Showing papers in "Sociological Theory in 2014"
TL;DR: The authors identify three exchange structures: bundling, brokerage, and gift exchange, and argue that these sorts of exchange structures represent a synthesis of “nothing but” reductionism and “hostile worlds” moralism.
Abstract: This article develops a model of how the structure of exchange can manage such disreputable exchanges as the commensuration of sacred for profane. Whereas existing research discusses the rhetorical reframing of exchange, I highlight structures that obfuscate whether an exchange is occurring and thereby mitigate exchange taboos. I identify three such exchange structures: bundling, brokerage, and gift exchange. Bundling uses crosssubsidization across multiple innocuous exchanges to synthesize a taboo exchange. Brokerage finds a third party to accept responsibility for exchange. Gift exchange delays reciprocity and reframes exchanges as expressions of friendship. All three strategies have alternative meanings and so provide plausible deniability to taboo commensuration. The article concludes by arguing that these sorts of exchange structures represent a synthesis of “nothing but” reductionism and “hostile worlds” moralism, rather than an alternative to them as Viviana Zelizer suggests.
79 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue for a new branch of theory based not on presumptions of scarcity, but on those of excess, and propose four types of strategies with which we address excess: two reduction strategies (defensive and reactive) and two rescaling strategies (adaptive and creative).
Abstract: This article argues for a new branch of theory based not on presumptions of scarcity— which are the foundational presumptions of most existing social theory—but on those of excess. The article first discusses the emergence of scarcity’s dominance in social theory. It then considers and rejects the idea that excess of one thing is simply scarcity of another. It discusses the mechanisms by which excess creates problems, noting three such mechanisms at the individual level (paralysis, habituation, and value contextuality) and two further mechanisms (disruption and misinheritance) at the social level. The article then considers four types of strategies with which we address excess: two reduction strategies (defensive and reactive) and two rescaling strategies (adaptive and creative). It closes with some brief illustrations of how familiar questions can be recast from terms of scarcity into terms of excess.
71 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a pragmatic synthesis of actor-network theory and constructivism is proposed to explain the sociological significance of nonhumans in social life, and they identify two complementary ways that nonhumans organize the social self and enable people to experience group membership in absentia: (1) by molding how one is perceived by others and constraining alternative presentations of self and (2) by acting as a totem that conjures up awareness of, and feelings of attachment to a particular social group.
Abstract: The role of nonhumans in social life has recently generated significant scholarly interest. The two main paradigms for explaining the sociological significance of nonhumans are constructivism and actor-network theory. We propose a pragmatist synthesis inspired by George Herbert Mead, demonstrating how interactions with nonhumans help constitute the social self—that is, the identity one constructs by imaginatively looking upon oneself as others would. Drawing upon observations of humans interacting with objects, animals, and nature, we identify two complementary ways that nonhumans organize the social self and enable people to experience group membership in absentia: (1) by molding how one is perceived by others and constraining alternative presentations of self and (2) by acting as a totem that conjures up awareness of, and feelings of attachment to, a particular social group. This formulation moves beyond constructivist claims that nonhumans reflect people’s self-definitions, and it offers a corrective to actor-network theory’s neglect of sociality.
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a typology of suicide is elaborated by sketching suicide's socio-emotional structure, arguing that egoistic, or attachment-based suicides, are driven primarily by sadness/hopelessness; anomic/fatalistic and regulative suicides are driven by shame; mixed-types exist and are useful for developing a more robust and complex multilevel model.
Abstract: Durkheim’s theory of suicide remains one of the quintessential “classic” theories in sociology. Since the 1960s and 1970s, however, it has been challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds. Rather than defend Durkheim’s theory on its own terms, this paper elaborates his typology of suicide by sketching suicide’s socioemotional structure. We integrate social psychological, psychological, and psychiatric advances in emotion research and argue that (1) egoistic, or attachment-based suicides, are driven primarily by sadness/hopelessness; (2) anomic/fatalistic, or regulative suicides, are driven by shame; and (3) mixed-types exist and are useful for developing a more robust and complex multilevel model.
