Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Sociology in 1997"

After the individual in society : Lessons on collectivity from science, technology and society

Abstract: . Les sciences sociales ont invente toute une serie de concepts pour surmonter l'opposition entre action individuelle et collective. Un des apports de l'anthropologie des sciences et des techniques (AST) est de montrer que cette opposition ne constitue qu'une des configurations construites par l'action et sa distribution. Pour restituer la diversite de ces configurations l'AST a elabore quatre principes. Le premier affirme le caractere heterogene du social. Le deuxieme conduit a considerer que toute entite est une realite assimilable au reseau des elements heterogenes. Le troisieme affirme que les entites sont a geometrie variable et qu'elles reorientent l'action dans des directions imprevisibles. Le quatrieme propose que tout arrangement social stabilise est a la fois un point (un individu) et un reseau (un collectif). L'analyse sociologique, si elle veut surmonter l'opposition entre individualisme et holisme, doit donc se donner pour objet l'etude de ces differentes configurations hybrides. Resume. The social sciences have devised a series of strategies in order to overcome the division between individual and collective action. However, science, technology and society (STS) has shown that this distinction is only one possible configuration for action and its distribution. In order to investigate other possible configurations, STS proposes four principles: that the social is heterogeneous in character; that all entities are networks of heterogeneous elements; that these networks are both variable in geometry and in principle unpredictable; and that every stable social arrangement is simultaneously a point (an individual) and a network (a collective). If sociological analysis is to overcome the individualism/holism division it should attend to the range of hybrid configurations. "For at the intersection of all these fields we sense that the same basic message is being conveyed -- a message that seems indeed over the course of the centuries to have almost attained the status of an accepted truth. This is the assertion that reality -- all reality -- can be conceived of as a construction that one should be able to lean on, and as something that must be manipulated. Arts and wisdom, as the Chinese conceived of them, should be devoted to the strategic exploitation of the propensity inherent in reality; they should be designed so as to cause a maximal effect." (Francois Jullien, La Propension des Choses, Paris: Seuil, 1992, page 15) Introduction Many cultures manage perfectly well without it. For instance, those of the Papua New Guinea Highlands (Strathern 1991) -- or, perhaps less exotically, that of the Japanese. Indeed, the very translation of Euro-American social thought into Japanese is extraordinarily difficult. For the whole idea of the "individual" and "society" is foreign to Japanese culture. There is a fascinating story to be retold about the conversion of these terms into Japanese neologisms -- the ugly neologisms needed to import Euro-American social science and its problems into Japan. And another equally interesting story to be told of teaching about the distinction between the individual and society to eighteen-year olds in Japanese universities -- students who tend to come from places which perform continuities between the collective and the personal, rather than divisions or dualisms. (2) Are the Japanese disadvantaged? Perhaps. But perhaps not. For maybe what appears to be a Japanese problem is really one of Euro-American making. And one that should be treated as a burden, indeed an unnecessary burden. Such, at any rate, is the thesis that we explore in this paper. That the Euro-American distinction between the individual and the collective--current since at least the Enlightenment, though no doubt preceding this by many centuries -- is unsatisfactory. And that the space created by the division and the intellectual games it generates are unnecessary, perhaps even sterile. …

History Versus Science: The Evolutionary Solution'

Abstract: History matters because time and place matter and because of path-dependence. Hence only idiographic and not nomothetic statements are possible according to some historical sociolo- gists. Others accuse the former of having abandoned science. It is not sufficiently appreciated that in understanding the role of both history and necessity, evolutionary theory has solved this problem. Moreover, methods available for inferring what is uniquely related to what, having come via the same path, and for testing hypotheses controlling for the possibly confounding effects of common histories should be of interest to sociologists on both sides of the history versus science divide.

Sociology, common sense, and qualitative methodology : The position of Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine

