John Mathias
Biographic Data
| ID | 113736 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Mathias |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Mathias |
| SIGNATURE | MATHIAS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Florida State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8372-0078 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The ABCs of Motives: Toward a Language for the Motion Zeitgeist
Why should we consider an anthropology of motives? Because anthropologists see motion everywhere. The field has focused for decades on describing processes, practices, and action. This “motion zeitgeist” calls our attention to questions about why people act as they do—that is, in Burke's sense, to questions about motive. Motive claims are abundant in anthropological analysis, but they are often implicit, baked into our accounts of motion. Seeking…
Preparing Social Workers to Promote Environmental Justice: An Exploratory Study
To contribute to best practices in educating social work students on environmental justice, we report the results of a study evaluating a module that was incorporated into the course Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE). A mixed-methods design was used to examine student attitudes toward environmental justice. Participants were 61 Master of Social Work students from three cohorts. The students provided pre- and posttest responses to t…
Which Environmental Social Work? Environmentalisms, Social Justice, and the Dilemmas Ahead
Social work has traditionally been concerned with the welfare of humans, a mission that some scholars want to expand to include other beings. How can concern for nonhumans and the natural environment best be integrated with the profession’s commitment to social justice? Although commentators have made several proposals, few have critically examined the dilemmas or trade-offs that may await a more expansive social work. Examining such challenges i…
Roles of Nonprofits in Disaster Response and Recovery: Adaptations to Shifting Disaster Patterns in the Context of Climate Change
Nonprofit social service organizations play key roles in disaster response and recovery efforts targeting socially vulnerable populations, particularly in the United States. Increasingly frequent and intense disasters associated with climate change may raise new challenges for nonprofits. Yet little research has explored how changing disaster patterns may impact the roles of nonprofits. With this in mind, we examine the case of Tallahassee, Flori…
The limits of bodies: Gatherings and the problem of collective presence
Modern social collectivities-such as nations, publics, and political movements-depend upon the capacity of media technologies to transcend bodily proximity. The contemporary proliferation of such remote sociality may seem to render physical gatherings superfluous. But at times, people go to great pains to manifest collectivities by assembling bodies in one place. This article explores what we should make of cases in which it is not enough for col…
Social work and anthropology: Traversing, trading, and translating across boundaries
What's the problem with disaster? Anthropology, social work, and the qualitative slot
On March 3, 2019, an EF4 tornado devastated the rural Alabama communities of Beauregard and Smith Station, killing 23 people and causing direct injuries to another 97. This storm was unusually devastating, with twice the predicted casualty rate based on the tornado’s power, the impacted population, and impacted housing stock. In this paper, we apply qualitative methods from anthropology, geography, and planning to better understand the social con…
Interrogating culture: Anthropology, social work, and the concept trade
Interdisciplinary contributions to social work have supported the profession’s development as a helping profession. Indeed, drawing from other disciplines has been a way to hone intervention approaches. This article analyzes the history of social work’s use of anthropological theory about “culture” in order to critically examine the profession’s positioning as a “recipient” of theories. At a time when evidence-based practice is a dominant ideal, …
Situated Causality: What Ethnography Can Contribute to Causal Inquiry in Social Work
This article considers how ethnography can contribute to developing causal theories relevant to social work practice. Social work researchers typically reserve causal inferences for studies that rely on certain quantitative study designs, and ethnography tends to be seen as insufficient for making causal claims. Integrating data from three ethnographies of social work practice, this article posits that ethnography is particularly well equipped to…
Sticky ethics: Environmental activism and the limits of ethical freedom in Kerala, India
Environmental activists in Kerala, India, often contest the boundaries between the ethical and the non-ethical, flouting widely-accepted norms while ethicalizing usually trivial aspects of everyday life. The resulting ambiguity presents an opportunity to explore a problem that has troubled the recent ethical turn in anthropology: how do we know ethics when we see it? Analyzing seemingly ethicalizing moves during an environmental awareness campaig…
The future of environmental social work: Looking to community initiatives for models of prevention
Social work responses to environmental degradation have sought to mitigate harm that has already occurred and create strategies to respond or adapt to environmental hazards. Despite a good deal of literature suggesting the promise of prevention-focused models, social workers have less frequently considered prevention models to address environmental issues. In this manuscript, we consider how communities engaged in environmentally-based prevention…
Environmental social work in the disciplinary literature, 1991–2015
This study provides a scientometric summary of peer-reviewed articles ( N = 497) pertaining to environmental topics in social work journals between 1991 and 2015. We find that theoretical and empirical scholarship on environmental social work is growing, though this growth remains limited to specific geographical regions and topics. We note the need to clarify the relationship between environmental social work as a theoretical paradigm and as a r…
