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An introduction to the papers presented at the August 2012 conference "Ethical imagination and social theory" held at Brandbjerg Højskole in Denmark.

Literary fiction and social science, despite the fact that they comprise two methodologically autonomous cultures, are nonetheless creatively interfere with each other. This paper explores the multiple points of contact between literature and social science and tracks the influences that literary fiction has had on social-scientific knowledge. Nine cases of ideas originally developed in literary sphere and then taken over by various social sciences and integrated into their conceptual vocabularies form the analytic material of this study. The main argument defended in this paper is that literary fiction is a great source of ideas that can inspire theory construction in social sciences. The corpus of literary texts which make up the textual universe of literature contains many embryonically foreshadowed concepts and proto-theories that can be worked out by social sciences into full-blown scientific conceptualizations. Literary tradition is also the depository of punctual propositions that can be distilled from fiction and translated into empirically testable hypotheses. This quality of literary fiction, of providing ‘Prêt-à-tester’ propositions, makes it a predilect source of inspiration for social science theorizing.

Discourse theories and methods have been a staple in social and political studies for a long time. However, even in the most advanced accounts of post-structuralist ontology and epistemology within the social sciences, materiality is somewhat under-theorized, weakening discursive approaches and leading to a sense that social and material/natural worlds are in some significant way separate and operate differently. In this paper Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism, which builds on quantum physics, is deployed to show that this need not be the case. The paper explores the question of materiality and matter and its relation to discourse, by bringing Barad’s insight and a strand of post-structuralist discourse theory together. I argue that Barad’s agential realism can account for how matter matters also in post-structuralist social science, by discussing the similarities of the two approaches and how they work together. The article contributes to the discussion on new materialism, the question of agency and structure and to the onto-epistemology of social sciences and the concept of matter.

This paper aims at exploring the dynamic interplay between advanced technological developments in AI and Big Data and the sustained relevance of theoretical frameworks in scientific inquiry. It questions whether the abundance of data in the AI era reduces the necessity for theory or, conversely, enhances its importance. Arguing for a synergistic approach, the paper emphasizes the need for integrating computational capabilities with theoretical insight to uncover deeper truths within extensive datasets. The discussion extends into computational social science, where elements from sociology, psychology, and economics converge. The application of these interdisciplinary theories in the context of AI is critically examined, highlighting the need for methodological diversity and addressing the ethical implications of AI-driven research. The paper concludes by identifying future trends and challenges in AI and computational social science, offering a call to action for the scientific community, policymakers, and society. Being positioned at the intersection of AI, data science, and social theory, this paper illuminates the complexities of our digital era and inspires a re-evaluation of the methodologies and ethics guiding our pursuit of knowledge.

Since its genesis in the 1960s, Conversation Analysis (CA) has noticeably developed further in terms of its subjects and methods. Its analyses, today, not only focus on conversations in the original sense, but also on visual elements such as gazes in interactions and the role of bodies. However, it also analyzes especially larger communicative units, e.g., in institutionalized settings and it addresses larger sequences of action. One of these approaches is the theory and analysis of communicative genres. Communicative genres are to be understood as consolidated forms of communication. The theory of communicative genres understands these forms as solutions to communicative problems. Genre analysis is methodologically grounded in CA; however, it exceeds it conceptually and theoretically, thus anchoring its questions clearly within sociology. The paper starts out by outlining the concepts and theory of communicative genres. The article discusses the empirical contribution of genre analysis using the example of three so-called “families of genres” families. The examples discussed are reconstructive genres (speaking about the past), genres of moral communication (speaking about other people’s behavior), and projective genres (speaking about the future). Using examples from empirical research, it is shown which communicative problems these genres solve. The paper finally considers the insights to be gained from genre analysis for sociology and CA.

This article analyses thresholds of catastrophe guiding measures to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. It argues that in both cases thresholds express the proposed interaction between the security technologies of prevention and preparedness. Preventive measures are supposed to slow down the infection dynamic and the rise of global temperatures, so that strategies of preparedness are able to cope with the remaining adversities: effectively treating patients and successfully adapting to climate change. The transgression of the catastrophe threshold thus marks the point when crisis dynamics become uncontrollable. The goal is to prevent the unpreparable and to prepare for the unavoidable. A moral economy of life underpins this rationality by providing a backstop against an excess of biopolitical elasticity in setting the threshold. The paper contributes to debates in security studies and the sociology of risk by showing how prevention and preparedness, which are often assumed to be opposing rationalities, come to operate in the same security assemblages. In addition, the paper criticizes the ways in which the focus on the catastrophe threshold silences death and suffering below the threshold and fails to provide guidance for situations when the threshold is already breeched. Considering the advanced state and the peculiar temporality of the climate crisis, the paper analyzes a shift from “pre” (preparedeness, prevention) to “re” (carbon removal, ecological remediation and reparation) in the contemporary politics of environmental security.

As toponymic means of inscribing urban space, street names have been addressed mainly by human geographers, who have articulated the field of critical place-name studies. In this paper, I continue the endeavor started in the previous issue published in Social Change Review of reading street names through sociological lenses. Whereas in the first part of this two-part contribution the analysis was made from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, this second and final part employs social constructionism and the utilitarian theoretical tradition in making sociological sense of street nomenclatures. First, conceiving of street names as forming discursively constructed linguistic landscapes, the paper shows how urban namescapes – the “city-text” – are written, erased, and rewritten to reflect the shifting political powers. Second, the paper examines the neoliberal processes of place branding and toponymic commodification by which street names are turned into sought-after urban commodities with transactional value on the real estate market. The paper concludes by inviting sociologists to join the conversation on street names, which should become an important topic of sociological reflection.

