Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 1990"
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that power and domination are simply different values of variables that should be studied in their whole range, instead of using different tools to analyse power and weakness.
Abstract: Is it possible to devise a set of concepts that could replace the technology/society divide? This set of new concepts - association and substitution - might help to rephrase some of the traditional questions of social order and especially that of the durability of domination of power. However, instead of using different tools to analyse power and weakness, it is argued that power and domination are simply different values of variables that should be studied in their whole range. By reconstructing networks it is argued that a full description of power and domination may be obtained.
2,040 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the heterogeneous processes of social and technical change, and in particular the dynamics of techno-economic networks, by considering the way in which actors and intermediaries are constituted and define one another within such networks in the course of translation.
Abstract: This paper explores the heterogeneous processes of social and technical change, and in particular the dynamics of techno-economic networks. It starts by considering the way in which actors and intermediaries are constituted and define one another within such networks in the course of translation. It then explores, first the way in which parts of such heterogeneous networks converge to create unified spaces linking incommensurable elements, and second how some of these links achieve longevity and tend to shape future processes of translation.
1,698 citations
TL;DR: The metaphor of machine as text is explored, set within the context of longstanding problems in social theory about agency and object, where 'configuring' includes defining the identity of putative users, and setting constraints upon their likely future actions.
Abstract: The paper explores the metaphor of machine as text, set within the context of longstanding problems in social theory about agency and object. These problems concern both the conventional basis of attribution of intentionality and presumptions about the boundedness of entities. In particular, our preconceptions about the nature and capacity of different entities shape what counts as legitimate accounts of action and behaviour. Materials from an ethnography of computers are used to show how the design and production of a new entity (a new range of microcomputers) amounts to a process of configuring its user, where 'configuring' includes defining the identity of putative users, and setting constraints upon their likely future actions. Configuring occurs in a context where knowledge and expertise about users is socially distributed. As a result of this process, the new machine becomes its relationship with its configured users. In participants' determinations of the character of users, the new machine's case provides a powerful symbol of the boundary between insiders and outsiders to the company. An analysis of audio and video records of usability trials suggests the importance of boundary work in deciding the adequacy of the relationship between machine and user.
963 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a theory of multiple membership is developed, which examines the interaction between standardizing technologies and human beings qua members of multiple social worlds, as well as qua 'cyborgs' humans-with-machines.
Abstract: On the one hand, recent studies in sociology of science and technology have been concerned to address the issue of heterogeneity: how different elements, and different perspectives, are joined in the creation of sociotechnical networks. At the same time, there is concern to understand the nature of stabilization of large scale networks, by means that include processes of standardization. This paper examines the model of heterogeneity put forth in the actor network model of Latour and Calion, particularly as a managerial or entrepreneurial model of actor networks. It explores alternative models of heterogeneity and multivocality, including splitting selves in the face of violence, and multiple membership/marginality, as for example experienced by women of colour. The alternative explanatioQs draw on feminist theory and symbolic interactionism. A theory of multiple membership is developed, which examines the interaction between standardizing technologies and human beings qua members of multiple social worlds, as well as qua 'cyborgs' humans-with-machines.
911 citations
TL;DR: In the early 1970s, a white, middle class, middle aged man with a normatively approved set of physical skills as discussed by the authors wrote of the history of his sociology and commented on the way in which he slowly learned that 'his' sociology had never spoken for 'us': all along the sociological 'we' was a Leviathan that had achieved its (sense of) order by usurping or silencing the other voices.
Abstract: We founded ourselves on class; then, at a much later date we learned a little about ethnicity; more recently we discovered gender; and more recently still we learned something perhaps not very much yet about age and disability. So might a white, middle class, middle aged man with a normatively approved set of physical skills write of the history of his sociology. So might he comment on the way in which he slowly learned that 'his' sociology had never spoken for 'us': that all along the sociological 'we' was a Leviathan that had achieved its (sense of) order by usurping or silencing the other voices. Even so, this was a sociology always driven, at least in part, by a concern with distribution for otherwise it would never have learned of its isolation. It was driven by a concern with pain. It was driven by an ambivalent wish to learn of and intervene about injustice. But what should count as a distribution was fought over time and time again in the retreat from a sovereign order. 'We' found it difficult to recognise class for after all, we are all free and equal in the market. And ethnicity, too, was slow to come into focus, perhaps because it was hoped that this was underpinned by a logic of class. Then those who took class seriously and, to be sure, those who did not found it difficult to recognise gender. Where 'we' are now, gender is somewhat, but only somewhat, in
325 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine perceptions of money within marriage, focusing upon the concepts of control and ownership, and consider the criteria involved in Pahl's (1983, 1989) typology for the allocation of money.
