Showing papers in "Sociology in 2022"
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors focus empirically on men football fans' attitudes towards women's sport in a new age of UK media coverage, in which women sport has experienced a significantly increased and more positive media profile.
Abstract: This article offers an original contribution as the first to focus empirically on men football fans’ attitudes towards women’s sport in a ‘new age’ of UK media coverage, in which women’s sport has experienced a significantly increased and more positive media profile. We draw on online survey responses from 1950 men football fans of different age groups from across the UK. Our methodological approach used techniques emerging out of the principles of grounded theory. We develop a new, three-fold, theoretical model, covering men football fans’ attitudes to women in the sports nexus and men’s performances of masculinities. Our findings show evidence of a change in attitudes towards women in sport, with men performing progressive masculinities. However, there were also signs of a backlash against advances in gender equality, with men performing overtly misogynistic masculinities and covertly misogynistic masculinities.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the social meaning of cycling and whether the education-cycling association holds after accounting for confounders and factors that determine decision leeway between different transport modes.
Abstract: Cycling is an environmentally sustainable social practice that contributes to liveable cities and provides affordable and healthy transport. People with lower education could particularly benefit from cycling, as they tend to fare worse regarding finances and health. However, in bivariate analyses, those with lower education cycle less. This article discusses the social meaning of cycling and investigates whether the education–cycling association holds after accounting for (1) confounders and (2) factors that determine decision leeway between different transport modes. I analyse approximately 80,000 short-distance trips (0.5–7.5 km) reported by 28,000 working-age individuals from cities in Germany using multilevel linear probability regression models. Results support that higher education systematically and substantially increases the propensity to cycle. This education gap implies major untapped potential for environmental sustainability, that current pro-cycling policies in cities disproportionally favour the highly educated and that cycling patterns contribute to inequalities in finances and health.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors provide a theoretical evaluation of the author's attempts at decolonising a sociology and social theory course in Singapore and introduce the notion of decolonial reflexivity as a strategy for refining academic decolonisation.
Abstract: This article provides a theoretical evaluation of the author’s attempts at decolonising a sociology and social theory course in Singapore. It also introduces the notion of ‘decolonial reflexivity’ as a strategy for refining academic decolonisation. In doing so, this article seeks to overcome both the insufficient introspection about the potential for coloniality to reside within efforts at academic decolonisation, and the tendency to separate theoretical and applied discussions about academic decolonisation. It is argued that the author’s attempts to decolonise the curriculum were limited because the course may have inadvertently: (a) sustained exclusion while claiming to be inclusive; (b) maintained the status quo while claiming to be radical; and (c) reinscribed Westerncentrism while claiming to decolonise. This article suggests that although academic decolonisation is a commendable aspiration, academics who wish to decolonise must continually consider the theoretical complexities that are generated by our attempts at academic decolonisation.
6 citations
TL;DR: This article explored how gig workers solicit and experience recognition at work and identified a process of anthropotropism whereby gig workers turn to human connections where possible in an attempt to pursue traditional social scripts of collegiality and to gain recognition from legitimate human sources.
Abstract: By curtailing workplace socialisation, platform-mediated gig work hinders the development of affective relationships necessary for the experience of recognition. However, extant research into recognition at work has typically only focused on face-to-face interactions, overlooking technologically complex forms of work where recognition might be sought from and via technical intermediaries. Advancing sociological research into the lived experience of contemporary gig workers, this article draws on 41 interviews with Foodora riders in Norway and Sweden to explore how gig workers solicit and experience recognition at work. I identify a process of anthropotropism, whereby gig workers turn to human connections where possible in an attempt to pursue traditional social scripts of collegiality and to gain recognition from legitimate human sources. Further, I identify how platform-mediated communication does not prohibit recognition, but intermittent automation and neoliberal modes of instrumentalising recognition can disrupt the development of individual subjectivities and lead to feelings of mechanistic dehumanisation.