Abstract This paper elaborates an aspirations–capabilities framework to advance our understanding of human mobility as an intrinsic part of broader processes of social change. In order to achieve a more meaningful understanding of agency and structure in migration processes, this framework conceptualises migration as a function of aspirations and capabilities to migrate within given sets of perceived geographical opportunity structures. It distinguishes between the instrumental (means-to-an-end) and intrinsic (directly wellbeing-affecting) dimensions of human mobility. This yields a vision in which moving and staying are seen as complementary manifestations of migratory agency and in which human mobility is defined as people’s capability to choose where to live, including the option to stay, rather than as the act of moving or migrating itself. Drawing on Berlin’s concepts of positive and negative liberty (as manifestations of the widely varying structural conditions under which migration occurs) this paper conceptualises how macro-structural change shapes people’s migratory aspirations and capabilities. The resulting framework helps to understand the complex and often counter-intuitive ways in which processes of social transformation and ‘development’ shape patterns of migration and enable us to integrate the analysis of almost all forms of migratory mobility within one meta-conceptual framework.

ABSTRACTResearch on Max Weber’s reception in Chinese contexts has often focused on the formative period (1980s–90s) and its changing political-economic circumstances. However, attempts to bring the reception process back into the broader circulation of knowledge and investigate the intermediations of the Chinese sociologists with overseas experience are scant. Therefore, the aim of this article is to deploy the “circulation of knowledge” approach to examine a selection of influential Chinese sociologists with international experience from three generations (born in the 1910s, 1930s, and 1950s). The representatives sampled include Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005), Chu Tung-tsu (1910–2008), Yang Ching-kun (1911–99), Ambrose King Yeo-Chi (1935–), Zhao Dingxin (1953–), and Zhou Xueguang (1959–). Dialoging with Rodriguez Medina’s analytical framework and his concept of “subordinating object,” this paper narrates and compares the explicit and implicit effects of the cohorts’ intellectual and political-ethical interventions. The results of this study show not only the asymmetric “dual gaze” between center and periphery, but also that generation and discipline are two crucial factors in the circulation of sociological knowledge. To conclude, this study may be of importance in explaining the asymmetries and intermediaries facilitating Weber’s reception process, as well as providing a base for alternative Weber-relevance that might go beyond the canonical image.

Street names are mundane spatial markers that besides providing a sense of orientation inscribe onto the landscape the ideological ethos and political symbols of hegemonic discourses. This review article takes stock of the existing scholarship done on the politics of street naming practices in human (political, cultural, and social) geography and rethinks these insights from sociological perspectives. Drawing on Randall Collins’ taxonomy of sociological theory, the paper interprets urban street nomenclatures along functionalist, conflictualist, constructionist, and utilitarian lines. The analysis is delivered in two installments: Part I addresses urban nomenclatures from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, while Part II (published in the next issue of this journal) approaches street names as social constructions and examines their utilitarian value. In doing so, the paper advances the argument that urban namescapes in general and street names in particular should make an important object of sociological reflection and empirical analysis. It is one of the key arguments developed in this paper that toponymy encapsulates broader and intersecting issues of power, memory, identity, language, and space which can be rendered visible through sociological analysis.

Digital twins have great potential for improving urban management. However, the way that they are formulated seems to vary according to the aims of the urban management taking place. For instance, digital twins are made sophisticated and innovative when the urban manager wants to demonstrate technological prowess; they contribute to generating useful interventionist strategies if social engineering is occurring; they emphasize exploratory and collaborative mechanisms if the urban manager wants to uncover people's attitudes; and they tend to focus upon citizen engagement and mechanisms for social improvements when societal reform is the main aim. Yet those who build digital twins seldom declare their worldviews or specify why they are doing so, and this leads to two problems. Firstly, it becomes difficult to evaluate and compare different digital twins. Secondly, since urban management projects often have several contrasting aims, many researchers construct seemingly pluralistic digital twins which are, in fact, severely afflicted with inconsistency and poorly measured priorities as to what needs to be included and addressed. In order to clarify the situation, this paper comprehensively analyses the research literature to conceptualize different approaches to implementing digital twins. It then assesses three alternative, theoretical paradigms upon which a pluralistic digital twin might be grounded and evaluated, and it concludes that ''critical realism'', rather than ''post-modernism'' or ''ontological flexibility' is the most appropriate.

Purpose: to present the national security environment from the perspective of the main assumptions formulated by Aristotle. This was he, who examined 158 constitutions of states, and he also undertook the work of describing the known regimes in detail. He can be considered the first thinker to approach the entire spectrum of political and social issues in a scientific manner. Method: the research was conducted using the following general scientific and special methods: the historical method during the study of the examination of constitutions by Aristotle; the method of analysis and synthesis related to the functioning of the state by Aristotle, abstract-logical method – for formulating theoretical generalizations and research conclusions. The results of the study: are related to Aristotleʼs indications, that a democratic system can be a matrix for other forms of government and of utmost importance is to preserve sustainability. The intention was not to develop or to reject the existing theories, but it was possible to formulate the assumption, that democracy, as we know it, has been a specific system whose durability depends on specific virtues and goods, most often called liberal. Theoretical implications: the practitioners can learn from the paper, that following Aristotle, the virtue of moderation should be incorporated into the cross-section of liberal political values for the benefit of the sustainability of democracy and the citizens who participate in its achievements. In this respect, the relationship between politics and ethics was revealed, which is characteristic of the classically understood philosophy of politics. Practical implications: the findings could serve as the research streams related to deeper analysis of the democratic systems, and the relations with the essence of the democracy of ancient Athens and looking for inspiration and parallel solutions for the political culture of current liberal democratic societies. Papertype: theoretical.

This paper gives a critical overview of the analytical approaches dominating the field of discourse studies in the last three decades, from the perspective of their philosophical and formative bases: social constructionism and linguistics. It explores different conceptions of the theoretical nexus between these two bases leading to the emergence of three distinct yet complementary strands of thought (i-iii). The paper starts with poststructuralist views of discourse salient in (i) Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory. Laclau and Mouffe’s assumption that no discourse is a closed entity but rather transformed through contact with other discourses is taken as the introductory premise to present a large family of (ii) critical discourse studies, characterized as text-analytical practices explaining how discourse partakes in the production and negotiations of ideological meanings. Finally, the paper discusses (iii) three recent discourse analytical models: Discourse Space Theory, Critical Metaphor Analysis and the Legitimization-Proximization Model. These new theories take a further (and thus far final) step towards consolidation of the social-theoretical and linguistic bases in contemporary discourse studies. The empirical benefits of this consolidation are discussed in the last part of the paper, which includes a case study where the new models are used in the analysis of Polish anti-immigration discourse.

