Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 1982"

Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe

Abstract: Part 1 In search of popular culture: the discovery of the people unity and variety in popular culture an elusive quarry - the mediators, oblique approaches to popular culture. Part 2 Structures of popular culture: the transmission of popular culture - the professionals, the amateurs, settings, tradition and creativity traditional forms - genres, themes and variations, the process of composition heroes, villains and fools - prototypes and transformations, popular attitudes and values the world of carnival - myths and rituals, carnival, the world upside down, the carnivalesque, social control or social protest? Part 3 Changes in popular culture: the triumph of Lent - the reform of popular culture - the first phase of reform 1500-1650, the culture of the godly, the second phase of reform 1650-1800 popular culture and social change - the commercial revolution, the uses of literacy, politics and the people, the withdrawal of the upper classes from withdrawal to discovery. Appendices: the discovery of the people - select studies and anthologies select publications illustrating the reform of popular culture, 1495-1664.

Morphogenesis versus structuration: on combining structure and action. 1982.

Abstract: The fundamental problem of linking human agency and social structure stalks through the history of sociological theory. Basically it concerns how to develop an adequate theoretical account which deals simultaneously with men constituting society and the social formation of human agents. For any theorist, except the holist, social structure is ultimately a human product, but for any theorist, except advocates of psychologism, this product in turn shapes individuals and influences their interaction. However successive theoretical developments have tilted either towards structure or towards action, a slippage which has gathered in momentum over time. Initially this meant that one element became dominant and the other subordinate: human agency had become pale and ghostly in mid-century functionalism, whilst structure betook an evanescent fragility in the re-flowering of phenomenology. Eventually certain schools of thought repressed the second element almost completely. On the one hand structuralist Marxism and normative functionalism virtually snuffed-out agency-the acting subject became increasingly lifeless whilst the structural or cultural components enjoyed a life of their own, self-propelling or self-maintaining. On the other hand interpretative sociology busily banished the structural to the realm of objectification and facticity-human agency became sovereign whilst social structure was reduced to supine plasticity because of its constructed nature. Although proponents of these divergent views were extremely vociferous, they were also extensively criticized and precisely on the grounds that both structure and action were indispensable in sociological explanation.2 Moreover serious efforts to re-address the problem and to re-unite structure and action had already begun from inside 'the two Sociologies',3 when they were characterized in this manichean way. These attempts emerged after the early sixties from 'general' functionalists,4 'humanistic' marxists5 and from interactionists confronting the existence of strongly patterned conduct.6 Furthermore they were joined in the same decade by a bold attempt

Social Fluidity in Industrial Nations: England, France and Sweden

Abstract: In a paper recently published, we have compared rates of intergenerational class mobility among the adult male populations of England, France and Sweden.l The results we have reported stand in some opposition to the well-known thesis of Lipset and Zetterberg which claims that the mobility patterns of the industrial societies of the western world are 'much the same'.2 While our results could lend support to the idea of there being a 'family resemblance' among the class mobility patterns of England, France and Sweden, each of these countries was at the same time found to have a fairly distinctive 'rnobility profile' when intergenerational movements in class position were examined on the basis of a ninefold class schema. Inflow rates, or patterns of class recruitment, showed especially marked crossnational variation. A major factor creating such variation was evidently that of historically-determined differences in the class structures of the three societies, most notably ones associated with the relative sizes of their agricultural sectors and with differing rates of contraction of employment in agriculture in the course of economic development. Lipset and Zetterberg, it may be recalled, excluded from consideration all mobility either from or to agricultural classes and thus, in our view, biassed their data unduly in favour of the thesis that they proposed. The present paper follows on directly from our earlier publication. Basically, the question it treats is the following: can the variation that we have observed in class mobility rates for England, France and Sweden be in fact attributed entirely to differences in the evolution of the class structures of these societies or in other factors affecting the 'demand' and 'supply' conditions attending mobility; or is it rather the case that there are, in addition to such structural sources of variation, differences also among the three societies in the pattern of what we would term their 'social fluidity' or, in other words, in mobility considered independently of structural influences? To use