5 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the role of emotion during the global wave of Black Lives Matter protests and found that emotion plays an important role at every stage of protest, but few studies have traced its part in individuals' shifting engagement over time.
Abstract: In the spring of 2020, the Black Lives Matter protests shook the Western world. Spreading from the USA, demonstrations diffused globally, especially to Europe, calling out racism in its different forms. Emotions ran high and were pivotal in igniting protests. The role of emotion in social movements has received renewed scholarly attention during the last decades. It plays an important role at every stage of protest, but few studies have traced its part in individuals’ shifting engagement over time. This study examines the role of emotion during the global wave of Black Lives Matter protests. Based on retrospective interviews with 38 participants in Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Norway, we identify the role of emotion before, during and after their participation. Our findings help explain how individual patterns of participation develop in the course of a wave of protest, and also provide insights into the consequences of the recent Black Lives Matter protests in Europe.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors argue that the traditional notion of class describes just a particular pattern of social structure, and propose a more open and empirically founded concept in which the classical notion of the class describes more than a particular social structure.
Abstract: The post-colonial debate challenges the self-certainty of sociology and the suggested universality of its theoretical premises. This has led to calls to provincialize sociological theories and concepts and include perspectives from the South. Thus, we need to ask whether sociological concepts apply globally. Burawoy’s notion of a professional ‘global sociology’ offers a starting point for provincializing sociological concepts without giving up their global applicability. The problems involved in applying the core sociological category of class to Kenya show that classical sociological concepts may be inadequate for analysing societies outside the European and North American context. For the analysis of inequality, we need a more open and empirically founded concept in which the classical notion of class describes just a particular pattern of social structure. For the development of sociological concepts, we always require a broad empirical and intercultural basis in order not to be caught in the trap of Eurocentrism.
4 citations
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TL;DR: The authors argue that grudgingness plays a significant role in how many social practices are routinely sustained, but also reworked or undermined, and that foregrounding grudging acts requires a focus on key aspects of social life that often slip from view in analysis, and is an omission associated with a number of significant explanatory difficulties.
Abstract: This article argues for a greater focus on how, and why, social life is often engaged in through grudging acts. Grudging acts are those activities in which we really would rather not participate but which we perform nonetheless. Such acts play a significant role in how many social practices are routinely sustained, but also reworked or undermined. Yet grudgingness is underexplored in social analysis, and its significance for social arrangements is insufficiently examined. This neglect occurs because foregrounding grudging acts requires a focus on key aspects of social life that often slip from view in analysis, and is an omission associated with a number of significant explanatory difficulties.
4 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined how global multiple migration becomes a strategy employed by highly educated, Chinese self-identified gay men to navigate social stigmatisation, negotiate family pressure, circumvent state oppression and achieve desired life goals.
Abstract: The present study examines how global multiple migration – a pattern of migration characterised by multiple changes of destination internationally in one’s lifetime – becomes a strategy employed by highly educated, Chinese self-identified gay men to navigate social stigmatisation, negotiate family pressure, circumvent state oppression and achieve desired life goals. By examining the intersection between sexuality, migration and class, the present study contributes to the sexuality and migration literature. It explores how relationships between sexuality and migration are related and mediated by class-based capital. It adds to the discussion that migration has increasingly become a multi-directional and open-ended process. For the class and social inequality literature, it seeks to understand how global multiple migration has become an element of social stratification and generates mobility capital. It also highlights how sexuality influences the value of mobility capital for the pursuit of an authentic self.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article , a novel approach for understanding migrants' changing relationships with their countries of settlement and their current and future practices is developed, drawing on participant observation and interviews with Italian and Bulgarian migrants in Brexit Britain.
Abstract: Events such as Brexit have drawn attention to the precarity of contemporary migrants’ settlement rights and reopened the debate on the nature of integration and assimilation processes. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with Italian and Bulgarian migrants in Brexit Britain, this article develops a novel approach for understanding migrants’ changing relationships with their countries of settlement and their current and future practices. This approach builds on the sociology of emotions, which it extends to migration and diversity with a transnational sensibility. The approach is then applied to explain the different displays of emotion undertaken by our participants and their consequences. Overall, the article develops a new way to examine the subjective experiences of integration at times of change that is capable of offering important insights into the emotional costs of the neo-assimilationist climate characterising several western societies.
