The article presents the contemporary feminist stream of new materialism, and compares and contracts it with the linguistic branch of poststructuralism which has been criticized by new materialism for neglecting matter. The paper first discusses points of departure these two streams share, specifically, a critique of Western metaphysics, and in particular the fundamental interrogation of dualities and the idea of a stable inner essence in Western thought. Consequently, the article shortly introduces the starting points of new materialism and presents Judith Butler’s ideas on matter which are pivotal for the comparison that follows. The comparison of the two streams concentrates on the following issues: ontology, power, the abject, difference, subject and embodiment. The article stresses strong and weak points of both the streams and presents them as complementary rather than contradictory approaches., Hana Porkertová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The present paper deals with the Brno Social Study, a rather extraordinary questionnaire survey given its extent and time (1947). Data analysis was forestalled by the political transformation after 1948, but the questionnaires were preserved. We have inherited a unique set of data for a historical-sociological analysis focusing both on the population of industry workers and on the social structure of Czech society in the advent of the communist coup. The Brno Social Study is contextualized in the state of post-war sociology, and the avenues toward its inception and implementation are mapped. The central part of the paper analyses the survey data from a contemporary analytical perspective, discussing the dataset’s representativeness. The primary objective of the paper is to propose, and initiate scholarly debate about, a feasible methodology for analysing the archived data today. The methodology serves to construct a representative sample through a combination of purposive, quota and random sampling; to determine the respondents’ socio-economic status using both ISCO and an original conceptualization of working class status; and to present certain data on respondents’ lifestyles that might be of interest for future analyses., Dušan Janák, Martin Stanoev a Petr Hušek., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The article deals with situation, attitudes and behaviour of members of Prague's Russian immigrant community. At the beginning an overview of recent socio-economic development in Russia, existing findings about Russian minority in the Czech Republic and Czech citizens’ attitudes towards Russians are presented. The core of the article is presentation of main results of a survey conducted by the author in spring 2010 among members of Russian community that live in Prague and its surroundings. Among the main hypotheses that came out of the survey is growth of importance of positive motivations to migrate, extension of geographical and social basis from which migrants come, continuity of self-isolation of the community combined with strong ties to the country of origin and rise of Russian ethnic economy in Prague., Michal Janíčko., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
As a challenge to those who do not give much credit to reflecting on sociology as a science, this essay stresses the import of metatheoretical considerations. After all, what is known as postmodern discourse is scarcely a little more than metatheorizing and the phenomenon of the so-called “crisis of sociology” cannot be comprehended without some metatheoretical premises. Knowledge about knowledge should therefore form a special field of inquiry and enjoy its relative autonomy. In this article, the place for metasociology is delimitated by the account of the development of the general science of science. While the prefix “meta-” originally came from linguistics as a way to differentiate a proposition about an object of science from a proposition about science itself, the history of metatheorizing can be traced back to ancient philosophy. Hence, the most important sources of inspiration for this intellectual activity are epistemology and the philosophy of science. A crucial moment in thein development was the so-called “crisis in physics” that carried over to social sciences and spawned many contemporary trends such as the multicultural approach to sociology and the radical stance of methodological anarchism. The major philosophical orientations that have most directly addressed the questions about the scientific knowledge have been neopositivism and analytical philosophy on one hand, and phenomenology on the other one. No claims about metasociology can be made without being acquainted with at least the elementary positions in this exchange of ideas that took place in the philosophy of science. Metasociology, itself divided into metatheory and metamethodology (or general methodology), makes up an integral part of the science of science., Miloslav Petrusek., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The article is focuses on the adolescent concept of male/boy appearance and its impact on the social position of boys in a classroom structure. Boys can reach a better social position if their appearance corresponds to group norms. Based on three qualitative studies it is proven that group norms consist of a set of requirements toward male appearance which differ from requirements toward female appearance both in content and strength. The results of partial surveys are discussed in the context of present international theoretical approaches and empirical evidences about the ideal of beauty in a gender perspective., Irena Smetáčková ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii
In this article the authors examine the forms and experiences of insecure and precarious work by Czech women caring for a child or a dependent family member. The results of a quantitative survey indicate that the share of caring women performing precarious work increased during the economic crisis. A secondary analysis of interviews conducted in 2006–2013 with women caring for a child or another family member offered insight into the forms precarious work can take and the ways women feel about this kind of work and why. It also demonstrated in what way, based on the capability approach, their explanations provide a better understanding of the nature and extent of precarious work among women with care responsibilities. We found that the ways caring women view ad-hoc work fit along a continuum, ranging from an optimal temporary strategy, to a temporary solution in the absence of other options, and finally to feelings of being caught in a precarious work trap. This continuum can be extrapolated into a kind of ‘collective story’: a woman first ‘chooses’ ad-hoc work as a temporary strategy to get a job; if her life conditions are difficult she must continue to perform such work against her preferences; after a long period of economic inactivity or of performing just temporary work, the woman is ultimately unable to find any secure form of employment, even if she is no longer restricted by care responsibilities – she ends up trapped in precarious work. and Obsahuje seznam literatury
The paper presents an analysis of Deepa Mehta’s film trilogy (Water, Fire, Earth) through the concept of a border identity. The Protagonists of Deepa Mehta’s Film Trilogy may serve as examples of border identities or identities “in-between” (cf. Homi Bhabha). The “in -betweeness” is illustrated through the lens of various categories and their intersections – especially those of gender, sexuality, social status, religion (religious community) and tradition/individual freedom in general. For all the films, overstepping traditional taboos is typical, be it the mythological taboos, those of collective communal identities, traditional gender roles and stereotypes or compulsory heteronormativity. Within these frameworks, the dominance of the power discourses and the (in)visibility of the marginalized ones is thematized. While the main characters of the three film stories are female, they (in some cases) only seemingly play a leading role and the real acting heroes are the men. The most obvious example is the story of the Earth where the moral conflict takes place between the two male heroes. The author also notices the figuring of the females as mostly victims of the social order and male violence. However, this critical remark is not articulated to question the real aspect of the discrimination, but rather to point to the risks of a simplified picture of victimization of women which have been, in the context of Asian studies, analyzed by Chandra Talpade Mohanty and other postcolonial theorists., Blanka Knotková-Čapková., and Obsahuje bibliografii