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JournalISSN: 1368-4310

European Journal of Social Theory 

SAGE Publishing
About: European Journal of Social Theory is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Social theory & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1368-4310. Over the lifetime, 831 publications have been published receiving 33112 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The main characteristics of practice theory, a type of social theory which has been sketched by such authors as Bourdieu, Giddens, Taylor, late Foucault and others, are discussed in this paper.
Abstract: This article works out the main characteristics of `practice theory', a type of social theory which has been sketched by such authors as Bourdieu, Giddens, Taylor, late Foucault and others. Practice theory is presented as a conceptual alternative to other forms of social and cultural theory, above all to culturalist mentalism, textualism and intersubjectivism. The article shows how practice theory and the three other cultural-theoretical vocabularies differ in their localization of the social and in their conceptualization of the body, mind, things, knowledge, discourse, structure/process and the agent.

4,669 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the author argues that many situations in social life can be analyzed by their requirement for the justification of action and argues that the human capacity for criticism becomes visible in the daily occurrence of disputes over criteria for justification.
Abstract: This article argues that many situations in social life can be analyzed by their requirement for the justification of action. It is in particular in situations of dispute that a need arises to explicate the grounds on which responsibility for errors is distributed and on which new agreement can be reached. Since a plurality of mutually incompatible modes of justification exists, disputes can be understood as disagreements either about whether the accepted rule of justification has not been violated or about which mode of justification to apply at all. The article develops a grammar of such modes of justification, called orders of worth (grandeur), and argues that the human capacity for criticism becomes visible in the daily occurrence of disputes over criteria for justification. At the same time, it is underlined that not all social situations can be interpreted with the help of such a sense of justice, which resides on a notion of equivalence. Regimes of love, of violence or of familiarity are systematic...

959 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an account of the co-construction of categorical identity and personal identity among human beings is presented, where people recognize themselves within a socially sanctioned categorical scheme, and hence institutional and personal reflexivity occur as a joint movement that, at the same time, can be seen as an exercise in social control.
Abstract: This paper is an account of the co-construction of categorical identity and personal identity among human beings. As people recognize themselves within a socially sanctioned categorical scheme, they reproduce that scheme, and hence institutional and personal reflexivity occur as a joint movement that, at the same time, can be seen as an exercise in social control. The inspirations for this account are lan Hacking's view about the distinctiveness of social kinds from natural kinds, and Dan Sperber's idea about cultural communication as a form of social epidemiology.

846 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the mobilities turn and its studies of the performativity of everyday (im)mobilities enable new forms of sociological inquiry, explanation and engagement.
Abstract: In this article we argue that the mobilities turn and its studies of the performativity of everyday (im)mobilities enable new forms of sociological inquiry, explanation and engagement. New kinds of...

591 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a typology of different ways in which power can be exercised, explicitly including innovative power and transformative power, is presented, and applied to transition studies, redefining pivotal transition concepts in terms of power and formulating hypotheses on the role of power in transitions.
Abstract: This article conceptualizes power in the context of long-term process of structural change. First, it discusses the field of transition studies, which deals with processes of structural change in societal systems on the basis of certain presumptions about power relations, but still lacks an explicit conceptualization of power. Then the article discusses some prevailing points of contestation in debates on power. It is argued that for the context of transition studies, it is necessary to develop an interdisciplinary framework in which power is explicitly conceptualized in relation to change. Subsequently, such a framework is presented, with reference to existing literature on power. Starting with a philosophical and operational definition of power, a typology is developed of the different ways in which power can be exercised, explicitly including innovative power and transformative power. Finally, the presented power framework is applied to transition studies, redefining pivotal transition concepts in terms of power and formulating hypotheses on the role of power in transitions. By doing so, the article not only offers an interdisciplinary framework to study power in the context of transition studies, but also contributes to power debates more generally by including innovation and transformation as acts of power, and thereby proposes a re-conceptualization of the relation between power and structural change.

471 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202334
202228
202161
202037
201936
201835