Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 2009"

Migration and the search for a better way of life: a critical exploration of lifestyle migration

Abstract: For the past few years, the term ‘lifestyle migration’ has been used to refer to an increasing number of people who take the decision to migrate based on their belief that there is a more fulfilling way of life available to them elsewhere. Lifestyle migration is thus a growing, disparate phenomenon, with important but little understood implications for both societies and individuals. This article outlines and explores in detail a series of mobilities that have in common relative affluence and this search for a better lifestyle. We attempt to define the limits of the term lifestyle migration, the characteristics of the lifestyle sought, and the place of this form of migration in the contemporary world. In this manner, we map the various migrations that can be considered under this broad rubric, recognising the similarities and differences in their migration trajectories. Further to this, drawing on the sociological literature on lifestyle, we provide an initial theoretical conceptualisation of this phenomenon, attempting to explain its recent escalation in various guises, and investigating the historical, sociological, and individualised conditions that inspire this migration. This article is thus the first step in defining a broader programme for the study of lifestyle migration. We contend that the study of this migration is especially important in the current era given the impact such moves have on places and people at both ends of the migratory chain.

A Stranger Silence Still: The Need for Feminist Social Research on Climate Change:

Abstract: If the scientific consensus is correct, then humanity faces an impending climate crisis of catastrophic proportions. It is no longer a question of whether it is really happening, but what will be the impacts of climate change on societies around the world and how governments and individuals will adapt to the troubles they will bring. In the light of frightening predictions, it might reasonably be asked, what is the point of suggesting that greater attention should be paid to gender? Feminist scholarship on environmental problems must always be ready for such questions, to defend the relevance of gender analysis in the face of dominant tendencies to see humanity as homogeneous, science as apolitical, and social justice as a luxury that cannot be chosen over survival. In this essay, I make the case for feminist social research on climate change with the following argument: shedding light on the gender dimensions of climate change will enable a more accurate diagnosis and a more promising ‘cure’ than is possible with a gender neutral approach. My argument is that any attempt to tackle climate change that excludes a gender analysis will be insufficient, unjust and therefore unsustainable. Supporting this argument with evidence is challenging because there is a worrying lack of research on which to draw. Social research on climate change has been slow to develop; feminist research into the gender dimensions has been even slower. After briefly taking stock of the small amount of research that currently exists on these issues, I take a critical look at the ways in which gendered discourses, roles and identities shape the political and material aspects of climate change. I consider the ways in which gender plays a role in three broad areas: i) the construction of climate change, ii) experiences of climate change in everyday life and iii) institutional and individual responses to climate change. Where possible I discuss what is already known in the available research; but it is also possible to draw on traditions of feminist theorizing in the field of ‘gender and environment’. In many ways climate change raises issues that are no different from the environmental challenges we have been facing for the past 40 years. My intention is to highlight gaps where more research is needed now, and so I conclude with a call for more feminist-informed sociological research into the ways in which the material and discursive dimensions of climate change are deeply gendered. If these can be made more obvious, then perhaps the need

The national in everyday life: A critical engagement with Michael Billig's thesis of Banal Nationalism

Abstract: This paper is designed to provide a critical engagement with Michael Billig's seminal thesis of Banal Nationalism (1995), perhaps the most influential study of everyday forms of nationhood With an increasing number now focusing on the (re) production, dissemination and negotiation of the national through routine texts and practices (cf Foster, 2002; Edensor, 2002; Madianou, 2005; Brubaker et al, 2006; Bratsis, 2006) and others employing the concept of banality in relation to non-national (Gorringe, 2006) and post-national identities (Aksoy and Robins, 2002; Szerszynski and Urry, 2002; Beck, 2006; Cram, 2001), it would seem like an opportune moment to assess Billig's contribution and also the limits of his approach

The Moral Economy of Person Production: The Class Relations of Self-Performance on ‘Reality’ Television:

Abstract: Drawing on the textual analysis of an ESRC research project `Making Class and the Self through Mediated Ethical Scenarios', this article illustrates how 'reality' television offers a visible barometer of a person's moral value. The research included an examination of the shift to self-legitimation, the increased importance of reflexivity and the decline of class proposed by the individualisation thesis. We focused on self-transformation 'reality' television programmes as public examples of the dramatisation of individualisation. The over-recruitment of different types of working-class participants to these shows and the positioning of many in need of transformation, enabled an exploration of how certain people and cultures are positioned, evaluated and interpreted as inadequate, deficient and requiring improvement. We found that the individualisation promoted through the programmes was always reliant upon access to and operationalisation of specific social, cultural, economic and symbolic capital.

