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Internationalization pressures are omnipresent in the world of science. Scholars and administrators now often make use of international impact as a yardstick by which to assess the quality of national scholarship. However, little is hitherto known about the effects of the internationalization incentives at the level of specific national scientific communities. This article presents an analysis of the forms of internationalization in Chile over a period of four decades, from 1976 to 2015. Using Web of Science data, the article looks at the evolution for both publications and citations and examines the internationalization pressures on Chilean scholars and Chilean journals in relation to changes at the level of publication language and co-authorship. The article particularly focuses on the differences between the three cultures (humanities, natural sciences and social sciences). Building on the findings, the article concludes with some suggestions for research policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the main challenges of academic writing and publication in scientific journals. It reveals some of the most common mistakes in the process of manuscript submission and review, and offers some possible solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the issue of internationalization of social sciences by studying the evolution of production (of academic articles), collaboration and citations patterns among main world regions over the period 1980–2009 using the SSCI. The results confirm the centre–periphery model and indicate that the centrality of the two major regions that are North America and Europe is largely unchallenged, Europe having become more important and despite the growing development of Asian social sciences. The authors’ quantitative approach shows that the growing production in the social sciences but also the rise of international collaborations between regions have not led to a more homogeneous circulation of the knowledge produced by different regions, or to a substantial increase in the visibility of the contributions produced by peripheral regions. Social scientists from peripheral regions, while producing more papers in the core journals compiled by the SSCI, have a stronger tendency to cite journals from the two central regions, thus losing at least partially their more locally embedded references, and to collaborate more with western social scientists. In other words, the dynamic of internationalization of social science research may also lead to a phagocytosis of the periphery into the two major centers, which brings with it the danger of losing interest in the local objects specific to those peripheral regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the next few decades, the social and administrative imperatives of governing one of the largest and most populous imperial possessions led to the establishment of a number of schools, colleges and universities. Some of these institutions were grafted onto the existing indigenous structures while others supplanted them entirely. Although the division of intellectual labour that followed in the wake of the diverse trajectories of various forms of colonialism was not uniform, a discernable pattern emerged, both in educational centres and the society as well. Knowledge produced by scholars located in the colonized societies had a particular geographical referent, constituted a case study and hence had no theoretical contributions to make, except indirectly in its role as raw material for abstract theorizing by colonial scholars. In the case of sociology in particular, the specific division of intellectual labour that emerged over the course of time had very well-defined characteristics. A few notable exceptions notwithstanding, knowledge produced by scholars located in metropolitan societies was deemed to be general and universal in theft implication regardless of how local or provincial their terms of reference might be. At the same time, social scientific knowledge produced in locations considered peripheral in the overall intellectual landscape is generally regarded as a specific case study with little if any general implications. In general, tides of books and articles analyzing non-metropolitan societies usually always identify the society or location. The division of intellectual labour is anything but global in its orientation. Although the situation is changing somewhat, the dominant pattern of knowledge production continues to reflect a very stratified, hierarchical division of intellectual labour that does not adequately convey realities of globalization.

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article deals with the issue of preponderance in the study of sociology. Preponderance, whether of thought, language, culture, economics, politics, region or gender, is seldom innocent or of no consequence. Yet, in sociology internationally, the study of preponderance by the discipline has far exceeded the study of sociology's own tendencies towards predominance. The article begins to redress that by examining contesting currents in internationalizing sociology in relation to existing and emerging international divisions of sociological labor. There are two broad contexts for themes brought forward here. First, there is the rapidly shifting context of globalization and emergent relations of ruling globalization entails, to borrow the evocative and widely applied construct of Canadian social theorist, Dorothy Smith. Both entail interrogations of power, of dominance, of justice, of the relations of region to center, and of agency to structures in varying forms. Contradictions abound as do reconfigurations of power and dominance. Second, there is the probing of knowledge and discourse in the context of global change and the rapidly shifting relations of ruling. The ways in which relations of ruling shape sociological discourses are as diverse as the discourses themselves and as conforming to the norms and mores that emanate from the sociological ruling centres. Capacity for deep international comparisons that range beyond empirical indicators into discovering different paths of social development, has been lost. Understanding of globalization need not mean homogenization has been lost.

