scholarly journals From sociology to social theory: Critical cosmopolitanism, modernity, and post-universalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 758-775
Author(s):  
Estevão Bosco ◽  
Neal Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
Alternative Programs ◽  
The Social ◽  
Epistemological Challenge

This article focuses on the critical cosmopolitan aim of transcending sociology’s provincial outlook, which mistakenly universalizes Western societies’ historical experiences and normative aspirations. The authors argue that a change in perspective, from sociology to social theory, is crucial in this regard. While a sociological inflection carries a primary investment in the analysis of changes cosmopolitanism brings to the social world, social theory addresses the ontological and epistemological features that these changes precipitate. To demonstrate this, the authors offer a condensed reconstruction of critical cosmopolitan sociology, presenting Beck’s foundational formulation, outlining three main criticisms it faces and alternative programs stemming from them, and demonstrating how Delanty’s immanent-transcendent approach overcomes these limitations. To conclude, the authors address a crucial onto-epistemological challenge facing contemporary cosmopolitan scholarship, namely, how to mediate between the particular and the universal.

scholarly journals Recovering critique in an age of datafication

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1135-1151
Author(s):  
Nick Couldry
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Questions

This article starts out from the need for critical work on processes of datafication and their consequences for the constitution of social knowledge and the social world. Current social science work on datafication has been greatly shaped by the theoretical approach of Bruno Latour, as reflected in the work of Actor Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies (ANT/STS). The article asks whether this approach, given its philosophical underpinnings, provides sufficient resources for the critical work that is required in relation to datafication. Drawing on Latour’s own reflections about the flatness of the social, it concludes that it does not, since key questions, in particular about the nature of social order cannot be asked or answered within ANT. In the article’s final section, three approaches from earlier social theory are considered as possible supplements to ANT/STS for a social science serious about addressing the challenges that datafication poses for society.

scholarly journals The Conference Reimagined. Postcards, Letters, and Camping Together in Undressed Places

Digithum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soile Veijola ◽  
Emily Höckert ◽  
David Carlin ◽  
Ann Light ◽  
Janne Säynäjäkangas
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social World ◽  
Meeting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Moment

In this paper, five authors account for the rethinking of a conference as a series of postcards, letters, rules and silent moments so that traditional hierarchies of knowledge could be overturned or, at least, sidelined. We recount how the place we convened was enlisted as an actor and the dramas and devices we applied to encounter it. We use this accounting to problematize the conventional practices of goal-oriented meetings and co-authored papers as forms of academic meaning-making. In finding a meeting point where expertise was disorientated and status undressed, we were able to investigate the idea of co-being between human and nonhuman realities as the step social theory needs to take to become a point of connection with the social world, instead of an escape from it. We conclude that this involved silence and necessary fictions as a means to consider the future and past in the moment of meeting.

scholarly journals Fiction and Social Theory: E-Special Introduction

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 409-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Beer
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Social

This E-Special issue brings together a range of articles from the Theory, Culture, & Society archive that directly explore the relations between fiction and social theory. Each article develops a different perspective on these relations, yet they all share a common interest in probing at the different ways in which fiction might enrich and provoke our conceptual imaginations. These articles ask how theory might be used to understand or illuminate fiction, whilst also considering how theory might be extended, challenged or informed by fictional resources. In general terms, the articles take three types of overlapping approach. First, there are those that use fiction to extend the imagination of social theory. Second are the articles that use fiction as a documentary resource and platform for theorizing. And, finally, there are those articles that use theory to reanimate and re-examine fictional forms. In exploring these three intersecting branches the pieces illustrate the different ways in which fiction and social theory might interweave in our thinking. The articles gathered here provide frameworks, ideas and resources through which the reader might continue to think imaginatively and creatively about the social world.

7. Social Constructivism

2021 ◽  
pp. 191-219
Author(s):  
Georg Sørensen ◽  
Jørgen Møller ◽  
Robert Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
International Society ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Social World ◽  
Constructivist Theory ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
European Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Important Approach ◽  
Social Constructivist Theory

This chapter examines the social constructivist theory of IR. It first discusses the rise of social constructivism and why it has established itself as an important approach in IR. It then considers constructivism as social theory, and more specifically as both a meta-theory about the nature of the social world and as a set of substantial theories of IR. Several examples of constructivist IR theory are presented, followed by reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the constructivist approach. The chapter proceeds by exploring constructivist theories of international relations, focusing on cultures of anarchy, norms of International Society, the power of international organizations, a constructivist approach to European cooperation, and domestic formation of identity and norms. The chapter concludes with an analysis of some of the major criticisms of constructivism and by emphasizing internal debates within constructivism.

8. Social Constructivism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jackson ◽  
Georg Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Social World ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
European Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Important Approach ◽  
Social Constructivist Theory

This chapter examines the social constructivist theory of International Political Economy (IPE). It first discusses the rise of social constructivism and why it has established itself as an important approach in IR. It then considers constructivism as social theory, and more specifically as both a meta-theory about the nature of the social world and a substantial theory of IR. Several examples of constructivist IR theory are presented, followed by reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the constructivist approach. The chapter proceeds by exploring constructivist theories of international relations, focusing on cultures of anarchy, norms of International Society, the power of international organizations, a constructivist approach to European cooperation, and domestic formation of identity and norms. The chapter concludes with an analysis of some of the major criticisms of constructivism and an overview of the constructivist research programme.

