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Production and Maintaining Authenticity as a Subcultural Capital: the Case of Czech Freetekno Subculture
Frantál, Daniel ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Špaček, Ondřej (referee)
(in English) This Master's Thesis focuses on the analysis of the issue of production and maintenance of authenticity as subculture capital. Analyzing the case of a decline of interest of participation in the Czech Freetekno subculture, this Thesis shows how analytically grasp the issue of authenticity and subcultural capital. The research is methodologically built on a combination of in-depth interviews and participant field observation. Primary data are then complemented with an analysis of secondary data in the form of media articles, flyers, and social networks. The main argument of this Master's Thesis is that apart from a distinctive dimension, authenticity also has a substantive dimension. Authenticity does not represent only a distinctive element that internally and externally differentiates the field of a subculture. It is also an element that gives a subculture its inner content, meaning, and sense for both current and new members. Authenticity is not only a resource used in the competition of status but is also a source of the content of a subculture and the pleasure of participating in it. Through an explanation of the decline of interest of participation in the Czech Freetekno scene, this Master's Thesis concludes that in the field of subculture studies the formalist perspective of...
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Solidarity Academies in Turkey: An analysis of academic activism, parrhesia, and commoning practices
Demirkır, Öykü ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Císař, Ondřej (referee)
This research seeks to interpret the academic activism of Academics for Peace in Turkey. It argues that the occurrence of the Academics for Peace results from the intertwinement of neoliberal and authoritarian ideology. The writer of this research suggests that Academics for Peace build networks of solidarity based on resistive critique and truth-telling practices. Solidarity (alternative) academies in Turkey are the seeds of this engagement in solidarity, self- adapting practices, activist truth, and parrhesia, and they appear as phenomena that carry out prefigurative-instituent practices. The research suggests that Solidarity academies can be evaluated as a 'threshold' cultivating our understanding of the 'commons' and 'commoning practices.'
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Infertility experience: retrospective biographical reconstruction of now fertile women
Ulrichová, Eva ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Spalová, Barbora (referee)
This master's thesis focuses on the retrospective biographical interviews with three now fertile women who as narrators retrospectively create their identities during the experience with the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. I also explored how the medical and social institution could lead to a change of identity of female infertility. This master's thesis is based on theory of Erving Goffman about patients in total institution: this theory supports the idea that total (medical) institution destroys the patient's original identity and then constructs new identity. The major result of this master's thesis found four different changes in woman's identity during the experience of infertility: identity of implicitly fertile woman and potential mother, denial of identity and the process of accepting a new identity, identity of infertile woman and patient's identity, and mother's identity. The changes of woman's identity are based on diagnostic phase. Therefore I decided to separate them into four various period in this research: pre-diagnostic, diagnostic, post-diagnostic and contra-diagnostic. I also found a difference between Goffman's theory and my results: Based on my research I concluded that the construction of identity of infertile women in the diagnostics and treatment of infertility is...
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Parenting in the context of cultural inequalities: how parents justify their child-rearing strategies
Šulcová, Zuzana ; Frantová, Veronika (advisor) ; Hájek, Martin (referee)
This thesis is written from the perspective of cultural sociology and focuses on middle-class parents and justification of their child-rearing decisions. It describes how parents choose and evaluate the institutions their children spend time at, how they "other" parents with different values and how they relate to concerted cultivation - a type of parenting style which currently dominates the middle-class context. This parenting style (or ideal) puts a great deal of pressure on middle-class parents and it causes a symbolic war among them: a war for acknowledgment and a certain position in the cultural space. This thesis describes who the participants "other", which child-rearing strategies participants approve of, what values are crucial for them and what problems they deal with. Furthermore, four main differences between the participants' approach and the concerted cultivation approach were identified: emphasis on friendship, emphasis on balance between activities and rest, emphasis on fitting in with the majority and emphasis on approval of certain authoritarian methods such as imposing punishments, applying restrictions and issuing directives.
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Sharing Economy in the Context of Postmaterial Values: The Case of Accommodation Segment in Prague
Svobodová, Tereza ; Balon, Jan (advisor) ; Hájek, Martin (referee)
This master's thesis is about the success of sharing economy in the accommodation segment in Prague. The thesis is based on theories conceptualizing sharing economy as a result of social and value change, not only as technological one. Using online review data, the user experience of shared accommodation via Airbnb and traditional via Booking are compared. Analysis is conducted with focus on users' satisfied needs and fulfilled values. For processing the data, text mining techniques (topic modelling and sentiment analysis) were employed. The major result is that in Prague the models of sharing economy accommodation meets the growing need in society to fulfil post-material values in the market much better than the models of traditional accommodation (hotels, hostels, boarding houses). In their experiences, Airbnb users reflect social and emotional values more often, even though most sharing economy accommodations in Prague do not involve any physical sharing with the host. The thesis thus brings a unique perspective on the Airbnb phenomenon in the Czech context and contributes to the discussion of why the market share of the sharing economy in the accommodation segment in Prague has been growing, while traditional models stagnated.
