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This paper traces relations between the study of work and the evolution of British sociology as an academic discipline. This reveals broad trajectories of marginalization, as the study of work becomes less central to Sociology as a discipline; increasing fragmentation of divergent approaches to the study of work; and -- as a consequence of both -- a narrowing of the sociological vision for the study of work. Our paper calls for constructive dialogue across different approaches to the study of work and a re-invigoration of sociological debate about work and -- on this basis -- for in-depth interdisciplinary engagement enabling us to build new approaches that will allow us to study work in all its diversity and complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social science has long fought shy of the natural sciences. Meanwhile, concerns with the environment, health and the new genetics are creating a need for systematic links to be made between these disciplines. This paper suggests a new way in which social theory can be linked to biology. Recent developments in biology point to the importance of considering organisms in relation to their environment. And work in epidemiology stresses the links between the infant-development, health in later life and the well-being of future generations. Complex combinations of genetically-determined predispositions and capitalist social relations are responsible for important features of contemporary social stratification and well-being. The paper is informed by critical realist epistemology and Marx's theory of the subsumption. Such a fusion leads to a key assertion. Capital tends to modify the powers of human biology in its own image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the possibility for unification of sociological theory by the rational choice model. This is induced by the claims of rational choice theorists that extending this model from economics to sociology can be conducive to establishing a unifying paradigm and method to be given 'paradigmatic privilege' within sociology. The outcome of such an extension of the economic approach has been 'sociological rational choice theory' or 'rational action theory for sociology'. Within sociology, such a rational choice model is regarded as a major theoretical or/and methodological innovation and thus a 'new' promise for sociology's unification. Overall, the paper suggests that these 'ecumenistic' claims of rational choice theorists cannot be taken at face value since they are predicated upon dubious views of the relations between economy and society and between economics and sociology, including inadequate interpretations of neoclassical economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tradition of thinking behind the idea of citizenship, which has become a key concept of modern social theory, has given insufficient attention to either gender or sexuality. In this paper it is argued that claims to citizenship status, at least in the West, are closely associated with the institutionalization of heterosexual, as well as male, privilege. This is demonstrated when the association of certain forms of citizenship status with heterosexuality, national identity for example, is threatened or challenged. In discussing the relationship between sexuality and citizenship, attention is focused on the implications for the social inclusion and exclusion of lesbians and gay men. The analysis shows how sexualized notions of citizenship are connected to the public/private divide at both institutional and personal levels. Finally, the paper raises wider questions about the implications of the discussion for theorizing citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the paper Outline of a Theory of Human Rights by Bryan Turner which appeared in a previous issue of Sociology. According to the commenter, Turner has properly identified an embarrassing lacuna in sociological theory in the paper. He notes that Turner's paper is a unique contribution because it aims to be both sociological and foundationalist. His key problem is to find a universal of human ontology that can explain the non-relativized character of human rights. He discovers this in the conjunction of two conditions: the frailty of corporeal existence; and the precariousness of social institutions that can defend bodies against environmental threats. Turner attributes the failure of sociology adequately to theorize human rights partly to its social constructionist orientation, its normal claim that social institutions are not universal but historically contingent and culturally relativized. The commenter argues that an adequate sociological theory of human rights must, indeed, take a social-constructionist point of view, that human rights is an institution that is specific to cultural and historical context just like any other, and that its very universality is itself a human construction.