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study of the internationalization of science seems to be focused on the natural and formal sciences and on networks of the Global North. A shift towards the social sciences and a peripheral region (Mexico) is proposed here and shows that two different types of networks are enacted to face the challenges of internationalized research. On the one hand, there are strategic networks which internalize the pressure of incentives brought to bear on academics and tend to reproduce an over-professionalized idea of the academia. On the other, there are engaged networks that try to strengthen international bonds according to certain politico-ethical imperatives. In this article, relying on current research on internationalization of the Mexican social sciences, the author explores the usefulness of these ideal-types of networks and discusses their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From demand for natural resources to sustainability initiatives, everything seems to hinge on China. China’s environmental entanglements call out for the analysis and understanding that environmental sociologists practice. Environmental sociologists from within and beyond China have begun to explore how society, polity, and ecology intersect, but we have yet to fully take on the challenges that China’s environmental struggles pose. This article focuses on four domains in which China’s experience compels us to rethink our theories: environmental ideology, political economy, civil society and environmental justice, and international environmental politics. In each domain, China’s institutions, discourses, and place in the world-system reframe major currents of thought in environmental sociology. These points challenge us to decenter environmental sociologists’ focus on how things happen within liberal polities in the global North; they likewise push us to reconsider arguments about the South. Together, these challenges present an opportunity to extend our theory and practice, fashioning a more global environmental sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on welfare state and schemes suggest a different way of understanding modern governance in which the study of the nation is not at the centre of political understanding. Instead, of significance in such studies is the inadequately explored history of governing a mobile, unruly world of population flows. These works have given us a sense of the hidden histories of conflicts, desperate survivals, and new and old networks. Studies of hunger in the nineteenth century, of itinerant movements, transportations of coolies, spread of famines, shipping of children and adult women, trafficking in sex and labour, and pieces of welfare legislation to cope with this great infamy tell us how actually we have arrived at our own time of subject formation. This is certainly different from conventional nation-centred histories. Working within this new strand of history writing, labour historians have tried to recognise the political significance of labour migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Their works suggest a different way of writing the history of the nation form in the last two centuries, where the extra-nationalist narrative of mobile labour constitutes a different universe. Through all these studies two issues have come closer as marks of modern time – on one hand mixed up, messy, population flows, provoking desperate governmental responses, on the other hand innovations at a furious pace in humanitarian methods, functions, institutions and principles. Modern humanitarianism had to combine the old techniques with new ones of care, protection, information gathering, interference, intervention and invention of a skewed theory of sovereignty, a one-sided theory of responsibility, and the gigantic humanitarian machines which would be likened to the transnational corporations (TNCs). In practical terms this means today managing the societies which produce the obdurate refugees and migrants to stop them from leaving the shores, to keep them within the national territorial confines, and eventually to manage societies in ‘an enlightened way’. Managing moving population groups became the deus ex machina of modern governmentality. This will not be a straightforward history, as national, gender-related, race, and several other factors contributed to the making of a hugely heterogeneous labour market. The subjectivities produced in that process have contributed to the contentious history of our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that C Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination has changed, as evident in sociologies that think beyond national societies and analyse globalization. This ‘imagination’ has in effect been ‘expanded’, moving from one-dimensional (linear) analyses based on historical vectors of force and teleologies to a more contextualized, relativized spatial analysis with more dimensions. There were always outliers. However, at least for mainstream North American sociology, this represents a change in the spatialization of social science, a change in its presuppositions about space, not the becoming spatial of a non-spatial sociology. Borders and mobilities across and along borders are examined in relation to what is needed to confront them critically in a new spatial regime – a new ‘spatialization’ of the social. A hypothesis is developed that understands borderlines relationally as institutions and social technologies that introduce difference and inequalities into an otherwise homogeneous social and spatiotemporal ‘cultural topology’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to predominant neoliberal ideology that argued higher economic growth rates would eventually lead to better results in terms of income distribution, the last three decades witnessed high economic growth rates accompanied by rising income inequalities in most countries worldwide. Abundance of natural resources in several developing countries had significant implications for their economic growth and subsequent income inequality levels. Further, neoliberal globalization manifested itself in increased foreign direct investment and trade openness impacted world economies significantly. This research examines the effects of natural resource dependency, neoliberal globalization, and state-institutional factors alongside the internal development model on income inequality in a set of 96 developing countries for the period 1980–2010. Models for Prais–Winsten regressions with panel corrected standard errors show that within the