Abstract: This paper examines perceptions of money within marriage, focusing upon the concepts of control and ownership. It considers the criteria involved in Pahl's (1983; 1989) typology for the allocation ...
171 citations
TL;DR: A brief review of some of the main approaches to power, and identifies four: "power to", "power over" and "power discretion" can be found in this paper.
Abstract: This essay starts with a brief review of some of the main approaches to power, and identifies four: ‘power to’, ‘power over’, ‘power/storage’ and ‘power discretion’. It argues that these are all viable, but that they should be linked to a fifth — that of ‘power/effects' — with its stress on the continued performance of social relations. But how are such relations stabilised? It is argued, in answer to this question, that social relations are never purely social in character: rather they are heterogeneous, being embodied in a series of corporeal, textual, natural and technical materials. Finally, certain strategies for ordering these relations and their power effects are examined for the case of a formal organisation, and it is argued that such strategies are always, and necessarily, discursively impure.
154 citations
TL;DR: Some people are prepared to take high risks with their lives and those of others and it is not psychology but anthropology that shows how the community forces sharp and clear ideas about the self upon its members.
Abstract: Some people are prepared to take high risks with their lives and those of others. Should this be surprising? Is it more normal to be risk-taking? or risk averse? The argument below will be that the risk taking facet and the risk-averse facet of the personality each emerges in the course of a public debate on freedom and control. It is not psychology but anthropology that shows how the community forces sharp and clear ideas about the self upon its members.
150 citations
TL;DR: The recent Greening of politics in the West has encouraged rapid development of research into both environmental hazards and risk perceptions among the public as mentioned in this paper, which has led to an attempt to make use of Douglas' work and to test its limits, in answering two empirical questions: How do managers and workers address workplace hazards? And, how do motorcyclists and drivers behave on the roads?
Abstract: The recent Greening of politics in the West has encouraged rapid development of research into both environmental hazards and risk perceptions among the public. There are also longstanding traditions of research into behaviour under risk in such disparate fields as superpower relations (Allison 1971), inter-country commercial transactions, the economics of uncertainty, and the study of natural disasters (Torry 1979). Relatively few sociologists or social anthropologists have contributed. A major exception is Mary Douglas (1982, 1985, 1987). This paper is an attempt to make use of her work and to tests its limits, in answering two empirical questions: How do managers and workers address workplace hazards? And, how do motorcyclists and drivers behave on the roads?
76 citations
TL;DR: The authors cast a critical eye on the "race and class debate in the British literature on race, arguing that race derives its analytical status from its location within the wider category of "ethnos".
Abstract: This paper casts a critical eye on the ‘race’ and class debate in the British literature on race. It begins by arguing that ‘race’ derives its analytical status from its location within the wider category of ‘ethnos An exploratory framework is provided that defines racism’ and distinguishes it from race’ A number of central positions on the links between race and class are then reviewed and their theoretical and empirical difficulties discussed. The paper concludes by arguing that race and racism cannot be located as emanating essentially from specific class interest Racism is considered as a form i)f discourse and practice that can be harnessed to different political projects including those of class and nation building. Race on the other hand derives its ontological and analytical status from modes by which communal difference and identity are attributed and proclaimed.
73 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the existing sociological literature on the learned professions and on scientific occupations has developed in ways that are now theoretically unproductive, and that a novel direction for sociological argument can be derived by remedying the three symptoms simultaneously.
Abstract: This paper argues that the existing sociological literature on the learned professions and on scientific occupations has developed in ways that are now theoretically unproductive. One sympton of this dead-end is the failure of sociologists of the professions to include research on scientists in their discussions and vice versa. A second symptom is the lack of attention to the implications of the work of Jamous, Peloille. and Bourdieu in both the sociology of scientists and of professions. The third symptom of the malaise is the failure to generate sociologically plausible explanations for the marginalisation of female entrants to science and the professions. The paper argues that a novel direction for sociological argument can be derived by remedying the three symptoms simultaneously.
TL;DR: It is suggested that the particular place which confectionery occupies in the system of food classification is between ‘real’ and ‘junk’ food, and, as a ‘liminal‘ foodstuff, confectionary has the symbolic power both to mediate social relationships and to confer particular sets of social meanings.