Abstract: This article is the outcome of research on qualitative methodology funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Discussions on this subject with Pierre Bourdieu, Marcel Fournier and Eric Forgues enabled me to develop the positions adopted in this text. I wish to express my gratitude to them. I also wish to thank Marie-Rose De Groof Vianna for revision of the text and Nancy Cote for its translation. Abstract. This article exposes the developments of qualitative methodology in French sociology with respect to methods proposed by Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine: "provoked and accompanied" self-analysis and the sociological intervention. In addition to the presentation of these two methods, the propose of this article is to describe and discuss the position of these two authors on certain problems such as representativeness, objectivity, status of data, epistemological rupture and lastly on the question of the writing.by which sociological knowledge is formed from common sense knowledge contained in the data. This brings us to a broader discussion on these questions. The strengths and weaknesses of these two methods are finally examined. Resume. Cet article aborde les developpements de la methodologie qualitative au sein de la sociologie francaise. Il met l'accent sur les methodes recemment proposees par Pierre Bourdieu et Alain Touraine: l'auto-analyse provoquee et accompagnee et l'intervention sociologique. L'article traite plus largement des positions de ces deux auteurs a propos de la representativite et de l'objectivite en sociologie, de meme que du statut attribue au sens commun et a la rupture epistemologique. Sur cette lancee, l'ecriture sociologique est aussi consideree. Les forces et les limites de ces deux methodes sont examinees au regard de ces differents points. At the present time, qualitative methods are making headway in French sociology. They are the object of constant interest and their contents are much discussed. Two outstanding figures in French sociology, Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine, have given them pride of place in their recent research. The aim of this paper is to examine the methods that these authors have recently developed: the sociological intervention and the provoked and accompanied self-analysis. A detailed presentation is made of these methods and their respective strong and weak points are then underlined. The latter are approached in such a way as to open a broad discussion on the problems faced by sociology such, for instance, as the status of common sense in relation to the sociological explanation. The lessons learned from these methods permit, in conclusion, the formulation of propositions for which, however, the author of this paper is alone responsible. Brief Introduction Touraine's use of qualitative methods is not recent, however, since his first surveys on worker consciousness (Touraine, 1966) were already recommending the semi-directed sociological interview. But it was in his book La voix et le regard that he first proposed employing the sociological intervention method, by which he hoped to renew sociological methodology. This method has had a considerable impact on French-language sociology and has given rise to numerous studies on women, students, environmentalists and the labour movement in France (Touraine, 1978; 1983b; 1987). This group of studies - carried out on the initiative of Touraine himself, with a team joined by well-known French sociologists of the day such as Michel Wieviorka and Francois Dubet - is referred to as permanent sociology, in other words a sociology constantly at work and directly involved in political and social action. The sociological study of social movements in Quebec has also made considerable use of the sociological intervention method (Gagnon, 1982; Maheu, 1988). In Bourdieu's work, qualitative methods appear in his first studies of an ethnological nature (Bourdieu, 1977a). …

Objectifying and Naturalizing Individuality: A Study of Adult Education in the Canadian Arctic

Abstract: This article argues that the objectification and naturalization of individuality are integral to the moral regulation of Inuit in contemporary Canadian society. After a review of existing literature which problematizes connections between individuality and power, and which positions education as a site for the production of individuality, the article presents a study of adult education in the Canadian Arctic. This study narrates the historical construction of individualized conceptualizations of Inuit in Euro-Canadian discourses concerning education, and of administrative structures through which state-organized adult education became possible in the Arctic. The article then documents the typical administrative practices of Arctic College adult educators, and identifies three indicators of Inuit resistance to adult education.

Organizations for the 21st Century? Co-Operatives and "New" Forms of Organization

Abstract: . This paper discusses calls for "new" forms of organization coming from the literature on sustainable community development and the contemporary organizational literature. There is significant overlap in the forms of organization being advocated, despite important differences in the premises and logic used in promoting particular organizational characteristics. Co-operative organizational forms are shown to provide models of the "new" forms of organization appropriate for the contemporary economy and for community economic development. Co-operatives also offer a mechanism for introducing democratic values and processes into the international economy, an alternative to globalization a la multinational corporation. Resume. Dans cette communication, nous examinerons les appels a de > systemes d'organisation dont il est question dans les publications professionnelles sur le developpement communautaire durable et dans les journaux contemporains traitant des systemes d'organisation. Les divers systemes d'organisation preconises ont beaucoup de points communs, bien qu'ils presentent toutefois de grandes differences au niveau des premisses et de la logique employees pour promouvoir des caracteristiques organisationnelles particulieres. Les cooperatives y sont presentees comme un exemple de > systeme d'organisation, a la fois parce qu'elles sont appropriees pour l'economie contemporaine et parce qu'elles favorisent le developpement economique communautaire. Les cooperatives offrent egalement la possibilite d'introduire des valeurs et des procedes democratiques dans l'economie internationale, une alternative a la globalisation partiquee par les corporations multinationales. I. Introduction There are urgent calls for "new" forms of organization coming from the literature on sustainable community development, and from the contemporary organizational literature. In this paper I review these bodies of literature to identify the characteristics deemed new, and the rationale for such characteristics. I demonstrate that there is significant overlap in the form of organization being called for, although the reasons for advocating particular organizational characteristics differ significantly. I then discuss the co-operative form of organization in light of the organizational characteristics identified above, and argue that co-operatives offer the potential to address the needs identified in the community development literature. I also suggest that they may well meet some of the needs identified by the organizational management literature as relevant to success in today's economic context. Co-ops (e.g. consumer co-ops, worker (labour) co-ops, housing co-ops, producer co-ops, marketing co-ops) are community-based businesses set up to serve the needs of their member/owners. (2) Although co-ops are not, strictly speaking, non-profits, they are part of the "social economy" (Quarter, 1992) which encompasses organizations intended to meet community needs in a democratic fashion. (3) As The Economist has noted, co-ops make possible public ownership of the means of production without state ownership, and free enterprise without capitalism (Craig, 1993: 76). Co-ops are typically incorporated under distinctive co-op legislation, recognizing co-ops as different from conventional businesses. While locally rooted, co-ops are often part of regional, national and international federations, and have the opportunity to participate in international trade and production linkages which may offer the potential for an alternative to globalism a la multinational corporation (Normark, 1995). To further this line of argument I shall consider selected examples of co-ops and co-op activists in the consumer co-op sector. Key actors in these co-ops are seeking to position their co-operatives as organizations which combine characteristics needed by successful enterprises with those required of successful democratic community-based associations. …

