Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Sociology in 2014"
45 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that the contradiction between universality and diversity in world culture leads to divergent patterns of diffusion into nation-states and provide evidence of this trend, finding that increases in minority rights discussions occur mainly in stable democracies, in contrast to a worldwide rise in discussions of human rights.
Abstract: Over the twentieth century the celebration of both human rights and the rights of minorities have become central features of an emerging world culture. Although related in some respects, ideas of human and minority rights differ in their fundamental conception of society as made of either heterogeneous social
groups or universally equivalent individuals. I posit that the contradiction between universality and diversity in world culture leads to divergent patterns of diffusion into nation-states and provide evidence of this trend. The data consist of 523 high school social science textbooks from 74 countries published
between 1970 and 2008 coded for content relevant to human and minority rights. Using multilevel modeling, I find that increases in minority rights discussions occur mainly in stable democracies, in contrast to a worldwide rise in discussions of human rights. These findings contribute to studies of globalization, education, and minority and human rights by documenting the spread of global models of citizenship into national education systems and identifying limits to the diffusion of global principles.
28 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that multiculturalism and its promise of generic tolerance (within western institutions) and formal equality go against what many Aboriginal peoples desire from the federal state, and they advocate a "syncretic multiculturalism" which will involve adopting a "bi-national" perspective, focusing on the need for partnership between Aboriginal and Shognosh people.
Abstract: Since the 1960s, some Aboriginal theorists and political leaders have opposed principles of multiculturalism in Canada. They do so largely on the premise that they dilute Aboriginal legal rights and cultural distinctiveness. Multiculturalism and its promise of generic tolerance (within western institutions) and formal equality go against what many Aboriginal peoples desire from the federal state. Multiculturalism also fails to grapple with the continuing inequalities between Aboriginal and settler populations. This article argues that we need to work towards embracing a “syncretic multiculturalism,” which will involve adopting a “bi-national” perspective, focusing on the need for partnership between Aboriginal and Shognosh people, thus moving away from our current “mono-national” and “colonial multicultural” policies. Without acknowledgment of the harms that continue to be done by our state, and without a genuine effort to repair those harms, both multiculturalism and bilingualism buttress colonialism, and impede any form of genuine reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples.
16 citations
TL;DR: The 2012 Declaration on Research Ethics, Integrity and Governance (DEC-2012) as discussed by the authors was the first formal declaration of research ethics in the social sciences, and it was adopted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Abstract: E year Canada spends an estimated $35 million to maintain a research ethics oversight system (van den Hoonaard 2011), but in the eyes of many researchers not much benefit accrues to social science researchers, research participants, and even to the ethics regime itself. Thus, uncertainty and doubt mark Canadian sociologists as they traverse the unpredictable waters of research ethics review created by the passage of Canada’s Tri-Council Policy Statement on Research Involving Humans (aka TCPS) (Medical Research Council et al. 1998) some 16 years ago. The TCPS was subsequently revised as TCPS 2 in 2010. Worldwide, since 2000, almost 200 scholarly publications including books (Schrag 2010; van den Hoonaard 2011; Stark 2012), book chapters, and articles have recorded the troubled histories of scholars with ethics regimes and ethics committees. In this climate of the disadvantages faced by the social sciences, researchers at St. Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick felt emboldened to organize the “Ethics Rupture” Summit (with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) in October 2012. With 33 scholars attending from around the world, the Summit outlined the broad swath of problems with the research ethics process which are now quite universal.1 The development of the 2012 Declaration on Research Ethics, Integrity and Governance (“the Dec-
12 citations
TL;DR: The role of health-research funding structures in legitimizing and/or delimiting what counts as "good" social science health research was examined in this article, where the authors investigated how applicants developed proposals for Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR).
Abstract: In 2009, Canadian social science research funding underwent a transition. Social science health-research was shifted from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), an agency previously dominated by natural and medical science. This paper examines the role of health-research funding structures in legitimizing and/or delimiting what counts as ‘good’ social science health research. Engaging Gieryn’s (1983) notion of ‘boundary-work’ and interviews with qualitative social science graduate students, it investigates how applicants developed proposals for CIHR. Findings show that despite claiming to be interdisciplinary, the practical mechanisms through which CIHR funding is distributed reinforce rigid boundaries of what counts as legitimate health research. These boundaries are reinforced by applicants who felt pressure to prioritize what they perceived was what funders wanted (accommodating natural-science research culture), resulting in erased, elided, and disguised social science theories and methods common for ‘good social science.’