Scales of Value: Insiders and Outsiders in Environmental Organizing in South India
This ethnographic study explores challenges raised by distinctions between insiders and outsiders in community organizing. By examining conflicts between locals and nonlocals collaborating on an Indian environmental justice campaign, this study finds that those engaged in the collaboration had mutually opposed views of the ethical purpose of the campaign. Moreover, the opposition between these two perspectives was integral to how the distinction …
Of Contract and Camaraderie: Thoughts on What Relationships in the Field Could Be
Of Contract and Camaraderie:Thoughts on What Relationships in the Field Could Be John Mathias (bio) Friendship is never a given in the present; it belongs to the experience of waiting, of promise, or of commitment. Its discourse is that of prayer and at issue there is that which responsibility opens to the future. (Derrida 1988, 636) The graduate student members of the Ethnography-as-Activism working group generally agree on the merits of combini…
Environmental social work in the disciplinary literature, 1991–2015
This study provides a scientometric summary of peer-reviewed articles ( N = 497) pertaining to environmental topics in social work journals between 1991 and 2015. We find that theoretical and empirical scholarship on environmental social work is growing, though this growth remains limited to specific geographical regions and topics. We note the need to clarify the relationship between environmental social work as a theoretical paradigm and as a r…
The future of environmental social work: Looking to community initiatives for models of prevention
Social work responses to environmental degradation have sought to mitigate harm that has already occurred and create strategies to respond or adapt to environmental hazards. Despite a good deal of literature suggesting the promise of prevention-focused models, social workers have less frequently considered prevention models to address environmental issues. In this manuscript, we consider how communities engaged in environmentally-based prevention…
Scales of Value: Insiders and Outsiders in Environmental Organizing in South India
This ethnographic study explores challenges raised by distinctions between insiders and outsiders in community organizing. By examining conflicts between locals and nonlocals collaborating on an Indian environmental justice campaign, this study finds that those engaged in the collaboration had mutually opposed views of the ethical purpose of the campaign. Moreover, the opposition between these two perspectives was integral to how the distinction …
Sticky ethics: Environmental activism and the limits of ethical freedom in Kerala, India
Environmental activists in Kerala, India, often contest the boundaries between the ethical and the non-ethical, flouting widely-accepted norms while ethicalizing usually trivial aspects of everyday life. The resulting ambiguity presents an opportunity to explore a problem that has troubled the recent ethical turn in anthropology: how do we know ethics when we see it? Analyzing seemingly ethicalizing moves during an environmental awareness campaig…
The limits of bodies: Gatherings and the problem of collective presence
Modern social collectivities-such as nations, publics, and political movements-depend upon the capacity of media technologies to transcend bodily proximity. The contemporary proliferation of such remote sociality may seem to render physical gatherings superfluous. But at times, people go to great pains to manifest collectivities by assembling bodies in one place. This article explores what we should make of cases in which it is not enough for col…
Of Contract and Camaraderie: Thoughts on What Relationships in the Field Could Be
Of Contract and Camaraderie:Thoughts on What Relationships in the Field Could Be John Mathias (bio) Friendship is never a given in the present; it belongs to the experience of waiting, of promise, or of commitment. Its discourse is that of prayer and at issue there is that which responsibility opens to the future. (Derrida 1988, 636) The graduate student members of the Ethnography-as-Activism working group generally agree on the merits of combini…
Which Environmental Social Work? Environmentalisms, Social Justice, and the Dilemmas Ahead
Social work has traditionally been concerned with the welfare of humans, a mission that some scholars want to expand to include other beings. How can concern for nonhumans and the natural environment best be integrated with the profession’s commitment to social justice? Although commentators have made several proposals, few have critically examined the dilemmas or trade-offs that may await a more expansive social work. Examining such challenges i…
Of Contract and Camaraderie: Thoughts on What Relationships in the Field Could Be
Of Contract and Camaraderie:Thoughts on What Relationships in the Field Could Be John Mathias (bio) Friendship is never a given in the present; it belongs to the experience of waiting, of promise, or of commitment. Its discourse is that of prayer and at issue there is that which responsibility opens to the future. (Derrida 1988, 636) The graduate student members of the Ethnography-as-Activism working group generally agree on the merits of combini…
Scales of Value: Insiders and Outsiders in Environmental Organizing in South India
This ethnographic study explores challenges raised by distinctions between insiders and outsiders in community organizing. By examining conflicts between locals and nonlocals collaborating on an Indian environmental justice campaign, this study finds that those engaged in the collaboration had mutually opposed views of the ethical purpose of the campaign. Moreover, the opposition between these two perspectives was integral to how the distinction …
Environmental social work in the disciplinary literature, 1991–2015
