Showing papers in "Sociologia in 2008"

The Question of Culture Consumption and Stratification Revisited

Abstract: While the question of whether there exists a connection between social stratification and lifestyle differentiation seems to be uncontroversial, the primary issue that continues to bedevil research at the intersection of the sociology of culture and the study of structured inequality, concerns the precise nature of this connection. While various answers have been proposed to this question, the current state of the field is one of “ambiguity” as to what is the best way to proceed. In this paper, I use a long-term historical perspective to tackle this question. I argue that understanding the cultural stratification system that appears to have coalesced in the richer societies of the contemporary Global North, we must attend to the historical origin and trajectory of the system of production of symbolic goods in the West, and how this has interacted with the system of scholastic “production” of consumers of such goods. This system can best be described as an embodied cultural capital regime, in which the ability to indirectly decode the formal properties of cultural goods using habitualized schemes of perception and appreciation has replaced the capacity to directly acquire cultural works through purchase as the primary marker of status.

Politics in the Public Sphere : The Power of Tiny Publics in Classical Sociology

Abstract: The structure of society is shaped within small groups, a feature of social order that we have termed “tiny publics.” These tiny publics provide the basis of collective action and political change. Yet, in current sociological theorizing this meso-level of analysis has often been downplayed. In this article, we argue that classical sociological theorists, particularly Simmel, Durkheim, and Weber, recognized the essential role of small groups in political and economic life, creating a local sociology. To focus on small groups as a field of action recognizes the centrality of interaction and negotiated order as standing at the heart of the political process.

El movimiento estudiantil de 1968 narrado en imágenes

Abstract: Los estudios historiograficos sobre el movimiento de 1968 han subestimado casi siempre el papel de las fotografias y se han concentrado en otro tipo de documentos orales y escritos. En este articulo se realiza un ejercicio particular, siguiendo las coordenadas canonicas del 68, pero invirtiendo los parametros convencionales para dar voz al testimonio de los fotografos y al uso editorial de sus imagenes. Esta lectura resulta de gran importancia para comprender los distintos angulos de percepcion con que fue registrado el movimiento y la manera en que se fue construyendo un imaginario colectivo que se fue reciclando hasta convertirse en unos cuantos iconos

The Nature of Social Reproduction: Two Paradigms of Social Mobility

Abstract: Two traditionally separate approaches to social mobility, the comparative social mobility research tradition, and the behavior genetic approach, can be reconciled into a synthetic model of socioeconomic achievement. In the synthetic model the behavior-genetic decomposition of the variance in a measure of socioeconomic success into genetic, shared environment, and unshared environment components is used to predict the intergenerational (parent-child) association for that measure. The intergenerational association is shown to be a composite of genetic and shared environment effects. The behavior-genetic decomposition of the intergenerational association illuminates interpretations of the mobility model in terms of degree of meritocracy of the stratification system, and permits consistent reformulations of the predictions of modernization theory and institutional theory. The behavior-genetic decomposition of the mobility model also opens up new perspectives on the relationships among different dimensions of socioeconomic success (such as measures of educational and economic attainment) and generates new predictions on opportunity level as function of the level of resources in the social environment, some of which turn out to be consistent with Vilfredo Pareto’s classic conception of social mobility.

Explaining Socio-Cultural Evolution. The Limitations of Evolutionary Theory from Biology

Abstract: The revival of evolutionary thinking in sociology holds out real promise for understanding social change in human societies. This revival has often been highly threatening to sociologists because it is disproportionately based on evolutionary theorizing from biology, where selection works on individuals and their phenotypes (including their behavioral propensities), while populations are seen as evolving. Darwinian notions of selection have always been part of sociological theorizing, particularly in human ecology. In this paper, we argue that there are limits as to how far models from evolutionary theorizing in biology can be taken in the analysis of sociocultural evolution. A new and more distinctly sociological analysis of selection processes and the evolution of sociocultural formations is needed. Indeed, sociology should not be threatened by evolutionary biology, but instead should seek to create its own approach to the evolution of sociocultural systems. We develop our argument by answering four basic questions: What is evolution in the biotic and sociocultural universes? What is evolving? What are the units of selection in these universes? And, what is the nature of selection in these universes? The answer to these questions highlights the limitations of applying evolutionary theory from biology to sociological analysis.