In this paper, I address recent feminist epistemological claims -- in particular, those associated with 'standpoint theory' and 'feminist postmodernism'--arguing that they share difficulties with other forms of anti-positivist social theory and contribute to an impasse in social inquiry which is becoming increasingly acute. This impasse is traced to the displacement of explanation from the centre of theoretical concerns. In arguing this, I am not, however, proposing a return to positivist social science. The view that explanation can be equated with positivism -- that 'empirical' equals 'empiricism'-is a common misconception. It has led some advocates of a distinct feminist epistemology to describe much research on gender issues as 'feminist empiricism'. Such research, they argue, involves a paradoxical or contradictory reliance upon the very 'masculine' epistemological criteria which feminist theory has done so much to challenge. In this paper I shall criticise this argument, proposing instead a 'post-positivist' position in which empirical research is at the heart of any feminist challenge to mainstream approaches and the reconstruction of social theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with themes taken from two different areas of sociological theory and investigation. The first relates to work on social class and social relationships and networks, within which a central issue has been the extent to which interpersonal ties are differentiated by occupationally-based class groups in modern society. The second area of work lies within the sociology of health and illness, and concerns the question of the health-promoting potential of social support. The paper draws on data from a study of a social support intervention in pregnancy involving 507 pregnant women in the Midlands and the South of England, and considers to what extent family, friendship and neighbourhood ties exhibit different patterns by occupational and other measures of class. The study findings suggest that working class women are not more closely involved with their relatives and are more isolated in terms of friends than middle class women; male domestic support is also less common in working class households. These patterns are discussed as part of the context within which services for the promotion of maternal and infant health are provided in modern industrial societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses problems associated with patriarchy. The concept of patriarchy has been both essential and problematic in the development of feminist thought, as the two papers by sociologists Malcolm Waters and S. Walby, published here, argue. In responding to their work, the author sketches the recent history of the concept and discuss a few of the issues raised by a reading of these papers. In the 1960s and 1970s, patriarchy provided the essential focus and the identification of the theoretical object for rapidly developing innovative thinking about the subordination of women. Feminists criticized social theory as inadequate for explaining this widespread phenomenon. Existing theory attributed women's domination by men either to nature or social necessity rather than to social-structural processes, unequal power, or exploitation. Further, theory had been produced from the perspectives of men, usually men associated with ruling classes, to whom women were generally invisible, unimportant, or uninteresting as social actors. Theorizing patriarchy was a first step to reconceptualizing the subordination of women and to correcting flawed social theory, even to achieving a paradigm revolution.

This paper argues that the analysis of culture and mass communication should be regarded as central concerns of sociology and social theory. It develops a framework for the analysis of culture and shows how this framework can be applied to the study of mass communication. Focusing on the medium of television, the paper highlights some of the distinctive characteristics of mass communication and examines some of the factors involved in the production, construction and reception of media messages. It is argued that this approach enables the analyst to pose questions concerning the ideological character of mass communication in a new and more fruitful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against the dominant tendency in social theory to speak of "the state" It distinguishes two types of state: the capstone state sitting on top of societies, blocking alternative sources of power, and the organic state allowing and encouraging the co-operation of different power sources, which is held to be characteristic of European development. The main argument of the paper is that the latter type of polity was a necessary feature in the complex that allowed the endogenous creation of a broadly capitalist dynamic in the Occident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the manner in which ethnicity has affected the course of American and Canadian party politics. Specifically, the paper tries to demonstrate that although the social processes involved in the migration of large numbers of ethnics have been relatively similar in both societies, the manner in which the social reality of ethnicity has affected the political structures therein has been quite different. Thus, although successive immigrant groups became the chief political resource of the great American urban party machines, they were able to use the existing political structures for their own purposes. Ethnic groups have derived psychological and more tangible benefits, such as public and party office positions, and have strongly affected the foreign and domestic policy positions of the two major parties. In contrast, Canadian party leaden historically have been able to exploit ethnic cleavages, but rarely have had to play the game of ethnic politics in the maimer of their American counterparts. In fact, ethnicity continues to strongly affect American political structures even as it moves into the realm of an index of more important social facts, while Canadian political structures have remained relatively impervious to ethnic groups despite the fact that ethnicity continues to be a factor of major importance in Canadian social organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops systematically the theory of `structural' and `pure' measurement systems falling below the interval and ratio levels. Pure measurement, it is argued, concerns the properties of objects and structural measurement the relationships between objects. The exposition provides the ground-work for a forthcoming second paper on measurement and the structure of sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to Joan Busfield's article entitled "Pills, Power, People: Sociological Understandings of the Pharmaceutical Industry," written about the limited amount of researched done by sociologists regarding the pharmaceutical industry which appeared in this journal of Sociology (40: 297-314). He feels such studies are hampered by the confidential aspects of drug trials prior to regulatory approval, the need for a technical background to understand drug studies, and the possibility of legal action hampering publication should the companies decide that such works could be construed as criticisms.

