Showing papers by "Bryan S. Turner published in 2006"

Vulnerability And Human Rights

Abstract: Contents Acknowledgments 1. Crimes Against Humanity 2. Vulnerability and Suffering 3. Cultural Rights and Critical Recognition Theory 4. Reproductive and Sexual Rights 5. Rights of Impairment and Disability 6. Rights of the Body 7. Old and New Xenophobia References Index

The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology

Abstract: Providing an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the classical and the contemporary, this volume is an indispensable guide to the vibrant and expanding field of sociology. Featuring over 600 entries, from concise definitions to discursive essays, written by leading international academics, the Dictionary offers a truly global perspective, examining both American and European traditions and approaches. Entries cover schools, theories, theorists and debates, with substantial articles on all key topics in the field. While recognising the richness of historical sociological traditions, the Dictionary also looks forward to new and evolving influences such as cultural change, genetics, globalization, information technologies, new wars and terrorism. Most entries incorporate references for further reading and a cross-referencing system enables easy access to related areas. This Dictionary is an invaluable reference work for students and academics alike and will help to define the field of sociology in years to come.

‘Just Crumbling to Bits’? An Exploration of the Body, Ageing, Injury and Career in Classical Ballet Dancers

Abstract: Ballet is, for reasons that are unclear, a neglected topic in the sociology of the body. Our article works on three levels: firstly, as an account of ex-dancers’‘lived experience’ of embodiment; secondly, as an application of Bourdieu’s theoretical schema; and thirdly, as a philosophically grounded critique of radical social constructionist views of the body.We describe Royal Ballet dancers’ perceptions of their bodies, of ageing, of injury and of their careers.We draw on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital in our investigation of embodiment. Ageing and injury are potential epiphanies that encourage dancers to reflect on their embodied habitus and their career. We argue that the decline in a dancer’s physical capital undermines radical social constructionist views.This study, although set within the narrow field of dance, illuminates the broader relationships between the body, self, and society.

Classical sociology and cosmopolitanism: a critical defence of the social.

Abstract: It is frequently argued that classical sociology, if not sociology as a whole, cannot provide any significant insight into globalization, primarily because its assumptions about the nation-state, national cultures and national societies are no longer relevant to a global world. Sociology cannot consequently contribute to a normative debate about cosmopolitanism, which invites us to consider loyalties and identities that reach beyond the nation-state. My argument considers four principal topics. First, I defend the classical legacy by arguing that classical sociology involved the study of 'the social' not national societies. This argument is illustration by reference to Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. Secondly, Durkheim specifically developed the notion of a cosmopolitan sociology to challenge the nationalist assumptions of his day. Thirdly, I attempt to develop a critical version of Max Weber's verstehende soziologie to consider the conditions for critical recognition theory in sociology as a necessary precondition of cosmopolitanism. Finally, I consider the limitations of some contemporary versions of global sociology in the example of 'flexible citizenship' to provide an empirical case study of the limitations of globalization processes and 'sociology beyond society'. While many institutions have become global, some cannot make this transition. Hence, we should consider the limitations on as well as the opportunities for cosmopolitan sociology.

Varieties of habitus and the embodiment of ballet

Abstract: The overall aim of our research was to produce an ethnography of ballet as a social practice. We draw upon our fieldwork at the Royal Ballet (London) where we conducted 20 in-depth interviews with ...

Citizenship and the Crisis of Multiculturalism

Abstract: Globalization, Americanization and British Muslim Identity, Saied Reza Amelia, London, ICAS Press, 2002, (pb) ISBN 1-904063-02-0, British Muslims' Expectations of the Government. Dual Citizenship: ...

British sociology and public intellectuals: consumer society and imperial decline

Abstract: The following is the lecture given for the BJS 2005 Public Sociology Debate given at the London School of Economics and Political Science on ll October 2005. This lecture on the character of British sociology provides a pretext for a more general inquiry into public intellectual life in postwar Britain. The argument put forward falls into several distinctive sections. First, British social science has depended heavily on the migration of intellectuals, especially Jewish intellectuals who were refugees from fascism. Second, intellectual innovation requires massive, disruptive, violent change. Third, British sociology did nevertheless give rise to a distinctive tradition of social criticism in which one can argue there were (typically home-grown) public intellectuals. The main theme of their social criticism was to consider the constraining and divisive impact of social class, race and gender on the enjoyment of expanding social citizenship. Fourth, postwar British sociology came to be dominated by the analysis of an affluent consumer society. Finally, the main failure of British sociology in this postwar period was the absence of any sustained, macro-sociological analysis of the historical decline of Britain as a world power in the twentieth century.