In this paper, the Author analyzes, from a philosofical point of view, the important work of the Third sector in terms of promoting values. The focus is on the hypothesis of the relationship be- tween solidarity and the specific social meaning by Lukàcs. This paper also analyzes the topical issues such as the necessity of a revaluation of the social and economic theories on the social ex- clusion, the concept of “entrepreneurship” and the welfare state; the relation between the concept of the social development and the contemporary social movements; the idea and the lawful basis of the voluntary organizations and their european origins.

The paper explores the relation between collective memory and social theory, trying in particular to show the key role that the notion of collective memory plays in understanding the dynamics of the social process (structuration, genesis of social structure). It does it by means of a series of reinterpretations of classical authors. Investigating the phenomenon of forgetting as covering up the traces of social change (M. Halbwachs), problematized in the contemporary context (P. Bourdieu), leads us to unraveling the problematic character of social change as such in a vain effort of annulment of memory (A. Touraine), and finally to rediscovering of social memory at a deeper level, as a profound structure of social processes. This discovery points to the necessity of introducing a new, yet undeveloped method of studying the social unconscious (A. Giddens, J. Assmann, and in particular J. Alexander). Jeffrey Alexander overtly postulates such a development, identifying his major project of cultural sociology with a kind of social psychoanalysis. The paper ends with a question – where such a postulate leads us to? Perhaps we need a new kind of art of benevolent interpretation that brings along with new understanding also some kind of soothing the pain of misery, deeply inscribed in social existence.

The concept of social capital has become in recent decades one of the most powerful ideas in social science. Having its roots in sociology and economics, it has consistently “settled” in almost all fields that deal with human functioning—pedagogy, social work, social anthropology, history, health sciences. This multiplicity of approaches and uses stems, on the one hand, from the diversity of topics and issues to which the term “social capital” is applied. On the other hand, it is the result of different theoretical sources of social capital conceptualization. As a consequence, different researchers, when using the term “social capital”, have in mind slightly different elements of social reality. It has consequences in the educational research, and leads to a large number of studies using the category of social capital in relation to school, but their results do not seem to form a coherent picture, sometimes even leading to contradictory conclusions. The question arises whether it is possible to build a synthesized analytical perspective, using the notion of social capital in such a way as to make this category a really useful tool for analyzing educational reality. The paper is an attempt to present such perspective by development of two ideal types of the structural conditions for education (schooling). First, the author presents the understanding of social capital in regard to education in four theoretical contexts: James Coleman’s theory of exchange, Robert D. Putnam’s theory of civil society, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural structuralism and the network theory. Next, the text presents different analytical strategies resulting from the adoption of a given theoretical perspective. In the last part of the paper attempt was made to construct two ideal types of structural conditions for education, which seem to be possible to read from the results of research conducted with the use of different conceptualizations of social capital.

Antibiotic stewardship—or the responsible use of antibiotics—has been touted as a solution to the problem of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic stewardship in medical institutions attempts to change the antibiotic prescribing “behaviors” and “habits” of physicians. Interventions abound targeting “problem prescribers,” or those physicians whose practice is out of line with physician peers. Thus, the locus of decision-making in antibiotic prescribing is thought to be the found with the individual physician. Based on 18 months of participant observation and in-depth interviewing of antibiotic-prescribing physicians at two medical institutions in the United States, this paper will question notions of antibiotic stewardship that center on individual “behaviors” and “habits.” Many physicians have taken to heart a reductionist approach in studies of antibiotic prescribing, including several physicians I encountered during research who enthusiastically located the benefit of my research in the ability to identify “what's wrong with us.” In this paper, I use two representative ethnographic case studies to argue that antibiotic stewardship interventions aimed at identifying and correcting “bad” physician practice limit the possibilities of understanding the social dynamics of the institution. Through an analysis of everyday encounters in the hospital setting, I show how decision-making in antibiotic prescribing can more productively be located between and among institutions, physicians, patient charts, and other hospital-based staff members (e.g., pharmacists, nurses). By demonstrating that antibiotic prescribing is a collective practice occurring through engagement with social and material surroundings, I argue that we can better account for the weighted ways in which social action and relations unfold over time.

While the concept of ‘mobility’ lends itself to a variety of metaphorical meanings, ‘spatial mobility’ is in fact poorly theorized in the history of sociology. Nonetheless, it plays an underrated role in the theories of all the classics of the discipline: Marx and Engels, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and the Chicago School. The paper explores the role of ‘spatial mobility’ in these classics and its re-emerging importance in more recent social theory. The influence of geography is highlighted, as John Urry’s ‘mobility turn’ draws on the earlier ‘spatial turn’ of human geographers. After reviewing the controversy about the use of mobility as a conceptual framework for the analysis of migration, the paper calls for stronger attention to the spatial dimension of human life in sociological theory altogether, rather than confining ‘mobility’ to a specific research field and, ultimately, treating it as yet another dependent variable to be accounted for.