The sensorium at work: the sensory phenomenology of the working body

Abstract: The sociology of the body and the sociology of work and occupations have both neglected to some extent the study of the ‘working body’ in paid employment, particularly with regard to empirical research into the sensory aspects of working practices. This gap is perhaps surprising given how strongly the sensory dimension features in much of working life. This article is very much a first step in calling for a more phenomenological, embodied and ‘fleshy’ perspective on the body in employment, and examines some of the theoretical and conceptual resources available to researchers wishing to focus on the lived working-body experiences of the sensorium. We also consider some possible representational forms for a more evocative, phenomenologically-inspired portrayal of sensory, lived-working-body experiences, and offer suggestions for future avenues of research.

Normality and pathology in a biomedical age

Abstract: The article is the text of a lecture given at the Faculty of the Humanities, March 2001. It argues that one implication of recent advances in the sciences of life may be that the binary opposition of the normal and the pathological is put to question. Canguilheim's distinction between vital and social norms is challenged and superseded by a Foucauldian genealogical approach to programs for the government of individuals, and the norm of life that emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are argued to be fundamentally social. Viewing genetics, biopsychiatry, and the commercialisation of drug development and biomedicine, the author argues that the logic of normalisation is loosing its hold, and being replaced by strategies for the continuous molecular management of variation, the modulation of susceptibilities, and the capitalisation of life itself.

Revealing habitus, illuminating practice: Bourdieu, photography and visual methods

Abstract: Having taken taking as one of its starting points a concern to avoid fetishising method – or employing any form of method for its own sake – this paper then argues that visual methods of research m...

Accounting for Ethos or Programmes for Conduct? The Brave New World of Research Ethics Committees

Abstract: This paper examines the operation of power and its consequences arising from the growth of new ethical bureaucracies in universities. We use the UK as a case study to illustrate more general points about the globalised nature and impact of such bureaucratisation. Our focus is on the social sciences as this is where, we argue, the impact is likely to be most marked. The paper is organised in five sections. The first introduces our concerns. Section 2 traces the genealogy of these new regimes of control in the UK. We then problematise the new ethical bureaucracies, making an analysis in terms of the shift in the locus of power away from researchers to becoming centralised in bureaucratic structures. In section 4 we explore some of the ways in which researchers might respond to the changing regimes of ethical control. Finally, we offer considerations of the ways in which ethical governance of research might be differently conducted so as to avoid the adverse consequences of new regimes of control on research practice. Our aim is to provoke debate and thereby contribute to a platform from which to reassert ways to ensure that research is ethical and that do not interfere with the production and consumption of critical social science.

The ‘value-action gap’ in public attitudes towards sustainable energy: The case of hydrogen energy

Abstract: There is now increasing evidence that the public has become much more aware of global warming, climate change and environmental risks. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in a number of official surveys and other research. However, the salience of these issues varies; for some social groups, there are other more significant problems and urgent priorities. It has also been found that while expressing strong beliefs about the negative consequences of global warming, or dependence on fossil fuels, or more positive approval of alternative and renewable energy sources, people do not seem to have translated those opinions into practical actions to limit their energy use in their domestic consumption, lifestyles, or travel patterns, for example. It is this apparent ‘discrepancy’ between stated beliefs (and values) and behaviour, which comprises the so-called ‘value-action gap’. Various writers have observed this in different contexts previously, as will be discussed below. In this chapter, we examine the importance of the value-action gap in relation to hydrogen energy and the emerging hydrogen economy. Qualitative and quantitative data are presented from a series of focus groups and a telephone questionnaire survey of selected samples in seven different areas of England and Wales. The chapter first gives a very brief outline of the nature of hydrogen energy and its potential uses as an innovative technology. Secondly, it reviews selected literature about public attitudes towards environmental and energy issues and the apparent valueaction gap. Findings from our recent research are then discussed. Finally, some general conclusions are offered to account for the ambivalence revealed in this case of hydrogen energy, and the disjunction between people’s awareness of an energy crisis and their reluctance to change behaviour.

The Role of the Boffin as Abject other in Gendered Performances of School Achievement

Abstract: The gendered subjectivities of high achieving school pupils are examined, demonstrating the uneasy relationship between high educational achievement and peer popularity. Drawing on data from a stud...

Dilemmas of settler belonging: roots, routes and redemption in New Zealand national identity claims

Abstract: This paper explores the identity markers and rules used in the process of national identity construction by young adult New Zealanders, drawing on empirical data from qualitative interviews with members of the majority culture of ‘Pakeha’ or ‘European’ New Zealanders. While these young New Zealanders draw on the markers of ‘birth’, ‘blood’ and ‘belonging’ identified in other studies, their claims to identity and belonging are troubled by the settler origins of their ancestors. The dilemmas these origins create for these young New Zealanders are identified along with the strategies they deploy as they seek to resolve them. The existence of these dilemmas suggests that a distinct identity rule is at work for this group that has not previously been identified in earlier studies. Thus, this analysis provides further evidence for the deployment of a common set of markers and rules as well as highlighting some of the ways in which these differ in different national contexts.

