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The notion of the mechanism is one of the most popular and widely used concepts in science and sociology is no exception. This paper problematizes the widespread and often uncritical use of the term "mechanism" in contemporary sociology. Drawing on the mechanistic worldview associated with leading figures of the scientific revolution, the paper emphasizes the impact of mechanistic thinking on the societal rationalization process identified by Max Weber and the Frankfurt School. The analysis suggests that mechanisms, when applied to sociological theories, may uncritically reproduce a cultural fetish of the rational society with potentially dehumanizing consequences. The author advocates for a critical reflection on the cultural and historical context of mechanisms, urging sociologists to view them not merely as analytical tools but as active contributors to the creation and shaping of social worlds erected on a belief in instrumental reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory is the use of abstraction in the pursuit of understanding. In the human sciences, theory is a talmudic process of reading and conceptual dispute that carries the colligation of evidentiary signs (minimal interpretation) towards riskier, but more insightful and widely relevant, interpretations of the meanings, causes, and significance of human events (maximal interpretation). Yet, in making possible such maximal interpretations of society, politics, literature, and so forth, theory also introduces the possibility of overinterpreting evidence. Judgments that overinterpretation has occurred are made collectively within communities of inquiry. After developing Umberto Eco's theory of overinterpretation as part of a hermeneutic-semiotic account of theory in the human sciences, this paper conducts a case study of the rise and partial fall of the Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution. This reveals aspects of the process whereby patterns of maximal interpretation, carried through several academic generations, allow the development and refinement of knowledge and insight about an object of inquiry, on the one hand, and yet are subject to judgment as overinterpreted, on the other. Much more than a matter of falsification and/or the politics of intellectuals, the decline of the Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution involved a complex series of judgments about the degree to which an abstract theoretical terminology could continue to produce new and deeper understandings. In conclusion, the paper suggests that the talmudic aspect of social theory has affinities with the universal human capacity for thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of landscape architecture changing from a first-level discipline to a professional degree, based on the realistic background that the subject of landscape architecture is facing with the imperative introduction of sociological theories, and exploring the diversified"practice education"system, this paper discusses the methods and paths of landscape architecture social practice. Drawing on the study of landscape anthropology, and integrating the"external landscape perspective"of"spatial production theory"and the"internal landscape perspective"of"place construction theory", this paper studies the theoretical methods and implementation paths of landscape architecture social practice under the concept of"educating people with three aspects". By setting up four practice modules, namely, landscape sociology observation, community place construction, urban governance transformation, and rural revitalization research, this paper tries to find an effective method that can effectively connect macro and micro research perspectives in practice. This paper points out that it is not only an important content of exploring the social practice methods of landscape architecture, but also a key direction of expanding sociological theory research in landscape architecture in the new era, by breaking the internal and external barriers and the upper and lower barriers between"space production"and"place construction"and create a balanced and integrated"multi-phase"landscape development mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being a central topic, current theories of motivation in sociology remain underdeveloped. This paper supplements existing sociological theories on motivation with insights from affective and cognitive neuroscience to address this issue. The resulting sociological affective model of motivation treats affect as an independent force that sometimes coordinates with cognition while taking charge at other times. Drawing on recent work in the neuroscience of motivation and reward, the paper shows how two affective mechanisms—wanting and liking—can shed light on various behavioral outcomes of interest while allowing for sharper theorizing of key distinctions that need clarification in the