scholarly journals Critical Social Analysis of Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-37
Author(s):  
Felipe Ziotti Narita ◽  
Jeremiah Morelock
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Critical Social

In this article, we offer a critical social analysis of crisis in light of capitalist development and, above all, in the post-2008 world. We discuss five approaches in the social sciences that deal with the problem of crisis and develop some theore­tical lines for a critical approach to the theme. We argue that precarity can be an important topic for grasping the current crises via critical approaches. The text also presents the six articles that are part of the issue we edited for Praktyka Teoretyczna entitled “Latency of the crisis.”

Basic Christian Communities: Their Social Role and Missiological Promise

1987 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Curt Cadorette
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Social

This article discusses the social dynamics of basic Christian communities using insights derived from the social sciences. Drawing from critical social theory, the author first analyzes the ideological forces at play among marginalized people. He then discusses how these oppressive forces can be and are overcome by the community of committed Christians. Underlying the discussion is the assumption that contemporary social analysis has much to offer our understanding of ecclesial communities and that the lived faith of poor Christians provides a dynamic model of resistance to oppression which must likewise be taken into account by committed social theorists.

Urban Literature: A User’s Guide

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-805
Author(s):  
Carlo Rotella
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literary Imagination ◽  
Urban Literature ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Urbanization Development ◽  
Sister Carrie ◽  
The City

This article addresses urbanists in various fields—history, the social sciences, planning, and more—who are interested in incorporating literary works into their teaching and research and may be looking for critical approaches that connect such work to their own expertise. It begins from the premise that the traits that make a city a city present writers with opportunities to tell stories, experiment with form, make meaning, and otherwise exercise the literary imagination. When we use “urban literature” as a category of analysis, when we try to identify relationships between cities and the writing produced in and about them, we are asserting that this writing takes shape around confronting the city as a formal, social, and conceptual challenge. This article explores examples of texts ranging from Sister Carrie to I Am Legend and beyond that engage signature urban processes such as urbanization, development, and the dense overlap of orders.

Relations, Human and Non-human

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-135
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter argues for an extension of how we think relationally via relational cosmology. It places relational cosmology in a conversation with varied relational perspectives in critical social theory and argues that specific kinds of extensions and dialogues emerge from this perspective. In particular, a conversation on how to think relationality without fixing its meaning is advanced. This chapter also discusses in detail how to extend beyond discussion of ‘human’ relationalities towards comprehending the wider ‘mesh’ of relations that matter but are hard to capture for situated knowers in the social sciences and IR. This key chapter seeks to provide the basis for a translation between relational cosmology, critical social theory, critical humanism and International Relations theory.

Stretching Situated Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Standpoint Epistemology ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter, first of three to develop relational cosmology in conversation with critical social theory and IR theory, argues that at the heart of relational cosmology lies a commitment to situated knowledge. This perspective on knowledge production is similar in some regards to standpoint epistemology but also diverges from it in key respects. The chapter argues that IR scholarship can benefit from close engagement with relational cosmology suggestions as to how our knowledge is limited and how we might need to ‘deal with it’, especially in the social sciences, where there is a tendency to glorify the role of the human in knowing the human.

Faulty ‘tools’? Why social work scholarship needs to take a more critical approach to Michel Foucault

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Michael Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Micro Level

Summary Having outlined Foucault’s articulation of power and governmentality, the article critically explores attempts to translate the philosopher’s theorisation into social work. Findings After briefly referring to Jacques Donzelot’s work and that of other writers, it is argued that Foucault’s conceptual ‘tools’ are problematic for those seeking to promote critical approaches within the field of social work. Those influenced by Foucault’s complex contributions may amplify a defective understanding of power which unduly emphasises ‘soft’ power and neglects the continuing significance of hierarchical and coercive power. This is reflected in Foucault’s analysis of the state and, at a micro level, his remarks on sexualised interactions involving adults and children. Efforts to ‘apply’ Foucauldian reasoning within social work may also risk promoting politically passive forms of theory and practice. Applications Contributing to the discipline’s literature on Foucault, the article maintains the social work scholarship has much to gain by engaging with work, but this engagement might aspire to become more critical.