61 citations
TL;DR: This paper propose a model of cultural mechanisms based on the premises of structuralist cultural sociology and symbolic interactionism, and illustrate and develop the model through an analysis of the Great Stink of London in 1858, a sewerage crisis that triggered significant institutional transformations.
Abstract: This article proposes a model of cultural mechanisms based on the premises of structuralist cultural sociology and symbolic interactionism. I argue that the models of cultural mechanisms provided by the developing analytical sociology movement are inadequate, while the dominant theories of culture in action from cultural sociology are limited by their adoption of the individual as the primordial unit of analysis. I instead propose a model of culture in action that takes social situations as its primordial unit and that understands culture as a system of meanings that actors laminate into the situations they face through interactive processes of interpretation and performance. I then illustrate and develop the model through an analysis of the Great Stink of London in 1858, a sewerage crisis that triggered significant institutional transformations.
57 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that not only does constructivist theory already accommodate the contemporary study of human biology, but few geneticists portray their work as bearing on race, and methods for statistically identifying DNA-based clusters within the human species are shaped by several design features that offer opportunities for the incorporation of cultural assumptions about difference.
Abstract: Shiao, Bode, Beyer, and Selvig argue that the theory of race as a social construct should be revisited in light of recent genetic research, which they interpret as demonstrating that human biological variation is patterned in “clinal classes” that are homologous to races. In this reply, I examine both their claims and the genetics literature they cite, concluding that not only does constructivist theory already accommodate the contemporary study of human biology, but few geneticists portray their work as bearing on race. Equally important, methods for statistically identifying DNA-based clusters within the human species are shaped by several design features that offer opportunities for the incorporation of cultural assumptions about difference. As a result, Shiao et al.’s theoretical distinction between social race and biological “clinal class” is empirically jeopardized by the fact that even our best attempts at objectively recording “natural” human groupings are socially conditioned.
57 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines Shiao, Bode, Beyer, and Selvig's arguments in their article "The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race" and finds that their claims are based on fundamen...
Abstract: This article examines Shiao, Bode, Beyer, and Selvig’s (2012) arguments in their article “The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race” and finds that their claims are based on fundamen...
55 citations
TL;DR: In this article, four criteria are proposed that are observable in micro-sociological detail: (1) bodily self-absorption in the cultural experience, creating an intense internal interaction ritual; (2) collective effervescence among the audience; (3) Goffmanian front-stage self-presentation in settings of cultural consumption; and (4) verbal discourse during and around cultural experience.
Abstract: Does the experience of cultural consumption have its own sui generis attraction and value in itself, or is it an index of external social ranking? Four criteria are proposed that are observable in microsociological detail: (1) bodily self-absorption in the cultural experience, creating an intense internal interaction ritual; (2) collective effervescence among the audience; (3) Goffmanian front-stage self-presentation in settings of cultural consumption; and (4) verbal discourse during and around the cultural experience. Data from highly committed opera fanatics in Buenos Aires are used to document the extreme pole of cultural consumption that rejects external social hierarchies in favor of pure musical experience. This individualized and internal style of music consumption resembles religious mysticism, and what Weber in his typology of orientations to religious experience called virtuoso religiosity, as distinct from typical social class orientations to religion and to music.
54 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that sociologists' formation stories do not fit the forcing-causes framework because accounts of formation violate the assumptions that ground forcing-cause accounts and instead emphasize eventfulness, assemblage, and self-representation.
