The sociocultural self-creation of a natural category

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet Strydom
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Active Force ◽  
Cultural Model ◽  
Natural Category ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relational Contexts ◽  
New Time

Following the recent recognition that humans are an active force in nature that gave rise to a new geological epoch, this article explores the implications of the shift to the Anthropocene for social theory. The argument assumes that the emerging conditions compel an expansion and deepening of the timescale of the social-theoretical perspective and that such an enhancement has serious repercussions for the concept of human agency. First, the Anthropocene is conceptualized as a nascent cognitively structured cultural model rather than simply a geological epoch. Second, the vast and deep timescale, in the light of which the new time unit and its generative agency alone make sense, is analysed along with the human world’s objective, sociocultural and subjective axes. Finally, the elements of the concept of agency are recomposed in their temporal and relational contexts. At the reflexive level throughout, the need for social theory to develop a cognitive-theoretical approach in conjunction with a weak naturalistic ontology is suggested.

scholarly journals Love, rights and solidarity: Studying children’s participation using Honneth’s theory of recognition

Childhood ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Children’S Participation ◽  
Children's Participation ◽  
Struggle For Recognition

Recent attempts to theorize children’s participation have drawn on a wide range of ideas, concepts and models from political and social theory. The aim of this article is to explore the specific usefulness of Honneth’s theory of a ‘struggle for recognition’ in thinking about this area of practice. The article identifies what is distinctive about Honneth’s theory of recognition, and how it differs from other theories of recognition. It then considers the relevance of Honneth’s conceptual framework to the social position of children, including those who may be involved in a variety of ‘participatory’ activities. It looks at how useful Honneth’s ideas are in direct engagement with young people’s praxis, drawing on ethnographic research with members of a children and young people’s forum. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of this theoretical approach and the further questions which it opens up for theories of participation and of adult–child relations more generally.

scholarly journals Understanding Corruption in Nigeria: The Social Exchange Perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Israel Dantata Sule
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Power Dependence ◽  
The Social

There are several challenges that confront one who wants to interrogate corruption in Nigeria. One of such challenges is to ascertain the theoretical perspective that is suitable to explain the ubiquitous nature of the phenomenon and hence proffer a remedy. The paper argues that corruption should also be interrogated through the prism of Richard Emerson’s Power-dependence genre of Social Exchange Theoretical Approach. This theory has the capacity to account for the pervasiveness of the phenomenon by locating it within the context of relationships that are determined and underguarded by dependence and the proximity of actors to power in everyday life. The paper further posits en passant that corruption cannot be understood outside these variables in any geo-political clime. The paper concludes that this theoretical approach is relevant and should be adopted to rethink and restructure the strategies to deal with the problem of corruption in Nigeria.

‘Traditional’ Authorities

2018 ◽  
pp. 230-249
Author(s):  
Till Förster ◽  
Lucy Koechlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Authorities ◽  
External Actors ◽  
Governance Arrangements

This contribution explores the role of ‘traditional’ authorities in governance arrangements and how the term ‘tradition’ was used and constructed by local as well as external actors. First, it outlines how tradition was previously discussed and eventually deconstructed in scholarly debates. Second, it looks at how tradition is conceived as an emic notion in the social sciences today, in particular in anthropology and sociology, and how it is used as a legitimizing claim to the past by political actors in areas of limited statehood in West and East Africa. Third, its role in settings of legal pluralism where ‘traditional’ or ‘customary’ norms are recognized parallel to civil law is examined. The fourth section develops a more theoretical perspective on ‘traditional’ authorities and processes of political articulation in governance arrangements. Finally, the contribution concludes by outlining the relevance of this approach for a post-structuralist social theory of governance.

Collective Human Agency in the Context of Organizational Participation

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Georg Weber ◽  
Hans Jeppe Jeppesen
Keyword(s):  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Work Motivation ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Employee Participation ◽  
Ecological Approach ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Participation ◽  
The Social

Abstract. Connecting the social cognitive approach of human agency by Bandura (1997) and activity theory by Leontiev (1978) , this paper proposes a new theoretical framework for analyzing and understanding employee participation in organizational decision-making. Focusing on the social cognitive concepts of self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness, intentionality, and forethought, commonalities, complementarities, and differences between both theories are explained. Efficacy in agency is conceived as a cognitive foundation of work motivation, whereas the mediation of societal requirements and resources through practical activity is conceptualized as an ecological approach to motivation. Additionally, we discuss to which degree collective objectifications can be understood as material indicators of employees’ collective efficacy. By way of example, we explore whether an integrated application of concepts from both theories promotes a clearer understanding of mechanisms connected to the practice of employee participation.

Poverty and Penia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This chapter lays out the theoretical approach for the book and discusses the methodological problems of writing about poverty and the poor in the ancient world. Whilst studying the lives of the poor in the ancient world is to some extent elusive, it argues that historians can do more than simply imagine this group of people back into the gaps left by other evidence. As well as reviewing previous scholarship on poverty in the ancient world, it suggests a way forward which is more in line with contemporary poverty research within the social sciences.

Christ Existing as Community

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Human Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theological Study ◽  
Sanctorum Communio ◽  
The Church

How can theologians recognize the church as a historical and human community, while still holding that it has been established by Christ and is a work of the Spirit? How can a theological account of the church draw insights and concepts from the social sciences, without Christian commitments and claims about the church being undermined or displaced? In 1927, the 21-year-old Dietrich Bonhoeffer defended his licentiate dissertation, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church. This remains his most neglected and misunderstood work. Christ Existing as Community thus retrieves and analyses Bonhoeffer’s engagement with social theory and attempt at ecclesiology. Against standard readings and criticisms of this work, Mawson demonstrates that it contains a rich and nuanced approach to the church, one which displays many of Bonhoeffer’s key influences—especially Luther, Hegel, Troeltsch, and Barth—while being distinctive in its own right. In particular, Mawson argues that Sanctorum Communio’s theology is built around a complex dialectic of creation, sin, and reconciliation. On this basis, he contends that Bonhoeffer’s dissertation has ongoing significance for work in theology and Christian ethics.

Feudal Europe, 800–1300: communal discourse and conflictual practices

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Structural Theory ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Scientific Argument

The discipline of international relations faces a new debate of fundamental significance. After the realist challenge to the pervasive idealism of the interwar years and the social scientific argument against realism in the late 1950s, it is now the turn of critical theorists to dispute the established paradigms of international politics, having been remarkably successful in several other fields of social inquiry. In essence, critical theorists claim that all social reality is subject to historical change, that a normative discourse of understandings and values entails corresponding practices, and that social theory must include interpretation and dialectical critique. In international relations, this approach particularly critiques the ahistorical, scientific, and materialist conceptions offered by neorealists. Traditional realists, by contrast, find a little more sympathy in the eyes of critical theorists because they join them in their rejection of social science and structural theory. With regard to liberal institutionalism, critical theorists are naturally sympathetic to its communitarian component while castigating its utilitarian strand as the accomplice of neorealism. Overall, the advent of critical theory will thus focus the field of international relations on its “interparadigm debate” with neorealism.

scholarly journals The Social Theory of Jacques Maritain

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 155-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Q. Mclnerny ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
The Social
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