The Social Mechanisms of Trust

Abstract: In the 1990s, when I was an undergraduate student, in front of the main building of the University of Turin there was a big parking lot, which was always completely full. Two guys were looking after the parking lot every day from early in the morning till very late in the afternoon. They were neither authorized, nor paid by the town council, but they received tips from the students to optimize the space in the parking lot and monitor their cars. The guys did not look very reliable, they wore poor and dirty clothes and they were covered by self-made aggressive-looking tattoos. However, it was not unusual to see one of these guys sitting in a very expensive sports car, smoking stinky cigarettes and listening to loud music from the car-stereo. In fact, when the parking lot was completely full, students used to leave their car to the guys who parked it as soon as a place was available. Imagine a first-year student, who goes to the university by car for the first time, enters the parking-lot and finds out that there is no place available to park her car. Then, one of the unauthorized “attendants” offers her to take the car, park it as soon as a place is available, and then leave the key on it. Judging from the appearance, the guy certainly does not look trustworthy. However, it seems that many other students indeed trust him, since there is a long queue of cars waiting to be parked, including some expensive ones. Would the student leave her car to the attendant? Would she take the number of other cars waiting to be parked as a signal that the attendant is trustworthy? [...]

La Teoría de la Elección Racional en las ciencias sociales

Abstract: La Teoria de la Eleccion Racional (ter) aparece durante la primera mitad del siglo pasado en la academia estadounidense como una critica al modelo de la economia de bienestar que se intentaba construir en Europa por academicos de orientacion socialdemocrata y socialista. La ter ademas de destruir los supuestos fundamentales de esta teoria, introdujo una revolucion teorica y metodologica para todas las ciencias sociales. Por supuesto, no estoy diciendo que esta haya sido una consecuencia secundaria o no intencional de la primera. En un libro y un articulo recientemente publicados, S. A. Amadae (2003, 2005) ha aclarado esta sinergia entre una revolucion cientifica y el clima de la Guerra Fria. En esta historia, Kenneth Arrow encabeza una serie de acontecimientos intelectuales que definirian a las ciencias sociales, al menos las de habla inglesa, durante el siguiente medio siglo. Arrow no lo hizo solo, sino acompanado Introduccion

The Polish Peasant Revisited. Thomas and Znaniecki's Classic in the Light of Contemporary Transnational Migration Theory

Abstract: The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, co-authored by William I. Thomas and Florian W. Znaniecki, is an extensive study of the transformations occurring in Polish society in the home country and among its emigrants in the United States. The five volumes that make up this classic study were published at different times between 1918 and 1920. The main aim of the two authors was of analysing the ways in which – under the impulse of industrialisation processes in Poland and emigration to the United States – peasants were increasingly becoming economically rational workers and drifting away from traditional modes of social organisation and behaviour.

Vulnerabilidad y desafiliación social en la obra de Robert Castel

Abstract: En el presente trabajo se analizan los conceptos de vulnerabilidad y desafiliacion social desarrollados en la obra de Robert Castel. El objetivo es mostrar como estos conceptos derivan de la discusion que este sociologo frances establece tanto con la microsociologia de Erving Goffman como con la genealogica de Michel Foucault. En este documento se explora la manera en que dicha discusion tiene como eje de desarrollo el examen del individuo moderno desde dos angulos: el primero se refiere a los soportes institucionales que permiten la construccion de la individualidad, y el segundo a la configuracion de estos soportes a traves de la historia

La masculinidad desde una perspectiva sociológica. Una dimensión del orden de género

Abstract: Ante la diversidad de usos del concepto de masculinidad y la tendencia a considerarlo como un conjunto de caracteristicas de los individuos, el presente trabajo propone utilizar las herramientas de la sociologia contemporanea para interpretar la masculinidad como una categoria analitica que remite a una posicion de poder, siempre disputable, en una estructura social determinada. Se trata, con ello, de contribuir al debate conceptual sobre el tema mediante una concepcion de masculinidad que integre las aportaciones de los estudios de genero con los fundamentos teoricos que proporciona la sociologia.