Studies of the application of research in policy and service delivery suggest that the translation of research findings into practice is not straightforward. Practitioners are criticized for failing to base actions on research evidence, while academic research is sometimes condemned as 'irrelevant' to practice. This paper argues that this conflict derives in part from an academic model of research constructed in opposition to practice. Reflections on scientific logocentrism (claims to possess unmediated knowledge of reality) and 'transgressive' action research provide a critique of traditional research and suggest an alternative, practice-based research model. Three propositions for generating 'practice-based evidence' are identified. Firstly, the pursuit of knowledge should be acknowledged as a local and contingent process. Secondly, research activity should be constitutive of difference, questioning the legitimation and repression of particular aspects of the world. Finally, theory-building should be seen as an adjunct to practical activity. Together, these positions dissolve the researcher/researched and research/practice oppositions in traditional research and supply an ethically and politically engaged research. Practice-based research is explored in terms of four moments in the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological reconceptualisations of the structure/agency divide have motivated important theoretical advances in the discipline, and the development of 'structuration theories' and 'analytical dualism' has promoted fresh thought about dominant views of the human agent. These approaches have sought to release sociology from any residual reliance on the oversocialised conception of the individual that formed part of the legacy of Parsonian sociology. It is the argument of this paper, however, that while structuration theory and analytical dualism focus on the creative powers of human reflexivity, as part of their rejection of the 'oversocialised agent', the theoretical weight they place on consciousness neglects the socially shaped somatic bases of action and structure, and results in an undersocialised view of the embodied agent. If the relationship between socialisation and agency needs analysing in terms of embodiment as much as in terms of the cognitive internalisation of norms and values, however, there are good reasons for structuration theory and analytical dualism rejecting attempts to ground subsequent notions of the embodied agent they may develop in dominant, static notions of the habitus. These minimise creativity and make it difficult to analyse social change. An important challenge for future reconceptualisations of the structure/agency divide, then, is to construct a sociology which recognises the significance for human agency of a socially shaped form of embodiment, yet which refuses to make the embodied actor a mere product of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological theories of race and ethnicity have been dominated by the metaphor of the social construct, which suggests that they are ideological categories concealing 'real' principles of social structure. This idea is problematic because it elides the sense in which race and ethnicity operate both as functional principles of material exclusion and sources of social meaning. The paper examines critically the metaphor of social construction in leading contemporary theories of race and ethnicity, arguing that too often the context and the content of these processes of construction are not clarified and that, paradoxically, this can lead to the implicit incorporation of a racial essentialism into the explanatory enterprise. An alternative, symbolic approach to theorising race and ethnicity is suggested which avoids these pitfalls. Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice and anthropological ideas of symbolic kinship, it argues that race and ethnicity can be theorised as both categories of material exclusion and of social meaning. The implications of this approach for understanding the historical construction of racial and ethnic categories are discussed, along with the implications for the relationship between sociological analysis and political activism in the arena of race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent critiques of the usefulness of the concept of class (Pahl 1989; Clark and Lipset 1991) have developed into more specific criticisms of the lack of theory underlying 'class analysis' as practised by Goldthorpe and his associates (Pahl 1993; Rose 1993). In this paper we argue that an adequate theory of class needs to show why classes, defined in the particular way they are, have some claim to be a basis of social power of sufficient importance to justify the emphasis placed on them by class analysis. To answer this question requires that two things be demonstrated: first, that there is an association between class and a range of outcomes; and, second, that the mechanisms giving rise to such associations be specified. Class analysis has little difficulty in answering the first requirement but very great difficulties in satisfactorily addressing the second. In discussing these problems we seek to suggest fruitful future directions for the project of class analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminism's eminent position in critical social science is now beyond question, and a range of substantial texts on feminism, epistemology and social theory have reworked the dominant male images of knowledge and society. However, within feminist discourses, some key epistemological questions -- such as 'is feminist standpoint epistemology viable?'