The Self as Social Artifice: Some Consequences of Stanislavski

Practice commonly develops independent of theory: only rarely does some heritable informational structure knowingly emerge. With this in mind, Biosemiotic theory is well served by an informed synthesis with Constantin Stanislavski’s theatrical technique. For it is not enough merely to catalog signage by studying the consequence of its function, we also seek to generate signs with knowing intent. This implies more than the strategic use of signs, which all complex living things do, and of which our many subjective selves emerge. It calls for an objective artifice of signs, that is, some set of techniques competent to produce subjectivity, and capable of being objectified such that it can become a knowable standard. This is precisely what Stanislavski offers, ways of knowingly creating novel, actual, believably generative, signs. Within the realm of human action and in terms of human knowing, he positively exemplifies applied semiotic theory: his approach to dramatizing fictional characters also expresses how self-consciousness comes to be. What Stanislavski implies, Charles Tilly presumes and this essay asserts: our own biotic evolution has been influenced by post-biotic or metaphoric evolution, which results from the ‘living’ interaction of certain classes of non-living things. These derive from the pragmatic a priori made implicit by Chauncey Wright, which is the motivation of living things to act on specific needs within specific situations. The need to breathe is one example; the need to make competent use of existing epistemic structures is another. But such structures have their own needs, and ‘act’ to fill them. When this is compounded culturally, it may result in self-consciousness – a self-constructed artifice of semiosis with great consequence to biotic processes. Tilly supplies evidence that such compounding happens within human society, as well as a theoretical basis for its expression as a semiotic sociology. This essay uses pragmatic semiotics to explore the strong parallels that exist between the deliberately objective motivations upon which science, sanity and self-consciousness all depend, Stanislavski’s practicable artifice of signaling pathways and social emergence, and Tilly’s approach to society as ongoing performance.     

Phenotypic and Evolutionary Consequences of Social Behaviours: Interactions among Individuals Affect Direct Genetic Effects

Traditional quantitative genetics assumes that an individual''s phenotype is determined by both genetic and environmental factors. For many animals, part of the environment is social and provided by parents and other interacting partners. When expression of genes in social partners affects trait expression in a focal individual, indirect genetic effects occur. In this study, we explore the effects of indirect genetic effects on the magnitude and range of phenotypic values in a focal individual in a multi-member model analyzing three possible classes of interactions between individuals. We show that social interactions may not only cause indirect genetic effects but can also modify direct genetic effects. Furthermore, we demonstrate that both direct and indirect genetic effects substantially alter the range of phenotypic values, particularly when a focal trait can influence its own expression via interactions with traits in other individuals. We derive a function predicting the relative importance of direct versus indirect genetic effects. Our model reveals that both direct and indirect genetic effects can depend to a large extent on both group size and interaction strength, altering group mean phenotype and variance. This may lead to scenarios where between group variation is much higher than within group variation despite similar underlying genetic properties, potentially affecting the level of selection. Our analysis highlights key properties of indirect genetic effects with important consequences for trait evolution, the level of selection and potentially speciation.     

The Face of Social Suffering: The Life History of a Street Drug Addict

The Face of Social Suffering: The Life History of. Street Drug Addict . Merrill Singer. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2006 (paper). viii + 176 pp.     

Consequences of warming up a hotspot: species range shifts within a centre of bee diversity

Aim Bees are the most important pollinators of flowering plants and essential ecological keystone species contributing to the integrity of most terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we examine the potential impact of climate change on bees’ geographic range in a global biodiversity hotspot. Location South Africa with a focus on the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) diversity hotspot. Methods  Geographic ranges of 12 South African bee species representing dominant distribution types were studied, and the climate change impacts upon bees were examined with A2 and B2 climate scenarios of HadCM3 model, using MaxEnt for species distribution modelling. Results The predicted levels of climate change‐induced impacts on species ranges varied from little shifts and range expansion of 5–50% for two species to substantial range contractions between 32% and 99% in another six species. Four species show considerable range shifts. Bees of the winter rainfall area in the west of South Africa generally have smaller range sizes than in the summer rainfall area and generally show eastward range contractions toward the dry interior. Bee species prevalent in summer rainfall regions show a tendency for a south‐easterly shift in geographic range. Main conclusions The bee fauna of the CFR is identified as the most vulnerable to climate change due to the high level of endemism, the small range sizes and the island‐like isolation of the Mediterranean‐type climate region at the SW tip of Africa. For monitoring climate change impact on bees, we suggest to establish observatories in the coastal plains of the west coast that are predicted to be worst affected and areas where persistence of populations is most likely. Likely impacts of climate change on life history traits of bees (phenology, sociality, bee‐host plant synchronization) are discussed but require further investigation.     