La marginalidad urbana en su contexto: modernización truncada y conductas de los marginales

Abstract: La autora empieza por recordar los terminos de los debates cientificos sobre el tema de la marginalidad urbana y subraya la necesidad de renovar la reflexion. Afirma que la marginalidad es el resultado de un proceso de modernizacion desigual y que, en el caso de Peru, este desequilibrio se debe a la incorporacion de logicas racistas en los avances de la modernizacion. Analiza las conductas y percepciones de los habitantes de un barrio precario de Lima, y observa que estas reflejan las contradicciones de la sociedad peruana, al estar marcadas por la fragmentacion social, la desconfianza y los problemas identitarios

Sociology and the Behavioral Sciences. Towards a Unified Theoretical Framework of Knowledge

Abstract: Sociology is currently marked by internal fragmentation and conflicts with the other behavioral sciences. Whereas the hard sciences are united by a common explanatory model based on fundamental particles, the behavioral sciences fail to establish a unifying theoretical framework that might reduce the pulverisation of knowledge. This article attempts to establish whether sociology, and the behavioral sciences in general, can be adequately enclosed within a common underlying theory based on Darwinian evolutionism, on complexity theory and on the developments in neuroscience. The aim is to sketch a unified theoretical framework that can then be applied within different disciplinary fields in order to tackle their distinct explanatory goals. The question I wish to address is whether theories and methods exist that are able to bridge across the social and natural sciences, enabling the development of a naturalised epistemology.

French production and English reception: the international transfer of the work of Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract: The paper first considers the the implication of Bourdieu’s philosophy of social science for the analysis of the trans-national transfer of his work. It then attempts to chart the interaction between Bourdieu’s French production and the English-language reception within the United Kingdom. It does so by following his production in chronological sequence and by attempting to insert the emergence of his “English identity” into the same biographical time-line, focusing on successive decades. In spite of the shift in Bourdieu’s production from the field of anthropology to that of sociology in the 1960s, his work was mainly known at the time in the UK as the product of a new field of “Mediterranean” anthropology. The sociological work of the 1960s in respect of students and their studies was received in the UK in the 1970s as the sociology of education whilst the analyses of photography and art galleries was not received in the UK as sociology of culture until the late 1980s. In both cases, the demarcations in the institutionalised fields of reception concealed the extent to which Bourdieu’s work had defied these sub-categorisations of sociology precisely so as to resist the development of an a-social autonomisation of cultural artefacts and to insist that sociological analyses should take account of the power of symbolic interaction. Proceeding chronologically, the paper emphasizes the importance for the intellectual field of reception of changes in the institutional structure of British universities after 1970, and also discusses the impact on the reception of Bourdieu’s work of the phase of “postmodern” enthusiasm in which the commodification of Bourdieu’s texts neutralised their intended political effects. Finally, the paper touches on the author’s own participation from 1990 in the reception and interpretation of Bourdieu’s texts in the UK and concludes with some comments on the contemporary struggle to appropriate Bourdieu’s post mortem reputation.

Collaborative Circles and Their Discontents. Revisiting Conflict and Creativity in Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Abstract: This paper combines historical and biographical work on the Frankfurt School of critical theorists with a sociological approach to intellectual creativity outlined in Michael Farrell’s provocative book Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work. Revisiting earlier research on the often unheralded role the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm played in the early years of the critical theory tradition, the paper reviews the theory of collaborative circles outlined by Farrell, applies this social science explanation of conflict and creativity to the Frankfurt School network of Horkheimer, Fromm, Adorno, Marcuse, Lowenthal etc. and suggests a new way of thinking about the history of this innovative and controversial group of social theorists and researchers. The paper concludes by suggesting revisions to the Farrell model of collaborative circles and compares and contrasts the strengths of the theory to the “scientific intellectual movements” approach outlined by Frickel and Gross.