Abstract Background Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are increasingly utilized as a public health strategy for strengthening health systems and have become a core component for the delivery of TB control services in India, as promoted through national policy. However, partnerships are complex systems that rely on relationships between a myriad of different actors with divergent agendas and backgrounds. Relationship is a crucial element of governance, and relationship building an important aspect of partnerships. To understand PPPs a multi-disciplinary perspective that draws on insights from social theory is needed. This paper demonstrates how social theory can aid the understanding of the complex relationships of actors involved in implementation of Public-Private Mix (PPM)-TB policy in India. Methods Ethnographic research was conducted within a district in a Southern state of India over a 14 month period, combining participant observations, informal interactions and in-depth interviews with a wide range of respondents across public, private and non-government organisation (NGO) sectors. Results Drawing on the theoretical insights from Bourdieu’s “theory of practice” this study explores the relationships between the different actors. The study found that programme managers, frontline TB workers, NGOs, and private practitioners all had a crucial role to play in TB partnerships. They were widely regarded as valued contributors with distinct social skills and capabilities within their organizations and professions. However, their potential contributions towards programme implementation tended to be unrecognized both at the top and bottom of the policy implementation chain. These actors constantly struggled for recognition and used different mechanisms to position themselves alongside other actors within the programme that further complicated the relationships between different actors. Conclusion This paper demonstrates that applying social theory can enable a better understanding of the complex relationship across public, private and NGO sectors. A closer understanding of these processes is a prerequisite for bridging the gap between field-level practices and central policy intentions, facilitating a move towards more effective partnership strategies for strengthening local health systems. The study contributes to our understanding of implementation of PPP for TB control and builds knowledge to help policy makers and programme managers strengthen and effectively implement strategies to enable stronger governance of these partnerships.

Existing literature on the work of sports chaplains has focused primarily on practitioner accounts of chaplaincy with elite athletes. While these narratives provide useful descriptions of personal experience and practical application, they are largely devoid of theoretical grounding. This paper seeks to address this imbalance by proposing the need for sports chaplains to have a more critical understanding of sport and its relational dynamics. We begin by problematizing some of the historical assumptions underpinning elite sport, especially in relation to identity formation. We then explore some of the moral dilemmas which may be experienced by Christian athletes who inhabit contemporary sporting contexts. In line with the work of established sociological scholars, we then move to a critical analysis of performance-based identity and how an understanding of sociological concepts and ideas might assist chaplains in their work with elite athletes. The paper concludes by identifying sports chaplains as key figures in the disruption of performance-based identity.

Social theories generally defined as analytical frameworks or paradigms that applicable to examine social phenomena. The term belonging to ideas about how societies change and develop, methods of explaining social behaviour, power and social structure. In contemporary social theory, certain themes such as the nature of social life, the relationship between self and society, the structure of social institutions, social transformation, as well as such as gender, race, class, and others themes consider as most priority to others. This paper will demonstrates Foucault’s ideas in structures and discourses—how discourses produced particular truths which studying institutions (schools) and offering a critique of what was considered to be normal, to consider Foucault’s ideas such as panopticism to examine disciplinary and self-policy of schools. The main purpose ofthis paper is to find practical value in Foucault’s ideas.

The paper develops a concept of conviviality as a form of friendly togetherness that includes people, technical infrastructures and nature. Therefore, Marcel Mauss’s concept of the gift, different strands of thinking about conviviality (e.g. Ivan Illich), John Dewey’ experimentalism and the political theory and movement of convivialism are firstly depicted and discussed. The goal, secondly, is to integrate these various theoretical perspectives in order a) to better grasp already existent forms of conviviality and to b) develop an analytical and normative standpoint that on the one hand helps to evaluate unsustainable, non-convivial and on the other convivial forms of living together.

The main question of this article is why imagine other worlds. In addition to shedding light on the motivation, we also examine the imaginative processes, their resources and the associative arrangements available to imagination in the construction of new worlds. We see ‘other worlds’ as both utopian and as fantastic spaces, following the hypothesis that the space of fantasy is never entirely free. We place particular emphasis on the space and time of utopia, and on the aspect of the novelty. The paper is divided into four parts. The first takes into account the path to the other world, or the methodical problem of imagination. The second wants to portray the other world, or the limitations to imagining something entirely different and new. The third part inquires about the cost of utopian thinking: what is lost in the process, what is sacrificed to its flattening gestures? Finally, despite all these limitations, in the fourth part we consider the significance of utopian thought for social theory.

This paper aims to realize a contribution of social theory, with a focus on the relationships between experience, emotions and knowledge in the context of the metropolis and the media. It proposes an inquiry of the detective and the mediological reflection as a problematic constellation through the following conceptual steps: a) the reciprocal relationship between phenomenon, shock and images; b) the relationship between fragment and organic constellation of thought; c) the central value assumed by detail and circumstances; d) the interdependence between the sphere of feeling, immersion and states of consciousness.

Current sociology doesn’t have a settled view on what to do with a phenomenon that in the literature has been titled as “artificial intelligence” (AI). Sociological textbooks, handbooks, encyclopedias, and sociology classes’ syllabi typically either don’t have entries about AI at all or talk about it haphazardly with a stress on AI’s social effects and without discerning the underlying logic that moves the prodigy on. This paper is an invitation to a professional conversation about what and how social sciences can/should study “artificial intelligence”. It is based on a discussion of the preliminary results of an on-going three-year research project that has been launched at the ISA Congress in Toronto. The paper examines AI in relation with ‘artificial sociality’. It argues that research on AI-based technologies is flourishing mainly outside established disciplinary boundaries. Thus, social sciences have to look for new theoretical and methodological frameworks to approach AI and ‘artificial sociality’.

Most theories of International Relations (IR) are cautious, if not pessimistic, about the potential for change in IR. In this regard, the concept of ontological security holds promising yet oft-overlooked prospects. This article argues that applications of ontological security to IR theory thus far have been limited due to the narrow conceptualisations of practices and how they contribute to one’s attempts to preserve their ontological security. As such, this paper seeks to expand the theoretical framework through which ontological security is applied to IR, which involves a more comprehensive conceptualisation of practice that considers reflexivity as key. Accordingly, the theory demonstrates that a state, faced with threats to their sense of Self, can respond either by rigidising or changing their practices rather than being limited to the former. This allows one to account for change—especially big change—in world politics such as the increasingly inward-looking turn of the West.