The Social Construction of Virtue: The Moral Life of Schools

The Social Construction of Virtue: The Moral Life of Schools. George W. Noblit and Van O. Dempsey. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. 225 pp.     

Life on the Half-Shell: Consequences of a Carapace in the Evolution of Armadillos (Xenarthra: Cingulata)

Without doubt, the possession of an armored carapace represents one of the most conspicuous morphological features of all cingulates. Here, we review some of the many ways in which the carapace may have influenced the evolution of other features of extant armadillos (Xenarthra: Cingulata). Effects range from physiological impacts on respiration and thermoregulation, to mechanical and other constraints on reproduction. Additionally, in mammals, armor has been linked with relatively slow plantigrade locomotion, which in turn may have promoted the low metabolic rate and exploitation of a low quality diet typically observed in armadillos. Finally, this network of relationships may help to explain the lack of any obvious kin-selected altruism in the polyembryonic armadillos, such as the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), because of time and energy constraints associated with a short active period devoted almost exclusively to feeding. In mammals, there has been growing interest in describing an ecological “lifestyle” as the particular way in which each species makes its living, and how this lifestyle constrains the evolution of other phenotypic traits. Based on our review, it appears the carapace has been a major determinant of the lifestyle of armadillos and has played a central role in shaping the evolution of many other features of these animals.     

The Social Life of Forest Carbon: Property and Politics in the Production of a New Commodity

Interventions to conserve carbon stored in forests are central to the emerging global climate change regime. Widely referred to as REDD+, these interventions engage local resource holders in contracts to restrict their use of land and forests in exchange for conditional benefits, effectively creating a market for forest carbon—a new and intangible commodity. Delving into the social and material implications of this, three case studies (Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Cambodia) examine property relations in the early stages of forest carbon production in different tenure contexts. The case studies reveal that: (a) the risk of local exclusion from forest and lands under REDD+ is real, but is mediated by dynamic negotiations over knowledge and property; (b) the relationship between forest carbon and underlying property relations around land and forests is recursive and mutually constitutive; and (c) due to ongoing and entrenched property contests in REDD+ locations, there remains an unstable foundation for forest carbon markets.     

The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory

The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory. Julie Cruikshank Lincoln: of Nebraska Press, 1998. 211 pp.     

The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory.; Northern Passage: Ethnography and Apprenticeship among the Subarctic Dene.

The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory. Julie Cruikshank. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 211 pp.
Northern Passage: Ethnography and Apprenticeship among the Subarctic Dene. Robert Jarvenpa. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1998. 210 pp.     

The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Perspectives on Tree Symbolism

The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Perspectives on Tree Symbolism. Laura Rival. ed. New York: Berg Publishers, 1998.315 pp.     

Life among the Yanomami: The Story of Change among the Xilixana on the Mucajai River in Brazil

Life among the Yanomami: The Story of Change among the Xilixana on the Mucajai River in Brazil. John F. Peters. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 1998. 292 pp.     

Life History Consequences of the Facultative Expression of a Dispersal Life Stage in the Phoretic Bulb Mite (Rhizoglyphus robini)

Life history traits play an important role in population dynamics and correlate, both positively and negatively, with dispersal in a wide range of taxa. Most invertebrate studies on trade-offs between life history traits and dispersal have focused on dispersal via flight, yet much less is known about how life history trade-offs influence species that disperse by other means. In this study, we identify effects of investing in dispersal morphology (dispersal expression) on life history traits in the male dimorphic bulb mite (Rhizoglyphus robini). This species has a facultative juvenile life stage (deutonymph) during which individuals can disperse by phoresy. Further, adult males are either fighters (which kill other mites) or benign scramblers. Here, in an experiment, we investigate the effects of investing in dispersal on size at maturity, sex and male morph ratio, and female lifetime reproductive success. We show that life history traits correlate negatively with the expression of the dispersal stage. Remarkably, all males that expressed the dispersal life stage developed into competitive fighters and none into scramblers. This suggests that alternative, male reproductive strategies and dispersal should not be viewed in isolation but considered concurrently.     