4 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that Black men both experience colourism and perpetuate it by teasing male peers and favouring women with light skin, and they argued that colourism is gendered, and explored the relationship between race and desirability through the Black male gaze.
Abstract: Colourism – skin shade prejudice – is a social justice issue for People of Colour globally. Yet, there has been no major sociological study that explores colourism in the UK. Addressing this gap, we draw on nine in-depth qualitative interviews with Black and Mixed-Race heterosexual men living in England that formed part of a larger study of colourism. Using reflexive thematic analysis through an intersectional feminist lens, we argue that colourism is gendered. We found that Black men both experience colourism and perpetuate it by teasing male peers and favouring women with light skin. Our analysis generated three themes: (1) navigating colourism as part of growing up; (2) skin shade paradoxes for Black and Mixed-Race men; and (3) colourism and desirability through the Black male gaze. This research provides a nuanced exploration of colourism from Black and Mixed-Race men’s perspectives. It underscores the significance of colourism in the UK.
4 citations
TL;DR: This article explored student experiences of imposter syndrome, based on 27 interviews with marginalised STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) undergraduates at two pre-1992 elite UK universities.
Abstract: Imposter syndrome is the experience of persistently feeling like a fraud despite one’s achievements. This article explores student experiences of imposter syndrome, based on 27 interviews with marginalised STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) undergraduates at two pre-1992 elite UK universities. We argue that imposter feelings are a form of unevenly distributed emotional work, which we call imposter work. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s ‘diversity work’ concept we explore how marginalised students’ imposter feelings are often in response to, and reinforced by, the exclusionary atmosphere of university, resulting in more imposter work to survive and thrive at university. Three key themes are explored – the situated and relational nature of imposter feelings; the uneven distribution of imposter work; and the myth of individual overcoming – before concluding with suggestions for collective responses to addressing imposter feelings.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors draw on semi-structured interviews with Israeli couples who raise either a dog or a cat to show that co-sleeping with partners and pets is a family practice of intimacy, which both implicates and constitutes time and space, emotions, as well as the body and embodiment of the interacting parties.
Abstract: Despite advances in the sociology of sleep, we know relatively little about the experience of co-sleeping in general and about co-sleeping with pets in particular. This study draws on semi-structured interviews with Israeli couples who raise either a dog or a cat to show that co-sleeping with partners and pets is a family practice of intimacy, which both implicates and constitutes time and space, emotions, as well as the body and embodiment of the interacting parties. Co-sleeping allows couples to constitute their pets as ‘kin’ and to blur the boundaries between humans and animals in two distinct ways: (1) by emphasising the personhood of pets and treating them as children or substitute-partners, and (2) by highlighting the animality of humans. This study enhances sociological understanding of the associations between family practices and time and space and sheds light on how family practices create post-human sensory worlds of kinship.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors conceptualised DNA results as a genetic narrative that coexists with other sources of identity information such as familial narratives, medical records and experiential knowledge from peers.
Abstract: The digital age is characterised by unprecedented access to technologies to understand our bodies, genetics and family histories. The last decade has seen a growing uptake of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, which is (re)shaping individuals’ identity narratives. Drawing on data from a national online survey with Australian donor-conceived people (N = 91) and semi-structured interviews (N = 28), we conceptualise DNA results as a genetic narrative that coexists with other sources of identity information such as familial narratives, medical records and experiential knowledge from peers. Our analysis derived three themes: truth – how DNA results disrupted ontological security and prompted confrontation; proof – how DNA testing was valued and legitimised, especially compared with medical records; and sleuth – how DNA testing was leveraged in agentive practices. In doing so, we explore how processes of (dis)trust shape the forms of identity information individuals seek out, believe and rely upon to position themselves within relational and socio-technical webs.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors propose a framework analytically distinguishing the three key dimensions of the future embedded in the course of action: expectations, imaginaries and narratives of future.