Latin America in the New World Order

Abstract: . This paper argues that capitalism in its neoliberal form has begun to generate the social forces of its own demise. The argument is constructed with reference to the dynamics of adjustment and the resulting conditions of social inequality and poverty in Latin America. Here it is argued that the major means of internal adjustment involves the restructuring of the capital-labour relation. Parts four and five examine the efforts in the region to contain the social discontent and forces of resistance and opposition to policies of structural adjustment, with particular reference to Mexico. These efforts are shown to be ineffective. Resume. Cet article avance que le capitalisme dans sa forme neoliberale engendre les forces de sa propre destruction. Ce raisonnement se fonde sur la reference aux dynamiques de l'ajustement structurel et les conditions sociales resultant de l'inegalite et de la pauvrete en Amerique Latine. On discuie du fait que les principaux moyens d'ajustement interne impliquent un changement radical dans la relation du capital et de la main d'oeuvre. Les parties IV et V examinent les efforts gouvernementaux dans la region pour enrayer le mecontentement social et les forces de resistance (et l'opposition aux politiques neoliberales d'ajustement) en tenant particulierement compte du Mexique. On en arrive a la conclusion que ces efforts sont vains. Introduction The collapse in 1989 of socialism in the former USSR and Eastern Europe formed the final chapter in what Francis Fukyama and some others view as "the end of history," with reference to the idea of freedom, instituted in political terms as liberal democracy and in economic terms as the free market. (1) In the Latin American context, this struggle for political and economic freedom has been associated with a neoliberal agenda of market-oriented economic reforms -- the liberalisation of trade and capital flows, privatisation of public enterprises, deregulation of private activity, and a diminution if not the end of state intervention in the economy, with a cut-back in expenditures and other measures of fiscal austerity. (2) In the 1970s, experiments with neoliberal reforms were instituted by several military regimes in the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) in the context of what later emerged as a "dirty war" against "subversives," supporters of a process several decades in the making -- the incorporation of the working class into the national process of economic development. (3) All of these experiments were short-lived and failed. But in the 1980s, in a very different context of a region-wide debt crisis, neoliberal policies of stabilisation and structural adjustment were reinstituted by a newly formed class of transnational capitalists and an intelligentsia of economic technocrats, under the direction of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other organisations of international financial capital. (4) In this context, the neoliberal agenda of structural adjustment and associated market reforms were imposed on country after country, and by the end of the decade only four countries in the region had not opened up their economies to the world economy -- liberalising imports and removing restrictions on the movement of capital. And by the early 1990s, despite the apparent failure of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) to place the regional economy on a sustainable growth-path and the clear evidence of its "extraordinarily severe social costs" (to quote from an Inter-American bank study), these countries (with the exception of Cuba) jumped on the neoliberal bandwagon. Even Brazil did so in 1995, under the Presidency of Fernando Cardoso, a well-known sociologist who in years past had been a major exponent of a Marxist-oriented theory of Latin American dependency. In policy-making and intellectual circles, in both politics and academia all over the world, there has emerged what Williamson (1990) has termed a "Washington-Consensus" on the necessity of free market reforms, viz. …

Trust, Risk and the Public: The Case of the Guelph Landfill Site

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of trust in mediating the expert-lay interactions that took place in the recent Guelph Landfill Search Process (GLSP). On a theoretical level, I shall discuss how the emergent expert-lay trust relations, as well as the types of issues raised in the GLSP, were influenced by the conditions of the risk society outlined by Ulrich Beck. It is concluded that a lack of general trust in technology and technical expertise is now a critical variable in the management of modem environmental risks and that the GLSP represents an example of an institutionalized response to this situation.