Estimating the post-mortem interval (II): The use of differential temporal gene expression to determine the age of blowfly pupae

Abstract: To establish the minimum post-mortem interval (PMI) from insect evidence, an entomologist needs to accurately determine the age of the insects present on a discovered body. The aim of this work was to establish whether temporally expressed genes could be utilised as age markers for immature Dipteran insects. This study focused upon the pupal stage of Calliphora vicina (Diptera: Calliphoridae). Differentially expressed genes were located by differential display or from previous research. The expression of these genes during the pupal stage was quantified using real- time PCR. This preliminary research indicated that measuring gene expression is a viable technique to establish the age of immature Calliphora insects. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Age and aging : the social world of Foucault and Bourdieu

Abstract: There are broadly two distinctive approaches to the human body in the social sciences that are important to understanding the relevance of Michel Foucault to the study of age and aging. The first perspective treats the body as a system of cultural signification that can be read as a representation of the structure of power. We can call this approach, with reservations, ‘structuralist’. The second perspective has focused on understanding the experience of the ‘lived body’, thereby giving emphasis to performance and to the body in the social practices. This second approach, which we can designate, again with reservations, ‘phenomenological’, is more precisely concerned with embodiment than with the body. These two approaches are both scientifically valid, but hey ask different questions, use different methodologies and have different consequences. Foucault in a general sense represents a structuralist approach. By contrast, Maurice Merleau-Ponty was closely associated with a phenomenology of the body, being concerned for example with the philosophical implications of phantom limb experiences. In this chapter, we concentrate however on a contrast between Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. Various attempts have been made to achieve some integration of these perspectives. We argue that a seamless analytical integration between the sociology of the body-as-representation of the world and embodiment or body-as-experiences of the world may be difficult, but in research the creative tension between these two approaches may be useful in understanding the paradox of the body as both object and subject, or structure and experience. We argue that this distinction can be best conceptualised as a contrast between ‘the body’ (systems of power and representation) and ‘embodiment’ (forms of experience of bodily practices in the everyday world). This produces a parallel distinction between research on ‘age’ as a social classification and ‘aging’ as a social and biological process. This contrast is evident in existing attempts ‘to bring the body (back) into the sociology of aging’. We can either turn attention to the history of gerontology as a system of knowledge/power that produces a discipline of the elderly body or consider the lived experience of embodiment of elderly people. Foucault is relevant to the first strategy, Bourdieu, to the second.

Estimating the post-mortem interval (I): The use of genetic markers to aid in identification of Dipteran species and subpopulations

Abstract: Insect evidence can be used to estimate the post-mortem interval (PMI) of a discovered corpse. They can also indicate any post-mortem movement of a body. To use insect evidence accurate identification is essential. This study examined the use of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I markers to differentiate Calliphora vicina and Calliphora vomitoria (Diptera:Calliphoridae). The work also explored the use of nuclear DNA markers to distinguish UK populations of these species. DNA extraction and subsequent amplification of these markers in various lifecycle stages, adult body parts and burnt/decomposing larvae ensured that the markers could be used with any insect evidence presented to the entomologist. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Public intellectuals, globalization and the sociological calling: a reply to critics.

Abstract: ‘Public sociology’ and ‘public intellectuals’ are ideas that are very much in fashion. The call ‘for public sociology’ by Michael Burawoy partly provoked this discussion in the British Journal of Sociology (Burawoy 2005a: 259–294, 2005b: 427–32; see also British Journal of Sociology September 2005 ‘Continuing the public sociologies debate’) and has been further supported by a symposium on Rhonda Levine'sEnriching the Sociological Imagination (2005) in Contemporary Sociology. For the prospect of a radical sociology, C. Wright Mill's The Sociological Imagination (1959) has always been the benchmark, but in historical terms it is the shadow of 1968 that remains decisive, and there is therefore in the current articulation of radicalism a large degree of nostalgia as the baby boomers come towards their inevitable retirement (Sica and Turner 2006). I would prefer to ask by contrast: is there anything we can learn from this postwar history in order to rebuild sociology for future generations to preserve a critical perspective on society? I am grateful to the critics of my lecture for generously spending the time to think about alternative accounts of sociology, and hence imagining different futures.

Law and Religion

Abstract: ‘Introduction’, in J.L. Esposito and M. Watson (eds) Religion and the Global Order. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Haynes, J. (1999) ‘Introduction’, in Religion, Globalization and Political Culture in the Third World. Houndsmill: Macmillan. Marty, M.E. and R.S. Appleby (1994) ‘Introduction’, in M.E. Marty and R.S. Appleby (eds) Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ohm, T. (1959) Asia Looks at Western Christianity, trans. Irene Marinoff. New York: Herder and Herder.