Abstract: The study of the future is a growing field of research transcending almost all research topics. Despite this rising interest, this field often seems fragmented into different approaches, as though the common object of study were vague or inconsistent. This article proposes a framework analytically distinguishing the three key dimensions of the future embedded in the course of action: expectations, imaginaries and narratives of the future. For each, a definition and a short introduction to their use in the social sciences are provided, together with a description of their capacity to shape the course of action and examples. Then, the scope condition of this influencing capacity is discussed, in particular considering its situational origin and the intergenerational links of the future, with climate change as a case in point. The conclusion highlights research perspectives and methods that can be employed.
TL;DR: The authors argue that a focus on ease in the presence of diversity obscures the "burden of conviviality" carried by some, but not others, and discuss three key types of burden that emerged from their interviews: education and explanation, understanding racism, and quite simply the work of "appearing unremarkable".
Abstract: This article considers the convivial turn in migration and diversity studies, and some of its silences. Conviviality has been conceptualised by some as the ability to be at ease in the presence of diversity. However, insufficient attention has been paid to considering who is affectively at ease with whose differences or, more particularly, what the work of conviviality requires of those marked as other vis-a-vis European white normativity. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with British Bangladeshi Muslims in London, Luton and Birmingham, we argue that a focus on ‘ease in the presence of diversity’ obscures the ‘burden of conviviality’ carried by some, but not others. We discuss three key types of burden that emerged from our data: the work of education and explanation, the work of understanding racism, and quite simply the work of ‘appearing unremarkable’.
TL;DR: The authors explored how the legacy of European colonialism and its role in transforming gender relations globally, shapes post-Soviet Russian masculinities and pointed to historical connections between European and Russian/Soviet colonial projects, both of which relied on the notion of progress in gender relations.
Abstract: This article explores how the legacy of European colonialism and its role in transforming gender relations globally, shapes post-Soviet Russian masculinities. It points to historical connections between European and Russian/Soviet colonial projects, both of which relied on the notion of ‘progress’ in gender relations. Drawing on analysis of biographical interviews with a diverse sample of Russian men interviewed in Russia and the UK, this work identifies how the research participants use the core modern/colonial narratives to establish their individual masculinities. Shifting from a common conceptualisation of Russian masculinities as ‘traditional’, ‘conservative’ and ‘macho’, I show that they are instead, closely bound up with the European project of modernity/coloniality. The study advances the analysis of postcolonial masculinities and posits an agenda for decolonisation of sociological research on global masculinities.
TL;DR: The authors examined lesbians' ways of thinking and feeling about having children and identified three types of "dialectical family imaginaries" in lesbians' accounts of reproductive decision making: imaginaries of bridging, bonding and self-fashioning.
Abstract: This article examines underexplored aspects of family imaginaries by examining lesbians’ ways of thinking and feeling about having children. Drawing on in-depth interviews with lesbians in Beijing, China, I illustrate their agency and difficulties in pursuing parenthood through assisted reproductive technology or other unconventional means and redrawing the boundaries of the family. Building on the concept of family imaginaries and insights into relational selfhood, I identify three types of ‘dialectical family imaginaries’ in lesbians’ accounts of reproductive decision making: imaginaries of bridging, bonding and self-fashioning. These imaginaries are dialectical in the sense that they reproduce cultural ideals of what it means to be related and simultaneously generate new ways of pursuing parenthood while lesbians juggle filial affection and personal, pragmatic goals. This article highlights the sociological utility of ‘dialectical family imaginaries’ for exploring different forms and meanings of relatedness negotiated between the self, family and intergenerational relations, and wider society.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors highlight three areas of transformation (recognition, power relations and transparency) in which platforms disrupt the social regulation of reputation and thus algorithmically amplify uncertainty.