In the years when the Seljuks practically ruled the Muslim caliphate and built their institutions unobstructedly even in Baghdad, one of the greatest representatives of Islamic thought, Muhammad Ghazali, emerged. Known among historians of science for his encyclopaedic knowledge, Ghazali often addressed social topics and issues in his works. The great Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk had great confidence in him, both because of his unquestionable scientific and intellectual readiness, and because of the similar ideological views they both championed. Specifically, they both followed the Shafi'i law school, while in theological terms they strongly advocated Asharite views. This was true, however, in the early period of Ghazali's life, which is why Nizam offered him to be the rector of the Nizamiyyah University he had recently built in Baghdad. This conceptual resemblance suited Nizam perfectly, because, when founding the university, his idea was to affirm the Shafi'i and Asharite conceptual platform in an academic and scientific way. However, Ghazali's life did not remain uniform until the end. Several reasons led to a great cognitive, intellectual and spiritual change in Ghazali. During the crisis he was going through, Ghazali decided to change his lifestyle completely. He left Baghdad and embarked on a journey without a clear destination, which lasted for several years and finally ended with a pilgrimage to Mecca. During his journey and the crisis of his life, he decided to reconstruct seriously his approach to political as well as social engagement in general. He preferred a lonely life away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Some historians believe that this change also influenced his social theory. To confirm their point of view, they frequently refer to a book he wrote in the last years of his life, in which he often deviates from his primary views related to social topics. How right are these historians? Do we really notice any revolutionary change in social attitudes in Ghazali's life and his works? In this paper, we will try to find the answers to these questions.

Background: The literature shows how gender mandates contribute to differences in exposure and vulnerability to certain health risk factors. This paper presents the results of a study developed in the south of Spain, where research aimed at understanding men from a gender perspective is still limited. Objective: The aim of this paper is to explore the lay perceptions and meanings ascribed to the idea of masculinity, identifying ways in which gender displays are related to health. Design: The study is based on a mixed-methods data collection strategy typical of qualitative research. We performed a qualitative content analysis focused on manifest and latent content. Results: Our analysis showed that the relationship between masculinity and health was mainly defined with regard to behavioural explanations with an evident performative meaning. With regard to issues such as driving, the use of recreational drugs, aggressive behaviour, sexuality, and body image, important connections were established between manhood acts and health outcomes. Different ways of understanding and performing the male identity also emerged from the results. The findings revealed the implications of these aspects in the processes of change in the identity codes of men and women. Conclusions: The study provides insights into how the category ‘man’ is highly dependent on collective practices and performative acts. Consideration of how males perform manhood acts might be required in guidance on the development of programmes and policies aimed at addressing gender inequalities in health in a particular local context.

In the last decades, pragmatism is consolidating its influence on social sciences, both in terms of epistemology and ontology. A series of recent philosophical publications deal with a rather classical pragmatist topic — the relationship between morality, religion, and truth — in quite a new shape. First, they deal with the conception of a pragmatist epistemology based on situated morality and truth aptness of moral judgments. Second, they propose a large reflection on the relationship between theology and pluralism in terms of truth regimes. Finally, they try to overcome the pitfalls of the Jamesian phenomenological conception of religion, through both the semiotic lens of Charles S. Peirce and the rediscovery of the Josiah Royce’s works. This paper uses the stimuli of the three books listed above to introduce the reader to a socio-philosophical perspective rather not considered in the European debate, despite its importance for the development of American sociology (symbolic interactionism, the School of Chicago, R.K. Merton, among the others) and for a variety of European scholars. A second objective is to understand how the problems pragmatist philosophers encounter in analysing the religious phenomena could help understanding the need for a multifactorial and multilevel explanation of religion and ethics. Finally, in the discussion, the author critically enlightens the need to avoid collapsing morality into religion — as sometimes pragmatists do — and extends and reframes Hans Joas’ appropriation of Mead and Durkheim in his pragmatist approach to religion and morality.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o debate sociológico contemporâneo acerca da perda da centralidade da categoria trabalho surgido nas últimas décadas do século XX. O artigo analisa a pertinência da categoria trabalho no pensamento social, evidenciando sua afirmação antes do surgimento da sociologia. Também são analisadas as propostas de Habermas, Gorz, Offe, Schaff e Kurz, considerados os precursores mais importantes desse debateThis paper aims to discuss the contemporary sociological debate on the decline in the centrality of work as a category over the final decades of the 20th century. It also analyzes the importance of the work category in sociological thought, showing how it in fact appeared before the emergence of sociology. Finally the paper examines the approaches of Habermas, Gorz, Offe, Schaff and Kurz, considered as the most important precursors to this debate

By declaring biomedicine as its apolitical counter-discourse, social theory, including disability studies, experiences problems discussing bodies and their ailments. This paper explores possibilities to ‘bring bodies back in’ in politically relevant ways, while avoiding reducing bodies to singular, natural ‘givens’. This is done by exploring some of the practices in which people with severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) attempt to live with their chronic disease and together with others. It becomes clear that what they experience as important physico-social problems are the 'invisibility' of their disease, combined with the 'visibility' of the aids used to deal with its problems. This combination leads to behaviour that is incomprehensible to others. It is demonstrated that some form of 'presence' of the disease is needed to create social positions that allow patients to live with others in an acceptable way. The paper continues by exploring ways in which bodies are made present in useful ways. These are found where the people with COPD: (1) create communities of 'shared bodies' that allow for a multitude of visible and invisible presences of COPD; (2) develop ways to 'educate' their bodies in different ways to create new presences; (3) use their bodies as 'sources of knowledge' about living with breathlessness; and (4) create 'transportable' bodies to take COPD presences elsewhere, by using the argument of ‘demonstration by numbers’, the workings of time and by playing out the exceptional characteristics of their bodies and situations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relatively unexplored possibilities for creating and sharing ‘patient knowledge’ and the areas this opens up for a new politics of social inclusion.