internal development model, population growth rates are the most significant factor in influencing income inequality levels. Natural resource dependency is equally important and is positively associated with increasing inequalities. More detailed analyses of different types of energy-rich countries reveal varying results exemplifying the importance of exploring how different types of natural resources might affect income inequality levels rather than their sheer magnitude. Consistent with previous research, foreign direct investment indicates a robust positive association with increasing income inequalities whereas trade openness exhibits a negative association signifying the positive effect deindustrialization that took place in advanced countries might have had on developing countries. Finally and counterintuitively, democracy is associated with higher income inequalities whereas institutional quality is negatively associated with income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Africa witnesses a shift from Afro-pessimism to Afro-euphoria, contemporary discourses on the continent have been hinged on the notion of a ‘Rising Africa’. This article explores the often-ignored structural defects upon which the notion is hinged, particularly in resource-rich contexts. The analysis is based on a critique of current narratives of a rising Africa as being far too simplistic and subjective to serve as an enduring basis for capturing the dialectics of change in a resurgent continent. It does this by engaging a multi-level analysis that draws upon the political economy of oil, growing inequalities in resource-rich states, strategic and energy security calculations of global actors, and the complex web of global forces that define the parameters and limits of development on the continent. Given the marginal position of the continent in the global extractive regime, this article posits that a lot will depend on understanding the implications, risks and opportunities embedded in Africa’s current resource boom, with a view to charting a viable and sustainable path in its unpredictable search for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A current debate on environmental sociology involves how the subdiscipline should conceptualise and investigate the environment and whether it should be prescriptive and deliver policy recommendations. Taking this debate as a point of departure this article discusses the current and future role of sociology in a globalised world. It discusses how environmental sociology in the US and Europe differ in their understandings of sociology’s contribution to the study of the environment. Particular stress is placed on how these two regions differ with respect to their use of the tradition of sociological thought, views on what constitutes the environment and ways of institutionalising environmental sociology as a sociological field. In conclusion, the question is raised of whether current versions of environmental sociology are appropriate for analysing a globalised world environment; or whether environmental sociology’s strong roots in European and US cultures make it less relevant when facing an increasingly globalised world. Finally, the article proposes some new rules for a global environmental sociology and describes some of their possible implications for the sociological study of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To face an unequal world requires us to interpret and explain it, to be sure, but also to engage it, that is, to recognize that we are part of it and that we are partly responsible for it. In other words, inequality is not just something external to us, but also invades our own world. I begin, therefore, by examining the global community of sociology through the lens of inequality. I then consider two recent perspectives on our unequal world from outside sociology: the moral radicalism of Pope Francis that emphasizes exclusion from market society, and the innovative research of the economist Thomas Piketty that emphasizes unequal inclusion in market society. These two faces of global inequality mirror the social movements reverberating from the economic crisis of 2008 but which have their roots in a reaction to a broader wave of marketization, the third to engulf modern capitalism. To explore the meaning of third-wave marketization, otherwise known as neoliberalism, and the social movements it provokes I draw on two concepts from Karl Polanyi – ‘fictitious commodities’ and ‘countermovement’ – as well as a theory of the dynamics of capitalism. I conclude with three challenges facing a global sociology that centers social movements: to develop a theory that speaks to the globally diverse experiences of commodification; to develop a methodology that recognizes that we are unavoidably participants in the world we study; and to develop a politics that defends a particular vision of that world, a vision that has defined the sociological tradition from its beginning, namely one that upholds the centrality of civil society against the over-extension of market and state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current competition regime that characterizes international science is often presented as a quest for excellence. It diversely affects research in Latin America and research in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. This article asks how this competition regime may orient the direction of research in Latin America, and to whose advantage. It is argued that, by relating excellence to quality differently, a research policy that seeks to improve the level of science in Latin America while preserving the possibility of solving problems relevant to the region can be designed. Competition, it is also argued, certainly has its place in science, but not as a general management tool, especially if the goal is to improve overall quality of science in Latin America. Scientific competition is largely managed through journals and their reputation. Therefore, designing a science policy for Latin America (and for any ‘peripheral’ region of the world) requires paying special attention to the mechanisms underpinning the production, circulation and consumption of scientific journals. So-called ‘international’ or ‘core’ journals are of particular interest as local, national, or even regional journals must struggle to find their place in this peculiar publishing eco-system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lately, a phenomenal dimension of peripheral scholarship, compulsorily demanding the ‘foreign’, has evolved into the practice of paid publishing in ‘foreign’ journals among Nigerian academics. These ‘foreign’ journals afford speedy publishing at a fee with little or no peer review. This study is a descriptive research which collected qualitative data through 30 in-depth interviews conducted with academics in two federal universities in Nigeria. The findings established that though some universities are beginning to question their intellectual validity and propriety, predatory paid-for foreign journals remain popular among academics desirous to satisfy the ‘international publishing rule’ for promotion at all costs. Lacking international scholarly credibility, predatory journals will not advance Nigerian scholarship into the global scholarly mainstream which the ‘international rule’ ultimately seeks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the ‘globalization’ of the social sciences, this article first presents an historical interpretation of how transnational exchange in the social sciences has evolved. Earlier forms of international circulation are distinct from the more global arrangements that have emerged since the late twentieth century. Considering this globalizing field in more detail, it is argued that its predominant characteristic is a core–periphery structure, with a duopolistic Euro-American core, multiple semi-peripheries and a wide range of peripheries. Focusing on the global level, much of the existing research, however, has neglected the emergence of transnational regional structures. The formation of a transnational European field of social science is taken as an example of this process of transnational regionalization. The social sciences worldwide can thus be seen as a four-level structure. In addition to the local and national level, transnational regional as well as global structures have gained increasing importance and a better understanding of ‘globalization’ requires more precise studies of both levels, in their own right as well as in their evolving interconnectedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the connections of the social sciences in Chile with the knowledge produced in central countries in comparison to those established within Chile and with other Latin American countries, paying particular attention to the connections regarding theory. It is based on content analysis of academic publications, and on social network analysis applied to a database of more than 20,000 bibliographical references generated for this research project from the universe of investigations published by Chilean social scientists over a period of seven years in the first decade of this century, in journals and books, both in Chile and abroad. The results show that, regarding international communications, there is a low level of connectivity with other Latin American countries, but that the communications among Chilean authors are relatively important and particularly those with a group of local theorists who occupy central positions in the network. This does not appear to be a pattern of cognitive dependence although it occurs within the context of a global science that is characterized by a remarkable inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its founding generations, sociology was greatly concerned with gender, as part of its theorizing of the world of colonialism and empire. Sociology then focused on the global metropole, so its analysis of gender in the decades since the Women’s Liberation movement has been developed in a Northern container. This can now change, if the extraversion of sociology around the global South can be overcome. The thematics of gender analyses in the periphery highlight historical processes of the formation and disruption of gender orders, dealing with issues of violence and land. The work of a number of gender theorists and researchers from the South is discussed. The material conditions of knowledge formation in developing countries have to be recognized, as well as the differing ways intellectuals in the South handle influences from the metropole. New issues have emerged in the sociology of gender as a neoliberal world order has taken shape, producing new patterns of masculinized power as well as pathways of change for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue addresses the growing concern with the Eurocentric nature of the sociological tradition (broadly understood) and its inadequacy in dealing with questions of power, race and coloniality. In pursuit of a global sociology, the special issue draws its contributors from a wide range of geographical locations and the articles address topics rarely considered within these debates, including, surprisingly, issues of gender. Broadly, they re-engage with standard debates from innovative theoretical positions and via new research from what are often regarded as peripheral locations. Together, the articles seek to contest the dominance of Europe and the US in the production of knowledge and transform the ways in which we understand sociology from a global perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary diasporas are studied from many different perspectives. One widely acknowledged aspect is their capacity to illustrate dual homeness, and their challenging national cultures’ aspiration to sociocultural unity. Insertion into new societies tends today to erode the singularity of diasporic communities, but the symbols they retain or create may still warrant cultural reproduction as transnational entities. The conceptual distinction between collective identity, identification, and identifying is helpful when considering how diasporas have become a factor in the multiculturalization of present-day societies, while themselves becoming multicultural entities through the influence of the cultures prevailing in the diverse environments of their dispersed communities. The incoherent – even chaotic – realities these contradictory tendencies generate for analysts are not necessarily perceived in these terms by the actors. Their presence in societies, their impact on non-diasporic populations, the new relations they create between original and new homelands, and above all their endeavor as interconnected cross-national spaces, represent developments that contribute to moving society towards a new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the social uses of the body by the French of Tamil origin in the sports centres of Pondicherry (southern India). It reviews the ways in which the body participates in the development and expression of gender arrangements in a postcolonial context faced with globalization. An analysis of semi-structured interviews shows