Critical Approaches to Qualitative Research

2014 ◽  
pp. 164-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kum-Kum Bhavnani ◽  
Peter Chua ◽  
Dana Collins
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Situated Knowledges ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter reflects on critical strategies in qualitative research. It examines the meanings and debates associated with the term “critical,” in particular, contrasting liberal and dialectical notions and practices in relation to social analysis and qualitative research. The chapter also explores how critical social research may be synonymous with critical ethnography in relation to issues of power, positionality, representation, and the production of situated knowledges. It uses Bhavnani’s framework to draw on Dana Collins’ research as a specific case to suggest how the notion of the “critical” relates to ethnographic research practices: ensuring feminist and queer accountability, resisting reinscription, and integrating lived experience.

Les disciplines herméneutiques et la théorie critique sont-elles des formes de la rationalité scientifique?

Dialogue ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-326
Author(s):  
Stéphane Courtois
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Theory Of Communicative Action ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
First Time ◽  
Critical Social

AbstractThe general aim of this paper is to question the idea that hermeneutic and critical social sciences have to be conceived as specific embodiments of the scientific enterprise. This idea is rather implicit in Habermas's work, but has its grounds in his thesis about the argumentative unity of all sciences, upheld for the first time in 1973. Such a point of view turns out to be untenable for two reasons. First, the indiscriminating inclusion of the hermeneutic and critical social sciences in scientific enterprise raises problems of consistency with regard to the systematic guidelines of The Theory of Communicative Action. Moreover, the thesis of argumentative unity of the sciences itself is incompatible with Habermas's methodological conception of the role of Verstehen in the social sciences developed in section 1.4 of the book. Finally, the author argues that this conception calls for another understanding of the status and role of the hermeneutic and critical disciplines, which is outlined in some detail.

scholarly journals Political praxis, social analysis and western modernization: a theoretical-political route for critical social theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-173
Author(s):  
Leno Francisco Danner ◽  
Fernando Danner
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Erich Fromm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Praxis ◽  
Critical Social

This paper criticizes the emphasis placed by contemporary social theory and political philosophy on institutionalism as the basis for the understanding, legitimation and changing of institutions, or social systems, and society as a whole. The more impactful characteristic of institutionalism is its technical-logical structuring, based on an impartial, neutral and formal proceduralism that autonomizes social systems in relation to political praxis and social normativity, depoliticizing these social systems. Here, they are no longer depoliticized, but assume political centrality as the fundamental social subjects of the legitimation and evolution of institutions and society. The paper’s central argument is that it is necessary to re-politicize the institutions and the social subjects or social classes in order to ground and streamline a direct political praxis and the civil society’s social-political subjects as the basis for framing and legitimizing the current process of Western modernization. Recovering the politicity and the carnality of institutions, of social classes and of the evolution of society, is the fundamental task for a contemporary critical social theory that faces the strong institutionalism based on systemic theory. Such politicization is the unforgettable teaching of Karl Marx and Erich Fromm: the institutions have political content and political subjects, they are the result of social struggles for hegemony between opposed social classes which are political. Now, such politicity-carnality must be unveiled and used for an emancipatory democratic political praxis as the route for social analysis and political change, in opposition to the technical-logical understanding both of the institutions and of the social subjects.

scholarly journals Space and War, Constants and Change from a Historical Perspective

Geografie ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kofroň
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

This article highlights an understudied phenomenon: the relationship between space and war. War has been waged in space and over space; hence this relationship constitutes an important, yet, among geographers, rather neglected issue. The broader significance of war is evident in the fact that war has formed important features of the modern political and social world. The relationship between war and space is presented at two main levels, tactical and strategic. It is argued that despite many changes in relations between war and space, physical space remains a key issue in any war and, as such, geographers should examine it. Such an examination cannot be limited to critical approaches or geographers will fall short in competition with scholars from other fields of the social sciences.

The force of prescriptions

1984 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 685-708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Kratochwil
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Issue Area ◽  
The Social

How do norms influence choices in social life? Conceptual distinctions among types of norms and suggestions in the work of Hobbes, Hume, and Durkheim help us investigate in greater detail the “woolly” concept of regimes in international relations. When we disaggregate the “set of explicit and implicit norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures” in a given issue area and focus on the conceptual links between rules, principles (norms), and actions, we gain an understanding of the role of norms in social life that is more comprehensive than the understanding provided by traditional accounts. Furthermore, placing the present regime discussion within wider philosophical traditions enables us to develop a more critical approach to the building of theory in the social sciences, since the use of norms as explanatory devices challenges the predominant positivist outlook in several important respects.

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