Abstract: Sociologists have long been interested in understanding the emergence of new social kinds. We argue that sociologists’ formation stories have been mischaracterized as noncausal, descriptive, or interpretive. Traditional “forcing-cause” accounts describe regularized relations between fixed entities with specific properties. The three dominant approaches to causality—variable causality, treatments and manipulations, and mechanisms—all refer to forcing causes. But formation stories do not fit the forcing-causes framework because accounts of formation violate the assumptions that ground forcing-cause accounts and instead emphasize eventfulness, assemblage, and self-representation. Yet these accounts are, we argue, fundamentally causal. In particular, formation stories provide the historical, empirical boundaries for the functioning of forcing-cause accounts. We catalog the breadth of formation stories in sociology and use examples from diverse literatures to highlight how thinking of formation stories as caus...
50 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors lay the foundations of a sociology of deception, focusing on lies and secrets successfully maintained for years or even decades, using the ideas of Goffman and Simmel.
Abstract: Sociologists theorize that people comply with the dictates of states and other organizations out of self-interest or because of the perceived legitimacy of those in authority. Some organizations, however, are based on lies, or secrets, and it would seem that these should be very short-lived, given how easy it is for the truth to escape. This article lays the foundations of a sociology of deception, focusing on lies and secrets successfully maintained for years or even decades. The ideas of Goffman and Simmel provide a theoretical starting point. Then Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is considered as a case study. Drawing on that and other examples, the article culminates in a theory that distinguishes between barriers to knowing, barriers to asking, barriers to telling, barriers to perceiving, barriers to believing, and barriers to acting. Together, these may counter the natural entropic tendency for information to leak and diffuse, in part because the effectiveness of one sort of barrier may offset imperfections in others.
44 citations
TL;DR: The authors defend an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed "central conflation", which is an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society.
Abstract: Taking a side in the debate over ontological emergentism in social theory, this article defends an outlook that Margaret S. Archer has dubbed “central conflation”: an antidualistic position appreciating the interdependency of agency and structure, individuals and society. This has been a popular outlook in recent years, advocated broadly by such theorists as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Anthony Giddens. However, antidualism has been challenged by those who believe the key to success in social science lies in level-ontological emergentism. Archer’s own morphogenetic theory is an explicitly dualist version of that approach. I answer Archer’s arguments for emergentism, in so doing clearing a path for the even fuller acceptance of antidualism by theorists.
TL;DR: An analytical concept for the observation of interactions with sound is introduced and an empirical illustration from an audio firm’s R&D laboratory arranged to support a new technology called object-based audio is presented.
Abstract: Sociologists have yet to theorize interactions with sonic materiality. In this article I introduce an analytical concept for the observation of interactions with sound. Sound has material effects in all situations. But the audibility of sonic objects is a relation of situated actors to material arrangements. Sonic object settings are dynamic material arrangements in which sonic qualities emerge for interpretation. The concept synthesizes research on sonic materiality, audibility, and interaction. After outlining the concept, I present an empirical illustration from an audio firm’s RD results indicate how settings both enable and constrain the interpretation of sound.
TL;DR: This response investigates three propositions central to Shiao et al.
Abstract: In June 2012, Sociological Theory published “The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race” by Jiannbin Lee Shiao, Thomas Bode, Amber Beyer, and Daniel Selvig. The article argues that “r...
TL;DR: This article examined Durkheim's revelation in 1895 by starting from a novel angle, the first edition of The Division of Labor and his original stage model with the "cult of nature" as the starting point for religion.
Abstract: Emile Durkheim’s ideas on religion have long served as foundational blocks for sociological theories. Yet, a mystery remains over where Durkheim’s insights into religion came from and especially the event that opened his eyes to religion’s importance in social life. Durkheim never supplied details on this conversion, but he did credit Robertson Smith for his new understanding. Did Smith really play the key role in Durkheim’s turn to religion? This essay examines Durkheim’s revelation in 1895 by starting from a novel angle—the first edition of The Division of Labor and his original stage model with the “cult of nature” as the starting point for religion. Tracing the implications of his initial choice of naturism as the elementary religion, a choice he would later soundly reject as “the product of [a] delirious interpretation,” offers new insights into why Durkheim found Smith’s ideas so inspirational. It also sheds light on why Durkheim overhauled his theory of solidarity, discarding his famous distinction...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a computational model that parsimoniously accounts for many features of Collins's theory. But, despite heavy reliance on the quantitative concept of positive feedback loops in his theory, Collins presents no mathematical specification of the dynamic relationships among his variables.