--remain unresolved. Indeed, they have become compounded by the anti-epistemological impetus of postmodernism. In this paper I draw attention to some general problems in the area of feminism and epistemology, and conduct a close textual analysis of some key writings by feminist theorists to see whether a specifically postmodernist philosophical ambience suits feminism better than an enlightenment ambience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses critically some major developments of post-Parsonian sociological/social theory, focusing particularly on the micro-macro and agency-structure issues. The failure to deal in a satisfactory manner with these issues has led to a theoretical impasse that present theorising does not seem able to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues there is a new theoretical current in Western sociology - `game- theoretic Marxism'. It situates the current in what seems to be a more general paradigm shift from the mid-1970s, that is, from a focus on structure to an emphasis on agency. In this context we consider the debate between the new theory's foremost proponent Jon Elster and G. A. Cohen, advocate of functional explanation. It is shown, then, how this new theory of collective action draws on Mancur Olson's formulations of the mid-1960s, after which its central tenets are developed in a discussion of two significant variants of it. Finally, the shortcomings of game-theoretic Marxism are analysed and an alternative notion of explanation by collective agency is proposed: one that centres upon the `causal powers' of social classes and breaks with both Cohen's functionalism and Elster's intentional explanation. This alternative version (1) can account for non-intentional causation and (2) considers social classes (and other collective actors) as possessed with organizational and cultural resources. It is argued that this alternative version is more fruitful for the understanding of social processes and that it contributes to the attempts to supersede the strict dichotomy of structure versus agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the contours of current, practical explanatory problems in stratification theory showing the similarity of issues in apparently diverse approaches, both Marxist and non- Marxist. There are two related purposes. The first is to show the specific nature of the current crisis, locating paninular explanatory failures. The second is to illustrate the more general issue of the way in which the central epistemology of self-conscious social science derives from and describes failures in social scientific practice. This is well illustrated in the response to current problems. Both purposes are served by Laying bare the procedures by which attempts are made to convert the contradictions inherent in explanatory failures into contradictory features of social experience which could be explained by consistent theories. Contradiction is thus, apparently, removed from its role in specifying the need for theoretical development, to encapsulating the processes by which current social arrangements are reproduced. However, we show that despite initial plausibility such attempts merely displace explanatory contradictions rather than solve them. The attempts are justified by an explicit or implicit action frame of reference which, though it is central to abstract discussions of the nature of social science, is invoked in practical social science only in circumstances of explanatory failure in an unproductive attempt to insulate the theories from the consequences of their failure. Productive social science is the resolution of contradictions in the transformation of theoretical objects and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to critically examine the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu. His theoretical model is rooted in the attempt to dialectically transcend the opposition between objectivism and subjectivism. However, since his scheme remains essentially deterministic and circular - objective structures produce culture, which determines practice, which reproduces those objective structures - this project necessarily fails. The effect of Bourdieu's work on certain works in the English cultural studies genre is briefly discussed and Halsey's recent empirical critique of Bourdieu is itself criticized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the authors' views on the social theories of researchers Karl Mannheim and S.P. Vallas. Vallas argues that Mannheim is torn between Marxism and historicism, a tension which actually results in the incorporation of Marxism within an historicist problematic. This is a central plank of his argument, but considering its importance, he seems curiously unable to express it in the same way throughout his paper. As against the thesis of the incorporation of Marxism into historicism, Vallas also argues that historicism was a deep seated allegiance determining the nature of even his most sociological work. He also sees Mannheim as having a propensity to depart from the inherited practices of historicism. Interesting as his arguments are, the author believe that Vallas seriously misrepresents Mannheim's position. Mannheim may indeed have manifested ecstatic tendencies, but that does not mean that he was an historicist. As far as verstehen and understanding are concerned the most detailed argument stressing that these are central to Mannheim's work can be found in A.P. Simond's book Karl Mannheim's Sociology of Knowledge.