Abstract: Digitalisation and the use of algorithms have raised concerns over the future of work, the gig economy being identified by some as particularly concerning. In this article, we draw on 70 interviews in addition to participant observations to highlight the role of gig economy platforms in producing a novel form of reputational insecurity. This insecurity is generated by platforms disrupting the traditional operation of industry reputation in freelance markets. We highlight three areas of transformation (recognition, power relations and transparency) in which platforms disrupt the social regulation of reputation and thus algorithmically amplify uncertainty. We also detail how workers individually and collectively attempt to re-embed reputation within interpersonal relations to reduce this novel insecurity.
TL;DR: In the Global North, meat consumption is both an integral part of everyday diets and under increasing pressure to be reduced, owing to its various harmful effects as discussed by the authors , and there has been much research on the issues that forestall less meat dominated diets.
Abstract: In the Global North, meat consumption is both an integral part of everyday diets and under increasing pressure to be reduced, owing to its various harmful effects. There has been much research on the issues that forestall less meat-dominated diets. Based on interview and participant observation data of consumers with a wide variety of meat relations in Finland, this article extends these discussions by framing the issue as navigating contentious relations of care. This enables a two-fold contribution. First, the article brings together previously disconnected research on these themes and makes explicit the benefits of studying meat consumption through care. Second, it demonstrates how this approach contributes an understanding of the persistence of meat on our plates, by showing how contentious care relations within meat consumption are navigated through moderation: varying degrees of engagement with care, defined by distances and realignments as well as disconnections in the processes of caring.
TL;DR: This article found that the family of origin was important to identity formation, which challenged the dominant understanding that gay men’s identities exist separately to them, and that friends, partners and LGBT+ groups played important roles in informing respondents' subjectivities.
Abstract: The idea of a ‘post-gay’ identity suggests sexuality no longer remains a key identifier to gay men’s sense of self. The concept provides a useful framework for theorising how gay men’s identities include and go beyond their sexuality, allowing scholars to conceptualise it in more complex ways. This study contributes to the literature, by drawing on the idea of ‘personal community’ to unpack how multiple connections inform gay men’s multi-faceted identities. It is based on in-depth qualitative interviews with gay South Asian men in Australia. Findings reveal that friends, partners and LGBT+ groups play important roles in informing respondents’ subjectivities. Significantly, the family of origin was important to identity formation, which challenges the dominant understanding that gay men’s identities exist separately to them. More broadly, findings from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of diverse gay male identities in contemporary multicultural Australia.
TL;DR: In this paper , the concept of documenting families has been proposed to highlight the relationship and tensions between institutional practices and individual experiences of family display, and the process of documenting family is made especially evident in studies of what Finch originally referred to as ‘non-conventional’ family relationships.
Abstract: This article extends existing sociological scholarship on doing and displaying family by developing the concept of documenting families. We suggest that documenting is conceptually rich insofar as it showcases the relationship, and tensions, between institutional practices and individual experiences of family display. Drawing on our research with men who became parents without partners, we argue that the process of documenting family is made especially evident in studies of what Finch originally referred to as ‘non-conventional’ family relationships. We explain that documenting sheds light not only on the official and unofficial means through which families are recognised on paper, but also on family practices as work – in this case paper-work – that involves negotiation between different social actors who are generally unequal in terms of their authority and agency to impose situational meaning.
TL;DR: This article conducted a micro-sociological analysis of how these youths celebrated regional festivals in the Netherlands and particularly the meanings they attach to their affective displays of intoxication and sexuality, contrasting their revelry with what they perceive to be urban, middle-class snobbery.
Abstract: Building on previous work about cultural informalisation and the growing urban–rural divide in western democracies, this article studies symbolic boundary work as performed by white youths living in rural areas in the Netherlands. We conducted a micro-sociological analysis of how these youths celebrate regional festivals in the Netherlands, and particularly the meanings they attach to their affective displays of intoxication and sexuality. We show how distinction is ‘done’ here by many of these youths taking pride in drinking too much beer, sexual directness and impropriety, which they argue are expressions of conviviality and down-to-earthness. In doing so, they appear to be finding dignity and redemption in an image of themselves as savages and reappropriating it as part of their own ‘civility’, contrasting their revelry with what they perceive to be urban, middle-class snobbery.
