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Epilogue in Eight Essays

A. H. Halsey

in A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society

I chose seven contemporary figures in British sociology, representing what I took to be the various current strands in the subject. They were Bauman, Crouch, Giddens, Oakley, Platt, Runciman, and ... More

I chose seven contemporary figures in British sociology, representing what I took to be the various current strands in the subject. They were Bauman, Crouch, Giddens, Oakley, Platt, Runciman, and Westergaard. What, given the foregoing attempt, would you have done if asked to write a history of sociology in Britain in the twentieth century? It then occurred to me that I should answer the same question, which opens the chapter. I had not seen their answers nor they mine.Their answers are largely autobiographical though Crouch writes most obviously in a European context. All are optimistic about the future of the subject and most are regretful about its past. I am rather pessimistic about its future, fearing especially the threat of Max Steuer's ‘pretend social science’; but rather less condemnatory of its past. Perhaps it is or was ‘a moment in history’; perhaps it will again be a source of ‘public intellectuals’ (Giddens) or even ‘a discipline of unchallenged scientific and scholarly standing’ (Runciman).Less

Institutional Entrepreneurship and the Structuring of Organizations and Markets

Peter Walgenbach and Renate E. Meyer

in The Institutions of the Market: Organizations, Social Systems, and Governance

This chapter argues that organizational actors and interests need to be regarded as cultural constructions. It considers organizational institutionalism and Giddens's structuration theory to relate ... More

This chapter argues that organizational actors and interests need to be regarded as cultural constructions. It considers organizational institutionalism and Giddens's structuration theory to relate strategic action with the process of institutional innovation. This allows for a reconsideration of social practices through which organizational actors reproduce certain structures. Accordingly, institutional innovation is perceived as a representation of the structuring of organizations and markets through entrepreneurial efforts.Less

A View from a French Sociologist

Dominique Schnapper

in British Sociology Seen from Without and Within

The French are not familiar with British sociology. As a first indicator, British sociology is hardly ever translated into French. In Britain, Anthony Giddens is the most cited and the most widely ... More

The French are not familiar with British sociology. As a first indicator, British sociology is hardly ever translated into French. In Britain, Anthony Giddens is the most cited and the most widely read British sociologist, along with Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Talcott Parsons. British sociology is not well known and is rather uninfluential in France. On the one hand, its so-called ‘classical’ form, used by the 1950 generation, appears to many to be too rigorous and too marked by ‘positivism’. This type of sociology is therefore the object of criticism both on the continent and among young British sociologists. What is striking when reading British sociology is that British research has often been more rigorous than French research because it is based on fieldwork of an anthropological nature, an approach which French scholars have often been reticent about. Moreover, British researchers are more scathing, when it comes to criticism of their own nation, than their French counterparts.Less

Structure as the Subject of Justice

Iris Marion Young

in Responsibility for Justice

This chapter focuses on a specific kind of moral wrong—structural injustice—which is distinct from wrongs traceable to specific individual actions or policies. The chapter is organized as follows. ... More

This chapter focuses on a specific kind of moral wrong—structural injustice—which is distinct from wrongs traceable to specific individual actions or policies. The chapter is organized as follows. Section I explains these distinctions between types of wrong and expands on the example of the lack of affordable housing to illustrate the concept of structural injustice. Section II conceptualizes social-structural processes by drawing on the ideas of several social theorists, including Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jean–Paul Sartre. Section III returns to reflection on injustice by recalling John Rawls's claim that the subject of justice is the basic structure of society. It examines critiques of this claim that argue that Rawls too starkly separates institutional justice from individual action. It is argued that in order properly to respond to these critiques, a conception of justice needs to revise an understanding of what it means to say that the subject of justice is structure.Less

Prologue

Elton T.E. Barker

in Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography, and Tragedy

This chapter introduces the book's subject, methodology, and aims. Noting limitations in scope and tendency towards abstraction of previous studies, it considers the broader institutional context for ... More

