Unexpected Properties: Strathern on the Relation of Law and Culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 167-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol J. Greenhouse
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bronislaw Malinowski ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Bronisław Malinowski

This article takes up Marilyn Strathern’s formulation of a law/culture ‘duplex’ – her term for the complementarity of anthropology and law as means to each other’s ends. She draws attention to the limitations of the duplex, and urges us to consider ethnography as (in part) a project of unwinding its entwinement. As a step toward that end, the article returns to classic texts by Emile Durkheim and Bronislaw Malinowski – texts that were foundational to the emergence of anthropology, and to the establishment of law as an object of study for the social sciences. Re-read in light of Strathern’s insight, what has been widely taken as their relativism emerges instead as their defense of political community as a subject for ethnography, and (accordingly) the basis for a theoretical check on law conceived globally – within states or as colonial overrule. The article concludes with a discussion of the contemporary relevance of that position.

The Rhetorical Construction of "the Teacher"

1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Nespor ◽  
Liz Barber
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Harvard Educational Review ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Rhetorical Construction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Textual Strategies

Authors in the field of education inevitably use rhetorical strategies that embody particular,and often implicit, theoretical, epistemological, and political positions. In this article, Jan Nespor and Liz Barber critically examine the rhetorical structure of a 1987 article published in the Harvard Educational Review — Lee S. Shulman's "Knowledge and Teaching:Foundations of the New Reform." The authors examine various textual strategies — such as"the phenomenological hook," "appropriating a constituency," and "moving on" — that Shulman used to construct "the teacher" as an object of study. Through a detailed analysis of this widely cited article, Nespor and Barber address broader issues of representation and power in the social sciences, and conclude with a call for "a more 'critical literacy' among the readers and writers of research texts."

Quale modello di partecipazione per la ricerca sociale? Riflessivitŕ nel rapporto tra ricercatore e attore sociale

2012 ◽  
pp. 127-153
Author(s):  
Silvia Cataldi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social Actor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
The Relationship

The article begins with a brief overview of how the relationship between researcher and object of study has been approached in social sciences. The goal is to reflect further on the process of this study and to raise two essential questions: what kind of relationship develops between the researcher and the social actor? And what kind of participation is required from the social actor? To answer these questions the article proposes identifying four different models of participation, the effects of which are analyzed by rediscovering all the practices that include a particular involvement of the social actor in the research process.

Rationality and social norms

1991 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Elster
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Inertial Forces ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
The Social

One of the most persisting cleavages in the social sciences is the opposition between two lines of thought conveniently associated with Adam Smith and Émile Durkheim, between homo economicus and homo sociologicus. Of these, the former is supposed to be guided by instrumental rationality, while the behavior of the latter is dictated by social norms. The former is ‘pulled’ by the prospect of future rewards, whereas the latter is ‘pushed’ from behind by quasi-inertial forces (Gambetta 1987). The former adapts to changing circumstances, always on the lookout for improvements. The latter is insensitive to circumstances, adhering to the prescribed behavior even if new and apparently better options become available. The former is easily caricatured as a self-contained, asocial atom, and the latter as the mindless plaything of social forces. In this paper I characterize this contrast more fully, and discuss attempts to reduce norm-oriented action to some type of optimizing behavior.

scholarly journals Quilombolas e a hidrelétrica de Castelhano: análise antropológica e jurídica do caso de Riacho dos Negros

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Sueli Rodrigues ◽  
Janine Carvalho Moura ◽  
Mateus Braga Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Bronislaw Malinowski ◽  
Bronisław Malinowski

Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar uma visão sócio-jurídica e antropológica acerca da ideologia desenvolvimentista adotada pelo governo do estado do Piauí, que tem violado e/ou ameaçado direitos humanos fundamentais de povos tradicionais e quilombolas. Para isso, será feita análise do caso da implantação do Aproveitamento Hidrelétrico Castelhano à luz dos estudos de importantes sociólogos e antropólogos, abordando a crítica ao etnocentrismo de Bronislaw Malinowski (2003), as teorias evolucionistas de Émile Durkheim (1984) e Max Weber (1999) e considerações de Norbert Rouland (2004) a respeito dos direitos das minorias e dos povos autóctones. Além disso, propõe-se uma reflexão acerca dos riscos inerentes à sociedade moderna na visão de Ulrich Beck (1997) e Jürgen Habermas (2003).

scholarly journals Future Anticipation in Sociology

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 333-341
Author(s):  
Carlos Miguel Ferreira ◽  
Sandro Serpa
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
The Future ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Scientific Fields

The ability to make forecasts about events is a goal favored by the so-called exact sciences. In sociology and other social sciences, the forecast, although often sought after, is not likely to be realized unconditionally. This article seeks to problematize and discuss the connection between sociology and forecast. The object of study of sociology has particular features that distinguish it from other scientific fields, namely facts and social situations, which deal with trends; the systems of belief of social scientists and policymakers that can influence the attempt to anticipate the future; the dissemination of information and knowledge produced by sociology and other social sciences, which have the potential to change reality and, consequently, to call into question their capacity for the social forecast. These principles pose challenges to sociology’s heuristic potentials, making the reflection on these challenges indispensable in the scientific approach to social processes.