After a relative silence of nearly four decades, matriarchal theory has been the subject of renewed interest in the social sciences. This paper traces the origins of matriarchal theory to its proximate roots in the nineteenth century speculative literature, and analyzes its impact on the development of utopian models for the restructuring of society along feminist and humanist lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the origins and development of the sociology of health and illness in Britain and shows that these were rooted in practical concerns, rather than deriving from sociological theory or general sociology. Medical practitioners and researchers, health administrators, patients and the feminist movement have been influences encouraging sociologists to turn their attention to health and illness. The present state of the sub-discipline is one of great activity, but little theoretical or methodological unity. The contribution to the subject of Parsons, Freidson and Mechanic, the marxists, the British post-Fabians, empiricists and phenomenologists are discussed, as is the contribution of the subdiscipline to health and health policy research. In considering the future of the subject, a sociology of health and illness rather than of medicine is proposed and the inevitable moral and political implications of sociological activity in this area are exposed. The need to face the implications of suffering for social relations in health care and the tendency to ignore these is discussed. The wide-ranging importance of the sociology of health and illness to general sociology is stressed and its potential contribution to health and health policy assessed [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Bourdieu’s theory of practice provides a useful and dynamic framework which may be used to examine the reproduction of political practice. I use the Bourdieusian theoretical model to analyse and interpret data collected from 30 semi-structured interviews with British anti-capitalist activists from a range of anarchist and socialist political organizations and networks. The interviews reveal a clear case of political distinction between anarchists and socialists. The political history, political methods, and ideology of the activists become embodied and routinized over time. This explains why and how there is a durable ideological division which is consistently reproduced over and over again within sections of the British anti-capitalist movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise of scientific specializations and disciplines depends on the formation of specialized scientific communities. The establishment of specialized scholarly journals facilitates the formation of such communities or networks. Publications, especially articles in specialized journals, have become institutionalized as the 'ultimate' form of scientific communication. Specialized journals fulfil a key role in the scientific disciplines. They both secure the shared values of a scientific community and endorse what that community takes to be certified knowledge. This article first elaborates on the evolution of communication within scientific disciplines. Afterwards, it presents an analysis of publication practices in the main generalist sociology journals in the Low Countries. Because of the close relationship between journals and discipline, this sociological analysis addresses the evolution of sociology itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the 'canonical' status achieved in recent British sociology by four writers: Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens. Along with other key thinkers of the later 20th century such as Foucault and Habermas, these four sociologists, from different geographical and theoretical bases, transformed the shape of British sociology and its relation to social theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and faster information will transform our experience of healthcare, according to policymakers, while social theorists have argued that medicine has become 'informatized': a new medical paradigm is being shaped. We question both the policy-led conflation of 'information' and 'healthcare' and ideas about the extent of the informatization of medicine, by exploring how these ideas resonate in medical work, revisiting our studies of expertise in two clinical domains where information technologies are central to practice. The projection of new information programmes as creating knowledge which is independent of space and time runs the risk of devaluing the experiential, haptic and affective knowledge of both apprentices and practitioners. Information, we argue, cannot underpin medicine unless it is recognized and defined as generative, dynamic and intimate, rather than storable and deliverable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many debates in the social sciences about the certain and uncertain nature of subjectivity and knowledge. Often these debates create competing theoretical camps, each hell bent on refuting the other (materialist-idealists; modernist-postmodernists; structuralists-post-structuralists; medical-social). These critiques often fail to engage with the social and material lives of human actors, particularly when those actors occupy positions of relative marginalization. This article pitches these debates in emerging accounts of parents of disabled babies, which have developed from a three-year ESRC research study. We highlight the ways in which parents adaptively and strategically use and refuse forms of certainty and uncertainty in order to configure ways of living with their children. We suggest that parents are nomadic but also settlers in the journeys with their children, and that modernist and postmodernist analyses both allow us to make sense of parents' situated agency within particular social, cultural and material locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The familiar sociology of intellectuals has been constructed in the global metropole, and it is debatable how relevant its concepts are to the periphery. A life-history study was conducted with diverse intellectual workers in South Africa. A range of intellectual