the extent to which the structure of gender relationships, although occurring in a specific community, is both affected by the logic of identity related to cultural affiliations and linked by more global imperatives to the symbolic relationships between the local area and the former motherland, Metropolitan France. Finally, it appears that far from stigmatizing evident gender positions, the organization of roles between the sexes follows a sociocultural rationale that leads couples to adopt strategies which accentuate the structure of gender. On returning to the country of origin, the play of gender opposition and complementarity thus enables the symbolic gender advantages achieved through emigration to be retained while at the same time avoiding the risk of social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to demonstrate how the university system and the system of social knowledge production greatly influence elite formation in the Arab East (in Egypt, Syria, the Palestinian territory, Jordan and Lebanon) by focusing on three intertwined factors: compartmentalization of scholarly activities, the demise of the university as a public sphere and the criteria for publication that count towards promotion. Universities have often produced compartmentalized elites inside each nation-state and they don’t communicate with one another: they are either elite that publish globally and perish locally or elite that publish locally and perish globally. The article pays special attention to elite universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between Japanese workers’ persistent inner-worldly asceticism and today’s globalizing economy. The interplay of values and corporate cultural practices, global market forces and individual health outcomes is illustrated in the case of an Osaka stockbroker killed by overwork (karôshi) during the 1990 Gulf War and resultant collapse of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’. The analysis centres on corporate documents and events which publicly valorized the broker as the embodiment of the ideal employee. The tradition of discipline, dedication and deference that he came to symbolize interacted with inequalities in the global division of labour to produce tragic consequences for him and his family. Viewed through historical, micro and macro lenses, the negative potential of such ascetic work ethics comes into focus. But the analysis also shows how such cases become catalysts for social movements that emphasize the value of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the Current Sociology monograph issue on Values and Culture. It discusses sociology’s renewed interest in values and the general approach on which the contributors converge despite diverse theoretical backgrounds, areas of focus and social settings. It explains how the studies in this publication contribute to the understanding of the formation and operation of values on micro, meso and macro levels in an increasingly globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the evolution of sociological traditions within India in the context of colonization and assesses their continuation in its contemporary practices. It evaluates two new perspectives, indigenization and postcolonial studies, that have emerged to reorganize these traditions. The author argues that the divisions of knowledge and power represented within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology structure the ways in which distinct traditions of sociology have evolved and continue to play a major role in defining theories, perspectives and methods of doing sociologies in the world. How can these perspectives take the challenge of globalization that is reorganizing the distribution of world power, its knowledge and that of its institutions in new and seminal ways? The globalization of knowledge can have two possible effects. It can reconstruct earlier binaries in new ways, refashioning them to maintain the structure connecting knowledge with power. Alternatively, global processes can distil and uncouple these binaries, thereby allowing for the play of plural perspectives, so that all traditions of doing sociology are placed at equal levels and given equal significance. We have to decide the path that we travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a review of recent research literature, major value-practice conflicts toward elderly care in China are explored, some commonalities and differentiations of real practices with traditional values are presented, the emerging new values in intergenerational relationships are discussed, and the theoretical underpinnings of interdependency are examined. Some sociologists had predicted a continuing decrease in family interdependence and caregiving. In the current globalization of economic development and concurrent trends in demography, family formation and life course, families interact and support each other over extremely long periods of time. Intergenerational relationships reflect both values and practice. There have been remarkable differences between values of people in different societies and yet some similarities of practice. Examples from the People's Republic of China are given to illustrate the dynamics of expectation, interaction and assessment of interdependence. Implications for future programs based on global trends tend to be similar although societies are quite different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses about economic effects of globalization. Today, the cosmopolitan vision is entwined with the global. Globalization, economically, politically and culturally, is shaping our lives in multi- faceted and complicated ways. It is crucial that, for example, corporate executives recognize the imperative of serving the well-being of humanity as much as that of their more local shareholders. Statesmen and women have to recognize the global world in which they are living and take it into account in their decisions, not bowing down automatically to the presumed exigencies of local politics. Intellectuals ought no longer to play their `local' games as if the world it was not a-becoming global. All of these actors must take on a cosmopolitan character. Such technology is intimately linked to science, and thus takes on a universal character. A computer functions more or less the same in India as in the US. The case seems as clear as with science itself. Nevertheless, a caveat must be introduced. While the principles underlying technology and especially high tech may be the same everywhere, the application of the technology may be inappropriate to local needs.

