Boredom, "trouble," and the realities of postcolonial reservation life
Boredom, "trouble," and the realities of postcolonial reservation life
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DOI：
10.1525/eth.2003.31.1.38
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发表时间：
2003-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
Manson, SM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jervis, LL;Spicer, P;Manson, SM
也许是因为它被认为是一种无关紧要的情绪，无聊在人类社交生活中的重要性经常被最小化，如果不是被忽视的话。从理论上讲，无聊与现代性、富裕以及填补“闲暇时间”这一日益严重的问题有关。它还被归因于个人主义的扩张，以及对个人满足感的更高期望。无论是对刺激不足或“超负荷”感觉的反应，无聊似乎归根结底是一个意义问题。在这篇文章中，我们考虑了这些概念在当代美国印第安人保留地环境中的适用性，考察了对北部平原部落成员的采访中所表达的关于无聊的话语。特别令人感兴趣的是无聊如何成为“麻烦”现象(例如，酗酒和吸毒、暴力和非法活动)。虽然无聊对当代美国社会的各个阶层来说都很熟悉--而且可以说是作为人的意义的一部分--但我们认为，后殖民保留生活的现实为这种情况提供了一个特别肥沃和缺乏理论性的滋生场所，我们对无聊和麻烦之间关系的研究表明，无聊对个人主体性和群体社会性的影响远非微不足道。
Perhaps because of its reputation as an inconsequential emotion, the significance of boredom in human social life has often been minimized if not ignored. Boredom has been theoretically linked to modernity, affluence, and the growing problem of filling "leisure time." It has also been attributed to the expansion of individualism with its heightened expectations of personal gratification. Whether a reaction to the sensation of understimulation or "overload," boredom appears to be, ultimately, a problem of meaning. In this article, we consider the applicability of these notions to the contemporary American Indian reservation context, examining discourse about boredom as expressed in interviews with members of a northern plains tribe. Of special interest is how boredom figures into the phenomenon of "trouble" (e.g., alcohol and drug abuse, violence, and illegal activities). Although boredom is certainly familiar to various strata of contemporary U.S. society-and arguably part of what it means to be human-we propose that the realities of postcolonial reservation life provide an especially fertile and undertheorized breeding ground for this condition, and our examination of the relationship between boredom and trouble suggests that boredom's implications for both individual subjectivity and group sociality are far from trivial.