How prevalent is sexual harassment : A research note on measuring sexual harassment in Canada

Abstract: Annette Nierobisz * The research was funded in part by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada (#816-95-0037) and the General Research Grant fund in the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1996 Sociologist Against Sexual Harassment annual meetings. Please direct all correspondence to Sandy Welsh, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 203 College Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1P9 or e-mail: welsh@chass.utoronto.ca Abstract: Surveys documenting the prevalence of sexual harassment in Canada are hindered by four problems: the lack of mutually exclusive, behaviourally based survey items; the lack of exhaustive categories; inappropriate time frames for items; and a lack of context for these survey items. We compare the results from the 1983 Canadian Human Rights Commission study and the 1994 Violence Against Women survey to highlight these four common problems found in sexual harassment surveys. The Violence Against Women survey overcomes several of these problems and provides reliable estimates of the prevalence of sexual harassment. According to the Violence Against Women survey, 54 percent of Canadian women experience sexual harassment over their lifetime by known men in general and twenty-three percent experience sexual harassment by known men in workplace positions. This survey though, does appear to under-represent the amount of poisoned environment harassment experienced by Canadian women. Resume: Les enquetes qui documentent la frequence du harcelement sexuel au Canada se heurtent a quatre sortes de problemes: le manque de categories de reponse mutuellement exclusives reflettant le comportement; le manque de categories epuisant le tout du comportement sous question; l'usage d'unites de temps qui ne sont pas appropriees aux categories de comportement; et le manque de contexte pour les categories de reponse. Nous comparons les resultats de l'enquete de la Commission canadienne des droits de l'homme de 1983 avec ceux de l'enquete > de 1994 pour souligner ces quatre problemes communs que l'on trouve dans les enquetes de harcelement sexuel. L'enquete > surmonte quelques-uns de ces problemes et offre des estimations fiables de la frequence de harcelement sexuel. Selon cette enquete, 54 pourcent des femmes canadiennes ont ete harcelees sexuellement par des hommes connus en general et 23 pourcent ont ete harcelees sexuellement par des hommes connus dans des positions d'emploi. Cependant cette enquete sous-estime le montant de harcelement venant de l'environnement qui affecte aussi les femmes canadiennes. Although research indicates that women have experienced sexual harassment through much of recorded history (Bularzik, 1978; Farley, 1979; Backhouse and Cohen, 1978), it was not until 1978 that the Canadian Human Rights Commission recognized sexual harassment to be a form of discrimination prohibitable under the Human Rights Act. This recognition sparked numerous surveys which explored the prevalence of harassment in Canada (e.g., Canadian Human Rights Commission, 1983; Cammaert, 1985; McDaniel and van Roosmalen, 1991; Phillips and Schneider, 1993). Yet, even with the proliferation of new studies, a clear and consistent picture of the prevalence of sexual harassment in Canadian workplaces refuses to emerge. There is considerable variation in the estimated proportions of women reported to have experienced sexual harassment. Depending on the study, rates of sexual harassment in the United States and Canada range from 90 percent (Brooks and Perot, 1991) to 16 percent (Wizer, 1992). While the range of sexual harassment rates sometimes reflect differences in sampled populations (e.g., non-random samples, university versus workplace populations, see Gruber, 1990; 1992; Fitzgerald and Shullman, 1993; Arvey and Cavanaugh, 1995), the rates of sexual harassment in general population surveys vary from 30 percent (Loy and Stewart, 1988) to 49 percent (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 1983). …

The Road Not Taken: The Transition from Unemployment to Self-Employment in Canada, 1961-1994

Abstract: . The steady decline in self-employment in Canada for much of this century appears to have been reversed in recent years. This pattern is repeated in a large number of western countries. Several explanations have been put forward to explain these revivals. Among the most intensively studied is an "unemployment push" hypothesis in which people move into self-employment as a response to unemployment. Although arguments about the meaning of this hypothesis differ, the present study shows that there is no non-seasonal connection between unemployment and self-employment in Canada between 1961 and 1994. Directions for future research are discussed. Resume. Contrairement a la tendance a la baisse observee depuis le debut du siecle, le nombre de travailleurs autonomes au Canada a augmente au cours des dernieres annees. Ce revirement a aussi ete rapporte par plusieurs pays occidentaux. Il existe de nombreuses explications pour le regain du travail autonome. Parmi les hypotheses les plus etudiees, on retrouve l'hypothese de la "poussee du chomage" suggerant que le chomage mene les gens au travail autonome. Bien qu'il existe plusieurs facons d'expliquer le travail autonome comme etant une reaction au chomage, cette etude demontre qu'il n'y a pas de lien non-saisonnier entre le chomage et le travail autonome au Canada entre 1961 et 1994. Une discussion des questions de recherche future conclura l'expose. Introduction Almost 150 years ago, Marx predicted the imminent disappearance of the "petite bourgeoisie," the class of small-scale, independent business owners. For much of this century, within Marxism, and indeed among non-Marxists as well, this prediction posed no theoretical or empirical difficulties. Empirically, the decline of the petit bourgeois sector throughout the first 70 years of this century in most capitalist economies is unmistakable. Theoretically, this decline was evidence of the increasing concentration of capital in large firms. Indeed, there was no evidence, up until the 1970s at least, which might have suggested that the decline in self-employment might be ending. (2) Twenty years ago, Johnson (1972) examined Canadian trends in self-employment between 1932 and 1972, concluding that the sector had exhibited a steady decline in size throughout the period. Cuneo (1984) studied self-employment rates between 1931 and 1981, concluding that the petite bourgeoisie "persisted" between 1931 and 1951, but declined thereafter. Szymanski (1983) examined trends across several countries including Canada between 1960 and 1978, also concluding that the sector had declined. All of this evidence was consistent with Marxist and neo-Marxist theories about capital concentration and the rise of "monopoly capitalism" (Baran and Sweezy, 1966). The basic argument was that as monopoly capitalism stabilized, small firms disappeared and large monopolistic and oligopolistic firms took control not only of particular markets, but also of industries and even nation-states (Teeple, 1995). Cuneo (1984:298) may have put it most succinctly, stating that, "[t]he petite bourgeoisie as a class is obviously being destroyed." However, during the 1980s, some research began to suggest that the self-employed sector was recovering some of its losses. Steinmetz and Wright (1989) summarize the overall trends in the size of the self-employed sector for ten different countries between 1970 and 1985. In the United States, and generally across western Europe, the rates are U-shaped, declining until the mid-1970s and then increasing again. Self-employment in Canada also appears to follow a U-shaped pattern. Cohen (1988) hints that the size of the self-employed sector grew in Canada between 1975 and 1986 and this is supported by OECD data (OECD, 1992) and by Crompton's (1993) documentation of a "renaissance" of the Canadian self-employed through 1991. Interestingly the revival, if it occurred in a country, happened during roughly the same period, the mid-1970s, in most western nations (Blau, 1987). …