9 citations
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TL;DR: The tarot is a deck of 78 cards invented in Italy in the fifteenth century as mentioned in this paper and became invested with occult, mystical, divine, spiritual, and even psychological significance.
Abstract: This article attempts to establish a sociology of the occult in general, and a sociology of the Western tarot in particular. The tarot is a deck of 78 cards invented in Italy in the fifteenth century. From humble beginnings as a device for gaming or gambling, the tarot became invested with occult, mystical, divine, spiritual, and even psychological significance. This investing became part of a larger strategy of discipline and indoctrination to ease the transition from preindustrial structures of power and authority to industrial and bureaucratic structures. That tarot, associated as it was with the emergence of elite Freemasonry, helped provide new ideologies of power and ways of existing within new tightly structured, bureaucratic organizations.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the symbolic function of four kinds of relics (the sites, witness/survivors, human bodily remains and accessories) is examined and compared in three different contexts: the March of the Living Holocaust tours organized for Diaspora Jewish teenagers, the Masa tours organised for Israeli and the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
Abstract: Synthesizing Durkheim’s notion of “sacred symbol” with Walter Benjamin’s theorization of “authenticity,” this paper proposes the theoretical construct, “authentic symbol,” to account for the symbolic function of Holocaust relics in contemporary Holocaust pilgrimage. The symbolic function of four kinds of relics (the sites, witness/survivors, human bodily remains and accessories) is examined and compared in three different contexts: The March of the Living Holocaust tours organized for Diaspora Jewish teenagers, the Masa tours organized for Israeli and practical aims of the tours and displays teenagers and the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. Different ritual experiences are found to predominate in each of the three contexts, which significantly correlate with how symbols are processed by participants and the different ideological.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the use of the symbolic power of the sacred in a conflict around the rezoning of agricultural land in rural Nova Scotia (2009-2011).
Abstract: Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life provides a theory of the eminently social processes by which people, places, times and things come to be seen as sacred or profane He demonstrates how the sacred is a locus of collectivization essential to the formation of the solidaristic bonds that characterize a moral community Recent work in cultural sociology suggests that the mobilization of the binary discourse of civil society—the sacred/profane—is key to democratic deliberation in the public sphere (Alexander 2006) Drawing on participant observation, local media resources, and printed and online materials, this paper examines the deployment of this binary discourse in a conflict around the rezoning of agricultural land in rural Nova Scotia (2009-2011) Substantively, this case demonstrates how the symbolic coding of rural/agricultural space as sacred played a significant role in the rejection of the proposed rezoning At a theoretical level, this paper reaffirms that the Durkheimian vision of the symbolic power of the sacred remains a core cultural resource in social organization and political mobilization, and a vital conceptual resource in sociological analysis
6 citations
5 citations
TL;DR: The Thunder on the Mountain Chapel as mentioned in this paper is a small chapel dedicated to the passengers and crew of United 93, which was the fourth plane involved in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the United States.
Abstract: Some four miles as the crow flies from the site at which United 93, which was the fourth plane involved in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the United States, struck ground, there sits a small chapel dedicated to the passengers and crew. The Thunder on the Mountain Chapel is considerably less well known than the Parks Department memorial a few hundred yards from the crash site, but it is, arguably at least, equally important in the cultural production of the Flight 93 myth. This article draws from Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life as well as other theoretical sources to look closely at the chapel. I argue that what is going on at the Chapel contributes to a totemic myth that turns the American flag into a representation of the dead national hero and then places the totem object into the beliefs and rituals of an American civil religion.
5 citations
TL;DR: The Special Issue on Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Contemporary Engagements as discussed by the authors is the introduction to the special issue of the special collection of essays on religious life.
Abstract: This article is the introduction to the Special Issue on Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Contemporary Engagements.