Abstract: Food, contemporarily, has a high political and public profile in British society particularly in relation to health and health education. In this paper I explore why, despite the advice of the body technocrats, confectionery continues to occupy a prominent and pre-eminent place in the British diet. I suggest that the particular place which confectionery occupies in the system of food classification is between ‘real’ and ‘junk’ food, and, as a ‘liminal‘ foodstuff, confectionery has the symbolic power both to mediate social relationships and to confer particular sets of social meanings. These meanings are resonant of the wider moral space within which attitudes towards food in Britain are conceptually located. By exploring the “mythology’ of confectionery some explanation may be found as to why the much publicised warnings and advice of health educationalists and nutritionists go unheeded.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on relationships between adult kin following divorce, and especially those relationships between former in-laws, and raise questions about the circumstances under which these relationships were formed.
Abstract: This article is concerned with relationships between adult kin following divorce, and especially those relationships between former in-laws. Questions are raised about the circumstances under which...
TL;DR: The content and quality of such mother/daughter relationships are examined using a small scale intensive study of sixty married or cohabiting women randomly selected from medical records in London as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Despite developments in the sociology of welfare and in feminism, the examination of young adult mother/daughter relationships has been relatively neglected. Such relationships are still popularly seen as ‘very close’, although studies such as Branneti and Collard's (1982) have shown that they are not intimate. In this paper the content and quality of such mother/daughter relationships is examined using a small scale intensive study of sixty married or cohabiting women randomly selected from medical records in north London. Their relationships with their mothers were typically characterised by high levels of visual contact, felt attachment and identity enhancement. The majority of the women did not see their relationships with their mother as very close. Furthermore, even those who did see them in this way, did not have relationships characterised by high levels of practical help, dependency or intimacy. In arguing that mother/daughter relationships are neither universally nor uniquely close, such relationships are juxtaposed with relationships with sisters who were identified as very close. Finally it is argued that the continued popular perception of mother/daughter relationships as very close reflects current definitions of feminity; the idealization of the mother role and an equation between closeness and tending.
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that philosophy sustained by legislative reason recedes, replaced by a philosophical style informed by interpretative reason; a movement in many respects reminiscent of the Pyrrhonian Crisis of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Abstract: Both the nature of philosophical and sociological discourses are undergoing a profound change, attuned to the gradual substitution of the postmodern sensibility for the cultural climate dominant during the modern age. In particular, philosophy sustained by legislative reason recedes, replaced by a philosophical style informed by interpretative reason; a movement in many respects reminiscent of the Pyrrhonian Crisis of the 16th–17th centuries. The passage from the orthodox consensus of modern sociology to a postmodern sociological strategy parallels this transformation. The present change, however, affects the very relationship between philosophy and sociology. From the search for the foundations of cognitive certainty, the outspoken domain of philosophy guided by the legislative reason, epistemological concerns move to the communicative problems of communally founded cognitive systems – the acknowledged realm of sociological investigation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of the business cycle on the incidence of industrial accidents in British manufacturing industries were investigated. But they argued that a generalized discussion of such cyclical patterns is not useful.
Abstract: This paper begins by considering the effects of the business cycle upon the incidence of industrial accidents in British manufacturing industries, arguing that a generalized discussion of such cycl...
TL;DR: This article reviewed four broad positions in the debates on flexible manufacturing and articulates the conceptions of power and organization upon which each is premised, including notions of practices and disciplines, ideas developed in order to link power and knowledge.
Abstract: This paper critically reviews arguments about technology and their relationship to some positions which have recently been established in the sociological analysis of power. These positions reformulate the relationship between concepts of power and concepts of the organization. Each is seen as integral to the other rather than power being a merely contingent feature of some organizations. Emphasis is placed upon notions of practices and disciplines, ideas developed in order to link power and knowledge. The conception of organization analysis offered is as a cultural study, with power/knowledge inextricably intertwined in central focus. The paper reviews four broad positions in the debates on flexible manufacturing and articulates the conceptions of power and organization upon which each is premised. At the core of the paper, however, are issues surrounding the conceptualization of power.
TL;DR: The relationship between gender and class is important and controversial within sociology and has significant theoretical and political dimensions as mentioned in this paper. But how do women experience class? Is it a mean or a mean?
Abstract: The relationship between gender and class is important and controversial within sociology and has significant theoretical and political dimensions. But how do women experience class? Is it a meanin...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the way in which ideas about deviance and thus moral judgements are ultimately grounded within native culture through focusing on underage drinking and soft drug use in the Western Isles of Scotland.