This study provides a scientometric summary of peer-reviewed articles ( N = 497) pertaining to environmental topics in social work journals between 1991 and 2015. We find that theoretical and empirical scholarship on environmental social work is growing, though this growth remains limited to specific geographical regions and topics. We note the need to clarify the relationship between environmental social work as a theoretical paradigm and as a r…
The future of environmental social work: Looking to community initiatives for models of prevention
Social work responses to environmental degradation have sought to mitigate harm that has already occurred and create strategies to respond or adapt to environmental hazards. Despite a good deal of literature suggesting the promise of prevention-focused models, social workers have less frequently considered prevention models to address environmental issues. In this manuscript, we consider how communities engaged in environmentally-based prevention…
Situated Causality: What Ethnography Can Contribute to Causal Inquiry in Social Work
This article considers how ethnography can contribute to developing causal theories relevant to social work practice. Social work researchers typically reserve causal inferences for studies that rely on certain quantitative study designs, and ethnography tends to be seen as insufficient for making causal claims. Integrating data from three ethnographies of social work practice, this article posits that ethnography is particularly well equipped to…
Sticky ethics: Environmental activism and the limits of ethical freedom in Kerala, India
Environmental activists in Kerala, India, often contest the boundaries between the ethical and the non-ethical, flouting widely-accepted norms while ethicalizing usually trivial aspects of everyday life. The resulting ambiguity presents an opportunity to explore a problem that has troubled the recent ethical turn in anthropology: how do we know ethics when we see it? Analyzing seemingly ethicalizing moves during an environmental awareness campaig…
Social work and anthropology: Traversing, trading, and translating across boundaries
What's the problem with disaster? Anthropology, social work, and the qualitative slot
On March 3, 2019, an EF4 tornado devastated the rural Alabama communities of Beauregard and Smith Station, killing 23 people and causing direct injuries to another 97. This storm was unusually devastating, with twice the predicted casualty rate based on the tornado’s power, the impacted population, and impacted housing stock. In this paper, we apply qualitative methods from anthropology, geography, and planning to better understand the social con…
Interrogating culture: Anthropology, social work, and the concept trade
Interdisciplinary contributions to social work have supported the profession’s development as a helping profession. Indeed, drawing from other disciplines has been a way to hone intervention approaches. This article analyzes the history of social work’s use of anthropological theory about “culture” in order to critically examine the profession’s positioning as a “recipient” of theories. At a time when evidence-based practice is a dominant ideal, …
Roles of Nonprofits in Disaster Response and Recovery: Adaptations to Shifting Disaster Patterns in the Context of Climate Change
Nonprofit social service organizations play key roles in disaster response and recovery efforts targeting socially vulnerable populations, particularly in the United States. Increasingly frequent and intense disasters associated with climate change may raise new challenges for nonprofits. Yet little research has explored how changing disaster patterns may impact the roles of nonprofits. With this in mind, we examine the case of Tallahassee, Flori…
The limits of bodies: Gatherings and the problem of collective presence
Modern social collectivities-such as nations, publics, and political movements-depend upon the capacity of media technologies to transcend bodily proximity. The contemporary proliferation of such remote sociality may seem to render physical gatherings superfluous. But at times, people go to great pains to manifest collectivities by assembling bodies in one place. This article explores what we should make of cases in which it is not enough for col…
Which Environmental Social Work? Environmentalisms, Social Justice, and the Dilemmas Ahead
Social work has traditionally been concerned with the welfare of humans, a mission that some scholars want to expand to include other beings. How can concern for nonhumans and the natural environment best be integrated with the profession’s commitment to social justice? Although commentators have made several proposals, few have critically examined the dilemmas or trade-offs that may await a more expansive social work. Examining such challenges i…
Preparing Social Workers to Promote Environmental Justice: An Exploratory Study
To contribute to best practices in educating social work students on environmental justice, we report the results of a study evaluating a module that was incorporated into the course Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE). A mixed-methods design was used to examine student attitudes toward environmental justice. Participants were 61 Master of Social Work students from three cohorts. The students provided pre- and posttest responses to t…
The ABCs of Motives: Toward a Language for the Motion Zeitgeist
Why should we consider an anthropology of motives? Because anthropologists see motion everywhere. The field has focused for decades on describing processes, practices, and action. This “motion zeitgeist” calls our attention to questions about why people act as they do—that is, in Burke's sense, to questions about motive. Motive claims are abundant in anthropological analysis, but they are often implicit, baked into our accounts of motion. Seeking…
Sociology (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Law (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Engineering (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Psychology (4 works)