Ricca Edmondson

Social capital: a strategy for enhancing health?

The idea of social capital is currently being discussed as a source of support for health, though it is often argued that the concept should not be used in an attempt to evolve neutral policy strategies but underlines the need for moral and political debate in health policy. This article, first, supports this argument by indicating the complex and culturally diverse nature of social capital. Its components react with their social contexts to produce a range of variants which differ from each other along several dimensions. Social solidarity and support involve different conventions in different places, with results which need appraisal before they can be supported. The article explores these issues by drawing on ethnographic material illustrating aspects of social relatedness in a variety of settings. Secondly, writers who treat social capital as invariably positive tend to associate it with conditions in the neo-liberal societies of late capitalism, even though they also see it as threatened there. Again examining social contexts, the article locates the reasons for this paradox in the cultures and structures of the societies concerned. Large-scale institutions in the West-including both those required to implement public health measures and those in which the majority of people work-are organised via neo-liberal processes which are not all conducive to the types of social relatedness which the social capital debate seeks to explore. In particular, significant aspects of social trust are difficult to support in neo-liberal organisations. The assumption that social capital can be promoted via social engineering which relies upon these very institutions is thus questionable. This, together with more positive aspects of the debate, draws attention to the need for further research on social relatedness if it is to be supported by public policy.

Wisdom in later life: ethnographic approaches

The concept of wisdom, popularly associated with the idea of old age, was neglected during the 20th century. It has recently revived as a matter of academic concern, but remains imperfectly understood. This article therefore begins to explore both the concept of wisdom and some forms we might expect wise behaviour to take. It emphasises the contemporary relevance of historical approaches through an examination of Hebrew and Greek writing on wisdom. Recent contributions from psychology develop aspects of these traditions; but studying wisdom ethnographically also substantially expands our understanding of what wisdom is. An ethnographic interview from Austria exemplifies social as well as psychological aspects of wisdom, showing that part of the meaning of wisdom resides in its effects on a social setting. Aspects of discourse in rural Ireland, when interpreted in the light of maxim-related wisdom traditions, extend this claim, showing more about how wise interventions activate wisdom in the society surrounding them. Other ethnographic cases also develop this notion of wisdom as based on social interaction, by exploring its effects. If we face the methodological challenges entailed in tracing wisdom ethnographically, we enhance our understanding of the concept itself and stress the fruitfulness of the idea of wisdom as an attainment of the lifecourse.

Wisdom in clinical reasoning and medical practice.

Exploring informal components of clinical reasoning, we argue that they need to be understood via the analysis of professional wisdom. Wise decisions are needed where action or insight is vital, but neither everyday nor expert knowledge provides solutions. Wisdom combines experiential, intellectual, ethical, emotional and practical capacities; we contend that it is also more strongly social than is usually appreciated. But many accounts of reasoning specifically rule out such features as irrational. Seeking to illuminate how wisdom operates, we therefore build on Aristotle’s work on informal reasoning. His account of rhetorical communication shows how non-formal components can play active parts in reasoning, retaining, or even enhancing its reasonableness. We extend this account, applying it to forms of healthcare-related reasoning which are characterised by the need for wise decision-making. We then go on to explore some of what clinical wise reasoning may mean, concluding with a case taken from psychotherapeutic practice.

A Social Interpretation of Personal Wisdom

This chapter attempts to blend ethnography with philosophy by taking seriously the implications of the different ways in which wise processes can be enacted in everyday life. It argues that reconstructing the details of socially embedded, culturally influenced forms of interaction can cast light on what wisdom means in practice in contrasting settings, helping to understand what is regarded as ‘personal’ wisdom within them. The main social context approached in this chapter, the rural West of Ireland, offers an approach to wisdom that accentuates interpersonal processes in which people regarded as wise exercise an enabling influence on others. This chapter explores what happens in these processes, the parallels between wisdom in the West of Ireland and in other traditions and the light they can cast on what being a ‘wise’ person might involve.

Intergenerational Relations in the West of Ireland and Sociocultural Approaches to Wisdom

Discussion of intergenerational relationships has perennially questioned how life experience can be transmitted effectively. This article revisits that debate, focusing on the intergenerational role of wisdom in the West of Ireland. Ethnographic reconstructions of wise interaction within families and communities, especially in regions of Irish society that still bear traces of semitraditional social practices, suggest that certain types of wisdom may promote well-being, even resilience. Shared cultural resources involving wisdom may help younger generations negotiate everyday predicaments in an independent manner. This article explores details of how these interactions take place, suggesting that the processes involved bear similarities with a number of therapeutic approaches.

Arensberg and Kimball and Anthropological Research in Ireland

For many years Irish rural sociology came to be defined in relation to Arensberg and Kimballs celebrated anthropological study, Family and Community in Ireland, for which fieldwork was undertaken in Clare between 1932 and 1934. It has been observed that ethnographers in Ireland post-Arensberg and Kimball were strongly inclined to take the community as their unit of analysis, focus their analysis of social life on kinship and social networks, and adopt structural functionalism as their theoretical model of local society. The essay republished here in abridged form accompanied the re-publication of Family and Community in Ireland in 2001. It critically examines the intellectual and political background to Arensberg and Kimballs ethnographic fieldwork in rural Clare, the manner in which their research unfolded and the subsequent reception of their published work over a period of some sixty years.

Cultural Gerontology: Valuing Older People

Cultural gerontology focuses on norms, values, practices, and moral ideas related to older age. Those norms, values, practices, and moral ideas shape significant images of older people in a society. They also influence stereotypes of old age and the possibilities an older individual has to participate in society. In Europe, older people’s image and their plans for their later life-years are important topics of discussion. These and similar topics are debated in relation to gender-differences and a youth- and consumption-oriented culture. Depending on the framework of the discussion, older Europeans are sometimes portrayed as tragic, and sometimes as inspiring.

Book Review: EthnographyBrewerJohn, Ethnography, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000.

now evident both between Uzbek and Hazara sections of the NA, and Afghan and foreign ranks within the Taliban. The task of forming a truly representative government is a daunting one. The story continues to unfold. Griffins book is a must for the reader who wishes to fill in the details of the emergence of the current Afghan conflict. It is written in a dispassionate, amoral and journalistic style. The level of detail covered can be baffling at times, and this problem could have been mitigated by more maps, graphics and pictures. However, the dearth of sources on this most complex of regions renders it indispensable.

Book Review: Health and Autonomy among the Over-65s in IrelandFaheyTony and MurrayPeter, Health and Autonomy among the Over-65s in Ireland. Dublin: National Council for the Elderly (report no. 39); 1994; pp.233.

lends the text a clarity in what is, after all, an entangled and obscure terrain. While the authors offer the reader many nuggets of information which I am sure will be put to good use both by activists and researchers, they are most critical of the operation of what they describe as a two-tier family law system, which offers only the crudest remedies to those in the lower tier, leaving many families in vulnerable and traumatic circumstances for unacceptably long periods of time. And we know so little about the long-term effectiveness of living with the legal remedies offered by the courts for men, women and children. It would seem that the family law system stops after the court case is over; what then?