Ethnic Jokes, Moral Values and Social Boundaries

Abstract: The universal popularity of ethnic jokes and in particular those about supposedly 'stupid' or 'crafty' ethnic minorities is to be explained in terms of the general characteristics of industrial societies rather than the particular circumstances of each separate society. The ethnic jokes of western industrial societies in both peacetime and wartime reflect the competing moral values, uncertain social boundaries and impersonal power structures of these societies. The corresponding eastern European jokes are in some respects similar but as one might expect highly politicized and reflect the deeper social and political divisions that characterize the socialist industrial countries. Ethnic jokes delineate the social, geographical and moral boundaries of a nation or ethnic group. By making fun of peripheral and ambiguous groups they reduce ambiguity and clarify boundaries or at least make ambiguity appear less threatening. Ethnic jokes occur in opposed pairs such as those mocking 'st-upid' and 'crafty', or 'cowardly' and 'militaristic' groups respectively and express the problems and anxieties caused by the conflicting norms and values inevitably found in large societies dominated by anomic impersonal institutions such as the market place and bureaucracy.

The Rapid Economic Development of Israel and the Emergence of the Ethnic Division of Labour

Abstract: This paper deals with the formation of the ethnic division of labour within the Jewish population in Israel during the rapid economic growth of the first decade of the existence of the state. It is argued that the division of labour stemmed from the specific patterns of economic development and the expanding capitalist relations of production. This approach is opposed to the functionalist view which argues that the position of the oriental immigrants was determined by their 'traditional', pre-immigration, characteristics. Four major economic spheres argiculture, construction, industry and the civil services are examined in terms of the specific pattern of growth in each sphere, the ethnic division of labour it entailed and the ethnic division of rewards. Finally, the paper discusses the function of the dominant ideology in disguising the concrete ethnic-class relations. The oriental Jews who arrived in Israel en masse after the establishment of the state in 1948, found themselves occupying the lower echelons of Israeli society. This fact has been explained by Israeli social scientists, politicians, and journalists alike as the natural and only possible result of the immigrants' demographic, occupational and educational characteristics. At the same time, the oriental immigrants' entrance into Israeli society has been described as the beginning of a process of modernisation which will end in their dispersal throughout the social structure. The basic assumption underlying this view is that Israeli social structure was well established when the immigrants arrived, and that they entered categories which were already in existence in that structure. The structure is assumed to have been composed of upper, middle, and lower categories. The immigrants are assumed to have crowded the lower categories, due to their background characteristics. British Journal of Sociology Volume 33 Number 1 March 1982 (C) R.K.P. 1982 0007 1315/82/3301-0064 $1.50

Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives

Abstract: Perhaps the author should have worked a little harder than this statement implies at providing a rationale for the delineation of his region of study (and it would have been good to be told a little about his field methods at the same time) ? My main regret in reading this otherwise admirable piece of work was that it concentrated exclusively on the southernmost part of Benin, as if cleanly amputated not only from the rest of the coastal region to the east and west but also from the rest of Dahomey and the modern Benin state. There is considerable unity in diversity, modern as well as pre-colonial, throughout the region from southern Ghana to lit. Cameroun, and Mondjannagni might usefully have drawn attention to some of this present-day common ground, especially in the context of rural development experience, had he been willing to change focus and scale from time to time. His bibliographical coverage of relevant Xigerian material has several gaps, and literature on Ghana and Togo is hardly drawn upon at all. Incidentally, one or two studies in English on southern Benin are missing from the otherwise comprehensive bibliographical coverage of the specified region, e.g. Argyle's book on Dahomey. Nevertheless, despite these minor qualifications, all geographers interested in Benin or neighbouring areas will find the present Volume of value.

The Community Question: A Perspective from National Survey Data - The Case of the USA

Abstract: Using data from NORC General Social Survey, 19 7 278, this study examines the three perspectives on the community question integrated and summarised by Wellman: 1 that community has been 'lost', 'saved', and 'liberated' in contemporary large cities. Frequency of spending a social evening with relatives, neighbours, and friends from outside the immediate neighbourhoods was construed as indicative of the strength of ties. A comparison among the urbanites, the suburbanites, and residents of small towns or rural areas was made to examine the hypotheses that the three different perspectives suggest. The results indicate partial support for the 'lost' perspective; none for the 'saved' perspective; and a complete support for the 'liberated' perspective. Implications of the findings and comparisons with other previous studies were discussed. In a recent study, Wellman2 presents an empirical test of three different schools of thought concerning the 'community question', which has set the agenda for much recent discussion and debate. The community question concerns the extent to which and the manner in which the organization and content of primary and interpersonal ties are affected by the large-scale division of labour associated with modern urban society. In what has become a massive sociological literature, Wellman discerns three basic points of view. The earliest, represented by the work of Tonnies,3 Sorokin and Zimmerman,4 Durkheim,s Weber,6 Wirth,7 and Nisbet,8 considers urban society profoundly disruptive of communal solidarity. According to this 'community lost' interpretation, urbanites are 'limited members of multiple social networks, sparsely knit and loosely bounded'; their social ties are 'weak, narrowly defined and disorganised'; and they are bound to the city only by 'webs of secondary affiliations'.9 On the other hand, the The British Joutnal of Sociology Volume 33 Number 4 December 1982 O R.K.P. 1982 0007 1315/82/3304-0579 $1.50