Abstract: This paper discusses the way in which ideas about deviance and thus moral judgements are ultimately grounded within native culture Through focusing on underage drinking and soft drug use in the Western Isles of Scotland an analysis is presented which seeks to unfold the relationship between tradition, morality and belonging
TL;DR: The intention of this report is to identify and discuss the different ways in which QDA can be used, as much as provide a description of one particular computer program.
Abstract: This report results from a project at the Addiction Research Unit (ARU) which aims to produce a computer aid for the analysis of text-based qualitative data a tool to help with 'Content analysis' The intention has heen to develop a general approach to qualitative data analysis (QDA) insofar as it employs text retrieval, but to do so alongside a particular research study at the ARU which dealt with 10 year follow-up interviews conducted with patients who had at the intake point been suffering from alcohol dependence. The results of this alcohol dependence study which were produced using our QDA computer programs will be reported separately. The computer program is designed for general use in any text-based QDA and in the present report we describe the principles upon which the system of analysis is based. The underlying, guiding principle has been to produce a system that is easy to use, yet powerful enough to function in many different circumstances. In describing the system we delineate some of the issues arising from computer-aided QDA of text-based data and relate these to the practicalities of what is required from the analysis. The intention of this report is to identify and discuss the different ways in which QDA can be used, as much as provide a description of one particular computer program. In section 2 qualitative data analyses and the scope of their application are discussed in relation to the three central features of our QDA program: using segmented texts; labelling and lining a 'hypertext'; and defining varying levels of retrieval units. Sections 3, 4 and 5 deal technically with the phases of input, indexing and retrieval in more detail; and section 6 deals with issues of practical implementation.
TL;DR: The authors developed an approach which suggests the headteacher's work contains "routines", "events", "stories" and "sagas" and gave examples of each.
Abstract: Previous studies of the work of primary school headteachers tend to adopt a fairly superficial approach to categorizing tasks and contacts. As part of an ethnographic study of teachers’ work in an inner city primary school, I ‘shadowed’ the headteacher for three one-week blocks plus four interviews and numerous informal talks. Life at this school was intense and often dramatic, I develop an approach which suggests the headteacher's work contains ‘routines’,‘events’ and ‘stories’ and give examples of each. Some ‘stories’ develop into ‘sagas’ or ‘social dramas’ and two instances are described, I examine how this headteacher not only copes with, but enjoys, what appears to be an increasingly stressful job.
TL;DR: The political culture of classical Greek civilization, with its distinctive twin ideals of citizenship and mass participatory democracy, represents a revolutionary development in the history of hum... as mentioned in this paper, which represents a revolution in the development of human rights.
Abstract: The political culture of classical Greek civilization, with its distinctive twin ideals of citizenship and mass participatory democracy, represents a revolutionary development in the history of hum...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors support the Merton thesis on the basis of a note on the historical development of anatomical dissections with special reference to public dissections in Holland m the seventeenth century.
Abstract: In the sociology of science, the historical analysis of the rise of seventeenth-century experimental science has been dominated by the research of Robert Merton, who argued that Protestant asceticism paved the way for scientific world-views. Merton was criticized by L.S. Feuer who claimed that science was in fact the outcome of hedonism not asceticism. This article supports the Merton thesis on the basis of a note on the historical development of anatomical dissections with special reference to public dissections in Holland m the seventeenth century. The principal difficulty for both Merton and Feuer is that scientific medicine in pre-modern societies was not differentiated from either religion or law. The anatomy lesson was in fact a juridical and moral drama.
TL;DR: The Third World or the Less Developed World as a unified, homogeneous object of enquiry no longer exists as discussed by the authors, and with its disappearance have gone the grand competing theories at one time majestically erected to explain the causes of its poverty and to chart the path to its prosperity.
Abstract: Development theory is in something of a muddle. Societies which were previously classed together as featuring the same conditions and as subject to the same laws of motion, have demonstrated a disorienting divergence of development performance and experience. This has undermined our confidence in generalizing theories. The Third World or the Less Developed World as a unified, homogeneous object of enquiry no longer exists. With its disappearance have gone the grand competing theories at one time majestically erected to explain the causes of its poverty and to chart the path to its prosperity. Worse still, detailed empirical scrutiny of the successes of some countries, and the failure of others, has contradicted and refuted the theoretical predictions and policy prescriptions of the main opposing paradigms.
TL;DR: Realism has been a popular philosophy and methodology of social science as mentioned in this paper, and it has been the main stimulus to realist thinking since 1975 due to the books, articles and lectures of Roy Bhaskar.