Generation X and political correctness : Ideological and religious transformation among students

Abstract: 1. This paper is based on one presented at the 29th annual conference of the Atlantic Association of Sociologists and Anthropologists, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 13-16, 1994. Abstract: A longitudinal study follows first-year university students' values and attitudes from 1983 to 1994. Liberalism and puritanism scales are negatively correlated every year. Their crosstabulation produces a four-fold typology. Political correctness represents a unique blend of a liberalism which supports disadvantaged minorities and a puritanism which supports institutional moral controls. Over twelve years, the dominant ideology shifts from a religiously oriented fundamentalism to a secularly oriented political correctness. Traditionalism all but disappears and new leftism, the most secular ideology, remains constant. Political correctness, as a secular liberal-puritan hybrid, is placed in the larger social context. Resume. Une etude longitudinale suit l'evolution des valeurs et attitudes des etudiants de premiere annee universitaire de 1983 a 1994. Chaque annee, on etablit une correlation negative entre le puritanisme et le liberalisme. Cette etude a produit une typologie de quatres categories. Ce qui est politiquement correct represente un melange unique de liberalisme et de puritanisme; ce dernier veille a la moralite des institutions alors que le liberalisme valorise les minorites desavantagees. Pendant douze ans, l'ideologie dominante va d'un fondamentalisme d'orientation religieuse a ce qui est politiquement correct, une ideologie d'orientation seculiere. Le traditionalisme disparait presque et un leftisme nouveau, l'ideologie la plus seculiere, reste constant. Ce qui est politiquement correct, un hybride seculier liberal-puritain, est place dans un plus grand contexte social. Introduction The youth of the 1990s have been variously labelled in the mass media as the "MTV Generation," the "twentysomething generation," "slackers," "busters," or "Generation X" (Coupland, 1991). In Boom, Bust & Echo, Foot (1996: 18-22) divides youth into two groups: "Generation X," born between 1960 and 1966, and the "Bust Generation," born between 1967 and 1979. Some authors maintain that this new generational culture is a myth--"an imaginary resolution of real contradictions" (Star, 1993). Today's youth, for example, is said to be both "politically disengaged and politically correct" or disenchanted with traditional religion yet desirous of spiritual direction. There is too much fragmentation not only for a shared collective identity but also for a cohesive personal identity. In Mosaic Madness (1990) and Fragmented Gods (1987), Bibby attributes this to the prevalence of individualism, relativism, and pluralism in Canadian society. The collective good is sacrificed in favour of disparate single-interest groups pursuing individual and group rights in the context of increasing secularization and selective consumption. Over a twelve-year span, this study examines ideological fragmentation and contradiction among University of Prince Edward Island students' views on two specific aspects of the relatively broad liberalism-conservatism dimension. In particular, the focus is on (a) personal views toward minority or subordinate groups and (b) views on the role of the state, the mass media, and religion regarding moral issues. Classical liberalism, among other matters, is concerned with equality of opportunity for minorities; the government is there to "ensure that the rules are fair and equitable." The state is there "to regulate the marketplace" in a neutral fashion while society represents a collection of individuals striving for individualistic goals (Marchak, 1988: 10). The state should not compromise individual rights and liberties by legislating morality. The individual should also be free to reinterpret or even reject traditional religious ideas. A social democratic version of liberalism places a more collectivistic emphasis on compassion for and on equality of condition for disadvantaged minorities (Marchak, 1988: 10-11). …