identities is apparent. The specific history of the Apartheid era, the struggle against Apartheid, and the advent of neo-liberalism have all shaped intellectual workers' cultural formation and created major differences in trajectories. Periphery/metropole relations profoundly structure cultural practices and consciousness, but these relations are not static. Distinctive patterns of intellectual work appear. The legacy of democratic struggle gives prominence to 'crossover' forms of intellectual work, fuels resistance to neo-liberal globalization, and gives a distinctive form to the problem of reproducing the intellectual workforce and project. The research thus emphasizes the cultural productiveness of the global 'periphery' and the need for forms of social theory based here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article initially summarizes two dominant tropes in the sociology of identity in recent years, centred on the concepts of self-reflexivity and habitus, followed by an overview of extensive critical debate to which both have been subjected. It is claimed that the key criticisms of the extended reflexivity thesis gather around accusations of excessive voluntarism in accounting for contemporary identity, while critiques of Bourdieu's conceptualization of habitus deem it overly deterministic. In an attempt to move beyond the conceptual stalemate of two distinct approaches to identity, a number of hybridized accounts have emerged in social theory. The remainder of the article discusses a number of these accounts in relation to social change, and offers an initial consideration of their strengths and limitations. It is argued that the importance of post-reflexive choice must remain integral to any attempt at hybridization of these important terms, particularly in relation to the contemporary workings of social stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jews have played a decisive role in the history of sociological theory. Paradoxically, Israeli sociologists - who came from similar Jewish social backgrounds, and shared the same intellectual traditions - have not left a mark on general sociological discourse. This study sets out to solve this paradox and explain why Israeli sociologists have had a negligible impact on the development of general sociological theories. Israeli sociologists have proved to play no significant role in the development of general sociological theory because they exhibited a specific mode of thought: (a) their theoretical questions were contextual; (b) their cognitive interest was to solve practical problems; (c) their theoretical perspective reflected national priorities; and (d) they exhibited a fragmented mode of thought. The article argues that the extreme local position of Israeli sociologists in the collective Zionist project propelled them to adopt the aforementioned intellectual features and therefore marginalized their contribution to general sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the ways in which young people reflexively construct their self within a rapidly changing society. Drawing on texts written by young people aged 14-17 years, it explores the existence of patterns identified by theorists of late modernity as regards relationships, fateful moments, a search for authenticity, life plans and life styles and looks at gender-differentiated trends in these areas drawing on a 'weak cultural feminist tradition' (Evans, 1995: 91).These texts are part of a sub-sample of approximately 34,000 texts written by young people in a school context in response to an invitation to 'tell their life stories' by writing a page 'describing themselves and the Ireland they inhabit'. The article suggests that gender is a repressed but crucially important framework in the construction of young people's sense of self, while also identifying areas where consumer society is eroding gender difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The years between 1880 and 1970 saw a great deal of discussion of social policy issues, including the circumstances of elderly people. Whilst considerable attention has been paid to proposals for old-age pensions, little has been said on ideas of care and the social theory which nourished them. This article discusses the views on care of Herbert Spencer, and those expressed in the majority and minority reports of the Royal Commission on the poor laws of 1909, conventionally described as representing the views of the Bosanquets and the Webbs repectively. Spencer's concern with 'filial obligation' is examined, and the differing emphases on institutional care and compulsion between the Bosanquets and the Webbs are discussed. The theoretical and conceptual roots of these position are analysed, drawing on recent work which suggests that whereas Spencer's thought is non-idealist, that of the others is fundamentally idealist, with agreement over social ends, but not eh means to their realization. The article clarifies key divergences in social and political principles in thinking about care for older people, with relevence to present-day circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public/private debate has not been a major feature in recent sociological theory. However, Bailey (2000) has argued for a renewed sociological research programme to focus on the sociological private. He outlines three dimensions of this: intimate relationships, the self and the unconscious. This article seeks to address two of these dimensions, the production of self-theories and unconscious disavowal, We extend this theorizing to account for the experience of sexual engagement, and present a discourse analysis of the diaries of the comedian and actor Kenneth Williams (1928-1988), Drawing principally on the thought of Merleau-Ponty (1962) we argue that our analysis demonstrates the importance of a pre-reflective engagement with the social world that is then reflected on in internal dialogue. We show how discourse analysis may be used to demonstrate the discursive production of a self-theory and the role of such a self-theory in the disavowal of the principal's pre-reflective engagement with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]