Mapping cosmopolis: moral topographies of the medieval city

Cosmopolis is a concept that has a long history in many cultures around the globe. It is a mirroring of the 'social' and 'natural' worlds, such that in one is seen the order and the structures of the other -- a mutual 'mapping'. In this paper I examine how the presence of cosmopolis -- a Christianised cosmopolis of the European Middle Ages -- was made evident in the representation and formation of cities at that time. I reveal a dualism between the social and spatial ordering of both city and cosmos which defined and reinforced social and spatial boundaries in urban landscapes, evident for example in the 11th and 12th centuries. Recently, Toulmin (1992) has taken the idea of cosmopolis to argue that it has been a persistent presence in Western - Enlightenment science, philosophy, and religion -- a 'hidden agenda of modernity'. I contend that, as an idea, cosmopolis has a much earlier circulation in European thinking, not least in the Middle Ages. Locating cosmopolis in the medieval and the modern periods then begs a question of what is it that really makes the two distinct and separate? All too often human geographers have emphasised discontinuities between the 'medieval' and 'modern' age, locating the 'rise of modernity' some time in the Enlightenment period. However, what 'mapping' cosmopolis reveals are continuities, binding time and space together, which when looked at begin to help query the modernity concept itself.

Falling in love outwards: Eco-social work and the sensuous event

Summary: Social work is a discipline that focuses on the person-in-the-environment. However, the social domains of influence have traditionally received more attention from the profession compared with the impact of the natural world on human well-being. With the development of ecological theories, and growing threats to the environment, this gap has been addressed and now the notion of eco-social work is attracting more interest. This article builds on this corpus of work by exploring, and augmenting, the thinking of the philosopher, David Abram, and his phenomenological investigation of perception, meaning, embodiment, language and Indigenous experience. The implications for eco-social work are then addressed.<br/><br/>Findings: The development of Abram’s philosophical thesis is charted by reviewing his presentation of the ideas of the European phenomenologists, Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is argued that Abram uses phenomenology to explore the character of perception and the sensual foundations of language which, in Indigenous cultures, are connected with the natural world. A gap in Abram’s thinking is then revealed showing the need to set human perception and language within an understanding of power. Overall, this re-worked thesis is underpinned by a meta-narrative in which ecology engages with philosophy, psychology and Indigenous experience.<br/><br/>Applications: By grounding such ideas in Slavoj Žižek’s construct of the sensuous event, three applications within social work are evinced, namely: (i) reflecting on the sensuous event in social work education; (ii) rekindling the sensuous event with Indigenous Peoples; and (iii) instigating the sensuous event with non-Indigenous populations. <br/>

Striking a Balance:Christianity and the Challenges of Long-Term Human Security in Zimbabwe

African evangelical/Pentecostal/charismatic (EPC) Christians-previously dismissed by scholars as apolitical-are becoming increasingly active socially and politically. This chapter presents a case study of an EPC congregation in Harare. It demonstrates how the congregation provides short-term human security by responding to the needs of the poor, while at the same time creating space where people can develop the "self-expression values" necessary for long-term human security. The case study also demonstrates that even under authoritarian states, religious actors can actively choose to balance the immediate demands of short-term human security with the sometimes competing demands of long-term human security. Policymakers can benefit from a greater understanding of how religious actors strike this balance and from a greater appreciation of the variability, flexibility, and religious resources of EPC Christians in such contexts.

Emotions & social change in Ireland:Exploring habitus shift in liquid modernity

Drawing on insights from a range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, history, politics, but particularly sociology and sociological theory, this thesis explores the relationship between emotions and social change in late or 'liquid' modernity. It deploys the Republic of Ireland in the twentieth century as a case study. It argues that the Irish case in an ideal site for this research given the speed and scale of changes that have occurred there, particularly since the 1950's. The primary research question guiding the study is: What has been the effect of 'social change' in Ireland on the emotional lives of Irish people? The thesis is structured in three parts. Part one (chapters one to three) is primarily theoretical. It aims to develop a distinctive theoretical framework, process-relational realism, and argues that three concepts, properly treated, are central to answering the research question. These are emotion, power and (emotional) habitus. Part two is a bridging chapter, in which the empirical portion of the study, its design and method, are outlined. This study is based on a series of qualitative life-history interviews conducted using the Biographical Narrative Research Method. Part three is primarily empirical. The first chapter critically explores Bauman's concept of liquid modernity in relation to the Irish case and offers a short social history of the Irish twentieth century, which focuses on emotions and power. The second deploys two (ideal-type) interview cases to support the argument that Ireland experienced a habitus shift, from a relatively homogeneous to a heterogeneous habitus, and a corresponding shift from a relatively repressive emotional regime to a more expressive one, with significant effects on the emotional habitus. The final chapter takes a broader view of these changes, suggests that social change has been ambivalent, and outlines a new typology of emotional pathologies that the study suggests are characteristic of contemporary emotional life.

Carrying religion into a secularising Europe: Montserratian migrants' experiences of global processes in British methodism

Migrants to Europe often perceive themselves as entering a secular society that threatens their religious identities and practices. Whilst some sociological models present their responses in terms of cultural defence, ethnographic analysis reveals a more complex picture of interaction with local contexts. This essay draws upon ethnographic research to explore a relatively neglected situation in migration studies, namely the interactions between distinct migration cohorts - in this case, from the Caribbean island of Montserrat, as examined through their experiences in London Methodist churches. It employs the ideas of Weber and Bourdieu to view these migrants as 'religious carriers', as collective and individual embodiments of religious dispositions and of those socio-cultural processes through which their religion is reproduced. Whilst the strategies of the cohort migrating after the Second World War were restricted through their marginalised social status and experience of racism, the recent cohort of evacuees fleeing volcanic eruptions has had greater scope for strategies which combat secularisation and fading Methodist identity.