Reworking moral regulation : Metaphorical capital and the field of disinterest

Abstract: Resume: Pouvons-nous utiliser la demarche de Pierre Bourdieu pour une analyse de la reglementation morale centree sur la societe? Probablement pas. Par contre, son analyse dans le domaine du desinteret pourrait nous etre utile. Abstract: Can we follow Pierre Bourdieu's work to develop a "society-centred" analysis of moral regulation? Probably not, but his analysis of a field of disinterest may be helpful. Foucauldian studies of government and ethics are frequently critical of neo-Marxist concerns with the political economy of state policy and state regulation. While some scholars pair a concern with "governmentality" and class analysis (e.g. Castel, 1988; Steinmetz, 1994), others denounce what they see as the tendency of neo-Marxists to inflate the importance of the state in regulatory projects and to operate with imagined material categories like class. Corrigan and Sayer's (1985) influential study of state formation, for instance, has been sharply criticised by neo-Foucauldians for its over-emphasis upon the state and for its culturalist approach to the formation of human subjectivities (Dean, 1994a and b). Many neo-Foucauldian writers prefer to exclude any postulate of systematic capitalist exploitation from the analysis of power, concentrating instead on the exercise of "freedom" and self-formation within liberal modes of government (see Rose and Miller, 1992; for a critique, Curtis, 1995; Neocleous, 1996). Is it not possible to integrate Foucauldian insights about government and self-formation with a critical political economy of capitalism? Is it not possible to connect practices of the "care of the self" with class-political practices? Can we not investigate moral regulation while neither denying the existence of organized domination and exploitation nor postulating the state simply as their executor or guarantor? An innovative attempt to move in this direction can be found in Mariana Valverde's analysis of "moral capital" (1994a; 1994b), a concept inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's analysis of "cultural capital" (1984). Valverde calls for more attention to the work of Bourdieu by contributors to the debate over the state and moral regulation. Partly in response to that call, this article first outlines what Valverde seeks from Bourdieu's work and then analyses critically the extent to which she is likely to find it there. Valverde aims to formulate a framework for the analysis of moral regulation and the formation of ethical subjectivities that would connect these things to a critical analysis of capitalist social formations without equating all forms of regulation with state regulation. An adequate framework would enable one to analyze a "mixed economy" of forms of regulation while allowing for critical purchase on capitalist class relations (Valverde, 1995a and b). It would enable one to investigate "society-centred" as well as "state-centred" forms of regulation. While I do not wish to take issue with Valverde's intellectual project, I argue that concepts inspired by Bourdieu's analyses of social capital are unlikely to contribute to a framework for the analysis of a mixed economy of moral regulation. Nor will they bridge the oppositions between neo-Marxists and neo-Foucauldians. This is because Bourdieu mobilizes a conception of the state as an internally unitary, global ordering instance, a "meta-capitalist," in the symbolic and the ethical fields. Such a conception of the state is problematic in principle and certainly does not provide the theoretical space necessary to think about a mixed economy of regulation, nor to investigate the diverse ways in which regulatory projects are taken up or rejected by individuals and groups. The bases of the legitimacy of projects of moral regulation, by which I mean the grounds for the practical recognition of them as authoritative by those subjected to them, is an important issue in the field. While regulatory projects may have social consequences without being recognized as legitimate -- they may be resisted, for instance -- their positive realization depends upon such recognition. …

Discourses on Deafness: Social Policy and the Communicative Habilitation of the Deaf

Abstract: Three principal approaches and discursive frameworks concerned with the communicative habilitation and education of the deaf are surveyed. The currently dominant approach, "total communication," is found susceptible to the criticisms of proponents of "oral-only" methods and of "Deaf Culture" proponents of a "bilingual" deaf education based upon American Sign Language. The new oralism and the Deaf Culture, however, remain sharply polarized over the question of whether deaf children ought to be taught to speak now that many of them can be. The Deaf Culturalist demand to entrust the education of all prelingually deaf children to the Deaf community is shown to rely on a postmodernist politics of "identity," the thrust of which is toward the self- ghettoization of the deaf. abstract.

