‘Sod off and Find Us a Boffin’: Journalists and the Social Science Conference

1997 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Fenton ◽  
Alan Bryman ◽  
David Deacon ◽  
Peter Birmingham
Keyword(s):  
Social Scientists ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Scientific Organizations ◽  
Academic Conference ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Science Conference ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Relationship

Social scientists perform a multi-functional role as researcher, teacher and expert. The academic conference provides an opportunity for all these roles to be engaged and as such is a political and social site where meaning is debated and new research born. The conference is also attractive to journalists as news fodder. This article considers the relationship between journalists and social scientific organizations in the context of a professional conference and seeks to explain the tensions that exist. It concludes that the two cultures of journalist and academic are in conflict where they converge.

Theories of Urbanization and the Colonial City in West Africa

Africa ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Rayfield
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Development ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
African Cities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
New Models ◽  
Process Of Urbanization ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Relationship

Opening ParagraphThe main purpose of this paper is to show how recent research into the process of urbanization in Africa and into the structure of African cities and nations compels us to rethink our theories of urbanization in general.The relationship between theory and research is a reciprocal one. New research compels the creation of new models, and new models suggest new subjects and methods of research. But both theory and research are affected by politics in the broadest sense of the term. Many African scholars consider the study of modern Africa by Westerners an extension of economic and political colonialism, especially when African cities are studied in terms of Western models. And many African governments, aware of the social problems involved in urbanization, seriously study the work of both African and non-African social scientists. The period since 1960 has been one of rapid development in the study of urbanization in Africa and the rest of the world, and the African material should throw new light on general theories of urbanization.

Can Law Learn from Social Science?

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 205-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nelken
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Political Critique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Styles Of Reasoning

In this paper I shall be discussing a fundamental problem in the relationship between law and the social sciences. Many social scientists have pointed out that the “pull of the policy audience” in legislative and administrative exercises and the confines of practical decision-making in legal settings can compromise the proper development of academic social science and blunt the edge of political critique. The danger is real enough. But they have given insufficient attention to the opposite concern which will be my topic in this article. Here the charge is that the introduction of social scientific styles of reasoning can have ill effects for legal practice by threatening the integrity of legal processes and the values they embody. How can social scientists be sure that they have properly understood the nature of law or the meaning and point of the legal rules, procedures, and institutions which they attempt to analyze and seek to improve? What warrant can they have that social scientific interpretation, at any level, does not end up creating law in its own image? If this is a genuine risk, what implications follow for the way law should learn from social science? I shall argue that there are no easy answers to these questions even, or especially, where law apparently welcomes contributions from social science.

scholarly journals A Sociology of Foreign Aid and the World Society

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Swiss
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
World Society ◽  
World Society Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
New Research ◽  
Society Research

This article highlights an emerging research agenda for the study of foreign aid through a World Society theory lens. First, it briefly summarizes the social scientific literature on aid and sociologists' earlier contributions to this research. Next, it reviews the contours of world society research and the place of aid within this body of literature. Finally, it outlines three emergent threads of research on foreign aid that comprise a new research agenda for the sociology of foreign aid and its role in world society globalization.

Imagination and Art

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the role of imagination and the arts in helping social scientists to theorize well. However deep one's basic knowledge of social theory is, and however many concepts, mechanisms, and theories one knows, unless this knowledge is used in an imaginative way, the result will be dull and noncreative. A good research topic should among other things operate as an analogon—that is, it should be able to set off the theoretical imagination of the social scientist. Then, when a social scientist writes, he or she may want to write in such a way that the reader's theoretical imagination is stirred. Besides imagination, the chapter also discusses the relationship of social theory to art. There are a number of reason for this, including the fact that in modern society, art is perceived as the height of imagination and creativity.

The Walkthrough Method

2022 ◽  
pp. 461-486
Author(s):  
Michela Cavagnuolo ◽  
Viviana Capozza ◽  
Alfredo Matrella
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Research

Nowadays the social scientists are called to integrate within their studies new tools that modify and innovate the scientist's typical toolbox. Digital platforms, media, and especially apps pose further challenges to social scientists today, as they are an important place of significant socio-cultural, economic, health, relationships, and entertainment transformations. When studying digital technologies, in fact, it's important to pay attention to both their socio-cultural representations and technological aspects – since even design and data outputs have social and cultural influences. In this context, new research questions arise; among all the possible tools in the digital method toolbox, the walkthrough method is a noteworthy way to answer them. Starting from these considerations, this chapter aims to analyze, through a review of the literature, the birth and development of the walkthrough method in its various meanings to identify the innovative aspects and fields of application.

scholarly journals What Do ‘We’ Know That ‘They’ Don’t? Sociologists’ versus Non-Sociologists’ Knowledge

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Mesny
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Public Sociology ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Embedded Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Policy ◽  
The Relationship