Living Theory

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 188-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Herring ◽  
Manuel Rosaldo ◽  
Josh Seim ◽  
Benjamin Shestakofsky
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Sociology Departments ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Living Theory ◽  
Survey Approach

This article details the principles and practices animating an “ethnographic” method of teaching social theory. As opposed to the traditional “survey” approach that aims to introduce students to the historical breadth of social thought, the primary objective of teaching ethnographically is to cultivate students as participant observers who interpret, adjudicate between, and practice social theories in their everyday lives. Three pedagogical principles are central to this approach, the first laying the groundwork for the two that follow: (1) intensive engagement with manageable portions of text, (2) conversations among theorists, and (3) dialogues between theory and lived experience. Drawing on examples from our experiences as graduate student instructors for a two-semester theory sequence, we offer practical guideposts to sociology instructors interested in integrating “living theory” into their own curricula by clarifying how each principle is put into action in course assignments, classroom discussions and activities, and evaluations of student learning. We conclude by encouraging sociology departments and instructors to consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of offering social theory courses built around in-depth readings of and conversations between social theorists and the social world.

scholarly journals The nurses of the Brazilian expeditionary force and the dissemination of their return home

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1050-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Barbosa de Oliveira ◽  
Tânia Cristina Franco Santos ◽  
Ieda de Alencar Barreira ◽  
Antonio José de Almeida Filho
Keyword(s):  
Health Service ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Study ◽  
Social World ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Return Home

This historical-social study aimed to examine the symbolic elements that express the hierarchizing division between the male and female, contained in newspaper reports published about the return home of the nurses who worked in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force's Health Service, and to discuss the symbolic effects these reports produced. The historical sources of the study, consisting of photographic, written and oral documents, were classified and analyzed in the light of Pierre Bourdieu's Social Theory and Michelle Perrot's studies on Women's History. The research revealed that the way the news reports about the arrival of these nurses to Brazil were disseminated represented the reproduction of a symbolic strategy to enforce political and social interests in force, and that contained the ideas about the hierarchizing division of the social world into male and female.

scholarly journals The intersection between systems theory and grounded theory: the emergence of the grounded systems observer

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Barry Gibson ◽  
Jane Gregory ◽  
Peter G Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Systems Methodology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

The aim of this paper is to outline how a theoretical intersection between systems theory and grounded theory could be articulated. The paper proceeds by marking that the important difference between systems theory and grounded theory is primarily reflected in the distinction between a revision of social theory on the one hand and the generation of theory for the social world on the other. It then explores figures of thought in philosophy that relate closely to aspects of Luhmann’s theory of social systems. An effectual intersection, an operational intersection, an intersection based on the concept of primary redundancy and a global/transcendental intersection between systems theory and grounded theory are proposed. The paper then goes on to briefly outline several methodological consequences of the intersection for a grounded systems methodology. It concludes by discussing the sort of knowledge for the social world that is likely to emerge from this mode of observation.

Feminist Social Theory Needs Time. Reflections on the Relation between Feminist Thought, Social Theory and Time as an Important Parameter in Social Analysis

1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Adam
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social World ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This paper explores the relation between feminist concerns, social theory and the multiple time aspects of social life. It is suggested that while feminist approaches have been located in classical political philosophy, the same imposed classification has not occurred with respect to social theory perspectives. Rather than seeing this as an academic gap that needs filling, it was taken as an opportunity to take note of the wide variety of feminist approaches to methodological and theoretical issues and to relate these to concerns arising from a focus on the time, temporality, and timing of social life. It is argued that a feminist social theory, as an understanding of the social world through the eyes of women, is not only complemented by such a focus on time but dependent on it for an opportunity to transcend the pervasive vision of the ‘founding fathers’.

Media and the Social Construction of Reality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Couldry ◽  
Andreas Hepp
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Data Extraction ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Construction Of Reality ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Phenomenological Sociology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

In this chapter, the authors argue that a phenomenological approach to sociology only can be preserved if a version of sociology is developed that takes seriously the existence of media and the entanglement of digital media technologies and interfaces in every aspect of daily life. That means, in turn, taking seriously the roles that data extraction and data processing play in both the operations of digital media and the production of what counts as knowledge of the social world. If so, then some adjustments to other key assumptions must be made, for example about the social world’s transparency. But those adjustments are worth making in order to preserve the project of phenomenological sociology, which still has much to contribute to a sense of the tensions at work in the social world and its forms of knowledge. To outline this, the authors first discuss the consequences of a mediated life for social theory, then reflect on how digital media and data changed processes of the mediated construction reality, and finally introduce “deep mediatization” as a “sensitizing concept” for such an analysis.

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