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Securing cities: 'Urban resilience' as a technology of government
Svitková, Katarína ; Hynek, Nikola (advisor) ; Hájek, Martin (referee) ; Chandler, David (referee)
Svitková, K. 2019. Securing cities: 'Urban resilience' as a technology of government, 282 pp. Doctoral thesis (PhD) Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. Department of Security Studies. Academic supervisor: doc. PhDr. PNDr. Nikola Hynek, M. A., PgDip Res, PhD Abstract Resilience has become a buzzword in policy and practice of 'securing' and 'developing' cities and urban populations. This study discusses the use of this concept in the context of governance of subjectivities. More specifically, reflecting its empirical focus, it poses critical questions about constructing and promoting 'urban resilience subjects', and scrutinizes the process of internalization of resilience as a self-governance technique, self-imposed on and by citizens for their own good. The purpose is to problematize resilience as a universal tool or strategy to govern cities and their inhabitants, be it in ordinary or extreme circumstances. The study ventures beyond the traditional critique of neoliberalism to ask questions about what resilience does in terms of a performative governance, exploring the disciplinary and biopolitical nature of this process. Keywords resilience, governmentality, urban, cities, power, biopolitics
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On the Relationship Between Metaphor and Technology: a Comparative Study on Nanotechnology
Kotlík, Pavel ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Vincent, Bernadette Bensaude (referee) ; Konrad, Kornelia (referee)
At the turn of the millennium, the most developed countries began to take interest in nanotechnology, that is, technologies defined by their precise nanometer-level functionality, but also by their substantial, realised, or anticipated changes in industry and medicine. At the European policy level, nanotechnology has become part of the pan-national governance principle, accompanied however by low public awareness of the benefits and risks. Nanotechnology engenders gradual, albeit very controversial transformations where actors adopt various communication strategies. The dissertation presents an analysis of the relationship between metaphor and nanotechnology. Neither metaphor nor nanotechnology is a neutral resource to be freely exploited, but both have significant implications for the strategic efforts of actors who use them. The study has the objective of exploring the social representations of nanotechnology in the various local (cultural) contexts of their medialisation and investigating the isomorphism which exists between metaphorical structures and the evolution of nanotechnology controversies. The theoretical part considers the role of metaphors in constructing social representations of nanotechnology and in translating between there and then and here and now. These representations and...
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Hipsters and their Identity: Discursive Manifestations of Hipster Culture in VICE magazine
Horáková, Zuzana ; Balon, Jan (advisor) ; Hájek, Martin (referee)
This research address the topic of hipster phenomenon and its discursive manifestations in the online magazine VICE. The theoretical part of the thesis submits the basic discursive frameworks which serve as a theoretical anchoring for the practical part based on discursive analysis of the articles. The analysis itself is based on 11 articles mainly from the section Remembering the Hipster, which was chosen as the most appropriate for this study. The aim of the thesis is to explore the main discursive manifestations of hipster culture in those articles and to find out, whether those reproduced manifestations overlap with identified categories from the theoretical part, or whether they differ from each other. The main purpose of this analysis is then to find out what does it mean to be hipster according to VICE magazine contributors.
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Analysis of the Internet Discussions According to Goffman's Theory of Focused Interaction
Čížková, Anna ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Tremčinský, Martin (referee)
This bachelor thesis examines the phenomenon of internet discussions on Facebook. The starting theoretical framework for the thesis is Erving Goffman's focused interaction and the principles of fun in games theory in terms of focused interaction. The aim of this study is to find out whether the elements of fun occur in the researched environment and what form they take up. Research units were specified as discussions on the official Facebook websites of chosen online news portals. These discussions are embodied in the comments section below shared political article. 70 research units were subjected to conversation analysis. The results of the analysis show that most of the examined internet discussions can be determined as focused interaction and the elements of the game are strongly present in the discussions. The real situation in a virtual environment, however, differs from the way game elements manifest themselves in the face-to-face interaction, in which Goffman defined the concept of focused interaction originally. This work also deals with the situation of the participants leaving the interaction. In this case, it appeared that not all the characteristics of the internet discussions can be interpreted in terms of fun in games theory. Some aspects of the interaction in a virtual environment...
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Memory on borderland. A comparative study of collective memory in the former East Prussiaregion in Poland and the Sudetes in the Czech Republic
Wladyniak, Ludmila Maria ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Olechnicki, Krzysztof (referee) ; Oláh, Gábor (referee)
Collective memory has recently become one of the most explored topics in the social sciences and has led to the emergence of a separate and independent subdiscipline called memory studies. The thesis investigates the awakening of collective memory in two borderlands of Central Europe: the former Sudetes region in the Czech Republic and the southern part of former East Prussia in Poland. The thesis provides an overview of the current theories about collective memory with a focus on the interactional and visual character of the studied phenomenon. In line with this, the thesis presents, discusses, and elaborates on research conducted in the two borderlands in 2016 and 2017. The aim of the research was to study the role and form of collective memory (shared remembrance) in ethnic, cultural, and historical borderlands. The contributions of the thesis are both methodological and theoretical. Firstly, the discussed research revealed that between particularly family-based communicative memory and official, institution-generated cultural memory, there is ritualised communicative memory, maintained through interactions among members of the borderland community (community of memory). Secondly, the thesis contributes to various studies within the interactionist paradigm and proves the usability of Goffman's...
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