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This textbook analyses the work of classical and contemporary sociological theorists. The first part is dedicated to Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, and Simmel. The second part covers the major contemporary sociological perspectives: Functionalism, Marxism, Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenological Sociology, and Rational Choice Theory. The third part is devoted to Postmodern Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and Race Theory. The author combines academic rigour with clear and accessible language, offering students an in-depth and extensive overview of the main, recurring problems that have troubled sociological theory from its origins to the present day. The textbook uses contemporary examples, analysing how sociological theory can explain the most tragic phenomena of our time, including the war in Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US-China competition over Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, radicalization, neofascism, white suprematism, jihadism, and terrorism. With pedagogic features aiding learning, this book helps navigate the various approaches, methods, and research that divide sociologists into distinct schools. This textbook is therefore an invaluable tool to any sociology student looking to gain a comprehensive understanding of the foundational thinkers that have shaped the discipline.

First published in 1932, Studies in Sociology consists of essays that fall into three groups, the first concerned with the scope and method of sociology and its relation to history and social philosophy; the second devoted to an analysis of the theory of evolution as applied to society, and to a number of problems in social psychology, such as the nature of social purpose, the place of instinct in social science, the relation between instinct and emotion, and the inheritance of mental characters; while the third group deals with the claims of Eugenics, and social classes and social mobility. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, history and philosophy.

Although sociology is present as a discipline or as a social practice in most countries in the world, its future as a not-only Western social science has hardly been addressed before. In this book, a team of interdisciplinary scholars have been working together not so much to offer one single response to the question than to raise important issues at stake for the future of sociology. Is it universal? Can it be indigenous? How is it possible – and is it even desirable – to write its history differently so as to know better about its early world diffusion and gradual Westernization? Do we need to expand or change its canon? This collection brings together essays that are all engaged in international discussions concerning the universality of sociology, or more precisely the epistemological and theoretical conditions of this universality. The postcolonial and decolonial critiques of the Eurocentrism of sociology are the basis for a reflection on how to continue to do sociology in a non-hegemonic way. That is, sociological ways of describing reality - including the history of sociology and its canon - that are not limited by Western-centrism or other nationalist or religious hegemonies.

Questioning society and one's place in it is a common theme in both comedy and sociology. Understanding and subverting hierarchies and norms, exploring deviance and taboos, and relating lived experience to broader questions all hold a crucial place for them both.Introduction to Sociology Through Comedy teaches foundational sociological concepts using comedy, first considering the history of sociology before employing examples from comedians – including standalone comedy bits, sketches, characters, and scenes – to illustrate a specific theory, concept, or social phenomenon. The profession of comedy is then used as a case study for the application of sociological concepts, such as impression management, social stratification, racial segregation, deviance, and stigma, allowing readers to gain familiarity with the concepts while simultaneously practicing their application.This book explains why we laugh by applying theories of humor, which will bolster students'understanding of sociological principles by forcing them to question their own assumptions – helping them to put why they laugh into sociological terms.

Social Theory and the Political Imaginary: Practice, Critique, and History is an innovative work of synthesis, critique and analysis. It presages a social theory perspective that recognizes the constitutive significance of the political imaginary in modernity. Social theory's current dilemmas are explored through a series of interlinked assessments of recent substantial strands, specifically, Luc Boltanski's pragmatism and the wider ‘practical turn,'the perspectives of multiple modernities and global modernity, the outlook of social and political imaginaries and critical social theory. The political imaginary's reconfigurations are evident in the tensions of global modernity, and original social theory interpretations are advanced of landmark instances of twenty-first-century social contestation: the Hong Kong protests conditioned by threats to civil freedoms and a lack of self-determination, the radical democratic practices of anti-austerity movements contesting capitalist globalization's injustices and the inverted cosmopolitanism of the 2005 French Riots challenging the oppression and inequalities experienced by immigrant communities and marginalized youth. These incisive applications of social theory and complementary conceptual innovations illuminate the vicissitudes of social struggles, political forms and theoretical perspectives. Similarly, reflection on the political imaginary is found to enable a necessary rethinking of the interrelationship of practice, critique and history.