This chapter introduces the book's subject, methodology, and aims. Noting limitations in scope and tendency towards abstraction of previous studies, it considers the broader institutional context for debate and examines its various manifestations in texts. Three arguments are proposed: that debate plays a critical role in both oral and written narrative (epic and historiography) and drama (tragedy); that debate is best thought of in terms of the due management of disagreement; and that its textual representations reproduce an agonistic mental horizon among its many audiences. In making these claims, the introduction draws on the cultural analysis of competition and debate by G. Lloyd, J.-P. Vernant and others, the theory of structuration by the political theorist A. Giddens, which stresses the activity of people working within social structures to enact them, and M. Bakhtin's dialogic approach, which analyses the dynamic between the narrator's voice and those of his characters.Less

Vulnerability

John Barry

in The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate-Changed, Carbon Constrained World

Vulnerability and associated concepts such as dependence, are relatively little-used terms within mainstream political theory. Self-consciously working within an eco-feminist perspective, this ... More

Vulnerability and associated concepts such as dependence, are relatively little-used terms within mainstream political theory. Self-consciously working within an eco-feminist perspective, this chapter indicates that issues of unsustainability have brought considerations of vulnerability centre stage. Another key concept outlined is ‘sequestration’ (taken from Giddens), denoting the deliberate ‘hiding away’ of ‘existentially troubling’ aspects of modern living, that remind us of our vulnerable and dependent natures. This chapter also discusses the work of MacIntyre on vulnerability, before turning to an analysis of the ‘limiting case’ of the cultural devastation experienced by the Crow nation in the nineteenth century, and what it teaches us about resilience and adaptability. The final section of this chapter offers a discussion of illness, death, and human flourishing. This chapter makes the case for a more explicit acknowledgement and integration of illness, disability, dependence, and death into our conceptualizations about a normal human life, and more than that, a full account of a flourishing human life requires it.Less

Does Education Really Change Society?: Theoretical Reflections on a Case Study

Geetha B. Nambissan and S. Srinivasa Rao

in Sociology of Education in India: Changing Contours and Emerging Concerns

Sociologists and anthropologists always have a sense of unease over what education is doing to society. Does education really make any difference? Or is it only reproducing inequality? And how can ... More

Sociologists and anthropologists always have a sense of unease over what education is doing to society. Does education really make any difference? Or is it only reproducing inequality? And how can one know the answer? This chapter highlights some of the ways in which recent social theory can help us grapple with these questions. This chapter evaluates the notion that education leads to the reproduction of inequality in society, culture, and economy, and examines the roles played by structure and agency. It argues that a literal interpretation of the reproduction thesis is misleading, and suggests that a more nuanced understanding—with a more differentiated conceptual treatment—is needed. This author identifies the ways by which social theory can help illuminate the role of education in inequality, and discusses the views of Margaret Archer and Anthony Giddens who integrated systemic theorizing with the play of individual agency. In conclusion, the author suggests that we need a vision that encapsulates a wider view of the concrete roles, groups, and processes in society. Only then may one begin to address the question of whether education is making any difference at all.Less

Contemplating the Role of the Ethnic Chinese: Ethnic Politics, Criminality, and Civil Society in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Wu-Ling Chong

in Chinese Indonesians in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Democratisation and Ethnic Minorities

This chapter explains the objectives, theoretical framework, literature review, scope of research, methods of research, and chapterisation of this study. This study adopts a combination of Anthony ... More

This chapter explains the objectives, theoretical framework, literature review, scope of research, methods of research, and chapterisation of this study. This study adopts a combination of Anthony Giddens’s structure-agency theory as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and field as a framework for examining the strategies and tactics that Chinese Indonesians adopt to safeguard their business and personal interests as well as their ethnic and cultural identities in the post-Suharto era. Medan and Surabaya were selected as field sites for this study because both cities are economically and politically significant. Moreover, there are certain interesting contrasts in regard to their Chinese populations. The methods used in this research are library research, individual interviews, and participant observation.Less

The Ideology of Vulnerable Autonomy

Peter Ramsay

in The Insecurity State: Vulnerable Autonomy and the Right to Security in the Criminal Law