Abstract: During the 1980s, the approach to social science known as 'philosophical realism' grew in confidence and in stature, providing one alternative to the deconstructionist turn of thought which flourished also in the same decade. Substantive applications of the realist approach have still to be convincingly supplied in any number, but the research methods which might guide such applications are already beginning to emerge (e.g. Harre 1979; Sayer 1984; Silverman 1985; Pawson 1989) and appear promising. The promotion of realism as a credible philosophy and methodology of social science has been the product of many hands, as the annual Realism and the Human Sciences Conference itself attests. But the major stimulus to realist thinking since 1975 has been due to the books, articles and lectures of Roy Bhaskar. Bhaskar's project, enshrined in the two books here under review (and also in Bhaskar 1975 and 1986) is still very much in the process of
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the responses made by the Education Welfare Service to school non-attendance, or " truancy", and explored possible future developments within the national service, in the light of the Children Act 1989.
Abstract: This paper considers the responses made by the Education Welfare Service to school non-attendance, or « truancy ». The historical development of the service is examined, along with Victorian discourse on schooling. The discourse provided the rationale for the introduction of compulsory schooling, and contributed to the pathologisation of truancy. The development of a « pathology of truancy » over the past century has involved, firstly, the categorisation of truants, and secondly, the regulation of truants and their families. The dichotomy between « care » and « control » measures is central to an understanding of these two processes of categorisation and regulation. These processes are discussed with reference to the Education Welfare Service in a city in the North Midlands. The article concludes with an exploration of possible future developments within the national service, in the light of the Children Act 1989
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the ways in which technologies are underpinned by patterns of work organisation and power relations in manufacturing industry, showing how these were imbued with the methods of factory organisation which were then gaining currency - the visions of industrial entrepreneurs, engineers and political economists.
Abstract: This paper considers the ways in which technologies are underpinned by patterns of work organisation and power relations in manufacturing industry. It takes as its starting point the emergence of manufacturing technologies during the Industrial Revolution, showing how these were imbued with the methods of factory organisation which were then gaining currency - the visions of industrial entrepreneurs, engineers and political economists. Technologies have continued to be associated with particular patterns of work organisation, both actual and envisioned. The major concern of the paper is with a contemporary manufacturing technology, Computer-Aided Production Management (CAPM). It shows how CAPM has developed according to the dominant templates of manufacturing organisation - first American and now Japanese.It charts the growth of the ‘enterprise culture’ in the West — a discourse which stresses flexibility and prescribes production methods, such as just-in-time, which mimic those of the Japanese. It looks ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how clerical work at NU, traditionally characterised by a detailed division of labour and functional specialism, is being transformed by the introduction of on-line processing and multi-functional teamworking.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the changing nature of office work in one region of a privatised public utility, which will be referred to as National Utility (NU). It describes how clerical work at NU, traditionally characterised by a detailed division of labour and functional specialism, is being transformed by the introduction of on-line processing and multi-functional team-working. At the same time, NU management is seeking to change the nature and pattern of clerical employment. The intention is to increase the ratio of part time to full time staff, to increase the ‘personal accountability’ of staff, and to move towards a performance-based, rather than a seniority-based, pay and promotion structure.These changes are of some broader theoretical significance. As Batstone et al. (1987) note, much industrial sociology literature has focused on job content as the primary determinant of a number of features of work and employment, including worker autonomy, supervisory styles, and management control strategie...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the support networks of a sample of 526 homeless families in temporary accommodation and found that the majority of these families were single mothers living in temporary housing.
Abstract: Data relating to 526 homeless families in temporary accommodation were collected in a study directed mainly to the examination of support networks of a sample of these families. The data, however, ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate how universalisation proceeds in the NHS and how money, needs, and time are used to orient the development of IT in the UK, and how these media facilitate universal communication whilst also allowing for an increase in differentiation.
Abstract: Postmodernist writers question the applicability of universal narratives to contemporary societies. Through an investigation of the introduction/construction of information technology (IT) in the NHS, it is possible to discern processes of universalisation. The phenomena of money, needs, and time all provide universal media which orientate developments in IT. This orientation is possible in so far as these media facilitate universal communication whilst also allowing for an increase in differentiation.Needs and time provide the possibility of investigating how universalisation proceeds as, unlike money, they are not already universal within a market economy. Needs require detaching from their traditional framework in order to facilitate universal communication, whereas time must be constructed so that objectivity and rationality are seen to prevail. Through the construction of temporal relations, money and needs can provide indeterminate futures which hold out the promise of universalised communication. I...