The Reception of Bourdieu in Latin America and Argentina

Abstract: An analysis of the way Bourdieu’s work has been received in Latin America necessarily involves taking into consideration the particular characteristics of the fields of reception in their different successive states. Although such processes of reception may have certain features in common, following the cadence set by the edition and circulation of the translated versions of the works, each national field has its own dynamic and thus demands specific study. The author starts by describing Bourdieu’s relationship with Latin America before examining the Argentine case in greater depth.

Bourdieu in Finland: An Account of Bourdieu's Influence on Finnish Sociology

Abstract: Apart from Durkheim, French sociology has had only a minor influence on the history of Finnish sociology. By contrast, Pierre Bourdieu’s thought arrived in Finland relatively quickly in the 1980s. This was due to La Distinction, which was reviewed in Finland soon after its publication in France. However, it did not reach a larger sociological audience in Finland until the English translation came out in 1984. Later on when some of Bourdieu’s books had been translated into Finnish (e.g., Questions de sociologie came out in Finnish 1985), Bourdieu became one of the best-known contemporary sociologists in Finland. Over the years there have been comparative Finnish studies or other applications based on or critically inspired by Bourdieu’s theories, but in spite of this his impact on Finnish sociology has remained relatively small: no Finnish Bourdieusian school has developed. However, his sociology has become part of Finnish sociological canon, e.g., in Finnish textbooks etc. In this paper the applicability and the “Frenchness” of Bourdieu’s theories are also discussed.

El migrante colectivo transnacional: senda que avanza y reflexión que se estanca

Abstract: Se define como migrante colectivo transnacional al migrante organizado que cuenta con el nivel de asociacion; por tanto, este es un tipo de organizacion superior al de las redes o clubes de migrantes. A su vez, se trata de estructuras organizativas formales, permanentes, con capacidad de negociacion ante el Estado y de reconocimiento binacional. Su grado de institucionalizacion le permite diferenciar entre los intereses comunitarios y aquellos de indole empresarial y de militancia politica. Este migrante cuenta entre sus haberes con una mirada estrategica que permite caracterizarlo como un nuevo sujeto social comprometido con el desarrollo social y democratico en sentido amplio.

Hibridismo cultural: ¿clave analítica para la comprensión de la modernización latinoamericana? La perspectiva de Néstor García Canclini

Abstract: The objective of this article is to establish a theoretical discussion about the limits and scope of the use of the concept “cultural hybridism,” developed by Nestor Garcia Canclini as an instrument for explaining Latin American modernization processes in their contemporary context. Essentially, the idea is to discuss to what extent the concept can be understood as an effective analytical key for mediating between the classical interpretations of Latin Ameri can modernization that postulate, on the one hand, that it is a failed imitation of the Euro

Prolegomenon to a Theoretical Unification of the Social and Natural Sciences

Abstract: xA hundred years ago the social sciences were much more unified than they are today. Sociology and anthropology, for example, were disciplines that overlapped extensively and shared a common ancestry in such great founding figures as Durkheim. Many early sociologists could just as easily have been classified as anthropologists; the names Sumner, Keller, Hobhouse, Westermarck, and Spencer come most immediately to mind, but there are numerous others. Today most sociologists and anthropologists are barely aware of each other and seldom read each other’s work. Early sociology was also very aware of biology and most early sociologists took biology into account in one way or another, none more than the great Edward Westermarck, who wrote major books on family and marriage systems and the moral emotions from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective [Westermarck 1891; Westermarck 1906-08]. And of course the celebrated (at the time) Herbert Spencer made extensive use of organismic analogies and wrote a multi-volume Principles of Biology to go alongside his three-volume Principles of Sociology. Spencer and Darwin belonged to the same intellectual club and saw each other frequently. But today sociology and biology are, on the whole, much farther apart than sociology and anthropology, if such a thing is possible. Most sociologists have an embarrassing degree of ignorance of biology. And few people think of reuniting the two fields. But there are some. The contemporary evolutionary biologist and