Die Beiträge dieses Bands kartographieren das soziologische und kulturwissenschaftliche Feld in Bezug auf Drogen und die mit ihnen verbundenen sozialen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Praktiken. Die Neuauflage wurde um einen Teil über Drogen und Rassismus erweitert sowie um zahlreiche neue Beiträge ergänzt und aktualisiert. Der Inhalt Kulturgeschichtliche Zugänge zu Drogen und Rausch Drogen und Sucht Theorie der Drogen: Soziologische und kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven Drogenmärkte und Prohibition Drogen und Rassismus Ethnografische Streifzüge Klassische Beiträge zur Drogenforschung Die Herausgeber Dr. Robert Feustel ist am Institut für Soziologie der Universität Jena im Arbeitsbereich Wissenssoziologie und Gesellschaftstheorie tätig. Dr. Henning Schmidt-Semisch ist Professor am Fachbereich Human- und Gesundheitswissenschaften der Universität Bremen. Dr. Ulrich Bröckling ist Professor für Kultursoziologie an der Universität Freiburg im Breisgau.

Fractal Leadership investigates leadership construction in social movements afforded (or intensified) by algorithm-based flows of information and viral affectivity. The book illustrates how a somewhat amorphous structure is replicated from an intimate, localised community level, all the way up to the global level with swift, almost breath-taking repetitions over and over again, from one scale to another, thus carrying new forms of leaders to sudden public mass-following, but just as quickly sweeping them away. Including original primary research with fieldwork from Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter in juxtaposition with archival research of the New Left movements of the 1960s, Karatzogianni and Matthews explore how the digital transformation of temporality impacts on the ideologisation process, movement organisational structure, as well as the implicated biolabour process, culminating on the fractalisation of movement leadership and its devastating implications for class formation, and the authoritarian turn in global politics. Fractal Leadership serves as a point of reference for those interested in tracing the development of leadership in social movements from the 1960s to today.

The 1960s saw pioneering changes in the realms of international politics, science, culture and art. Turning this historical lens onto the study of sociology, The Sociological Inheritance of the 1960s reveals both the continuities and the departures the field has seen in its core principles and approaches over the past several decades. Beginning with an overview of society in the ‘60s, Jiří Šubrt provides an important reflection on a period worthy of contemporary reflection. In this context, what new concepts emerged? What were the popular methodological approaches? What controversies and debates emerged? How did sociology form part of a wider landscape of creative explosion throughout the decade? What implications does this have for contemporary sociology? Inspiring an enriched understanding of a legacy still deeply relevant to current issues and concerns across the field, The Sociological Inheritance of the 1960s proves that, despite the half a century that has since passed, we still have much to learn from this rich period of sociological development.

Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) was a French thinker, considered the founder of Social Psychology. Le Bon was a polymath, a scholar who traversed diverse areas, but became famous for his approach to social psychology. He wrote numerous works on the subject, among which stand out:'Psychology of Crowds: A Study of the Popular Mind'and'The Opinions and Beliefs.'It would be hardly possible to study topics related to mass behavior without studying and relying on Gustave Le Bon's studies. In'Psychology of Crowds:'Le Bon suggests that crowds are like a servile herd and, therefore, they could not exist without the presence of a leader with a strong personality, well-defined beliefs, and a powerful will. The history of humanity shows, up to the present day, how masses prefer leaders with a strong personality over a consistent ideology, lucidity, management skills, among other qualities rare in politicians. Originally published in 1911,'Psycology of Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind'is an incredibly relevant work that helps the reader interpret much of what is happening in the USA politics, and many other countries, nowdays.

This innovative book questions what it means to be human today and in the future. Drawing on the natural, human and life sciences, Thomas Osborne and Nikolas Rose encourage us to reconsider the human condition and the ways in which humans are affected by their animality, technology and the prospect of their annihilation. Questioning Humanity builds on and questions established orthodoxies in the social sciences and humanities. Using arguments from the life sciences it introduces readers to debates surrounding posthumanism, human evolution, the uniqueness of the human mind and human consciousness. The book goes further, into novel territory, to examine relations and distinctions between humans and non-human animals, developments in ‘artificial intelligence'and its limits, the prospect of human extinction by climate change, and the possibilities of alien civilizations. Osborne and Rose argue that despite calls for a new posthuman ethics, we remain all too human, and the social and human sciences should be imbued with a naturalistic humanism if they are to address the real and immediate challenges of local and global inequity and injustice.Providing an accessible introduction into both the contemporary challenges and future key questions within the social and human sciences, this book will be a vital read for undergraduate and postgraduate students in these areas. Questioning Humanity will also appeal to scholars from social, cultural, anthropological and biological disciplines interested in human distinctiveness.

