The Social Scientista

Breaking down Social Science! Think Big and Spread Knowledge!

[thesocialscientista]

#EAR #HEAR #HEARD The #silent space between being #hearing and #listening lies the process of braiding factual accuracy with #emotional accuracy. This opens up the story behind #words. All words have stories that surround them, project them, and ground them. The ability to #share and understand the story behind the words tunes into empathetic listening. Listening to the lived reality of the #speaker, an investment in #understanding, and an act of vulnerability activates an empathetic ear. An empathetic ear intimidates bias. It shifts the dynamic from claiming value in someone's narrative to creating value and space for them to be heard. For validating their space, needs, and existence. Next week we will be opening up the new year 🥂 with a #communication series. #thesocialscientista #2018 #thoughts #ideas #knowledge

[thesocialscientista]

My ‘avoid writing my dissertation’ game strong af #thesocialscientista #snowday #avoidingwriting

[thesocialscientista]

Often the #idea of #knowledge is framed in the contexts of #power and #control. The more you know. 🌈 Knowledge is power. This context of knowledge is grounded in the idea that you have it, you are #aware of it, and that you know what to do with it. Knowledge is a #process and its risky and scary. One nugget of #information can shift your whole understanding of yourself and the world. Almost as if jumping off into the abyss. The cognitive dissidence of #society is that we stand on a platform of idolizing knowledge acquisition, but live lives of knowledge avoidance. We construct and live inside eco-chambers of ideologies actively avoiding knowledge that has any chance of contradicting what we have constructed our #identity on. In essence, that is the underpinnings behind knowledge is power, in that, knowledge has the power to make one #challenge the one thing they thought they knew the best, themselves. Everything is true until its not true anymore. #thesocialscientista #thoughts #2018

[thesocialscientista]

Narrative monopolies perpetrate historical models of oppression by controlling the frame from which we understand history, memory, and identity. The exclusive control of narrative creates a steel frame from which all narrative is filtered through to try to uniform all #information in congruence with their standards, stories, and history. The collective status quo of narrative monopolies functions as resource deprivation because it strips individuals of #freedom of expression. In a macro sense we can see this in what histories are told, taught, and studied and what histories are silenced. Narrative monopolies function in a micro sense, for example, in relationships when legitimate concerns are categorized as "being crazy" rather then being addressed. Narrative monopolies mechanic silence. When you silence someone's #narrative you silence their #history, their #memory, their identity, and their existence. #thesocialscientista #2018 #thoughts #knowledge #ideas

[thesocialscientista]

#Language serves as a gauge. It is an #instrument for understanding cultural norms and values. Language serves as a frame for understanding the ideologies that are used behind the word/s to construct the #social context. Language is as #alive as we are and is constantly experiencing death, growth, and birth to serve as tools for understanding the #world around us. Looking at the #history of words and how we use them can paint a picture of the pace of change and the influence of time and space. The social context of language demonstrates and measures perceived #value of people, places, things, and concepts. Often the rejection of being politically correct is grounded in a rejection of inclusion via fear of shifts of power over the other to power with the other. Rejecting change in our language demonstrates a chokehold on #privilege that is grounded in #exclusion and serves as an obstacle for #equality. #thesocialscientista #socialscience

[thesocialscientista]

What the difference between a #nerd and #geek? I've been called both, but I identify more with nerding and being #nerdy. When I think about nerding out, I think of discussions and the #knowledge train and when I think of geeking out, I think of #fandoms (which I do too 🐉, so maybe Im denying my geekery) . What do you think? #friday #thesocialscientista #fridaythoughts #socialscience #sociology #highereducation

[thesocialscientista]