Abstract: In a new theory of conflict escalation, Randall Collins engages critical issues of violent conflict and presents a compellingly plausible theoretical description based on his extensive empirical research. He also sets a new challenge for sociology: explaining the time dynamics of social interaction. However, despite heavy reliance on the quantitative concept of positive feedback loops in his theory, Collins presents no mathematical specification of the dynamic relationships among his variables. This article seeks to fill that gap by offering a computational model that can parsimoniously account for many features of Collins’s theory. My model uses perceptual control theory to create an agent-based computational model of the time dynamics of conflict. With greater conceptual clarity and more wide-ranging generalizability, my alternative model opens the door to further advances in theory development by revealing dynamic aspects of conflict escalation not found in Collins’s model.
TL;DR: The concept of spiritual virtuosity is an important but neglected concept for theoretical and empirical scholarship about movements for religious and social change as mentioned in this paper, focusing primarily on ascetic spiritual vi...
Abstract: Spiritual virtuosity is an important but neglected concept for theoretical and empirical scholarship about movements for religious and social change. Weber focused primarily on ascetic spiritual vi...
TL;DR: This paper explored the overlaps and divergences between network sociologist Harrison White's second edition of Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (2008) and poststructuralist theorizing.
Abstract: This paper explores the overlaps and divergences between network sociologist Harrison White’s second edition of Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (2008) and poststructuralist theor...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that social processes are the primary cause of variations in racial attitudes, racial inequalities, ethnic assimilation, and racial/ethnic interactions (Y 1-4), even controlling for the kinds of biologically based group differences that would be consistent with contemporary findings about the genomic structure of human ancestry (Xg).
Abstract: I would like to thank Daniel HoSang; Joan Fujimura, Deborah Bolnick, Ramya Rajagopalan, Jay Kaufman, Richard Lewontin, Troy Duster, Pilar Ossorio, and Jon Marks; and Ann Morning for their comments on our article in Sociological Theory. We disagree on a vast range of things, but there are other points on which we do agree.1 I agree with HoSang that primarily genetic explanations of major racial projects, such as transatlantic slavery and the Holocaust, would be morally suspect, and I would add that our proposed bounded nature framework indicates why such explanations of their occurrence and consequences are also empirically wrong. I agree with Fujimura et al. that historians and social scientists have documented how social processes produce racial categories and meanings, and I would add that our proposed redefinition of race/ethnicity as a social perception of ancestry contributes to the same literature, in fact, by making explicit how the construction of race/ethnicity differs from other social constructions, in particular, the construction of gender.2 I agree with Morning that some instances of constructionist theory include a conception of biology as empirically real albeit meaningful only through social perception, and I would add that this conception is very similar to what we call “the social exaggeration of genetic differences” and that our bounded nature framework uniquely reveals its significance by directly comparing it with other possible modes of biosocial causation. With few exceptions, the comments on our article miss the forest for the trees. Our central argument is that social processes (Xs) are the primary cause of variations in racial attitudes, racial inequalities, ethnic assimilation, and racial/ethnic interactions (Y1-4), even controlling for the kinds of biologically based group differences that would be consistent with contemporary findings about the genomic structure of human ancestry (Xg), that is, Xs → Y1-4|Xg. We make this argument in three steps: First, we explain the recent research in genomics as validating the existence of genetic clusters (Xg). Second, we consider the kinds of group differences that would be consistent with genomics and would also bear on sociological explanations, before evaluating the plausibility of expecting genomic research to find evidence for such differences; that is, we explore the predictive validity of Xg. Third, we consider how much the existence of these differences would affect sociological theory by (1)