The supposed properties of 'genes' have led natural scientists to claim authority to explain the reasons of human action, behavior, and even human nature, which has traditionally been the object of study of the humanities. The aim of this paper is to discuss the possibilities of sociological theory dealing with the biological reductionism that establishes the strict articulation between 'human nature' and 'human action', presented in several speeches and papers by scientists and journalists and supported by features of 'genes'. I intend to argue that sociological theories may broaden their scope of analysis by encompassing biological dimensions, which does not necessarily mean adopting a biological reductionist approach.As supostas propriedades dos 'genes' levam os cientistas naturais a reivindicar autoridade para explicar as razões de atos, comportamentos e até a natureza humana, tradicional objeto de estudo das ciências humanas. O objetivo deste artigo é discutir as possibilidades de a teoria sociológica lidar com o reducionismo biológico, que estabelece uma articulação exata entre 'natureza humana' e 'ação humana'. Tal reducionismo está presente em discursos e artigos de cientistas e jornalistas, e é embasado por características dos 'genes'. Argumento que as teorias sociológicas podem ampliar suas possibilidades de análise se incorporarem dimensões biológicas, o que não implica necessariamente adotar uma abordagem reducionista.

While dealing with both interdisciplinarity and environment and society area as fields that harbor scientific contentions regarding ideas, practices, institutions and habitus (Bourdieu), this paper aims at providing an account of the multifaceted processes implied in the institutionalization of environmental concerns in Latin-American academia and research centers. The paper discusses the extent to which one can legitimately talk about "a Latin- American scientific specificity", supposedly resulting from peculiar theoretical approaches or even from particular socio-environmental features (such as widespread poverty and high rates of social inequality, along with unparalleled levels of biodiversity). Last but not least, the paper seeks to draw a sort of thematic map (via bibliographical review) as well as a consideration of the levels of scientific institutionalization of environmental issues in six different research centers located in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil.Ao tratar a interdisciplinaridade e a área de ambiente e sociedade enquanto campos que lidam com questões científicas relacionadas com idéias, práticas, instituições e habitus (Bourdieu), esse artigo pretende contribuir para a compreensão dos processos multifacetados implicados na institucionalização da questão ambiental na academia e centros de pesquisa latino-americanos. O texto discute em que medida pode-se legitimamente falar de uma "especificidade científica latino-americana", supostamente resultante de abordagens teóricas peculiares ou mesmo de situações sócio-ambientais particulares (como pobreza e altas taxas de desigualdade, junto a incomparáveis índices de biodiversidade). Por último, mas também importante, o texto pretende trazer um panorama temático (através da revisão bibliográfica) assim como apontar os níveis de institucionalização científica da área ambiental em seis centros de pesquisa localizados na Argentina, Chile, México, Uruguai e Brasil.

Why Alfred Schutz's legacy influenced so much social theory, remaining much less known in the world of philosophy, and phenomenology in particular? The paper tries to show its importance for the phenomenological tradition, pointing to its relevance for such philosopical problems as understanding of the phenomenological reduction, self-evidence, the reproach of psychologism, constitution of meanings and realism vs. idealism in phenomenology. Highlighting Husserl's high esteem for Schutz, it departs from the historical background of Schutz's reflection (the Austrian school of law and economy, neo-kantianism of the Marburg and the Baden school and its influence on Max Weber, Husserl's dispute with psychologism) in order to show, on the example of "The Phenomenology of the Social World", how Schutz finds his way from the solipsistic trap, finding a solution of the self-evidence problem by means of providing a description of the pre-reflexive and of the reflexive side of the time structure, inherent in the process of the social constitution of meaning. The text proceeds by delineating historical background of Schutz’s reflection: first of the inspiration of his philosophy by legal and economic theories, then of his engagement in the discussion on grounding the humanities, of Max Weber’s position in this discussion, constituting a point of departure for Schutz, and, finally, of Schutz’s relation to the basic issues of phenomenology, comprised in the question of psychologism. After this introduction Schutz’s project turns out to be a reconstruction of processual self-evidence, realized in co-existence of various streams of consciousness, in a way congenial to Heidegger’s “Time and Being”.

In this paper, we provide a narrative review of the theoretical discourse and empiric research on the relationship between homicide and suicide.Understanding of homicide and suicide has evolved from religious condemnation during the Middle Ages, to medicalization in the 1800s, and socialization in the 1900s. There is a long historical tradition of treating homicide and suicide as a single phenomenon. Contemporary thought, the stream analogy, posits that homicide and suicide are acts of violence, differentiated only by the direction of aggression. Empiric research has provided modest evidence supporting the stream analogy theory. A more comprehensive framework that incorporates cultural domains is needed to advance the research field on homicide and suicide.

The affordance of sociology implicates not only the “functionality” (Fil. gamit) element, but embraces the dimension of “relevance” (Fil. katuturan). Henceforth, the germaneness of sociology as a discipline in exploring Philippine social realities and in making sense of the Filipino actions and interactions can no longer be gauged in terms of casual invocation/legitimation of its (Western) discursive trappings. The usefulness of sociology can only be realized if it is used as a perspective and such requires a reflective stance on the whole praxis of appropriating the practices, protocols, and principles of the Eurocentric sociology. As a corollary issue, the paper investigates the ambivalence that characterized the disciplinal identity of sociology—an identity simultaneously forged by the literary and scientif ic traditions during the Industrial Revolution period. Filipino sociologists, however, can exploit this ambivalent identity to launch a sociology that is both faithful to the demands of the individual experiences of Filipinos and fateful to their collective history. The Filipinos’ pakikipagkapuwa is used as a tool to lift the ideological veil that shrouds the very practice of “theorizing” in the social sciences in the country, and at the same time, to present an effective example of the unique affordances of an autonomous sociology that thrives in the Philippines.