Symbolic Interactionism is a theoretical approach in sociology that is built upon the idea that the symbolic meaning and value influence our #behavior. The socially constructed meaning surrounding stimuli is interpreted through our worldview lens and then informs our behavior. This happens at the conscious and unconscious level. This demonstrates how we use of the subjective and symbolic meaning to drive our behavior in place of objective #truth. This theory analyzes the symbolic understanding we place on people, place, and things and how these ideas influence and inform our interactions with others and the #world. Example: Stimuli: A wedding band on someone's hand - > Interpretation: They may be married - > Response: May influence and inform whether you hit on them or not. #SymbolicInteractionism gives us the tools to explore how systems of oppression have created subjective meaning based off identity politics that limit access to #rights, #justice, and #freedom. Systems of oppression have created ideas of perceived threat built out of stimuli based off of race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and more that serve as a socially constructed stimuli as a perceived threat therefore informing interpretations grounded in #racism, #homophobia, #transphobia, #Islamophobia, and more. Making the responses to perceived threats the actual threat. #sociology #socialscience #thesocialscientista #theory #weber #mead #theorythursday #study #learn

[thesocialscientista]

Often, we encapsulate the idea of #diversity in a numbers game based off levels of melanin in our skin, lands we descend from, or languages we speak. Diversity is not a numbers game, it is not existing in the same place, nor tolerance for each other’s existence, but rather the space and #freedom of #expression of your #culture, #identity, and existence. The current controversy surrounding the #NFLprotests drives at this very point by trying to interrupt the #protest content and context. It represents a cultural #conflict in a space that has been superficially labeled diverse, but rather represents traditional models of oppression. It epitomizes the process of having to convince the public of the needs, representation, and existence of the black community to only be silenced by interrupting the narrative to focus on historical muscle #memory that is saturated in white supremacy. The transfer of focus from the voice of the protest to the demands of the #flag serves to maintain the status quo of #oppression from which the need for the protests were born. The position grounded in fighting for the respect for the flag represents #racism through storytelling by continuing to try to control the narrative and continue to silence the voice of the protesters. The refocusing of the narrative serves to deny diversity and discourage social change. #blacklivesmatter

[thesocialscientista]

The contents of historical memory is the infrastructure of our reality. We connect individual memories by constructing histories and narratives that remember, share, teach, and serve to construct our daily lives. After the recent events in #Charlottesville, there are reactions projecting surprise, shock, disbelief, and questioning of what year we are living in. The nature of our historical memory has been used to protect white supremacy in our narratives, our history books, and our institutions. Our society has historically silenced the voices and narratives of the black community and continues to do so. Using #words as #swords to defend a history of oppression that has informed our current reality, while parading around in our privilege that continues to drown out silenced voices. #Racism is so common place in our #society it has become ordinary that the everyday patterns of behavior that perpetuate it are ignored. #blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatter

[thesocialscientista]

More often than not our scope of love is confined to red #hearts and intimate relationships. We need to #deconstruct this concept of #love to broaden our perspective of how it functions in our society. #Progress in embedded in love. Possibility is rooted in love. Not always in that sentimental type of way, but in the fact that something is so important to you that you have allocated time to that. That it is a part of your identity. #Education is love. #Knowledge is love. Storytelling is love. Time is love. To undo the silence of oppression we need love, but love it not always confiding in loved one or hugs and kisses. The realistic expectation of the function of love is that we commit our time to explanations, teaching, sharing stories, and to changing ideas and narratives. When we dismiss conversations or people, often it is because we do not #feel the underlying commitment. This is inform by things like security and apathy. That our stories will fall on deaf ears. But when our identity is being attacked, we tell, we talk, we share. Think about when you engage in comment wars, the reason why we engage in these narratives is because our #identity is rooted in an idea that we love or identify with that idea. We attempt to use narrative as a mechanism to create understanding and a shared #story. Love is present. We are committing time to this narrative, because we realize the commitment is #important. We have a social need for #narrative to share stories to break through frames of privilege as a mechanism to produce #progress.