This article focuses on tourism in developing countries. Current discussions of globalization that have burst into academic and public discourse in the last few years have increasingly focused their attention on an important side-effect of the phenomenon they examine: the great rise in international tourism. Globalization is essentially a process by which an ever tightening network of ties that cut across national political boundaries connects communities in a single, interdependent whole, a shrinking world where local differences are steadily eroded and subsumed within a massive global social order. The interrelationship between globalization and tourism is rapidly gaining centre stage in academic discourse, as can be seen in the increasing number of publications on the topic and of sessions devoted to tourism in international conferences. Tourism is the world's largest and fastest growing industry. It is the largest employer in the world and is estimated to account for the largest export earnings by any industry. In the 1990s tourism arrivals were estimated to reach 666 million a year by 2000 and to grow by an average 4.5 percent per year.

This article discusses a particular social movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Marathwada subregion of Maharashtra state in India. The article further analyses the multiple ways in which the terrain of development in India was mapped by the social movement Marathwada Janata Vikas Aandolan (MJVA). Sociology of social movements has increasingly acquired a centre-stage status in the sociology of the 21st century. This is an indication of two things, the first, there is a growing need to identify sources of collective agency in the scenario currently being altered by processes of globalization. The second, it underscores the urgent need to reconsider the relationship between social movements, the state and political power. The author argues that MJVA brought to the fore the contradictions unleashed by capitalist modernity in a peripheral postcolonial society like India. The nationalist struggles both in British India and the Princely States were aimed at securing capitalist modernity. Even the movements for development and economic prosperity of the of modernity.

This article explores the global and local context in which practitioners are studying sociology' within Aotearoa , New Zealand, assesses new structures that are emerging to enable the practice and explores challenges these pose to sociology as both a discipline and as a set of research practices. Globalization and its attendant processes have been the dominant frame through which change and transformations, in both the object of sociology and its research activities, have been viewed since the late 1980's. For some it has led to reduction in differences and variations across nations to give increased homogeneity. Globalization thus, was seen as the triumph of modernity as it enabled greater rationalization and standardization of ideas and social and economic processes. However, for others it represents a series of transformations leading to increased diversity, fluidity and local difference thus privileging a more fine grained and contextual form of analysis, leading away from the grand narratives and structural explanations. The experience of tertiary and research reform over the past 20 years and its impacts upon the development of sociology in Aotearoa has been discussed. From the mid-1980's to the 1990's, neo-liberal reforms to both the tertiary sector and research environment resulted in extensive change to how both were done. The increased competitiveness and the creation of a less integrated system resulted in a shift to a more commercialized model of research funding, driven much more strongly by end user interests and a more consumer-centred tertiary education system. The challenge for the discipline in this new environment is to maintain its theoretical content while contributing constructively to multidisciplinary development and policy debates and refusing to accept a marginal or add-on role in research development.

The goal of this article is to introduce the international academic community to several key lines of debate on Russian globalization studies. It provides evidence that the concept of optional sovereignty has emerged in the research of Russian sociologists, as a theoretical and policy alternative to the challenges of globalization. The article also aims at supporting claims that the concept of self -determination, and political self-determination in particular, is the key instrument in the analysis of Russia's role and place in the globalizing world. In the Russian society, where political turmoil plays the leading role, the key question Russian scholars pose is what prospects for democracy are within the context of contemporary global changes. They believe democracy might be the social future for humankind, but today's hazards seriously undermine its legitimacy. The hesitation to choose democracy as the direction for Russia's rebuilt political regime is an instance of the broader global tendency. Corporations and corporatism play an increasingly significant role in world political and economic life. In Russia it takes the form of oligarchic rule, the merger of private interests of state bureaucracy and big business. Russia's self-determination is the choice of moderate authoritarianism, which might prepare the ground for the later establishment of a democratic rule, but might also bring the country back to rigid authoritarian dictatorship. It is certain that due to the global character and intense complexity of the globalization phenomenon it would be most beneficial to unite efforts and resources of the international scientific community to achieve more accuracy and relevance in its understanding.

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)