{"id":46977,"date":"2012-06-18T11:30:58","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T16:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=46977"},"modified":"2015-09-19T23:00:49","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T04:00:49","slug":"is-it-possible-to-go-off-the-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/06\/18\/is-it-possible-to-go-off-the-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it Possible to Go “Off the Grid”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Sociology of Gender textbook<\/a>, I spend a chapter discussing the idea of institutions. \u00a0I define the term as “persistent patterns of social interaction aimed at meeting the needs of a society that can’t easily be met by individuals alone.” \u00a0These needs \u00a0include educating the next generation, providing health care, ensuring safety, and enabling efficient transportation. \u00a0These things are done better and more efficiently if we all chip in and put together a system.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is interesting about institutions from a sociological perspective is that, once they’re in place, it is essentially impossible to opt out. \u00a0You can choose not to buy a car, for example, but the government is still going to spend your tax dollars on highway infrastructure. \u00a0You can amass as much medical knowledge and experience as you like, but you’ll still be a criminal if you practice medicine without a\u00a0licence. \u00a0You can believe the government is corrupt and stay home on voting day, but Congress is still going to pass legislation to which you will be held accountable.<\/p>\n

You get the picture.<\/p>\n

In any case, I thought of this when I came across the striking photography of Eric Valli<\/a>. \u00a0Valli seems to specialize in capturing the lives of people living very close to the earth. \u00a0In one series, he follows a group of individuals who have decided to live “off the grid.” \u00a0That is, they’ve “unplugged” from the social institutions that sustain us.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0photographs<\/a>\u00a0reveal people who are committed to being off the grid. It’s no joke. \u00a0And, yet, as I scrolled through them, I couldn’t help to notice how many trappings of the rest of the world were part and parcel of their lives (canoes, coats, oil lamps, cooking and eating utensils, halters, firearms, hot sauce, etc).<\/p>\n

I’m not questioning, at all, whether or not these people are off the grid. They certainly appear to be. \u00a0But it is interesting to notice how much of the grid is still a part of their lives.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Sociology of Gender textbook, I spend a chapter discussing the idea of institutions. \u00a0I define the term as “persistent patterns of social interaction aimed at meeting the needs of a society that can’t easily be met by individuals alone.” \u00a0These needs \u00a0include educating the next generation, providing health care, ensuring safety, and enabling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,229,15,2123,2104,8118,3504],"class_list":["post-46977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-consumption","tag-culture","tag-environmentnature","tag-knowledgeintelligence","tag-organizationsinstitutions","tag-social-structure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46977"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67894,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46977\/revisions\/67894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}