TL;DR: Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life examines a fundamental intercalation of selfhood, sociality and cosmology, but as a response to a particular political context, it may also speak to contemporary issues of sovereignty and democracy.
Abstract: Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life examines a fundamental intercalation of selfhood, sociality and cosmology, but as a response to a particular political context, it may also speak to contemporary issues of sovereignty and democracy. Reading the Elementary Forms in this context, and in light of Durkheim’s references to monarchy, absolutism and revolution, is suggestive of an approach to such issues which resists sacrifice of the social to the sovereign, whether hierarchical or popular.
TL;DR: The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915) of Durkheim as discussed by the authors recovers as his fundamental interest the following question: How in collective life do we deal with ambiguity as a social phenomenon? The social actor always needs ways and means to bear this burden as something other than oppressive, for example, the conception of a self both finite and infinite, both sacred and profane, both free and constrained.
Abstract: My method of reading Durkheim’s (1965 [1915]) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life recovers as his fundamental interest the following question: How in collective life do we deal with ambiguity as a social phenomenon? The social actor always needs ways and means to bear this burden as something other than oppressive, for example, the conception of a self both finite and infinite, both sacred and profane, both free and constrained. Durkheim challenges the modern conceit that secular society supersedes the attachment to the sacred by exposing the force of the sacred in any society. Durkheim proceeds by formulating the social actor as an automaton and by expanding and enriching the notion of automation to reveal it as having a capacity for a degree of self-affection and affectivity that can be tapped as a resource in creative social action. It is an impersonality towards ambiguity as an impenetrable structure that makes such improvisational action possible as both automated, and yet capable of change through reflective practices that expose such automation.
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic study focusing on street carnival is presented, which investigates the structuring frames of the festivity and explores the annual collective effervescence and asks how an entire region is turned "upside-down" for six days.
Abstract: Carnival is a cyclical, recurrent festival in Germany’s Rhineland with several million revellers every year. This article explores the annual collective effervescence and asks how an entire region is turned “upside-down” for six days. Based on an ethnographic study focusing on street carnival, this analysis investigates the structuring frames of the festivity. Time and space limits and an altered presentation of the body play an important role in this ritual festivity. Carnival as a Rhenish corroboree consolidates group solidarity and affirms the imagined entity of society. Carnival is chaos and order, sacred and profane, and represents happiness as well as melancholy. The article argues that events like carnival are a chance to face up to ambivalence, an elementary experience of today’s social world.
TL;DR: Durkheim was concerned with the anomie generated by a social order too strongly oriented to economic activity and the pursuit of wealth as mentioned in this paper, and his last book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, is an exploration of the social basis of knowledge and moral authority.
Abstract: Durkheim was concerned with the anomie generated by a social order too strongly oriented to economic activity and the pursuit of wealth. His last book, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, is an exploration of the social basis of knowledge and moral authority, but also prospectively links economic life to its religious sources and to “mana.” Despite his sociological-moral concerns with diminished moral authority in an emerging industrial, market society, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life provides an analytical framework from which to analyze the totemic nature of stock and financial markets. While contemporary financial markets reveal dangers for solidarity, and demonstrate the continuing relevance of Durkheim’s sociological-moral concerns, the analysis of “the market” offers an opportunity to extend the Durkheimian interest in emerging totemic entities and forms of the sacred.
TL;DR: This paper examined the emergence of a medical condition increasingly cited as a cause of death in fatality inquiries in Canada: excited delirium, and used the conceptual language of historical ontology and science and technology studies to investigate how this condition is enacted within and between disparate medico-legal sites.
Abstract: This article examines the emergence of a medical condition increasingly cited as a cause of death in fatality inquiries in Canada: Excited Delirium. Beyond the association between excited delirium and police use of electrical weapons known as Tasers, one common concern about the medical condition is whether or not it is “real.” Bypassing strictly realist or purely constructivist accounts, this article uses the conceptual language of historical ontology and science and technology studies to investigate how excited delirium is enacted within and between disparate medico-legal sites. Contributing to sociologies of death and dying and category formation, it attends to the textually-mediated practices of legal and medical experts in the United States and Canada that labour to produce excited delirium as a coherent medical condition rather than a “diagnosis of exclusion” reached upon autopsy.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors link three hitherto separate subjects: role-taking, meditation, and theories of emotion, in order to conceptualize the makeup of the self and explain how the ego is repetitive to the extent that it becomes mostly, and in unusual cases, completely automated (as in most dreams and all hallucinations).
