Социологический журнал 4-2009

Sociological Journal #4 (2009)

SUMMARIES

Yanitsky O.N. A Social Capital of the Russian Environmental Movement

The article analyzes some theoretical issues related to a content, structure and machinery of production of social capital of the Russian environmental movement. A relative essence of the capital; differences between individual and collective forms of its functioning; a primary eco-structure as the basic mechanism of production and accumulation of an individual’s capital; and a evolution of the social capital in the process of transition from the first to the second (reflexive) modernity are the focal points of the analysis. It is concluded that a network functioning of social capital is becoming the all-embracing principle of its accumulation.

Key words: civil society, environmental movement, individual, primary eco-structure, social capital, its production and accumulation, Russia.

Lekhzyer V.L. Subjective meanings of illness: basic methodological distinctions and approaches to research

Discussions about further developments of the medicine and overcoming consequences of the (post)modern life medicalization focus subjective aspects of medical pathology. The article interprets some descriptive categories for experience of chronic painful illness, examining distinctions between pain and suffering, disease as natural phenomenon and illness as real human experience, and defining different contexts of the talks about the meaning of illness. Basic methodological collisions between “cultural” and “personal” strategies of the analysis of meanings of illness are described.

Key words: illness, meaning, chronic pain, pain experience, life world, medicalization.

Viaznikova V.V., Strebkov D.O. Financial behavior of Russian freelancers: means and limitations

The article deals with financial behavior of freelancers – people who apply different remote forms of work. These self-employed professionals usually carry out work search, results transmission, business communication and payments through Internet. Actual financial problems of freelancers (income instability, high-level risks, absence of social safeguards) and different ways of their overcoming (income sources diversity, financial planning, savings etc.) are analyzed. Chief empirical data are provided through online survey, conducted by authors at Free-lance.ru in December www This is one of the largest surveys of that kind in the world.

Key words: self-employment, freelancers, e-markets, incomes, savings.

Rusinova N.L., Panova L.V., Safronov V.V. Dynamics of social differentiation in health: Saint-Petersburg, 1992‑2006s

With data of 1992, 1998, and 2006 polls, representing the 30–60 years population of Saint-Petersburg, the article exposes trends in social distribution of the self-rated health. The differentiation in health grew through the 1990s, reflecting the growing gap in resources, needed for higher self-rates, between socioeconomic strata. Nevertheless in 2000s the inequalities stopped growing due to improvement in living standards, opening access to the needed resources for low-middle and low socioeconomic strata, inequalities in self-rates between educational strata tended to deepen: the rates among the higher education stratum grew faster then among those with no college.

Key words: inequalities in health, self-reported (self-rated) health, socioeconomic stratification, education, income, trends, polls, regression analysis

Steinberg I.E. Real and virtual networks of social support: similarities and differences analysis

This article is dedicated to analysis of similarities and differences of traditional “real” and virtual networks of social support which exists in cyberspace of Internet. The subjects of this study are: the process of emergence of norms and relations in social networks, forms of commoditization of behavioral practices and their participants, factors of networks stability, basis for their formation and development, etc. Author comes to conclusion that network community as social institution is a “transformer” organization, which is shaping its form to match problems and goals of community. Different nature of virtual social networks is showing up not in the organizational design, but in norms and rules of interaction, especially in network ethics, special culture of content, in special behavior logic of network “nodes” and in particular ways to set up borders and scale of the network.

Key words: real and virtual social networks, emergence process, social network stability, culture of content, peer-to-peer groups and peer-to-peer social networks, network formation basis, indivisible network resource.

Klimov I.A. Mortgage borrowers: everyday practices of rising mobility

The article has been examining the ways of transformation of mortgage borrowers’ everyday life as well as peculiarities of decision making under uncertainty and high risks closely related to house building and purchase dwelling. Our research is carrying out in Irkutsk since 2007. It shows that mortgage is not only “a school of financial competence”. Mortgage is a mechanism of new responsibility’s rising (through the person’s internal motivation) and new social competence (through the recourse mobilization — personal and person’s social network, self-organization and using new social practices). Thus mortgage is “a school of middle class”.

Key words: mortgage, loan behavior, achievement motivation, uncertainty, risks control, heuristics, status inconsistency, self-identity, social network.

Chesnokov S.V. Signs production in society

Theme of this essay — two types of signs production: by means of a fundamental verb «to be», and on the basis of experience. The first type supports signs systems in language and humanities. To the second the natural sciences — mathematics, physics — are obliged by the occurrence.

Key words: sign, signifier, signified, context, fundamental verb, brain functional organization, determinacy, determinacy analysis (DA).