[thesocialscientista]

Often the idea of equality is masked under a design for equity. We rationalize our allyship with a civil rights movements with our degree connection to that movement. This process of equity demonstration delegitimizes the idea of equality as it creates a caveat to equality. Our association with the other does not deactivate the presence nor reality of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, sexism, and bigotry. Our fear of being a vehicle for -isms, pushes us to use equity demonstration to legitimize our ideologies. Our fear of being labeled as something we do not identify with disconnects us from pushing forward to support equality. This is privilege. #equity #equality #privilege #onlymattersifihavesharesinvested #ally #oppression #racism #homophobia #islamophobia #sexism #thesocialscientista #itsbeenawhile #imback

[thesocialscientista]

#blackHMC Sharing this awesome work of one of my amazing students @nev_perks . The movement is to share and submit posts and vids with the #blackHMC sharing and highlighting black inspiration, history, knowledge, excellence, and/or love. #community #unity #knowledge #share #thesocialscientista #blackhistorymonth #Repost @nev_perks with @repostapp ・・・ (1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣) ✊🏾. Unity is a beautiful thing. Today we broke 100 submissions for the BlackHistoryChallenge. Who knows how many have been posted that I haven't seen. It's literally inspiring. It's only day5. I just want to thank you all and say let's keep it going next week! 👊🏿 #blackHMC ✊🏾

[thesocialscientista]

The literature review is the section of your research in which you demonstrate your badassary to the #reader. In this section, you flex your expertise and #knowledge to the reader about the #history, the theories, the ideas surrounding and about your subject. This section functions as a way to create a contextual journey to how you developed your #idea about your research subject and to legitimize to your reader that you know what the heck you are talking about! #research #write #writer #lit #literature #review #expertise #socialscience #thesocialscientista

[thesocialscientista]

Leadership is an #art. It is navigating the ebb and flow of power shifts to, with, and over others. Leadership is situational, contextual, and operationalized in different ways. The perception and emergence of leadership in our daily lives and history is often immortalized in events and points in history, but an often over looked facet of the power of leadership is how its beliefs and principles seep into culture informing future #behavior. This cultivates ideologies about access to power and inform large scale ideas of a population's sense of their own #strength, #power, and #value. Leadership representations often beg us to #question: Are we a captive population or a population held captive? #leader #leadership #ideas #discuss #share #past #present #future #culture #thesocialscientista

[thesocialscientista]

Snow, writing, and wine. ❄️💻🍷 #write #saturday #snow #snowday #phd #thesocialscientista #dissertation #conflictresolution #edit #delete #sip #snack #write #sip #delete #reread #sip

[thesocialscientista]

Privilege creates systems of elitism. Our privilege makes us numb to powerful social systems of oppression. Every system has a purpose and function in our society. Privilege often blinds us to the reality of our role in maintaining these systems and the privileged position of having the key to the transformation of these systems. Our industrialized and capitalistic social construct of how we imagine systems treats the products of these social systems as commodities and we fail to recognize that the products of social #oppression are people. Oppressive social systems mechanic profitable platforms for the elite of these systems on the backs of the people it operates to exclude. Having privilege comes with the #responsibility of recognizing the possession of the key to the door of inclusion that opens the pathway for #opportunity of the other. Using the traditional business model frame for efficient systems, oppressive social systems of hate creates monopolies for the privileged in #social systems in which they hold excessive #power and control over individuals and institutions that operate to exclude. #privilege #elitism #inclusion #socialsystemsofoppression #racism #sexism #islamophobia #homophobia #xenophobia #recognition #other #key #thesocialscientista #analyze #discuss #transform #teach #learn

[thesocialscientista]

CHAOS! We stare wide-eyed at our #world in despair as 'how could this be happening' slips from our lips. We externalize #terror, extremism, and everyday atrocities like a mental #film strip playing on loop in the sky. The reality is that the #behavior and actions that we so vehemently distrust and reject is a #consequence of our socially constructed invisible social systems of #oppression. We are the "I" and "why" of #society and the demonization of other's behavior compartmentalizes the role we play in creating the space for them to happen. Behavior is a consequence of #ideas, understandings, and meanings that we have jointly created about the world. When we view behavior as an entity, it serves as a copying mechanism for denial that we all have the capacity of #evil to one degree or another. Our cultural tendency to try to find good guys and bad guys blinds us from the reality that we need to find a shared story. Evil is socially enacted and constructed and saturated in the single sided #perspective. #chaos #socialconstruction #sociology #thesocialscientista #ourreality #wemadeit #create #think #live #learn #act #challenge #share #meaning #story