One of the strengths of this book is that it expresses occupational segregation from multidimensional viewpoints using correspondence analysis. Through a quantitative approach, the book examines occupational segregation by education and gender in response to industrial transformation in Japan and other countries. The transformation of industrial structure, such as post-industrialization, demands a reconsideration of traditional perspectives in sociology, especially in social stratification. In other words, it is a shift from the attribute to the achievement principle. Higher technological innovations will create higher levels of industries, and those industries will require jobs that need greater human capital. In short, the meritocracy will be promoted. Meritocracy is certainly considered persuasive. In fact, previous researchers have looked primarily at a person's occupation as a measure of social status. In Japan, jobs are normally acquired after completing education; thus, one's educational achievement plays an important role. Especially in recent years, however, education alone has not been enough to explain social status. This book, therefore, focuses on occupational segregation by gender in addition to education in post-industrial society. Can occupational segregation by gender be weakened in the highly educated group? Is this a universal story in modern society? Because post-industrialization is part of the larger story of modernization, international perspectives are needed to examine the linkage between education and gender occupational segregation. This book explores occupational segregation by gender in response to industrial transformation in Japan and other countries.

An exciting new look at the essential gathering spaces in our society where friendships are formed, relationships are nurtured, and the tapestry of community is woven. Do you have a third place? Your first place is home, your second place is work, and your third place is where you go to socialize and build friendships. Yet, for several reasons, many people today find themselves without a third place of their own. At a time when our nation is facing an epidemic of loneliness and communities are suffering from a loss of trust, low levels of engagement, despair, and political polarization, what if the answer to many of our problems lies in a simple idea? What if we just need to pay attention to the places where we find ourselves? Rick Kyte combines storytelling, social science, and philosophy to explore: What makes a third place Factors that create and support vibrant communities The role of hospitality in creating belonging and social connection How third places foster friendships and bind us to others in our community What it takes to find and create a third place of your own'Rick Kyte's insight into the vital human experience of connection and friendship is both scholarly and inspiring. The next time I visit my favorite coffee shop, I'm leaving my laptop at home. It's time to look outward and engage more fully with others in our third places.'—Amy Dickinson,'Ask Amy'advice columnist and author of The Mighty Queens of Freeville FEATURED IN VOX AND THE'ASK AMY'COLUMN

The second edition of this influential book addresses how the experiences and claims of non-European ‘others'have been rendered invisible to the standard narratives and analytical frameworks of sociological understandings of modernity. In challenging the dominant, Euro-centred accounts of the emergence and development of modernity, Bhambra puts forward an argument for ‘connected histories'in the reconstruction of historical sociology at a global level. This updated version of the original, published in 2007, adds a new preface which explores key themes that Bhambra has further developed over the intervening years: specifically, how the rethinking of modernity enables us to reconstruct sociology and a call for a'reparatory sociology'committed to the repair of the social sciences ​and the securing of global justice.

Welcome to Social Theory is exactly what students want: a lucid and engaging introduction to social theory that carefully uses images, examples and quotations to illustrate new ways of examining contemporary social life. Tom Brock's comprehensive and accessible style produces an indispensable guide to social theory that examines the major theoretical traditions from Marxism through to poststructuralism, and from feminism through to postcolonial theory, new materialism and posthumanism. Welcome to Social Theory gives careful appraisal of classical ideas and debates in social theory and traces their impact through discussion of major contemporary theorists – including Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Margaret Archer, Judith Butler, bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze and Rosi Braidotti. Social theory matters and this book shows why through relevant and compelling examples, including the gig economy, everyday sexism, digital black feminism, animal and environmental activism, stigma and discrimination against migrants, the need to decolonise the sociology curriculum and many more. Welcome to Social theory is an indispensable text for undergraduate students who are new to social theory. Dr. Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.

This book by Jonathan Turner and Anthony Roberts proposes a new theoretical approach for explaining the dynamics of inter-societal systems. The authors argue that inter-societal systems have existed since the beginning of human societies and the dynamics of these systems are a fundamental property of the social universe. However, while world-systems analysis has emphasized this latter point, the authors argue the reluctance to theorize complex abstract models and systems of explanatory propositions on the dynamics driving inter-societal systems hinders scientific explanation of inter-societal dynamics. In this context, the authors critically look at contemporary theorizing and review key theories that have been developed to explain geo-economic, geo-political, and geo-cultural dynamics, from the classic period through present-day world-systems analysis and cliometrics. The book summarizes these theories clearly, emphasizing their strengths and weakness, finally developing a theoreticalsynthesis through new models and propositions on the dynamics of premodern and modern inter-societal systems. Professor Turner's decades of experience writing theory books for undergraduates have ensured that this book presents abstract ideas clearly and with examples so that students can understand the arguments. This book is a must-read for all social theory researchers, academics, serious undergraduate students, graduate students, and interested laypersons.