This chapter explains the normative basis of New Labour's policy claim that citizens owe duties of reassurance. It argues that this idea arises from an axiomatic proposition of three theories that ... More

This chapter explains the normative basis of New Labour's policy claim that citizens owe duties of reassurance. It argues that this idea arises from an axiomatic proposition of three theories that had a major influence on New Labour — The Third Way, communitarianism, neoliberalism — and that this proposition remains significant in the civic conservatism underlying the Big Society thinking of the Coalition government. All in different ways assume that the autonomy of citizens is vulnerable to insecurity caused by others' hostility and indifference. The influence of this theory is explained as a consequence of the partial political victory of Hayekian neoliberalism over welfare liberalism during the 1980s. It is the aspect in which Hayekian ideas failed that explains the rise to influence of the other theories, and the emergence with this of the idea of a duty towards others' feelings of security — a right to security.Less

Muslim Political Participation in Germany: a Structurationist Approach

Maike Didero

in Muslim Political Participation in Europe

This chapter looks into the case of the first local voter association founded in Germany by exclusively Muslim members, many of whom were foreign-born. Drawing on Giddens and Bourdieu, the chapter ... More

This chapter looks into the case of the first local voter association founded in Germany by exclusively Muslim members, many of whom were foreign-born. Drawing on Giddens and Bourdieu, the chapter employs a stucturationist perspective to explain the enabling and constraining factors for the foundation and the immediate success of this party in the local council elections in 2009. Looking at the historical development of the legal conditions for the political participation of immigrants in Germany on the one hand and the public discourse on Islam and Muslims on the other hand will help to explain why the creation of this party – whose member insist on it’s non-Muslim nature – seems a paradox to many German citizens and was thus heavily opposed.Less

The Affective Appropriation of Space

Jeffrey L. Kidder

in Urban Flow: Bike Messengers and the City

This chapter examines how bike messengers traverse the space of the city when making their deliveries. It is this appropriation of the urban environment that generates the lived emotions of messenger ... More

This chapter examines how bike messengers traverse the space of the city when making their deliveries. It is this appropriation of the urban environment that generates the lived emotions of messenger work. These place-based and corporeally felt activities are termed affective appropriation of space. Before expounding on how messengers engage in affective spatial appropriation, the chapter describes each of the cities studied in this book: New York City, Seattle, and San Diego. It then assesses the sociological significance of messengering as an urban subculture by focusing on Anthony Giddens's approach to the problem of agency and structure. It also considers how bike messengers play in (and with) urban space and compares the relationship of bike messengers to traffic with that of bicycle commuters and recreational cyclists to traffic. It argues that the play of work and the effervescence of rituals only happen through a unique use of space.Less

Theoretical Approaches to Globalization and Localization

Sunetra Sen Narayan

in Globalization and Television: A Study of the Indian Experience, 1990-2010

This chapter examines some of the literature on globalization and localization. Relevant theories of globalization are summarized and evaluated in the context of the current study. The work of ... More

This chapter examines some of the literature on globalization and localization. Relevant theories of globalization are summarized and evaluated in the context of the current study. The work of theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Arjun Appadurai, Roland Robertson, and James Rosenau are included. The interaction between the global and the local dimensions is also taken up. The categories of global and local media are studied. The ideas of James Rosenau, the international relations theorist are central here. He theorizes that macro global structures have been bifurcated into ’the two worlds of world politics.’ The two worlds refer to the state-centric system, which now coexists with a powerful, but more decentralized multi-centric system. In other words, non-state actors have ascended in importance. As power devolves from the nation state to the global and local levels, the implications for media are numerous.Less

Time, temporality and political thought

Valerie Bryson

in Gender and the politics of time: Feminist theory and contemporary debates

This chapter draws on the ideas of Karl Marx and the more recent contributions of Antony Giddens and Paul Pierson to argue that if people are to understand the present and shape the political future, ... More