Sociology and Environmental Impact Assessment

Abstract: The paper indicates how a critical sociology could contribute to environmental impact assessment (EIA), and argues sociologists must become involved in evaluating the EIA process itself Topics examined include: how EIA excludes and frames social issues; why social science should precede natural science; the social construction of impact science; bias and the circulation of EIA consultants; and fairness when talking in public hearings The author proposes an activist role for sociologists

Insecurity, Labour Relations, and Flexibility in Two Process Industries: A Canada/Sweden Comparison

Abstract: Support for this research was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Founds pour la formation de chercheurs et l'aide a la recherche of the Government of Quebec, Statistics Canada, and the Humanistika och Samhallsvetenenskapligia Forskningsradet of the Government of Sweden. The research reported here would have been impossible without the help of our collaborators on this project, Bengt Furaker and Leif Johanssen. Abstract. Sustained growth requires labour flexibility - wage changes, mobility between employers, or acceptance of changing technology within the workplace. But it is claimed that some limits on flexibility increase productivity. Limits to wage cuts and increases in the employment security of workers may encourage mobility and induce workers to more readily accept technological change in the workplace. Canada and Sweden have differed in the amount of security provided by their institutions. In this paper we use survey and plant case study data from two industries in these countries to examine the extent to which attitudes to job security, labour relations and flexibility differ between the two countries. Resume. La flexibilite de la main-d'oeuvre--flexibilite des salaires, mobilite inter-organisationelle, acceptation des changements technologiques au sein des organisations--serait necessaire a une croissance soutenue. Par contre, certaines limites a la flexibilite pourraient ameliorer la productivite: Des restrictions aux coupures dans les salaires et une augmentation de la securite d'emploi encourageraient la mobilite et ameneraient les travailleurs a accepter plus facilement les changements technologiques. Le Canada et la Suede accordent a leurs travailleurs des niveaux de securite d'emploi differents. Dans cet article, des donnees provenant de sondages et d'etudes de cas d'usines dans deux industries sont utilisees pour etudier les differences entre les deux pays au plan des attitudes envers la securite d'emploi, les relations de travail et la flexibilite. That economic growth and full employment require a flexible labour force is almost uncontroversial. (1) There is, however, controversy over the preferred forms of that flexibility (e.g. Blank, 1994). We can distinguish three of them. First, there is wage flexibility. If demand declines for whatever a particular group of workers produces, other things being equal, employment will only be maintained if wages fall. Over the postwar period this has not usually involved nominal wage cuts. Instead, while nominal wages have risen or remained constant, real wages have been reduced by persistent inflation (Solow, 1979; 1980). (2) Second, employment has to shift between sectors of the economy. In the long run, economic growth depends on productivity growth which, in turn, requires the transfer of employment to more productive sectors. This shift of employment can take place in several ways. It can involve workers moving from a less to a more productive employer within a single commuting region, or it can involve geographic mobility. It can involve either a period of unemployment, or more-or-less direct movement from one job to another. Or, rather than requiring that workers move between employers, over a longer period shifts in employment occur as older workers retire from less productive sectors while new labour market entrants take jobs in more productive sectors (Aberg, 1984:218). Finally, the procedures and equipment in existing work-sites change and (usually) improve. Productivity grows faster where, within work-sites, workers adapt to changes in technology by learning new skills, accepting changes in the responsibilities attached to their jobs, or agreeing to shift to new jobs. For conventional economics, the preferred sources of flexibility in any given context will depend on the costs attached to each. For example, because of the personal costs involved, to get workers to move long distances may require a particularly high wage rate. …

Sociology and Social Reform

Abstract: . Recently, there have been calls from several Canadian sociologists to make sociology more relevant to contemporary events in Canada. This paper examines certain features of current social reforms, and it considers their implications for Canadian sociology. The topic of particular concern is the nexus of labour market restructuring and the restructuring of the welfare state, in which increased unemployment is followed by cuts to income protection for the unemployed. Canadian political economy, which had correctly identified the salience of this problem, is described as being at a crossroads with no obvious civic role today. In this paper, it is recommended that sociologists should pay more attention to the micro-social effects of macro-social events, and especially to the unintended consequences of program changes. Introduction The recent history of sociology in Canada has been greatly influenced by the evolution of Canadian political economy, but this approach now stands at a crossroads. In her mid-1980s review of Canadian Political Economy, Patricia Marchak (1985) predicted that there would be two central problems for Canadian sociologists to address in the following decade. The first problem was falling political will for state intervention in the market economy, mainly due to attacks on the welfare state and on labour policies. The second problem identified by Marchak was growing unemployment and underemployment, as a result of global restructuring and the introduction of new technologies. Both of Marchak's predictions were accurate, and the effects of the changes she described are clearly visible in the face of poverty in the 1990s (Cheal, 1996b). As a political economist, Marchak was mainly interested in the significance of current trends of economic and political restructuring for understanding contemporary capitalism. However, there are other questions that can be raised, from different theoretical perspectives. One of the most fundamental issues in thinking about directions for sociology in Canada today is the need to re-examine our understanding of ideas about progress. The sociological study of progress has mainly taken the form of analysing societal modernization, understood as mutually reinforcing connections between social institutions which produce a constant expansion of life, liberty and happiness, plus the study of those groups who are left behind in the march of progress. (2) The latter groups, it is thought, can be re-integrated into the virtuous circle of progress through progressive social reform, in which the state should play a leading role. In Canadian political economy, the underlying assumption about the role of the state is that progress is most likely to be achieved in a socialist society (see especially the journal Studies in Political Economy). However, in the mid-1990s a socialist transformation of Canada seems increasingly unlikely, and socialist political economy therefore offers only faint hope of progress. Under present conditions, it is not at all clear what civic role is left for Canadian political economy. It is partly for this reason that Canadian sociologists now face the difficult task of redefining our relationship with our publics (Stasiulis and Guppy, 1995). How, then, are sociologists to think about the nexus of labour market restructuring and the restructuring of the welfare state, at a time when increased unemployment is followed by cuts to income protection for the unemployed? One way of thinking about that issue is to re-focus attention on the micro-social effects of macro-social changes. Family Incomes and Unemployment in Canadian Social Policy Social policy reform in Canada today means harmonising social policy with economic policy, for example by strengthening work incentives for the employable poor (O'Higgins, 1992; Reynolds, 1993). The manner in which employment and unemployment are addressed in Canada reflects the nature of the Canadian state as a "liberal" welfare state. …