Dieser Band bietet eine umfassende Geschichte der Soziologie in Großbritannien und verfolgt die Entwicklungen der Disziplin im institutionellen und politischen Kontext.Nachdem er die frühe Entwicklung des Fachs als intellektuelles Feld in empirischer und idealistischer Philosophie, Evolutionismus, Sozialismus und statistischen Untersuchungen nachgezeichnet hat, legt Scott den Weg der Soziologie als institutionalisierte Disziplin dar. Das Buch zeichnet die Ausbreitung des Fachs von der ersten soziologischen Abteilung an der London School of Economics bis hin zur Abdeckung des gesamten Landes nach und geht auf die Gründung bedeutender Berufsverbände und Fachzeitschriften sowie auf die Auswirkungen des Feminismus und des politischen Wandels ein. Scott gibt auch einen Überblick über die theoretische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Marxismus, dem Interaktionismus, dem Feminismus und dem Poststrukturalismus sowie über die Entwicklung der Disziplin durch Forschungsstudien zu Kriminalität, Rasse und ethnischer Zugehörigkeit, Gemeinschaft, Schichtung, Gesundheit, Sexualität und Arbeit.Vor dem Hintergrund eines sich wandelnden politischen Kontextes, in dem der Neoliberalismus und die Globalisierung zunehmen, und mit Blick auf die anhaltende Suche nach'neuen Wegen'leistet dieser Band eine Beitrag zur Verortung der Soziologie in einem globalen Kontext.

Elias Canetti is a key thinker in the trend towards the renewal of social theory for the 21st century. He is increasingly being recognised in the social and political sciences for the seminal text, Crowds and Power (1960). While this work can sometimes be criticised for its alleged anti-historicity, anti-modernism, fixation on death, and a dark vision of humankind, Crowds and Power can, in fact, be interpreted as a study and a critique of the mono-dimensionality and the obsessiveness of power. In Canetti's own words, it is an attempt'to find the weak spot of power'and, ultimately, an invitation to recognise and explore the endless richness of human transformations. Elias Canetti and Social Theory argues that the alleged anti-modernism of Canetti actually makes him more contemporary than many contemporary social-political thinkers. It deals with key concepts within socio-political theory including: commands, increase, resistance, and commonality. Each of these ideas is connected with real, lived social realities making this book a compelling argument for Canetti's crucial relevance today.

Scrupulously based in anthropology and history – and drawing on social theory and critical thought – this book revisits the disciplines, archives, and subjects of modernity. There are at least three interleaving emphases here. To begin with, the work rethinks institutionalized formations of anthropology and history – together with'archives'at large – as themselves intimating disciplines of modernity. Understood in the widest senses of the terms, these disciplines are constitutively contradictory. Moreover, the study interrupts familiar projections of modern subjects as molded a priori by a disenchanted calculus of interest and reason. It tracks instead the affective, embodied, and immanent attributes of our varied worlds as formative of subjects of modernity, sown into their substance and spirit. Finally, running through the book is a querying of entitlement and privilege that underlie social terrains and their scholarly apprehensions – articulating at once distinct elites, pervasive plutocracies, and modern'scholasticisms.'

This book stands as the full body of scholarly work on western theories of social sciences. The book contents three chapters. The first part gives the overall scenario of theories, the second part provides the pathway to research destination – the research method, and the third and final part is the destination of the substantive field of study and the roles of international organizations on social, political, economic, environmental regimes creation as well as to other social and development functions of international organizations.Sociology examines the social actors'activities in society and social problems. Western Scholars have developed many social theories, which address the underlying causes such as social conflicts and inequalities, and many formal and informal social organizations are involved to minimize the challenges of inequalities. The study of social organizations is a relatively new phenomenon in sociology. Broadly its historical root can be traced from Greek civilization (Plato, Aristotle), and it has mostly flourished since the Enlightenment Era. However, empirical studies show that the scientific study of organizations began only from the 19th and 20th century. Among the scholars of these centuries, the contributions of Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Ludwig Gumplovicz, Vilfredo Pareto, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons are considered as pillars of sociology.This book intends to answer the broad and major questions of theories, methods, and the international organization studies in social sciences, particularly in sociology and to provide the basic concepts of social theories, application of methods in research (qualitative), and elaborate the factual reality'why study of international organization is also subject of sociological study'. The book presents the perspectives of organizational sociology in way that scholarly readers can see the linkages political sciences, sociology and slightly economic in addressing the roles and issues of the international organizations.