O projeto da teoria crítica da sociedade tem sido definido de diferentes modos, a partir de sua gênese, de sua metodologia ou de sua história institucional. O presente artigo analisa cada uma destas possibilidades e sugere uma alternativa a elas, a saber, a de que a teoria crítica pode ser entendida como a tentativa de desdobrar um problema: o da divisão e da compartimentação do trabalho científico então em curso. Esta alternativa também permite compreender de outra forma a ruptura operada pela guinada epistêmica do final da década de 60. [The project of the critical theory of society has been defined in different ways: through the description of its genesis, of its methodology or of its institutional history. This paper analyzes each of these possibilities and suggests an alternative to them, namely, that critical theory can be understood as the attempt to deal with a problem: that of the ongoing division and compartmentalization of scientific work. This alternative also makes it possible to understand in another way the rupture operated by the epistemic turn of the late 1960s.]

The state of research on social entrepreneurship is unsatisfactory. Social entrepreneurship research has been a key topic of the social innovation debate, contributing a lot to the development of the design, motives and practices to solve social demands and societal challenges mainly in the third sector, focusing at the role, possibilities and constraints of a social entrepreneurs and the social (instead of a market-driven) economy. However, the strong focus on social entrepreneurship fails to recognize other key aspects and the potential of a comprehensive concept of social innovation and its relationship to social change. Since findings from innovation research point out the systemic character of innovations, the strong concentration on social entrepreneurs as individuals responsible for innovations can be challenged. Instead, a differentiated perspective of the role of social entrepreneurs is needed, taking into account the different phases of the social innovation process as well as cross-sector collaborations with the whole diversity of societal actors (private and public actors, universities, and civil society). The purpose of our paper is to draw a systematic connection between these two aspects by contributing to a common theoretical ground based on social innovation theory and linking the burgeoning field of social entrepreneurship research with the comprehensive concept of social innovation and its contribution to social change.

In recent years, sociology in Britain – and in national contexts influenced by British sociology – has been diagnosed by various parties as suffering from a wide range of ailments. These forms of selfcriticism become ever more acute in terms of their potential effects as huge transformations in university funding regimes are brought to bear on the social sciences. But none of these critiques engages satisfactorily with what is a much more foundational and serious set of problems, namely the very nature of sociology itself as a historically-situated form of knowledge production. Sociology claims to know the world around it, but in Britain today much sociology seriously fails in this regard, because it operates with radically curtailed understandings of the long-term historical forces which made the social conditions it purports to analyse. A sophisticated understanding of the contemporary world is made possible only by an equally sophisticated understanding of very long-term historical processes, precisely the sort of vision that mainstream British sociology has lacked for at least the last two decades. This paper identifies the reasons for the development of this situation and the consequences it has for the nature of sociology’s knowledge production, for its self-understanding, for its claims to comprehend the contemporary world, and for its apparent social “usefulness”. A markedly more selfaware and historically-sensitive sociology is proposed as the answer to the pressing question of what aspects of sociology should be defended in the turbulent context of British higher education today.

The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between critical theory as understood in the Frankfurt school tradition on the one hand, and social ontology understood as a reflection on the ontological presuppositions of social sciences and social theories on the other. What is at stake is the type of social ontology that critical theory needs if it wants to tackle its main social ontological issue: that of social transformation. This paper’s claim is that what is required is neither a substantial social ontology, nor a relational social ontology, but a processual one. The first part of this article elaborates the distinction between substantial, relational and processual social ontologies. The second part analyzes the various ways in which this distinction can be used in social ontological discussions. Finally, the third part focuses on the various possible social ontological approaches to the issue of social transformation.

Service level agreement (SLA) negotiations involving cloud-based information technology (IT) service providers and customers are now commonplace. Although historical research on negotiation has often relied on economic foundations, the important nature of IT service levels to organizations' operational effectiveness suggests that negotiation complexities in the context of cloud-based outsourcing (or cloudsourcing) cannot be well understood by relying on economic perspectives alone. To that end, this paper reports on experiments designed to determine the relevance of competing sociotheoretic frameworks as they pertain to IT cloudsourcing negotiations. Contributions include a rigorous examination of hypotheses derived from social exchange theory, equity theory, learning theory, and the win-win theories of negotiation. Additional contributions include the development of methodological constructs (using the Euclidean geometry) that reflect the complex nature of IT cloudsourcing SLAs, i.e., that they are composed of numerous service category contract clauses where negotiation tradeoffs within a service category as well as across service categories are possible. We find strong support for the relevance of the social exchange theory to IT cloudsourcing negotiations, as well as moderate support for the win-win theories of negotiation. Our conclusions provide clear directions for extending our work into the realm of negotiation support systems, and we rely on our findings to conjecture that IT cloudsourcing negotiation is a unique context for sociotheoretic negotiation research due to the inherent importance of information technologies to organizations' operational effectiveness.

In the context of a social-theoretical take on the link between social life and visibility, this paper invites to shift the focus from visibility phenomena to “the visible”. A theory of visibility, it is submitted, must be constructed as a theory of the medium. In opposition to visibility as a set of formal relations, what the visible brings to the fore is the existence of a mid-term, a connective tissue. Also, if a theory is a prelude to a science, then a theory is needed that makes possible to measure the visible in itself. The development of an “intrinsic” theory of the visible, one capable of generating its own variables and constants, along with the conceptual space for their articulation, is retrieved through the joint contributions of surface theories (Simmel, Goffman, Portmann) and intensity theories (Deleuze, Thom). The piece presents a set of notions that could be of use to analyze the fiber of the visible and the trajectories occurring in the visible, in view of laying out a series of laws of the visible.

Manuel Castells’ sociological view of power gained worldwide popularity in the late 1990s but began to be built in the early 1980s, after his abandonment of Marxism. This paper makes a detailed analysis of how Castells conceptualizes power in relation to his abstract and multidimensional notion of society in the period 1983‑2003, as well as the way in which power is linked to the concept of relations of production, which encapsulates a great part of his economic thought. The research allows us to show, among other things, Castells’s tactic of appropriation of Karl Marx’s theory of power, and his attachment to a vision of power closely linked to the most sensitive reductionisms of liberal doctrines.