This paper attempts to clarify or to reposition some of the controversies generated by Burawoy’s defense of public sociology and by his vision of the mutually stimulating relationship between the different forms of sociology. Before arguing if, why, and how, sociology should or could be more ‘public’, it might be useful to reflect upon what it is we think we, as sociologists, know that ‘lay people’ do not. This paper thus explores the public sociology debate’s epistemological core, namely the issue of the relationship between sociologists’ and non-sociologists’ knowledge of the social world. Four positions regarding the status of sociologists’ knowledge versus lay people’s knowledge are explored: superiority (sociologists’ knowledge of the social world is more accurate, objective and reflexive than lay people’s knowledge, thanks to science’s methods and norms), homology (when they are made explicit, lay theories about the social world often parallel social scientists’ theories), complementarity (lay people’s and social scientists’ knowledge complement one another. The former’s local, embedded knowledge is essential to the latter’s general, disembedded knowledge), and circularity (sociologists’ knowledge continuously infuses commonsensical knowledge, and scientific knowledge about the social world is itself rooted in common sense knowledge. Each form of knowledge feeds the other). For each of these positions, implications are drawn regarding the terms, possibilities and conditions of a dialogue between sociologists and their publics, especially if we are to take the circularity thesis seriously. Conclusions point to the accountability we face towards the people we study, and to the idea that sociology is always performative, a point that has, to some extent, been obscured by Burawoy’s distinctions between professional, critical, policy and public sociologies.

Social scientific inquiry and meta-theoretical fantasy: the case of International Relations

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1447-1469 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN G. GUNNELL
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe turn to the philosophy of scientific realism as a meta-theory for the study of International Relations manifests a reluctance to confront the basic problem of the relationship between philosophy and social scientific inquiry. Despite the realists' rejection of traditional empiricism, and particularly the instrumentalist account of scientific theory, the enthusiasm for realism neglects many of the same problems that, more than a generation earlier, were involved in the social scientific embrace of positivism. One of these problems was a lack of understanding regarding the character and history of the philosophy of natural science and its relationship and applicability to the study of social phenomena. Proponents of realism have also neither adequately articulated and defended realism as a philosophical position, and distinguished it from other perspectives, nor confronted the fundamental challenge to realism and other foundationalist philosophies which has been mounted by the contemporary critique of traditional representational philosophy.

scholarly journals Die relasie tussen grondbesit en die sosiale struktuur van Palestina in die Herodiaanse tyd

2003 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
G.J. Volschenk
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Scientific Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Land Tenancy ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between land tenancy and social struc-ture of Palestine in the Herodian eraThe article describes the relationship between land tenancy and social structure of Palestine. Secondly it describes the conflicting percep-tions of land tenancy within the social structure of Palestine. The conflicting perceptions of land tenancy led to conflict between the elite and the peasants. This conflict was intensified by the hierarchical social structure of Palestine. The article concludes that the use of the social scientific model of the social structure of Palestine prevents anachronism and reductionism in the interpretation of biblical evidence regarding land tenancy.

scholarly journals Conceptual frameworks for social and cultural Big Data analytics: Answering the epistemological challenge

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395171882381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Resnyansky
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Epistemological Challenge ◽  
Social Scientific

This paper aims to contribute to the development of tools to support an analysis of Big Data as manifestations of social processes and human behaviour. Such a task demands both an understanding of the epistemological challenge posed by the Big Data phenomenon and a critical assessment of the offers and promises coming from the area of Big Data analytics. This paper draws upon the critical social and data scientists’ view on Big Data as an epistemological challenge that stems not only from the sheer volume of digital data but, predominantly, from the proliferation of the narrow-technological and the positivist views on data. Adoption of the social-scientific epistemological stance presupposes that digital data was conceptualised as manifestations of the social. In order to answer the epistemological challenge, social scientists need to extend the repertoire of social scientific theories and conceptual frameworks that may inform the analysis of the social in the age of Big Data. However, an ‘epistemological revolution’ discourse on Big Data may hinder the integration of the social scientific knowledge into the Big Data analytics.

scholarly journals Rejecting the conflict narrative: American Jewish and Muslim views on science and religion

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Vaidyanathan ◽  
David R Johnson ◽  
Pamela J Prickett ◽  
Elaine Howard Ecklund
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Orthodox Jewish ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Social Scientific Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship

Sociological research on the US population’s views of science and religion has recently burgeoned, but focuses primarily on Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Our study advances understandings of how Americans of non-Christian faiths – namely Judaism and Islam – perceive the relationship between science and religion. We draw on in-depth interviews (N=92) conducted in Orthodox Jewish, Reform Jewish, and Sunni Muslim congregations in two major cities to elucidate how respondents’ respective traditions help them frame the relationship between science and religion. Findings demonstrate that members of these religious communities distance themselves from the pervasive conflict narrative. They rely on religious texts and historical traditions to instead articulate relationships of compatibility and independence between science and religion, while developing strategies to negotiate conflict around delimited issues. Findings push the social scientific study of religion and science beyond a specifically Christian and conflict-oriented focus.

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