This third edition of Social Theory Re-Wired is a significantly revised edition of this leading text and its unique web learning interactive programs that'allow us to go farther into theory and to build student skills than ever before,'according to many teachers. Vital political and social updates are reflected both in the text and the online supplements.'System updates'to each section offer an expanded set of contemporary theory readings that focus on the impacts of information/digital technologies on each of the text's five big themes: 1) the Puzzles of Social Order, 2) the Social Consequences of Capitalism, 3) the Darkside of Modernity, 4) Subordinated/Alternative Knowledges, and 5) Self-Identity and Society. New to this edition: The'big ideas/questions'thematic structure of the text as well as the connections between classical and contemporary theorists continues to be popular with instructors. This feature is enhanced in the new edition An expanded'Podcast Companions'series now pairs at least one podcast to every reading in the book Many new updates to the exercise platform allow students to theorize and build theory on their own New readings excerpts include such important recent work as: Shoshana Zuboff's'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,'Ruha Benjamin's'Race After Technology,'David Graeber's'Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit,'Sherry Turkle's “Always-On/Always-on-You.”

This book explores and proposes original definitions of central terms in political sociology and social theory, including political culture, imaginary, ideology, and utopia, in a manner that renders the individual definitions consistent with one another as part of a single and general conceptual framework for understanding social action. Through a Weberian distinction between means, ends, and values, together with the thought of Alfred Schütz and phenomenological sociology more generally, it sheds light on the ways in which the book's key concepts make sense of social action, advancing the view that, rather than some promised land or aspiration, utopia is a project of broad and far-reaching collective action realized in its own enactment. As such, the book will appeal to scholars of social theory, political sociology, and political theory.

Sociology has developed theories of social change in the fields of evolution, conflict and modernization, viewing modern society as essentially unstable and conflict driven. However, it has not seriously studied catastrophe. A Theory of Catastrophe develops a sociology of catastrophes, comparing natural, social and political causes and consequences, and the social theories that might offer explanations. A catastrophe is a general and systematic breakdown of social and political institutions resulting, among other things, in what we could call a catastrophe consciousness. The Greek ‘cata-strophe'formed the conclusion to a dramatic sequence of strophes. The cata-strophe was the final act of a drama, namely its denouement. Catastrophic denouements are without hope: genocides, military occupations, plagues, famines and earthquakes. A Theory of Catastrophe analyzes Pompeii, the Black Death, colonial genocide in North America, WWI and the Spanish Flu, and Nazi Germany and finally this century: terrorism, new wars, climate change and pandemics. As a study of sociological theory, Bryan Turner discusses Spengler's Decline of the West, Marxism as a theory of catastrophic capitalism, messianic movements, Weber on modernity, and risk society. He concludes by comparing optimism and pessimism, and the idea of inter-generational justice.

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) was among the most prominent sociologists of the past half-century. He co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, considered to be a modern classic of social science. His work on social theory, the sociology of religion, third-world development, and the role of capitalism in modern life define his enduring importance as a leading figure in social science. Berger established an international reputation for his various studies of economic development in different parts of the world, including Central America and South Africa.

Indigenous sociology makes visible what is meaningful in the Indigenous social world. This core premise is demonstrated here via the use of the concept of the Indigenous Lifeworld in reference to the dispossessed Indigenous Peoples from Anglo-colonized first world nations. Indigenous lifeworld is built around dual intersubjectivities: within peoplehood, inclusive of traditional and ongoing culture, belief systems, practices, identity, and ways of understanding the world; and within colonized realties as marginalized peoples whose everyday life is framed through their historical and ongoing relationship with the colonizer nation state. The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous Sociology is, in part, a response to the limited space allowed for Indigenous Peoples within the discipline of sociology. The very small existing sociological literature locates the Indigenous within the non-Indigenous gaze and the Eurocentric structures of the discipline reflect a continuing reluctance to actively recognize Indigenous realities within the key social forces literature of class, gender, and race at the discipline's center. But the ambition of this volume, its editors, and its contributors is larger than a challenge to this status quo. They do not speak back to sociology, but rather, claim their own sociological space. The starting point is to situate Indigenous sociology as sociology by Indigenous sociologists. The authors in The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous Sociology, all leading and emerging Indigenous scholars, provide an authoritative, state of the art survey of Indigenous sociological thinking. The contributions in this Handbook demonstrate that the Indigenous sociological voice is a not a version of the existing sub-fields but a new sociological paradigm that uses a distinctively Indigenous methodological approach.

