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Australian sociologists have barely engaged with the resurgence of economic sociology in the USA and Europe. It might be argued that this lack of engagement arises from a robust local agenda, immune from metropolitan fashions This article argues that this is not the case. Rather, it arises from the enduring residualism of Australian sociology vis-a-vis economics In turn, this residualism is grounded in sociology's late beginnings in Australia, the dominant framework at the time of its institutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s, and the limited challenge presented by critical approaches from the 1970s. The article identifies four major lines of inquiry in the resurgence of economic sociology: network analysis, comparative political economy, field theory and performativity theory Notwithstanding their differences, these approaches direct attention to the social construction of markets. In turn, they challenge both mainstream economics and sociology. The papers in this Special Edition of the Journal of Sociology build upon these lines of inquiry in the Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a qualitative study of social capital within an urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander context. Using data generated from 100 Aboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander participants in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews collected by Aboriginal community development workers, this article describes two worlds of social capital available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The primary source of bonding social capital comes from family and wider Aboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander community connections. In the context of an oppressive history and experiences of ongoing racism and discrimination, a second world of bridging social capital remains elusive to many Indigenous Australians. Our findings suggest that to understand the tensions between the two social capitals requires an engagement with the complexities of identity. We argue that it is vital to explore the texture of social capital, rather than just measure its volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]