Abstract: This note links three hitherto separate subjects: role-taking, meditation, and theories of emotion, in order to conceptualize the makeup of the self. The idea of role-taking plays a central part in sociological theories of the self. Meditation implies the same process in terms of a deep self able to witness itself. Drama theories also depend upon a deep self that establishes a safe zone for resolving intense emotions. All three approaches imply both a creative deep self and the everyday self (ego) that is largely automated. The creativity of the deep self is illustrated with a real life example: an extraordinary psychotherapy experiment appears to have succeeded because it was based entirely on the intuitions of the therapist. At the other end from intuition, in one of her novels, Virginia Woolf suggested three crucial points about automated thought: incredible speed, role-taking, and by implication, the presence of a deep self. This essay goes on to explain how the ego is repetitive to the extent that it becomes mostly, and in unusual cases, completely automated (as in most dreams and all hallucinations). The rapidity of ordinary discourse and thought usually means that it is superficial, leading to greater and greater dysfunction, and less and less emotion. This idea suggests a new approach to the basis of ‘mental illness’ and of modern alienation.
TL;DR: In this article, critical realists and Antonio Gramsci are used to critique Durkheim's notion of society in this text and more broadly to interrogate his use of collective subjects such as the collective conscience.
Abstract: An implicit goal of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is to show that a viable and effective morality can be developed for modern differentiated societies. Durkheim believed that for this morality to be experienced as obligatory, humankind needed to believe that its source was a living moral being with recognisably similar, albeit, more perfect, attributes to themselves. Durkheim was confident that in reality only society and, as metaphors for society, the monotheistic representations of God, fitted this criterion. Thus he was disposed to select from a range of representations of society sui generis anthropomorphic ones, thereby marginalising much of his previous work. This article draws on critical realists and Antonio Gramsci to critique Durkheim’s notion of society in this text and more broadly to interrogate his use of collective subjects such as the collective conscience. His conceptual system is shown to be incoherent and somewhat tautological. But this clears the way for a new theorization involving an articulation of certain of Durkheim’s valid concepts with a rather structuralist version of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. The intention here is to provide a fresh interpretation of Durkheim and develop a more materialist Durkheimianism.
TL;DR: The Durkheimians and the arts as discussed by the authors are considered as the source of a tradition that needs to be investigated in the sociological curriculum, and their focus is on the post-WWI DurKheimians, led by Marcel Mauss and his pupils.
Abstract: The editors of Durkheim, The Durkheimians and the Arts, ask how come the benign neglect of the arts in the sociological curriculum? They consider Durkheim and his followers as source of a tradition that needs to be investigated. Their focus is on the post-WWI Durkheimians, led by Marcel Mauss and his pupils.
TL;DR: This paper examined and rejected arguments made by contemporary sociologists in France about the appropriateness of Durkheim's sociology in general, and his sociology of religion in particular, and pointed out that contemporary evidence indicates that collective religious expressions are colonizing the public spaces from whence they ostensibly had been withdrawn.
Abstract: This paper critically examines and rejects arguments made by contemporary sociologists in France about the appropriateness of Durkheim’s sociology in general, and his sociology of religion in particular. A century after the publication of The Elementary Forms, social scientists, especially in Europe, contend that “individualized” spiritualities are the definitive feature of contemporary forms of modern, globalised religion and infer from this empirical evidence that Durkheim’s “sociologism” is outdated. However, contemporary evidence indicates that collective religious expressions are colonizing the public spaces from whence they ostensibly had been withdrawn. Individualization, per se, is not only a contested concept but also a normative discursive technique of rationalization by which the great religions and new religious movements adjust to the “individualistic” values of modernity in global settings. This paper addresses the question of whether Durkheim really was wrong about the collective, yet complex nature and future of religion.