This book is dedicated to the discussion of key problems in the foundations of contemporary social-scientific theory. It deals with central topics of sociological thinking, primarily the concepts of social action, actors, social roles, institutions, structures, functions, and systems. Attention is focused on fundamental contradictions and dilemmas in these categories, whose solution is related to terms such as critical eclecticism and reconfigurationism. This approach is rooted in the conception of sociology as a science of social processes. Despite dealing mainly with abstract theoretical problems, the book's argument is clear, accessible, and understandable.

In a hyper-individualistic age and in the face of the narrowly focused, policy-oriented research ubiquitous in the social sciences, this book revisits the humanistic world-view that is integral to Norbert Elias's pre-eminent figurational-process sociology, with the aim of increasing the fund of sociological knowledge that has the human condition as its horizon.Clarifying the contentious ‘post-philosophical'aspects in order to supplement standard histories of sociology with new insights, it offers incisive evaluations of some of the bewildered attempts by prominent sociologists to diagnose the malaise of contemporary globalised society. It also challenges the orthodox limitation of the empirical scope of sociology to ‘modernity'. With its ominous warnings of the destructive prevalence of ‘overcritique'in the discipline and lack of in-depth sociological psychology, Post-Philosophical Sociology will appeal to scholars of sociology, psychoanalysis, social philosophy, cultural theory and social and political theory with interests in developmental and dynamic thinking and the history of the discipline.

22 out of the 26 Chapters are available Open Access on Elgaronline under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. The complete Handbook containing all 26 chapters is available on Google Play (guide price £10) see link in'More Information'below.The Handbook of Sociological Science offers a refreshing, integrated perspective on research programs and ongoing developments in sociological science. It highlights key shared theoretical and methodological features, thereby contributing to progress and cumulative growth of sociological knowledge.Reflecting ‘unity in diversity', chapters explore a wide variety of research fields, ranging from cultural capital, migration, social networks, gender inequality, historical sociology and ethnography to the intersection of sociology and the life sciences. Examining basic methodological standards for theory construction and empirical research, the Handbook exemplifies commonalities between research programmes within these fields.The contributors also explore rigorous sociology related to theory construction, empirical research, and methods, including statistical modelling and the integration of theoretical and empirical research. Forward-thinking and original, the Handbook concludes by illustrating the common core of rigorous sociology, how it can contribute to understanding societal problems and to policy making, and how research into sociological science can continue to thrive in the future.Accessible and engaging, this Handbook will be invaluable for scholars and researchers of sociology and sociological theory, research methods in sociology and social policy, and comparative social policy. Exploring new developments and applications, it will also act as a useful reference guide for policy makers. The Handbook will likewise be an important resource for teaching advanced courses and training graduate students.

Bringing together the work of scholars from across Europe, this book shows how Simmel's categories can be used to explore contemporary issues and further shed light on trends characteristic of global modernity. Thematically organised around the major societal challenges currently faced by developed countries – those of making societies that are inclusive, reflexive and creative, sustainable, and democratic societies – it examines diverse phenomena, such as living in an increasingly multicultural societies, the social exclusion of vulnerable ethnic groups, the increasing concern with cyberbullying, the need to fight climate change, the rise of political populism, and the recruitment of youths from western countries to Islamic religious fundamentalism. Drawing on Simmel's sociological theory and expounding new approaches to research inspired by his work, this volume emphasises the conceptual pillars of Simmelian thought, meanings, processes, and forms. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in the work of Simmel and its contemporary relevance.

Connecting Practices develops a distinctive method of conceptualising significant trends and global issues including environmental sustainability and inequalities in wealth and health, arguing that these are outcomes of the ways in which social practices interact and combine across space and time. Engaging with the question of how connections are made between practices and how past and present combinations make some futures more likely than others, this book brings practice theory to bear on large problems in society. Richly illustrated with examples from the spreading of germs to the history of shipping containers, this powerful analysis of how societies hang together and how they change will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and social theory.