Durkheim and Spencer

Abstract: A limited effort is made in this article to compare and contrast Durkheim and Spencer, with particular emphasis on their theories of societal evolution and their basic approaches to social science methodology. It is concluded that, while Durkheim's sociology was heavily inSluenced by the work of Spencer, it differs in certain basic respects. To the extent that subsequent generations of sociologists have embraced the 'paradigm' of Durkheim and rejected that of Spencer, the effect upon macro-level sociological theory has been highly constricting. Much can be gained from a study of the strengths and weaknesses of both theorists, and from a more balanced perspective. ' "Who now reads Spencer?" ' intoned Talcott Parsons (quoting Crane Brinton) in the opening line of his own now seldom-read work, The Structure of Social Action. 1 "'Spencer is dead." ' Whether or not this declamation was a self-fulfilling prophesy, it is certainly true that Herbert Spencer-who had once been lionized as perhaps the greatest mind of the nineteenth century-went into eclipse and became a virtual non-person among many twentieth century social scientists.2 Emile Durkheim, by contrast, came to be widely hailed as a 'founding father' of sociology, despite the fact that he owed much to Spencer. (Consider, for instance, the index to The Divzsion of Labor in Society,3 Durkheim's preeminent and most frequently cited work. It contains forty-three references to Spencer. The next most frequently mentioned author, Auguste Comte, is cited c)nly eighteen times. ) Indeed, there is a cutious tendency among historians of sociology to pass Spencer by and skip directly from Comte to Durkheim, despite the fact that Comte died in 1857, six years after Spencer's landmark Social Statics appeared, while Durkheim was born in 1858 and did not publish his first major work until 1893, near the end of Spencer's prodigious (albeit controversial) career. TheBrsttsh Journal of Sociology Volume 33 Number3 September 1982 i) RK.P. 1982 0007 1315/82/3303-0359 $1.50

Are Social Facts Real

Abstract: This Note is a clarification and defense of the Durkheimian view that social facts are 'real,' that they can and often do 'constrain' individuals, that they exist independently of and 'external to' individuals, and that they cannot 'without remainder' be reduced to psychological facts or to statements that individuals may or will habitually or as a rule do certain things. This question of the reality of social facts is related to the work of Hart and Searle and to the debate about the connection between factual and moral judgments, and in this way the controversy between the so-called methodological holists and individualists is located within a larger philosophical framework.

Theory and Evidence of Rising Crime in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: The question as to whether crime rates are rising or falling has both important public policy implications, in the law and order debate, and academic, in tests of etiological theories. This paper contends that official crime rates were falling in the two major industrial countries of the nineteenth century, Britain and France. Yet the major sociologists, lawyers, judges and so forth continued to discuss 'rising crime', and to develop theories to explain why. The reasons for increases differed between schools (biological, psychological, mainstream sociological and Marxist). But as diverse, and eminent a lot of theorists as Durkheim, Ferri, Tarde, Engels and Bonger were united in insisting that crime was

The Devil, Miracles and the Afterlife: The Political Sociology of Religion in Northern Ireland

Abstract: The Northern Ireland problem is often characterized as a sectarian conflict between two communities, divided on issues that were resolved in the rest of western Europe centuries before. While religious affiliation is used to identify the adversaries, little empirical research has examined how far communal divisions can be traced to religious commitment. This paper uses multivariate analysis on survey data collected in Northern Ireland in 1973 to examine what role, if any, religious commitment plays in the political contlict. Religious commitment is conceptualized into three separate dimensions: religious ritual or behaviour; devotion or religious self-definition; and belief in the supernatural. First, these three dimensions are related to social structural characteristics and found to have a distinct social base. Second, religious commitment and social structure are related to perceived causes of the political conflict. The results show that the three dimensions of religious commitment have little influence on the political