Comment on John Goldthorpe/5. Three Cheers for Unoriginality

Abstract: In this comment I review Goldthorpe’s recent portrayal of the substance of Bourdieu’s views on the issues of cultural capital, education and class reproduction, by focusing on three major set of claims that Goldthorpe imputes to Bourdieu. Using more recent and more representative examples of Bourdieu’s work on education and class reproduction, I show that Bourdieu did not hold the positions that Goldthorpe says he held and that therefore whatever Bourdieu’s “overarching” theory of class reproduction is, it is not what Goldthorpe thinks it is. I conclude that Goldthorpe’s call for a moratorium on the use of the concept of cultural capital rests on fallacious views on the role that of “originality” plays in social science and on an overly constrictive attitude toward theoretical borrowing and adaptation in which concepts are seen as somehow “tainted” by the larger presuppositions of the theoretical systems in which they are first embedded.

The Limits of Evolutionary Psychology and The Open-Endedness of Social Possibility

Abstract: Ten years ago there was much enthusiasm for evolutionary psychology as a “new science;” now much of this enthusiasm appears to have moved on to behavioral genetics. Evolutionary psychology has suffered perhaps from being oversold by enthusiasts as a predictive enterprise, while being underappreciated by critics for its contribution to reconstructing our species history. Claims about the deductive strength of evolutionary psychology have been used to make assertions about what are possible human psychologies or social arrangements. The sketchiness of our knowledge of our evolutionary past and the open-endedness of cultural evolution renders suspect any specific claims about human possibility. Cultural evolutionary processes often involve selection dynamics among macrosocial actors like states and organizations; this selection favors increased capacity to effectively discipline and harness human instincts for macrosocial ends.

Flesh and Blood and Genes. Bringing (Back) Nature into the Scientific Analysis of Social Phenomena

Abstract: The present paper introduces this issue’s Symposium on the relationship between the social sciences and the natural sciences. It is argued that sociology, in the course of its development, has progressively turned its back on the full naturalistic approach to the analysis of social phenomena envisioned by the earliest originators of the discipline. By so doing, sociology has largely ignored the biological bases of human social behavior, missing the opportunity for a fuller understanding of social phenomena. Things, however, are starting to change: more and more sociologists are becoming aware of the advances in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and cognitive neuroscience, and try to incorporate the findings of these disciplines in their research. The articles included in this Symposium suggest that sociology has much to gain from adopting a full naturalistic approach to the study of society, and indicate several ways in which a fruitful connection between the social sciences and the natural sciences can be re-established.

Historia de un fracaso: intermediarios, organizaciones y la institucionalización de Weber en México (1937-1957)

Abstract: While in Mexico the translations of Max Weber were little discussed and even less utilized, in the United States, his ideas revolutionized the discipline, fundamentally through the work of Talcott Parsons. This article shows that the scant attention paid to Weber in Mexico was not due as much to the domination of positivism in Mexico and of topics like mestizaje (racial mixing), but rather to the lack of an academic organization able to include Weber in its study plans and of

Towards a Sociology of Ideas: A Response to the Comments

Abstract: It is a both a pleasure and intellectually productive to respond to and dialogue with these three thoughtful comments on my “Collaborative circles and their discontents” essay on conflict and creativity in the early Frankfurt School. There are a number of points that I must concede and commit to address in the next version of my work on collaborative circles and on the critical theorists. I will begin by discussing a couple of these “on the mark” points while thanking the respondents for their care and intellectual engagement. I will then say a few brief things about the vitally important question raised in Michael Farrell’s comments about the importance of the larger fields in which collaborative circles operate while clarifying and expanding on specifics regarding the case of Fromm, particularly with his relationship to Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the 1960s. Finally, I will conclude with a few short remarks on some of the key issues this exchange highlights for future research in the sociology of ideas and creativity. Matteo Bortolini is certainly right that the story I have attempted to narrate and theorize here requires more engagement with diverse historical material, and this surely must include more work in archives. Moreover, Bortolini’s invoking of the examples of Eric Voegelin, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss highlights for us the unquestionable value of seeing the story of Fromm and the Frankfurt School as part of a larger story of European refugees in America. And Michael Farrell’s deep and hard won empirical knowledge of the dynamics of dozens of circles allows him to remind us that there are numerous cases (he cites Cezanne the painter, Alan