Soziologie ist eine Disziplin, die durch zahlreiche Kontroversen geprägt ist. Nicht jeder dieser Konflikte trägt jedoch dazu bei, die soziale Welt besser zu begreifen. Mit seinem Buch wendet sich Isaac Ariail Reed vor allem gegen den Gegensatz von Erklären und Verstehen, der in der Soziologie seit ihren Anfängen im 19. Jahrhundert gepflegt wird und vielerorts als unüberwindlich gilt. Sein Buch ist ein provokantes Plädoyer dafür, dass Sozialtheorie dazu dienen kann, anschauliche und historisch sensible Erklärungen für soziale Phänomene zu gewinnen. Der Clou ist, dass die Erklärungen, für die Reed wirbt, interpretativ angelegt sind. Der Gegensatz zwischen Erklären und Verstehen ist letztlich eine Scheinopposition. Er analysiert, wie Theorie in den Sozialwissenschaften tatsächlich genutzt wird, anstatt auf Prinzipien herumzureiten, die unabhängig von dieser Praxis sind. Reed gelangt so zu einem hermeneutisch angelegten Forschungsansatz, der Machtbeziehungen reflektiert und das Augenmerk darauf lenkt, wie soziale Interaktionen ablaufen. Selbst wer diesen Ansatz nicht teilt, gewinnt mit dem Buch die Möglichkeit, sein eigenes Arbeiten zu überdenken und schärfer zu profilieren.

This book presents the core ideas of early sociologist Gabriel Tarde and suggests a new pathway for sociology based on his foundational work. Rejecting anthropocentrism, Tarde highlights the contrast between the natural and the artificial, uniquely emphasizing the positive significance of the artificial in an age in which people have come to distrust it profoundly. Recovering Tarde's theory today in the context of contemporary as well as classical scholarship and recognizing how it fits with such phenomena as quantum physics and digital media, this book develops the concept of the cosmological imagination as the context for a critical Tardian analysis of artifice that can bring together what we know about our contemporary future-oriented global societies.How we know the universe, our place in it, the place of other animals and objects in it, our global socialities, our human claims of power and privilege within it, are pointed questions Tarde asks as he wonders whether a future temporality conducive to constant artifice has become our normal human way of life. Considering our ambivalence about modern products and modernity in general, our thinking about the future, and our tendency to forget what nature used to signify in its presentation of problems beyond our control, such as illnesses and epidemics, Gabriel Tarde: The Future of the Artificial demonstrates the reasons for which we need to return to Tarde's work to rediscover its relevance for public debate as we seek to think through the new era and its societies in which culture and nature are no longer distinct. This book will appeal to scholars of social and political theory with interests in our digital age, new sociologies of materials and objects, neomonadology, and the thought of Gabriel Tarde.

From Society to System presents sociologist Michel Freitag's (1935-2009) distinctive, multifaceted and interdisciplinary work. Elaborated within the grand sociological tradition, his dialectical sociology redefines sociality as the realm of the symbolic to pinpoint its ontological frailty. Such a perspective expands the borders within sociology to rejoin classical philosophical preoccupations, revisiting social ontology as a radical critique of contemporary society where not only life and planet earth is at stake as a result of capitalism but reflexivity as well.This collection of essays touches on topics that have been of central concern for social theory since the end of the 20th century: the discussion about holism versus individualism and the dissolution of transcendental identity; the current state of the social sciences, both epistemologically and practically; the end-of-20th century debate over the nature of society along with its future in the context of globalisation. These essays show how Freitag's sociology is part of a larger unified framework that integrates ontology, epistemology, anthropology and philosophy into a coherent vision of the world – testifying to the distinctiveness of Freitag's social theory, standing next to other great social theorists such as Margaret Archer, Jürgen Habermas, Murray Bookchin and Ulrich Beck.

This edited collection harnesses a diversity of interpretivist perspectives to provide a panoramic view of the production, experiences, contexts, and meanings of religion. Scholars from the US, South Asia and Europe explore religious phenomena using ethnographic, comparative historical, psychosocial, and critical theoretical approaches. Each chapter addresses foundational themes in the study of religion – from identity, discourse and power to ritual, emotion, and embodiment. Authors examine dynamic intersections of race, gender, history, and the present within the religious traditions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as among the non-religious. Cutting boldly across religious traditions and paradigms, the book investigates areas of harmony and contradiction across different interpretive lenses to achieve a richer understanding of the meanings of religion.

Sociologists have not neglected the study of relationships, but there remains no central definition of what a relationship is. Conceptualizing and Modeling Relational Processes in Sociology offers a definition of relationships that supports a conceptual tool and visualization technique for analyzing relational processes that are otherwise difficult to model using standard ethnographic and social network analysis techniques. Grounded in the work of social psychologists and relational sociologists and built on the premise that relationships are both remembered and imagined, Joslyn introduces disjointed fluidity: a new concept which maintains that relationships are molded by a flow of changing circumstances and dynamic cognitive processes. Featuring data from an ethnographic study of doctoral student mentorship, Joslyn uses this cutting-edge perspective to detail the mechanisms by which relationships are created, maintained, and dissolved. Pioneering a computational ethnographic technique that visualizes the properties and characteristics of relational processes, the author offers an exciting contribution to the efforts of relational sociologists to build a universal conceptualization of relationships. With broad appeal across scholars and graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences, Joslyn presents new ideas for expanding relationship modeling methods in a way that unites relationship scholars and extends relational theory. This is a captivating read for both methodologists and practitioners in relational fields, such as marketing, library sciences, criminal justice/legal psychology, and psychotherapy.