This chapter draws on the ideas of Karl Marx and the more recent contributions of Antony Giddens and Paul Pierson to argue that if people are to understand the present and shape the political future, they need a sense of time and historical context. The discussion applies this to the development of welfare policies. It also identifies changes in the understanding of time itself, linking these to changes in both political theory and practice.Less

Time and temporality in feminist political thought

Valerie Bryson

in Gender and the politics of time: Feminist theory and contemporary debates

This chapter links recent feminist work on the multiple and fluid nature of human time to feminist rejections of dichotomy. It identifies the changing temporal assumptions that underlie feminist ... More

This chapter links recent feminist work on the multiple and fluid nature of human time to feminist rejections of dichotomy. It identifies the changing temporal assumptions that underlie feminist theory itself and the role of history in feminist politics. Revisiting Marx, Giddens, and Pierson, the discussion finds that changes in the material conditions in which people produce and reproduce are combining with the cumulative effects of small-scale changes in attitudes and behaviour both to open up the possibility of more egalitarian patterns of time use between women and men and to make current arrangements increasingly unviable. The result could be a paradigm shift in welfare policy to recognise the importance of the work traditionally done by women while seeking to share it with men.Less

Capitalism, Cartography, and Culture

Elizabeth A. Sutton

in Capitalism and Cartography in the Dutch Golden Age

The introduction provides the historical and theoretical scope of the book. Marx, Weber, Giddens, and Bourdieu’s ideas concerning capital, culture, and power are briefly summarized.

Marriage between Kin

Suzanne E. Joseph

in Fertile Bonds: Bedouin Class, Kinship, and Gender in the Bekaa Valley

The specific question that this chapter seeks to address is, Why do the Bekaa Bedouin prefer marriages between close kin in general and patriparallel cousins in particular? The main argument put ... More

The specific question that this chapter seeks to address is, Why do the Bekaa Bedouin prefer marriages between close kin in general and patriparallel cousins in particular? The main argument put forth is that consanguineous marriage is more than a manifestation of Durkheimian social facts of kinship exercising constraints on individuals, but rather by marrying relatives, individual agents reproduce social kinship structures. Individuals do not uniformly or equally enter into patriparallel cousin marriages, but do so depending on their occupation. While the chapter suggests some flexibility with respect to agnation, a substantial majority of Bedouin women married someone from the same tribe. Changing notions of love and intimacy observed among newly married adults are used to infer future trends.Less

Towards a Structuration Theory of Media Intermediaries

Timothy Havens

in Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries

This chapter claims that media managers frequently engage in storytelling practices known as “industry lore.” These practices not only serve as sense-making rituals in managing the circulation of ... More

This chapter claims that media managers frequently engage in storytelling practices known as “industry lore.” These practices not only serve as sense-making rituals in managing the circulation of culture, but also as a means of negotiating and rationalizing individual agency in relation to structural forces within production cultures. The chapter examines the role of industry lore in legitimating and challenging discourses about what types of television texts can circulate internationally and why. It draws on sociologist Anthony Giddens' post-structuralist concept of “structuration” as a middle-ground between structure and agency, as well as Michel Foucault's theories of power/knowledge. These allows for an examination of how knowledge about the audience and the kinds of media content that might appeal to it are produced through an interaction between structural and cultural forces.Less

“Practice Theory”: A Critique

Kjeld Schmidt

in Socio-Informatics

Areas of research such as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Information Systems (IS), and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) are interdisciplinary by virtue of their particular research ... More

Areas of research such as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Information Systems (IS), and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) are interdisciplinary by virtue of their particular research questions and destined to venture beyond the conceptual and methodological sanctuaries of institutionalized disciplines. Researchers in such areas therefore face a constant temptation to import conceptual innovations or theories that might make it less taxing and troublesome to venture outside the disciplinary habitat. In the case of practice-centered computing, so-called practice theory, developed over the last few decades in the philosophy of sociology by Bourdieu, Giddens, Schatzki, and others, obviously poses such a temptation but should not be imported unexamined. The aim of this chapter is to subject this body of theory to critical scrutiny. In so doing, the argument draws on Wittgenstein’s analysis of normative regularity or “rule-following.”Less