literature. By examining the distinctive contribution of each process, the paper reveals a proactive, desire‐driven agent often overlooked by prevailing sociological models emphasizing a reactive actor responding creatively and deliberately when internal meanings and external cues are incongruent. The paper concludes by outlining the broader implications of this synthetic affective model of motivation for sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to discern, clarify, criticise, and advocate some uses of phenomenology in sociological research. Phenomenology is increasingly evoked or implicitly employed in sociological endeavours. Little attention, however, is paid to what is entailed in taking a phenomenological approach, and whether it is employed to advance empirical or theoretical knowledge. I build an analytic typology of different empirical and theoretical uses of phenomenology, criticise a range of these uses, and argue that other uses bear significant potential for the advancement of theoretical and empirical knowledge. The paper's main contribution lies in comparing and contrasting the many invocations of phenomenology in contemporary social scientific research to discern their benefits and shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current paper we aim to combine the theoretical ideas of recognition theory to conversation analytical, empirical observations. We ask what recognition theories can give to conversation analysis, and vice versa. We operate on a model of recognition that consists of three different modes: respect, esteem, and love/care, and which distinguishes the levels of conversational actions and the attitudes of recognition manifested in such actions. In this study we examine data examples from various conversational settings (institutional, quasi-experimental, family interaction) and activities (decision-making, storytelling), focusing on the more complex cases of (mis)recognition. We show how recognition can appear both explicitly and implicitly in conversational sequences, and demonstrate how the levels of conversational actions and recognition can be either congruent or incongruent with each other. At the end of the article, we discuss the implications of this view for the interface of conversation analysis and sociological theory, arguing that it can inform and promote the development of interactionally based social and societal critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of the mechanism is one of the most popular and widely used concepts in science and sociology is no exception. This paper problematizes the widespread and often uncritical use of the term “mechanism” in contemporary sociology. Drawing on the mechanistic worldview associated with leading figures of the scientific revolution, the paper emphasizes the impact of mechanistic thinking on the societal rationalization process identified by Max Weber and the Frankfurt School. The analysis suggests that mechanisms, when applied to sociological theories, may uncritically reproduce a cultural fetish of the rational society with potentially dehumanizing consequences. The author advocates for a critical reflection on the cultural and historical context of mechanisms, urging sociologists to view them not merely as analytical tools but as active contributors to the creation and shaping of social worlds erected on a belief in instrumental reason.

In order to avoid the juxtaposition of globalization and de-globalization, we suggest that the current global changes are driven by a spatial dynamics, which we designate as ‘refiguration’. It is based on different spatial figures and different institutionalized figurations, so as to avoid reducing the dynamics to binary concepts of territorial and global forces or geopolitical spatial container thinking. In this paper, we first sketch the strengths and weaknesses of sociological models of globalization. We then point out some recent developments contradicting these models. Instead of interpreting them negatively (e.g. ‘de-globalization’) or reductively (e.g. ‘geopolitization’), we propose the concept of refiguration in order to capture and explain these current changes by stressing the logics of spatial figures, their interactions and conflicts. After clarifying the concept, we turn to the Internet infrastructure as an important case for understanding the current disjunctures and conflicts around globalization in terms of refiguration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an editorial focuses on examining the complex relationships between Conversation Analysis (CA), sociology, and social theory, exploring how CA's connections to sociology have evolved since its inception, including its role in understanding the micro-macro linkage in social dynamics. Topics include the historical and intellectual roots of CA within sociology and the incorporation of social theory to address power dynamics and inequalities in conversational interactions.