This book explores the fertility and enigma of Erving Goffman's sociological reasoning and its capacity to shed fresh light on the fundamental features of human sociality. Thematically arranged, it brings together the work of leading scholars of Goffman's work to explore the concepts and themes that define Goffman's analytical preoccupations, examining the ways these ideas have shaped significant fields of study and situating Goffman's sociology in comparison to some eminent thinkers often linked with his name. Through a series of chapters informed by the same inventive and imaginative spirit characteristic of Goffman's sociology, the book presents fresh perspectives on his contribution to the field and reveals the value of his thought for a variety of disciplines now increasingly aware of the importance of Goffman's sociology to a range of social phenomena. A fresh perspective on the legacy of one of sociology's most important figures, The Routledge International Handbook of Goffman Studies will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in interactionist and micro-sociological perspectives.

Institutional ethnography (IE) originated as a feminist alternative to sociologies defining people as the objects of study. Instead, IE explores the social relations that dominate the life of the particular subject in focus. Simply Institutional Ethnography is written by two pioneers in the field and grounded in decades of ground-breaking work. Dorothy Smith and Alison Griffith lay out the basics of how institutional ethnography proceeds as a sociology. The book introduces the concepts – Discourse, Work, Text – that institutional ethnographers have found to be key ideas used to organize what they learn from the study of people's experience. Simply Institutional Ethnography builds an ethnography that makes this material visible as coordinated sequences of social relations that reach beyond the particularities of local experience. In explicating the foundations of IE and its principal concepts, Simply Institutional Ethnography reflects on the ways in which the field may move forward.

Marx's masterpiece Capital (Das Kapital) ignored or misread as well as selectively and creatively interpreted by the generation of social scientists that came after him. Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel attempt to supplement what they call ‘historical materialism'or to engage in debates about ‘socialism'through their readings of The Communist Manifesto and occasional Capital. Although these and other classical sociologists did not have access to most of Marx's published and unpublished works as we do today, each is concerned with revising and refining Marx's unfinished critique of political economy. Despite their differences with Marx and with one another, they share his concern with how empirically detailed and scientifically valid knowledge of the social world may inform historical struggles for a more human world. This commitment can be called ‘Faustian', after the title character of the poet J. W. von Goethe's tragic epic of modernity,insofar as Marx and the classical sociologists hope to translate theory into practice while making a pact or wager with the diabolical social, political, and economic forces of the modern world.

Due to his major contributions in qualitative inquiries, Norman K. Denzin is regarded as ‘the Father of Qualitative Inquiries.'Festschrift in Honor of Norman K. Denzin: He Knew His Song Well, Volume 55 of Studies in Symbolic Interaction, is a compilation of writings published in his honor. Featuring chapters which detail Denzin's unrivalled contributions to qualitative inquiries, the authors describe the immense scope of Denzin's qualitative research, from symbolic interactionism and postmodernism to justice studies. Documenting Denzin's inclusive efforts to embrace various perspectives in qualitative inquiries to advance the mission of qualitative research, this edited collection chronicles Denzin's continuous efforts in nurturing the field of qualitative inquiries via editorship and conference organization, fostering generations of qualitative researchers around the world. This collection is a comprehensive and compelling read for students and academics interested in qualitative research who wish to chart the impressive impact that Norman K. Denzin's work has had on the field.

Few concepts are as central to sociology as institutions. Yet, like so many sociological concepts, institutions remain vaguely defined. This book expands a foundational definition of the institution, one which locates them as the basic building blocks of human societies—as structural and cultural machines for survival that make it possible to pass precious knowledge from one generation to the next, ensuring the survival of our species. The book extends this classic tradition by, first, applying advances in biological evolution, neuroscience, and primatology to explain the origins of human societies and, in particular, the first institutional sphere: kinship. The authors incorporate insights from natural sciences often marginalized in sociology, while highlighting the limitations of purely biogenetic, Darwinian explanations. Secondly, they build a vivid conceptual model of institutions and their central dynamics as the book charts the chronological evolution of kinship, polity, religion, law, and economy, discussing the biological evidence for the ubiquity of these institutions as evolutionary adaptations themselves.