TL;DR: This paper provided an intersectional analysis of disabled young people's lived experiences of stigma in mainstream school settings, finding that stigma is contingent on social class background, which affects students' location within the school.
Abstract: Recent decades have witnessed a renewed interest in stigma and its effects on life-course trajectories of disabled people. However, sociological narratives largely adopt monolithic understandings of disability, neglecting contextual meanings of different impairments and conditions and their intersections with other ascriptive inequalities, which may be consequential for exposure to stigma. Our article provides an intersectional analysis of disabled young people’s lived experiences of stigma in mainstream school settings. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 autistic, dyslexic and/or physically disabled students, we show that stigmatisation is contingent on social class background, which affects students’ location within the school. We also find substantial variation in experiences of stigma between and within sub-categories of conditions/impairments, as a consequence of the perceived distance from normative ideals of skills and behaviour attached to individuals in school settings. Our findings highlight the importance of intersectional analyses of stigma, challenging universalised views about stigmatised disabled people.
TL;DR: The authors argue that structural barriers drive the formation of aspirations to become entrepreneurs while at the same time limiting their capabilities to do so, and that entrepreneurship must be seen as relative autonomy, effective in strategic decision-making but limited to the weak financial position in which migrant entrepreneurs operate.
Abstract: This article draws on biographical interviews with migrants to assess their aspirations and capabilities to become entrepreneurs. By augmenting mixed embeddedness emphasis on contextual factors with Sen’s capabilities framework, we contribute to extant sociological debates on the interaction of structure and agency, the conceptualisation of aspirations, the non-pecuniary aspects of entrepreneurship and the role of institutions in neoliberal Britain. We argue that structural barriers drive the formation of aspirations to become entrepreneurs while at the same time limit their capabilities to do so. Entrepreneurial agency must be seen as relative autonomy, effective in strategic decision making but limited to the weak financial position in which migrant entrepreneurs operate.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors report on an unique opportunity to compare four quantitative/qualitative datasets from 2017 to 2021, before and after the activist Greta Thunberg became known to the general public.
Abstract: This study reports on an unique opportunity to compare four quantitative/qualitative datasets from 2017 to 2021, before and after the activist Greta Thunberg became known to the general public. Through a mixed-methods approach, we develop a model to distinguish between three forms of climate reflexivity: (1) reflexivity as ranking; (2) reflexivity as recognising; and (3) reflexivity as qualifying. Our findings imply that in 2019 and the following years, Greta Thunberg became a unifying inspiration for young people already concerned with the climate crisis in Norway. Even though two indicators suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic did divert young people’s reflexivity from climate issues, we also find that a subset of the participants expresses rich reflexivity, addressing nature and the need for transition and solidarity. Finally, we argue these forms of reflexivity shape commonalities that may have relevance across social classes, identities and nation-states.
TL;DR: In this paper , the combined structuring force of criminal law and citizenship status (and the related concepts of "illegal" or "irregular" status) in intersecting with other categories of social disadvantage, such as those created by racialization, class, gender and ethnicity, is discussed.
Abstract: Intersectionality scholarship has yet to systematically recognize the importance of citizenship status for the mutual shaping of inequalities. In this article, we bring attention to the combined structuring force of criminal law and citizenship status (and the related concepts of ‘illegal’ or ‘irregular’ status) in intersecting with other categories of social disadvantage, such as those created by racialization, class, gender and ethnicity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with women in prisons for ‘foreign nationals’ and health clinics for ‘undocumented’ migrants in Norway and Denmark, this article shows how citizenship status has a central role in the co-constitution of gendered, classed and racialized social disadvantages.
