Humanistic coefficient

Abstract: This article aims to highlight the influence of the work of William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki on the perception of social reality by sociologists. I focus on the social practice of creating personal documents (memoirs, autobiographies, and letters) as a form of enacting individual agency and speaking their voice in the social space. I show the contribution of various social classes in this memorializing practice in Poland, reaching back to the 17th and 18th centuries. While doing so, I emphasize that a big part of society was practically muted in literary discourses. The voices of peasants and working-class were silenced as they had no access to the means which would enable them to speak and be represented in the discourse. Against this background, we can see how the “memoir competitions”—a very popular research practice being introduced in Poland by Znaniecki in 1921—have changed the power relations in the field of generating knowledge about social reality. The institution of Polish Memoirism that systematically gathered a huge number of autobiographies, enabled the poor and voiceless to speak and be heard by social researchers. In this sense, the monumental work of Thomas and Znaniecki was a trigger to the gradual process of revealing “blind spots” on the map of social reality and giving voice to the muted. Throughout the article, I return again and again to the main methodological questions, that is, what does it mean to include the consciousness of the participants of social life in sociological research, how to represent them in sociological theorizing, and how they can regain their voice in the scientific narrations about them.

Abstract: HERE IS A SUPERFICIAL contradiction between sociology and autobiography. The former represents a description of interactions, whereas the latter is a self-definition of actions. But, as Florian Znaniecki long ago pointed out, there is a "humanistic coefficient" between actions and interactions which in its own way legitimates the autobiographical performance. "The action of speaking a sentence, writing a poem, making a horseshoe, depositing money, proposing to a girl, electing an official, performing a religious rite, is empirical datum if it is in the experience of the speaker and his listeners, the poet and his readers, the blacksmith and the owner of the horse to be shod, the depositor and the banker, the proposing suitor and the courted girl, the voters and the official whom they elect, the religious believers who participate in the ritual."' Given the concerns of New Literary History, it is understandable that a considerable number of the papers in this special issue on "Self-Confrontation and Social Vision" would emphasize the quality of autobiographical performance. It is therefore warranted in these remarks to emphasize the strategic nature of autobiography. In this sense, we move from autobiography as a literary event to autobiography as a social injunction: a tactic for making people take seriously the words and deeds of their leaders, an arresting presentation of self, what Erving Goffman properly calls a "performance," for the purpose of giving instruction to others.2 Autobiography in this way provides a role model for the behavior of others and, at the same time, reveals one either to be an exemplar of moral behavior to be emulated or, the reverse, an exemplar of immoral behavior and hence of pitfalls to avoid in one's own life. William I. Thomas, in his underground classic, The Unadjusted Girl, appreciated the extent to which there is always rivalry between spontaneous definitions of a situation made by members of organized society and the definitions which that society has provided.3 The task of the autobiographer, whether consciously or otherwise, is to interpret to society how one should conduct the "good" and avoid the "bad" influences of that society. John Sturrock, in his paper on "The

Abstract: In 1947 Jerzy Łoś proposed a positional logic based on the realization operator. We follow his work and present it in the context of fundamental challenges of sociology such as the complexity of social reality and reflexivity of social agents. The paper is an outline of the general concept, as it opens a discussion and sets ground for future elaborations. In this paper, we are considering the concept according to which the expressions put forward by Łoś’s system might be indexed not only by spatial and temporal variables, but also by social contexts. And as such Łoś’s system might be a significant improvement, a valuable addition for social simulations and computational sociology, which use multi-agent systems and agent-based modeling. We consider how Łoś’s operator might be useful for these disciplines, as it gives a chance to combine of formalization with the humanistic coefficient, which represents the issues of complexity and reflexivity of social agents.

Abstract: Purpose/Thesis: The paper contains a methodological reflection on qualitative analysis of visual empirical data as a research procedure in the contemporary human information behavior research. The possibility of implementing this approach has been tested on a case study of personalized information spaces in everyday life of undergraduate information management students in the academic year 2018/2019.Approach/Methods: The reported research employs the realist epistemological stance, qualitative and descriptive approaches, and four methods/techniques: critical literature review, case study, drawing as a mental mapping tool, and thematic analysis. Results and conclusions: Visual data analysis is cognitively fruitful; it enables grasping the multidimensional “information reality” as perceived by the users (the humanistic coefficient). However, it is time-consuming, it requires meticulousness and self-reflection on the part of the researcher; it must also leave a clear audit trail to assure credibility and intersubjective verifiability of investigations.Originality/Value: The article is concerned with innovative research procedures, rarely discussed in Polish information science literature. Combining visual approach with individual information spaces, it corresponds to the latest methodological and topical trends in the field of information behavior. It also links theoretical reflection with the research practice.