Time's Social Metaphors: An empirical research

The article addresses the analysis of time images furnished by a qualitative research made in Spain on the relations of working time and family/personal time. The analysis focuses on three widespread time metaphors used in day-to-day speeches by social agents. The first one is the metaphor of time as resource for action. Its value is equally economical, moral and political. Used in different context of action, it may mean something that can be either invested, donated generously to others, appropriated for caring for oneself, or spent without purpose with others. The second metaphor represents time as an external environment to which action must adapt. This metaphor shows many variants that represent time as a dynamic/static, repetitive/innovative, ordered/chaotic environment. In this external environment, the agents must resolve the problems of temporal embeddedness, hierarchy and synchronization of their actions. The third metaphor shows time as a horizon of action intentionality where the agents try to construct the meaning of their action and identity. Within this horizon the construction of a significant narrative connecting past and present experiences with future expectations is possible.

Una mirada antropológica sobre el conflicto, la desigualdad y los procesos de reinserción social en Colombia

For more than half of a century, Colombia has been living in a state of violence, a nationwide political violence. As the time goes by, this situation gets even worse. Now the violence is implanted for different interests, such as personal, political, social and economical interests. For this reason, the information for this thesis was gathered from the time of the independence, through the era of violence until today; considering a reflection that begins with the perspective of Marx, passing by a theoretical compilation of the conflict, with an anthropological, psychological, biological and sociological perspective. In addition, different theories about violence have been studied to recognize the ideological approach of the different armed movements that have emerged in Colombia. Statistical, economical and social data including class struggle, social stratification, exclusion and gender perspective among others, have been considered from an anthropological and interdisciplinary approach for studying the violence. A strong interest in the social reintegration process, through an ethnographic study, based on the actors backgrounds, their lives, experiences and their geographical location have provided information that will allow to know the reality of those who are living in the process, those who survive it and those who go on with their lives in society, and those who after doing it return to the armed groups. Population displaced by violence, refugees, has contributed to this study about their possibilities to return to the society or to be excluded by it. With this purpose, a theoretical and a documentary analysis as well as fieldwork have been done, trying to bring forward tools and guidelines to make some progress in developing effective solutions for social integration of Colombian armed conflict victims.

Visual suppression in intermittent exotropia during binocular alignment.

PURPOSE To investigate the cortical mechanisms that prevent diplopia in intermittent exotropia (X(T)) during binocular alignment (orthotropia). METHODS The authors studied 12 X(T) patients aged 5 to 22 years. Seventy-five percent had functional stereo vision with stereoacuity similar to that of 12 age-matched controls (0.2-3.7 min arc). Identical face images were presented to the two eyes for 400 ms. In one eye, the face was presented at the fovea; in the other, offset along the horizontal axis with up to 12° eccentricity. The task was to indicate whether one or two faces were perceived. RESULTS All X(T) patients showed normal diplopia when the nonfoveal face was presented to nasal hemiretina, though with a slightly larger fusional range than age-matched controls. However, 10 of 12 patients never experienced diplopia when the nonfoveal face was presented to temporal hemiretina (i.e., when the stimulus simulated exodeviation). Patients showed considerable variability when the single image was perceived. Some patients suppressed the temporal stimulus regardless of which eye viewed it, whereas others suppressed a particular eye even when it viewed the foveal stimulus. In two patients, the simulated exodeviation might have triggered a shift from normal to anomalous retinal correspondence. CONCLUSIONS Antidiplopic mechanisms in X(T) can be reliably triggered by purely retinal information during orthotropia, but the nature of these mechanisms varies between patients.