “testimony of the times,” “intellectual development,” “emotional experience”—have been reconstructed. It is demonstrated that consumption as a collector's practice requires following the rules of a “professional approach” to be recognized in the art community.
Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2024;16(1):28-50
28-50
(Non-)Dependence and (Non-)Safety of Nursing Work in the Context of Pandemic: Modern Empirical Approaches
Abstract
The article is devoted to nursing work, which is realized in (not)favorable and (not)safe conditions, (not)aggravating the emotional and physical condition of its representatives. Using some ideas of the neo-Weberian approach and focusing on the pandemic crisis as an event that exposed the insecurity of nursing practice, various variations of improvement, including by nurses themselves, of their working conditions will be considered. The main objective of the article is to summarize the existing ideas about nursing everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic on the basis of foreign studies published in one of the authoritative journals devoted to the study of nursing communities. Based on the materials of foreign studies, the working conditions of nurses are presented and described, ways of overcoming pandemic-related difficulties encountered in daily nursing practice are identified, including self-organization and freedom of timely decision-making by nursing staff. It is shown that the recognition by the management and medical corps of the role of nurses in overcoming the pandemic crisis, giving them the opportunity to be heard, influence changes in working conditions and take part in risk management, can positively affect their emotional and physical conditions, as well as reduce the number of real threats that disorganize nursing work and the quality of patient care. The article contributes to the study of nursing work during the pandemic and gives an idea of some areas of foreign research, the development of which is also important within the framework of Russian research practice.
Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2024;16(1):51-68
51-68
Technologies of Performative National Identity Construction (The Case Study of the Russian-Language Social Network)
Abstract
The construction of national identity in the digital society is increasingly shifting to social networks, which have become stages for self-expression, where it acquires the character of a virtual performance. Being X means playing the role of X so convincingly that the audience will believe it. At the same time, the role can represent a person in varying degrees - from a mirror reversal to a simulacrum, i.e. a symbol without a real signifier. The digital role, divorced from self-awareness, can be motivated both by a commercial strategy for the struggle to expand the audience and / or fulfill an order, or by the official functions of an official, manager or activist who are tasked with creating the moods necessary for the customer in the networks.The article presents the results of an empirical study of technologies for representing national identity in Russian-Language social network TikTok. The aim is to study the tools for constructing national identity in a digital society. Empirical data was collected using the analysis of blogs, where the unit of analysis is a blog as a case. National identity is performed with the help of a systematic demonstration of national self-identification, language, costume, cuisine; music; scenery (nature / house interior, etc.), national rituals and everyday customs, tourist preferences. The need for national self-identification increases, firstly, in a multicultural context or in minority status, and secondly, in situations of national conflicts, when the need to mark the boundary between “us” and “them” with the help of symbols increases.
Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2024;16(1):69-87
69-87
Taking Сare of Family Members’ Health Provided by Women in Low-Resource Conditions
Abstract
The article analyzes the practices of caring for the health of women from families with low socio-professional status. The study uses the analytical category of “care”, which is understood as a special type of household work aimed at maintaining and preserving one’s health and the health of family members. To analyze health practices, the concept of “health lifestyle”, developed in the sociology of medicine, is used. The empirical basis consists of 16 interviews conducted in St. Petersburg with women from families whose members do not have higher education and are employed in jobs with unfavorable working conditions (according to the informants). The study asked the question in what situations and how women belonging to this group take care of their health. Women with low socio-professional status, caring for loved ones, rarely seek medical help for themselves. Their attitude towards their own health can be described as instrumental. It was found that in the context of the experience of motherhood, the attitude towards health changes, it becomes more self-preserving, without losing its instrumentality, but in the interests of the child.
Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2024;16(1):88-106
88-106
Research Reflection
Assessing the Economic Effectiveness of Social Technologies: Potential of a Cognitive Interview
Abstract
The article discusses the 7-aspect model of M. Schreiner and his colleagues for assessing the economic efficiency of social programs using the example of the technology “Organizing the work of an interdisciplinary team of specialists in a case of violation of the rights and legitimate interests of a child.” The method is a cognitive interview with an expert implementing this social technology, with the help of which the author checks how correctly the aspects of Schreiner’s evaluative model were explicated, how adequately the concepts reflected in the model and the meanings associated with them are perceived in the Russian context, as well as how comprehensive are the proposed elements of the model. In addition, special attention is paid to the possibility of using this assessment model within the framework of Russian social work practice. Taking into account the context and the technology being assessed, the interview, in addition to questions aimed at aspects of the evaluative model, integrates a block of questions related to the influence of management on the effectiveness of social intervention. As a result of the analysis, clarifications are proposed both on the cognitive rethinking of the tools and on the basic Schreiner model itself. The need to modernize M. Schreiner's model and include new variables in it that can influence the final economic efficiency of social technology is substantiated.
Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2024;16(1):107-128
107-128