In January 2024, Florida’s Board of Education eliminated the sociology course, ‘Principles of Sociology’ as one of its core requirements for obtaining a general social science education in its college and university system. Florida’s Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz, led the charge, claiming that sociology has been ‘hijacked by left wing activists’ and is a purveyor of ‘woke ideology’. Some within the profession would agree with Diaz, and certainly, many university administrators would as well. Of course, there are varying representations of sociology, and what Diaz and others are targeting is critical sociology and its commitment to the interrogation of power. However, these political dynamics are not new. The history of critical sociology has reflected a similar pattern that it is being played out currently. The ebbs and flows of critical sociology’s place within the discipline, the state and profession’s suppression of it, its resurgence linked to external social and political forces, and its precarious existence within the university have been true of critical sociology since its origins. This paper offers a historical context for better understanding the current attack on the field of sociology and raises the question, what should critical sociologists do about it? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops an alternative vision of public sociology. Whereas public sociology is often defined through the actions of professional sociologists, this article calls for a recognition of reverse tutelage in public sociology. Here, publics are seen as sociological interlocutors who can, and often do, produce sociological theories and analyses that can inform professional sociology. I demonstrate this reverse tutelage by focusing on anticolonial and anti-racist social movements, including the Zapatistas, Black Lives Matter, Palestine Action, and Cops Are Flops. I highlight how they produce sociological theories of power, neoliberalism, race, bordering, and violence that can orient professional sociology toward relational forms of analysis that build connections between different sites of resistance. In doing so, I highlight how the boundary between what Burawoy terms "professional" and "critical" sociology is much more porous than initially theorized and that critical sociology—from wider publics—can significantly shape professional sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes the ongoing conversation around risk governance in the context of the early stages of the COVID pandemic in a new direction. It does so by connecting public health risk governance to James Coleman's formulation of social actorhood in the contemporary US. Risk governance across a variety of social settings can be fruitfully conceptualized according to Coleman's taxonomy of natural and constructed social actors. Unveiling the risk governance schemes operating within distinct social settings is a matter of teasing out the governance roles played by the three primary types of social actor introduced by Coleman: natural persons, agents/principals, and citizen-sovereigns. The parts played by these types of actors are examined within distinct meso-level settings such as households, employment settings, public-facing retail settings, and colleges. In this way, the study is able to distinguish specific governance schemes in terms of how they mobilize particular kinds of social actors characterized according to Coleman's taxonomy. The study represents a step toward developing an account of risk governance which can accommodate a wide variety of actors, settings, and dynamics within a coherent theoretical framework. In carrying out this exercise, this study applies sociological theories to open a window into crucial aspects of risk governance during the pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Thorpe argues sociology lacks a "language of society as a whole." He holds that positivist sociologists de-legitimated holistic theories or broad normatively oriented "social theories," leaving the discipline without discursive means to critically assess and deliberate its overall directions and those of society. Thorpe does not address holistic theory directly or explain how it differs analytically from standard "sociological theory." My intent is to clarify these matters by extending facets of his argument to illuminate the interdependence between holistic theorizing and empirical-historical social science, which is necessary to create the type of "reflexive sociology" that Thorpe argues would make sociology more cosmopolitan and capable of addressing the turbulent sociopolitical conditions in the interregnum after neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have been debating the nature of charisma since the discipline's inception. Recent debates in the sociology of charisma concern the role of social interaction and the place of organisations in the generation of charisma. As these debates have developed, the interdisciplinary field of conservation has begun to debate the concept of charismatic species. To date, literature from the conservation sciences has identified those species most likely to be identified as charismatic and those variables most frequently associated with charismatic species. However, little theorising has been done on the causes of charisma in charismatic species. This article uses the case of charismatic species to outline sociological arguments about charisma more generally. This theoretical exercise advances the literature in both sociology and conservation in several ways. For sociologists, the case of charismatic species shows that seemingly competitive models of charisma are in fact complementary. For those interested in the uses of charismatic species for conservation, this article demystifies charismatic species, demonstrating the ways in which they are historically and socially constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current paper we aim to combine the theoretical ideas of recognition theory to conversation analytical, empirical observations. We ask what recognition theories can give to conversation analysis, and vice versa. We operate on a model of recognition that consists of three different modes: respect, esteem, and love/care, and which distinguishes the levels of conversational actions and the attitudes of recognition manifested in such actions. In this study we examine data examples from various conversational settings (institutional, quasi-experimental, family interaction) and activities (decision-making, storytelling), focusing on the more complex cases of (mis)recognition. We show how recognition can appear both explicitly and implicitly in conversational sequences, and demonstrate how the levels of conversational actions and recognition can be either congruent or incongruent with each other. At the end of the article, we discuss the implications of this view for the interface of conversation analysis and sociological theory, arguing that it can inform and promote the development of interactionally based social and societal critique.