Sociotypes des surendettés

Abstract: Fondee sur une analyse de contenu d'entrevues realisees en 1994 aupres de menages surendettes du Quebec, cette recherche qualitative propose quatre sociotypes : le Vulnerable, dont l'endettement est lie a une problematique de pauvrete, le Malchanceux, victime d'evenements traumatisants, le Parvenu, cherchant a se conformer a l'image exigeante qu'il se fait de la reussite sociale, le Compulsif, ayant un rapport pathologique a la consommation. Les resultats, qui concordent generalement avec les connaissances accumulees, mettent en evidence des types de surendettement peu documentes jusqu'ici, et propose une elucidation des rapports entre les comportements de consommation et les representations sociales des sujets

The German debate over multicultural society : Climax or test of organized capitalism ?

Abstract: . Until 1993, Germany represented the European country to which more refugees came than to any other country of comparable size and economic potential. This was due not only to the events in former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe and to political upheavals and economic hardships in developing countries but also to the fact that Germany is in need of immigrants for economic reasons. Hence, the idea of Germany being factually, though not officially, an immigrant society triggered heated debates in both public arenas and intellectual circles. While most conservatives, especially among politicians, reject the idea of Germany as a land of immigrants, most liberals, especially among intellectuals, prefer to link (im)migration to the changing world order and its consequences for both developing and developed countries. After elaborating upon the demographic and economic consequences of migration to Germany, the social consequences of immigration will be discussed by focusing on the idea that immigrants are seen both as strangers and competitors for societal resources. Moreover, it is shown that German unification has fundamentally changed the conditions under which the European nations will push forward their integration in the future. Europe will no longer unite under the old post-war conditions but rather under the new conditions of German hegemony. Germany has become the new centre of attraction for people willing to leave their homelands. Under these auspices, the concept of multiculturalism has naturally taken on a specific meaning in Germany today. In the concluding section the idea of multicultural society is discussed as both a programmatic concept of political struggle and an empirical concept of how to deal with a variety of ethnic groups in modern German society. The current debate over the political, social, economic, and cultural consequences of a multicultural society as well as the causes and consequences of recent right-wing radicalism in Germany provides good reasons for both scenarios that multicultural society may eventually turn out to be the climax or the testing ground for organized capitalism. Introduction: The Problem Germany is indeed an immigration country, not officially but factually. Until the end of 1993 more refugees came to Germany than to any other nation with comparable population size and economic potential. In 1990 four times as many came to Germany than to France and eight times as many to Germany than to Great Britain. On average, migration into (West) Germany had quadrupled since the 1960's. Until 1992 -- the year before the new, restrictive asylum law went into effect -- the number of those seeking asylum had been four times higher than 1988. Germany had then accommodated more immigrants than the classic immigration countries Canada and Australia together. Two out of three seeking asylum in the former European Community did so in Germany: in 1991 a total number of 256,000 and in 1992 almost twice as many. In the United States, by comparison, some 100,000 people apply for asylum at the moment, while the immigration quota stands for 700,000. Gross immigration (including realistic estimates of the unauthorized immigrants) increased from 2.5 million in the 1950's to 10 million in the 1980's. The current level of 1.1 million per year matches the historical record of the first decade of the twentieth century (Fix and Passel 1994: 20), although unofficial estimates of the number of legal and illegal immigrants run as high as two million per year. By 1994, the number of people applying for asylum in Germany has dropped sharply to 130,000, in 1996 to 116,000. Consequently, the focus of public attention changed from how many asylum seekers the country could tolerate to how many and what kind of immigrants it needed. Hence, politicians no longer talk about the asylum law but about a new immigration law. According to official statistics, there are some six million aliens with a residence permit in Germany at this time. …