Relative Deprivation and Resource Mobilization: A Study of Early Quakerism

Abstract: Recent analyses of sectarian phenomena have utilized resource mobilization models at the expense of relative deprivation perspectives. Researchers justify their choice of resource mobilization perspectives by arguing that they not only direct their investigation to important elements of organizational development, but also avoid the unverified assumption of deprivation models that a link exists between pre-existing motivation and sectarian goals and activities. Under certain circumstances, however, resource mobilization perspectives should be seen as complementing relative deprivation perspectives rather than contradicting them. If data allow researchers to determine a motivating deprivation or frustration among a sect's founding members, then resource mobilization perspectives can identify the extent to which the initial deprivation affects subsequent allocation decisions. As a demonstration of the potential complementary functions of relative deprivation and resource mobilization theories, this article analyses the origins and development of early Quakerism with regard to the group's protest against the payment of tithes. It presents aspirational deprivation evidence regarding people's tithe-opposition prior to their conversion to Quakerism, and then illustrates how the group allocated resources in its efforts to secure the elimination of tithes in mid-seventeenth century England. Furthermore, the article argues that Quakerism's efforts to relieve its members' sense of aspirational deprivation both attracted constituents and created opponents to the group.

Perverse Effects and Social Contradictions - Analytical Vindication of Dialectics

Abstract: Raymond Boudon's recent textbook La Logique du Social, constitutes a systematic attempt to provide sociology with solid foundations, by putting at its core the assumption that man acts rationally, or at least intentionally. Interactionist models, which rest on this assumption, Boudon argues, should replace determinist models, which assume that man is passively determined by social structures, roles or norms.l In particular, he argues that the notion of perverse effect, whose use presupposes the adoption of an interactionist perspective, should play a central role in the attempt to account for social change. In this review article, I shall focus on this notion and on the use Boudon makes of it in his theory of social change. I shall point out a number of obscurities and other defects, and make some suggestions as to how they can be remedied. In so doing, I shall draw heavily on two other books. One is an earlier collection of essays by Boudon, Effets Pervers et Ordre Social, which deals with such topics as educational reform and Rawlsian justice, the 'logic of relative frustration' and sociological determinism, and which provides a less systematic formulation of the ideas expressed in the textbook. As most of the essays make explicit use of the notion of 'perverse effect', their relevance to the concerns of this article are obvious enough. The other book I shall heavily draw on is a somewhat more technical one by Jon Elster, Logic and Society. The purpose of this book is to use various logical tools in order to work out a number of sociologically useful concepts. One of these is the concept of social contradiction, on which we shall concentrate in subsequent sections. Not only does this concept lie at the core of Elster's theory of social change-by itself a sufficient reason for wanting to undertake a comparison with the key notion in Boudon's treatment of change. As we shall see, it is also analytically related to Boudon's notion of perverse effect and, just like the latter, it only makes sense on the background of an intentional model of man.2 Bringing Boudon's and Elster's analyses of these issues together, will, I hope, help make the former more rigorous and the latter more

Freud, psychoanalysis, and sociology: some observations on the sociological analysis of the individual.

Abstract: This paper is an advocacy for the employment of psychoanalytical concepts within sociological theorizing about the individual. Through an exposition of Freud's views on the development of intra-psychic structure and a critique of Parsons' reduction of psychoanalysis to a branch of learning theory, I attempt to show that the sociological approach to the individual is implicitly behavioural and imprisoned in a series of assumptions which, among other things, treats subjectivity as epiphenomenal and identity as an unmediated reflection of some external reality. In contrast, psychoanalysis presents to us a picture of the individual as flawed and ambivalent in his relation to society, formed by but at odds with the demands of culture. In particular, the psychoanalytic concept of identification reveals that the acquisition of identity is a hird-won achievement marked by the renunciation of lost and forbidden objects. I argue, following Freud and Lacan, that the ego, far from being an agency of reason, somehow directly 'plugged into' reality, constitutes itself in the fantasied image of another and that the quality of this identification crucially affects the way the world is experienced and believed by the individual. This argument is elaborated through a discussion of Peter Berger's remarks on the social causes of identity crisis which, when set against the work of object-relations theorists on those suffering from disturbances of identity such as, for example, schizoid personalities, are shown to be both superficial and misleading. I conclude the paper by arguing that while psychoanalysis can enhance our understanding of the way in which the individual is formed by and through culture it also cautions us against making simple generalizations about the impact of culture upon the person, showing that the individual never submits himself unequivocally to its demands and interdicts.