Philosophy of Social Sciences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Elster
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Holistic Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Causal Laws

This chapter addresses problems and themes in the social sciences. Social sciences are understood specifically as sciences that have (or should have) the following minimal characteristics: their object of study is human behavior and they follow a certain number of methodological principles, including a marked effort towards analytical clarity; the investigation of causal explanations through the formulation of causal laws or at least causal mechanisms; and a subscription to a form of methodological individualism, if an amended one, which puts at the heart of social science the notion of choice. We discuss three principal themes. The first raises the question of the status of laws in the social sciences and, in particular, that of “consequence laws,” otherwise known as functionalist explanations. The second theme takes up methodological individualism, as compared to holistic approaches. The last theme concerns hypotheses of rationality and self-interested motivations, which increasingly figure in social scientific explanations.

European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAKOB V. H. HOLTERMANN ◽  
MIKAEL RASK MADSEN
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Law ◽  
Complex Analysis ◽  
Sociology Of Law ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Domestic Law

AbstractInternational law remains in many ways a challenge to legal science. As in domestic law, the available options appear to be exhausted by either internal doctrinal approaches, or external approaches applying more general empirical methods from the social sciences. This article claims that, while these major positions obviously provide interesting insights, none of them manage to make international law intelligible in a broader sense. Instead, it argues for a European New Legal Realist approach to international law accommodating the so-called external and internal dimensions of law in a single more complex analysis which takes legal validity seriously but as a genuinely empirical object of study. This article constructs this position by identifying a distinctively European realist path which takes as its primary inspirations Weberian sociology of law and Alf Ross’ Scandinavian Legal Realism and combines them with insights originating from Bourdieusian sociology of law.

scholarly journals “Text-as-Means” versus “Text-as-End-in-Itself”

Transfers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-84
Author(s):  
Lynne Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
English Studies ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Textual Practice ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Insight Into

This article explores three reasons why literary scholars have been slow to engage with both the New Mobilities Paradigm and the New Mobilities Studies promoted by Transfers, namely: (1) the residual conservatism of “English studies”; (2) the sort of textual practice associated with “literary criticism” (where the text remains the primary object of study); and (3), the tension between the humanist and/or “subject-centered” nature of most literary scholarship and the posthumanist approaches of mobilities scholars based in the social sciences and other humanities subjects. However, the close reading of literary and other texts has much to contribute to mobilities studies including insight into the temporalities—both personal and social—that shape our long-term understanding of contemporary events such as the current pandemic.

scholarly journals Navegando por las corrientes culturales y sus diques

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 67-98
Author(s):  
Silvia Citro
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Mircea Eliade ◽  
Bronislaw Malinowski ◽  
Rudolf Otto ◽  
Bronisław Malinowski

En este trabajo exploro las semejanzas entre los sacerdotes del Movimiento de Renovación Carismática en el Espíritu Santo y sus rituales con los agentes de la magia y los ritos que les son propios, es decir, los magos. Aunque la magia ha sido abordada ampliamente por los padres fundadores de la antropología y la sociología, me apoyo preferentemente en los planteamientos que al respecto hacen Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss y Max Weber. Asimismo, tomo los aportes de de Mircea Eliade, James Frazer, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Bronislaw Malinowski, Rudolf Otto, entre otros.

scholarly journals Redefining the Sociological Paradigm: Emile Durkheim and the Scientific Study of Morality

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-34
Author(s):  
Robert Prus
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Educational Thought ◽  
The Social

Whereas Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) has long been envisioned as a structuralist, quantitative, and positivist sociologist, some materials that Durkheim produced in the later stages of his career—namely, Moral Education (1961 [1902-1903]), The Evolution of Educational Thought (1977 [1904-1905]), The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915 [1912]), and Pragmatism and Sociology (1983 [1913-1914]) attest to a very different conception of sociology—one with particular relevance to the study of human knowing, acting, and interchange. Although scarcely known in the social sciences, Emile Durkheim’s (1993 [1887]) “La Science Positive de la Morale en Allemagne” [“The Scientific Study of Morality in Germany”] is an exceptionally important statement for establishing the base of much of Durkheim’s subsequent social thought and for comprehending the field of sociology more generally. This includes the structuralist-pragmatist divide and the more distinctively humanist approach to the study of community life that Durkheim most visibly develops later (1961 [1902-1903]; 1977 [1904-1905]; 1915 [1912]; 1983 [1913-1914]) in his career.

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