Abu Sayyaf: Displays of Violence and the Proliferation of Contested Identities among Philippine Muslims

Violence between and among Christians and Muslims of the southwestern Philippines provides the ethnographic setting for an investigation of Herzfeld's paradox of social indifference. But there is yet another paradox in this case: Why has this 400-year conflict been characterized by a proliferation of contested identities among the insurgents, those who most need to be united?
Is this another case of the force of "hegemony," with the oppressed somehow duped into practices detrimental to their own interests? But how? And by what agency? The Philippine case reveals the challenging complexities of identity construction to be faced in any attempt to reach an understanding of these issues.     

The Tree versus the Forest: The Fungal Tree of Life and the Topological Diversity within the Yeast Phylome

A recurrent topic in phylogenomics is the combination of various sequence alignments to reconstruct a tree that describes the evolutionary relationships within a group of species. However, such approach has been criticized for not being able to properly represent the topological diversity found among gene trees. To evaluate the representativeness of species trees based on concatenated alignments, we reconstruct several fungal species trees and compare them with the complete collection of phylogenies of genes encoded in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. We found that, despite high levels of among-gene topological variation, the species trees do represent widely supported phylogenetic relationships. Most topological discrepancies between gene and species trees are concentrated in certain conflicting nodes. We propose to map such information on the species tree so that it accounts for the levels of congruence across the genome. We identified the lack of sufficient accuracy of current alignment and phylogenetic methods as an important source for the topological diversity encountered among gene trees. Finally, we discuss the implications of the high levels of topological variation for phylogeny-based orthology prediction strategies.     

Within a Range of Possibilities: Morality and Ethics in Social Life

Despite its now common currency the anthropological concept of morality remains underdeveloped. One anthropologist who has made several important attempts to work out a more precise theoretical concept of morality is Joel Robbins. In his most recent contribution to this endeavor Robbins addresses the tension in anthropology between what he calls the morality of reproduction and the morality of freedom. In this article, I suggest an alternative solution to the problem of conceiving the distinction between a nonconsciously enacted morality and the conscious awareness of ethical dilemmas and moral questioning. I will support this distinction with ethnographic and life-historical material from my research on the moral lives of some Muscovites.     

The Social Life of the African Forest Yellow-Whiskered Greenbul Andropadus latirostris

A 10-year study of a population of A. latirostris showed that this greenbul behaved as a lek species in Northeastern Gaboon. Comparisons between A. latirostris and some neotropical Pipridae and Trochilidae are made, in order to establish ecological features common to lek species in tropical forests of Africa and South America.     

Consequences of assessment and intervention among elderly people: a three year randomised controlled trial.

Over three years 285 randomly selected subjects aged 75 years or more and living in a suburb of Copenhagen were visited every three months in their own homes (the intervention group) to assess whether scheduled medically and socially preventive intervention would influence the number of admissions to hospitals or nursing homes, the number of contacts with general practice, or mortality. A randomly selected group of 287 people of the same age and sex were visited during the final three months of the study (the control group). Two hundred and nineteen admissions to hospitals (4884 bed days) were registered for the intervention group compared with 271 (6442 bed days) for the control group. Especially during the second half of the study, a significant reduction in the number of admissions to hospitals was seen in the intervention group. Twenty people in the intervention group and 29 in the control group moved into nursing homes (p greater than 0.05). The corresponding numbers of deaths were 56 and 75 (p less than 0.05). No difference was seen in the number of contacts with general practice. Significantly fewer emergency medical calls, however, were registered for the intervention group. Subjects in the intervention group benefited from the regular visits and the increased distribution of aids and modifications to their homes to which these led. The regular visits probably also produced an important increase in confidence.