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Life story methods in Europe commonly belong to the field of biographical sociology. This paper points out that biographical sociology is missing from American sociology and describes in-depth two well-known methods in this field in Europe, the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics. The absence of biographical sociology from U.S. sociology should be remedied, it is argued, for the following reasons: First, an analysis of biographical patterns could counteract the heavy emphasis on social structure in American sociology and enrich certain subfields within it. For example, some of the concepts used in European biographical sociology, such as the concept of the 'trajectory' can be related to conceptions of agency set forth by American and British sociologists and thus enrich sociology overall. Second, biographical sociology can help counteract the heavy orientation towards quantitative research in American sociology without falling into the pitfalls of purely interpretive methodologies. And third, biographical sociology can significantly enrich the still missing link between culture and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexander's invitation to a sociology of evil begins from the premise that the social sciences have long neglected direct analyses of evil. They have focused instead on questions of the good and treated its other as an absence or residual category. His most direct foray into this field must be read against his strong program in cultural sociology and his more concrete analysis of the development of narratives of the Holocaust as a moral 'trauma drama'. I argue that the analytic frame Alexander constructs in 'Towards a Sociology of Evil' is too narrow to achieve the ambitions declared in 'The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology'. A multi-dimensional social theoretical approach to evil must recognize that while its significations are clearly culturally variable, they also refer to something beyond the limits of discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces developments in Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology. The aim is to introduce the reader to the key components of this theory as it developed from a functionalist focus on societal values through semiotics and linguistic structuralism to a theory of cultural trauma and collective performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper retraces the conceptual development of Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology. It centres on three major conceptual achievements: first, the distinction between inside and outside and its more peculiar variants (like system and environment or friend and foe); second, the elaboration of the temporal axis as a distinct dimension of cultural analysis; and finally, the close focus on performativity that took centre-stage in cultural analysis during the last years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20 years, suicide rates have grown across most demographic groups in the United States, making the sociological study of suicide as imperative now as it was in Durkheim's day. For the most part, however, sociologists study suicide solely using Durkheim's analytic strategy. The following article recovers a text on suicide long since forgotten by sociology. Divided into three parts, the article begins first by revisiting Ruth Cavan's social disorganizational theory of suicide, eventually culminating in a formalization of her theory. Second, the article brings contemporary social scientific ideas to bear on her theory to modify and extend its empirical utility. Third, the article considers the implications this theoretical exercise has for an increasingly vibrant and creative sociology of suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alternative food movement aims to alleviate racial and class inequalities in the conventional American food system by providing economically and socially sustainable markets that invigorate communities while providing access to environmentally safe, nutritious foods. While activists and organizers reach towards this ideal, many alternative food markets fall short, creating additional cultural barriers to food access that restrict participation among marginalized groups. Through ethnographic methods including participant observation and formal, semi-structured interviews, I examine the process through which these cultural barriers are created and persist in two urban farmers markets; both markets are located in or in very close proximity to food deserts and accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as food stamps). I find that one field site has been successful in integrating low-income, minority consumers into the market economy, while the other field site has not. I identify three salient narratives—norms of market participation, the concept of community, and perceptions of low-income consumers—that differ in content across markets. In addition, based on interviews and field notes, I describe the alternative food system experiences of low-income, racial minority consumers who reside in food deserts and or receive SNAP. I build on previous theories of cultural distinction and boundary maintenance in alternative food systems and offer several implications based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, social movement organisations (SMOs) within the immigrant rights movement mobilise online. Although this seems an unlikely tactic for a movement whose constituents are often on the wrong side of the digital divide, the increasingly frequent use of various communications technologies works to enable communication with other activists and raise awareness among the general public. Utilising a cultural sociological perspective, this article examines the ways in which the immigrant rights movement uses various symbols to perform national identity online. The goal is to put meaning and the process of meaning making squarely at the centre of analytical attention. Building on the multiple traditions perspective on American national identity, the article explores how several national-level SMOs engage symbols to perform immigrants’ belonging to the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Alexander's call for a cultural sociology that goes beyond hermeneutic reading to an understanding of how cultural texts are instantiated in action is considered in relation to earlier attempts to establish a tradition of symbolic analysis in American sociology. The sociological provenance of the dramaturgical model that Alexander appropriates from performance studies serves to underline the precariousness of cultural sociology as a project within the American academy. Alexander's thesis on the critical importance of 'refusion' to the life of societies is endorsed, as is his argument that the specificity of 'post-traditional' societies cannot be elided by drawing directly on conceptual tools developed in analysis of ritual in 'traditional' societies. His argument for sociological agnosticism in relation to the moral qualities of symbolic action, on the other hand, is called into question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]