TL;DR: The authors show that critical deepening the decolonial project through an engagement with movement texts raises ethical questions about the academy's relationship to political struggle and demands new methodologies of archival retrieval that recognise the scattered, fragmented condition of texts subject to colonial violence.
Abstract: Despite the decolonial turn among sociologists, we have yet to engage a vast amount of thought produced by anti-colonial movements. The circumvention of much of this thought indexes overly restrictive understandings of what constitutes social theory, and I diagnose three ways in which this plays out. Anti-colonial movement texts provide striking demonstrations of this limitation, and of what is lost as a result. Through a close study of a banned 1970s pamphlet from Pakistan, I show that critically deepening the decolonial project through an engagement with movement texts raises ethical questions about the academy’s relationship to political struggle and demands new methodologies of archival retrieval that recognise the scattered, fragmented condition of texts subject to colonial violence. If addressed, southern movement texts reveal counter-infrastructures of knowledge production replete with counter-political vocabularies that challenge homogenising academic definitions of the Global South and enrich our theories of decolonial praxis.
TL;DR: In this paper , three trajectories of political subjectification, namely political becoming, political bonding and political embodying, are studied in post-democratic Montenegro, where citizens constituted themselves as collective political subjects by performatively enacting their citizenship through resistance.
Abstract: Dominated by the ‘weak postsocialist civil society’ thesis, Central and Eastern Europe has generally been uninspiring for social movement scholars. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has challenged this pessimistic notion, highlighting the emergence of grassroots activism. What remains under-researched, however, is the process of political subjectification of society’s apolitical segments through contentious practices. Informed by pragmatic sociology, this article explores three case studies – of student, civic and environmental movements, respectively – that demonstrate how citizens constituted themselves as collective political subjects by performatively enacting their citizenship through resistance in post-democratic Montenegro (2010–2015). Through analysis of news media sources and interviews with activists, this article postulates three trajectories of political subjectification – political becoming, political bonding and political embodying – by which citizens (re)gain their civic autonomy, allowing them to challenge dominant power relations and to attain political legitimacy to think, speak and act as relevant political actors on the public stage.
TL;DR: The concept of "futurelessness" was introduced in the psychological literature of the 1980s concerned with the effect of a constant threat of nuclear war as mentioned in this paper , and it is of value to ongoing sociological debates about the relationship between imagined futures, power and social change.
Abstract: This article contributes to ‘sociologies of the future’ by discussing the concept of ‘futurelessness’. I provide a conceptual elaboration of what is meant by ‘futurelessness’, beginning with its use in the psychological literature of the 1980s concerned with the effect of a constant threat of nuclear war. I argue that this concept is of value to ongoing sociological debates about the relationship between imagined futures, power and social change. I further discuss the extent to which ‘futurelessness’ is a particular mode of relating to and feeling about the future that is characteristic of contemporary European societies. I discuss how this ‘futurelessness’ must be understood in relation to political and cultural developments of the past 50 years and consider its significance for sociological debates about contemporary futurity.
TL;DR: In this article , a perspective on "everyday life" that can encompass corporeal, mental, relational and social dimensions, which they termed "niche sociality", is proposed.
Abstract: How should sociologists understand the everyday lives of those living in adversity, coping with the experience of structural violence? In this article, focusing on the urban experience, we suggest a perspective on ‘everyday life’ that can encompass corporeal, mental, relational and social dimensions, which we term ‘niche sociality’. First, we use Gibson’s niches and affordances to enrich the post-representationalist understanding of human beings as embodied/cultural/environmentally embedded organisms. Second, we enrich Gibson’s niches and affordances with theories for ‘small-scale’ sociality drawn from social practice theory and interaction ritual chains. Third, we illustrate the productivity of these ideas throughout the article, by grounding our conceptual work in empirical examples that analyse the everyday lives and mental life of migrant workers in Shanghai. Niche sociality, we argue, is a way of framing the experience of the everyday, a perspective that could – perhaps should – provoke novel ecosocial studies of adversity.