Sociological writings seem to spread metalanguages on the whole text, without any link of continuity and to offer very few space to explicitly metalinguistic sequences. To escape the risk of being unable to do anything with such a report, the epistemologist of writing — so to say — may run the hypothesis that metalinguistic devices have the ability to stabilize textual ontologies in various ways, all of them having close degrees of legitimity. Particularly, these metalinguistic devices (here called: « agencements ») are equally able to build intra or metatheorical sequences of sociological arguments. One of the opportunities to observe how these agencements perform, is to pay attention to their places, such favoring a topological approach of metalanguages. Considering sociological papers, in French and English speaking journals, we focus on two specific tools which seem quite close: the footnotes and the brackets. The results show that these various regimes of metalinguistic enonciation are strongly cohesive and need not to have explicitation and continuity as felicity conditions.

Abstract One of the most fundamental needs of all human beings is the need for recognition. This need for recognition can only be met if a society is structured in such a way to provide support, acknowledgement, and positive imagery for groups and individuals to use in the production of identity. In normative terms, recognition is a key aspect of critical social theory because it provides a standard by which we can assess an individual’s perception of the social treatment they receive. The institutions and social arrangements which allow the full and free development of identity are, from this point of reference, more acceptable than those which do not. In a posttraditional world, recognition is a human need, a social good, and a point of reference that can be used to compare the validity of social arrangements. In this paper, the cultural and legal assumption that rights and citizenship are based on the Enlightenment’s conception of universal human equality is contrasted with the demand for recognition from particular groups based on specific characteristics or unique experiences of oppression.

In our research (UTASI 2013), we have considered the chances of the reformation of democracy through communal life and civic participation, since it would be an urgent necessity of present-day Hungarian society. This paper attempts to find how participation – an essential prerequisite for the interaction between the individual and the political system – could be defined by certain theoretical models and put in a broader social context. In our research, three main models were used: the civilizing process, the concept of social capital and the theories of civic society. However, it is not possible to explain all aspects of the problem with these models; therefore we have intended to analyse the concept of participation in a metatheoretical framework (SÍK 2011) and point out the possible research questions for future investigation.

Este artigo trata da intercessão, no âmbito do conhecimento, entre as ciências sociais e humanas e a saúde coletiva. Parte-se do legado das ciências sociais clássicas, discute-se esse aporte, debate-se como e em que medida as ciências sociais e humanas em saúde constituem um subcampo que, por sua vez, articula diversas racionalidades. O texto se baseia numa pesquisa sobre a produção científica das sete principais revistas da área: Revista de Saúde Pública; Cadernos de Saúde Pública; Ciência & Saúde Coletiva; Saúde e Sociedade, Physis, Interface e História, Ciência e Saúde no período de janeiro de 2011 a agosto de 2012 (20 meses). Foram ao todo 1757 artigos publicados nessas revistas, sendo 545 (31,0%) sobre ciências sociais e saúde ou fazendo interface desse campo com a saúde coletiva. O artigo se debruça na análise dessa produção e conclui: que é pujante a participação das ciências sociais e humanas no campo da saúde; que existe um polo irradiador de conhecimentos que parte de autores seminais, mas já conta com a contribuição de estudiosos importantes de segunda e terceira geração; e que os problemas referidos pelos cientistas sociais e de humanidades da área de saúde são os mesmos que hoje ocupam os teóricos sociais, filósofos e historiadores do mundo inteiro.This paper discusses the intersection of knowledge between the social sciences and public health. The author begins discussing the legacy of classic social science and debates how and to what extent the social and human sciences constitute a subfield which, in turn, articulates different rationalities. The text is based on a survey about the scientific production of seven important Brazilian journals in the field: Journal of Public Health, Reports in Public Health, Science & Public Health, Health and Society, Physis, Interface and History, Science and Health in the period of January 2011 to August 2012 (20 months). There were a total of 1757 articles published in these journals, of which 545 (31.0%) on social sciences and health or interfacing with the field of public health. The article focuses on the analysis of this literature and concludes that: participation of social sciences and humanities in health is thriving; seminal authors constitute an irradiator polo of knowledge, but the contribution of scholars from second or third generation is already seen. It is also true that the problems referred to by social and human scientists are the same that occupy today social theorists, philosophers and historians worldwide.

The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between critical theory as understood in the Frankfurt school tradition on the one hand, and social ontology understood as a reflection on the ontological presuppositions of social sciences and social theories on the other. What is at stake is the type of social ontology that critical theory needs if it wants to tackle its main social ontological issue: that of social transformation. This paper’s claim is that what is required is neither a substantial social ontology, nor a relational social ontology, but a processual one. The first part of this article elaborates the distinction between substantial, relational and processual social ontologies. The second part analyzes the various ways in which this distinction can be used in social ontological discussions. Finally, the third part focuses on the various possible social ontological approaches to the issue of social transformation.

This paper argues that demographic anthropology has, for most part, imported rather than exported theory. Yet, the discipline has the potential to generate important rethinking of population, culture, and their interaction. After discussing the state of the field and the challenges that must be faced in developing new theoretical approaches in demographic anthropology, the paper suggests a framework for research based on the related ideas of the "demographic conjuncture" and "construal."

The micro-macro or agency-structure question is indisputably one of the most important theoretical issues within the human and social sciences. The main purpose of this paper is to carefully explore, fruitfully overview and comprehensively critique the contemporary sociological literature on micro (agency) and macro (structure), from a reflexive-dialectical standpoint. This particular standpoint strategically emphasizes both the circularity and the relative autonomy of structures vis à vis actors, or of institutions vis à vis individuals. In this analytic context, it is critically discussed the varied notion of a middle position on the ongoing theoretical debate between positivism and constructivism, as well as the epistemologically beneficial role that meta-theoretical reflexivity and the internal conversation can potentially play in this debate. In specific, the internal conversation (Margaret Archer) gives a reflexive-dialectical impetus to the micro-macro relationship, while embracing a needed analytical dualism (not necessarily an ontological one).