From Passive to Active Consumers? Later Life Consumption in the UK from 1968–2005:

Abstract: The significance of the UK's ageing population has been generally acknowledged, however its implications for consumption have been neglected. The consumption patterns of older people are important given that the end of the 20th century witnessed profound changes to the nature of later life, many linked to the emergence of ‘consumer societies’ in the UK and elsewhere. The uneven nature of retirement, as well as the relative affluence of many retired people, has important effects on patterns and experiences of consumption. This paper charts consumption by retired households in two areas; ownership of key consumer goods and key components of household spending. We investigate how these expenditure trends compare with other household types and across pseudo-birth cohorts. We draw data from 9 years of the Family Expenditure Survey taken at 5 year intervals between 1968 and 2004/5. The data demonstrate the growing extent of ownership of key goods in retired households but also show the differences in proportional expenditure between retired households and the employed. We also note differences between pseudo-birth cohorts and conclude that consumption patterns in later life are influenced by the generational habitus of the differing cohorts who entered retirement between the 1960s and the present day.

Social capital, labour markets, and job-finding in urban and rural regions: comparing paths to employment in prosperous cities and stressed rural communities in Canada.

Abstract: This paper compares paths to employment (job-finding) in prosperous cities and economically-stressed rural communities in Canada Since the pioneering work of Mark Granovetter (1973; 1974), sociolo

Reflecting on a critical engagement with banal nationalism – reply to Skey

Abstract: It is gratifying that Michael Skey engages seriously and critically with Banal Nationalism. I welcome his suggestions for studying more systematically some of the phenomena that I only sketched in outline. Although I broadly agree with many of his points, nevertheless I feel at times he over-simplifies the argument of Banal Nationalism, particularly when he claims that I hold a top-down model which views ordinary people as passively receiving media messages. Certainly, Banal Nationalism concentrates on top-down phenomena, such as statements from politicians, symbols on coins, national flags. Skey’s complaint is not that I examine such phenomena, but that I use an unsatisfactory ‘model’ to do so:‘This model basically assumes that a national media addresses and constitutes a coherent national public’ (p. 335). Skey wishes to challenge ‘the very notion of a uniform, homogenous national audience’ (p. 335, italics in original). Regarding the issue of British nationality, Skey states that ‘it might be legitimately assumed{that Billig believes nationalism is banal for everyone who happens to live in Britain at the current time’. He suggests that, given the diversity of Britain and its four ‘national’ groups, ‘we might contend that making such an assumption closes down our analysis where it should begin’ (p. 337). I certainly did not intend my descriptions of banal nationalism in the media to ‘close down’ further analysis. In any case, I do not hold the view of a homogeneous audience that Skey ascribes to me. Banal Nationalism did not assume that the public of any nation – including the four ‘nations’ of the United Kingdom – have homogeneous views. I specifically suggested that arguments about the nature of the nation are the norm. I wrote that ‘different factions, whether classes, religions, regions, genders or ethnicities, always struggle for the power to speak for the nation, and to present their particular voice as the voice of the national whole’ (Billig, 1995: 71, emphasis added). The ‘model’, which Skey ascribes to me, is obviously unsatisfactory but it is not the psychological model, on which Banal Nationalism was based. Skey does not relate Banal Nationalism to my psychological writings. I welcome the opportunity to do so here. My psychological perspective stresses the link

Sociology and Climate Change

Abstract: This chapter examines some major changes relating to the contemporary conditions of life upon earth. It deals especially with emergent contradictions that stem from shifts within capitalism over the course of the last century or so. These shifts involve moving from low carbon to high carbon economies/societies, from societies of discipline to societies of control, and more recently from specialized and differentiated zones of consumption to mobile, de-differentiated consumptions of excess. Sociological analysis, I argue, is thus central to examining high carbon societies and climate change. Marx and Engels wrote of how modern bourgeois society: ‘is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells’ (Marx and Engels, 1888 [1848]: 58). The sorcerer of contemporary capitalism has generated major emergent contradictions. This paper discusses how capitalism through global climate change is bringing: ‘disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger[ing] the existence of bourgeois property’ (Marx and Engels, 1888: 59). In the 21st century capitalism is not able to control those powers that it called up by its mesmeric spells that were set in motion during the unprecedented high carbon 20th century. As Leahy writes: ‘capitalism could come to a sticky end . . . without the supposedly essential ingredient of a revolutionary proletariat. Capitalism as a growth economy is impossible to reconcile with a finite environment’ (Leahy, 2008: 481); I am not suggesting that any other modern economic system has a ‘better’ environmental record. Economic and social sciences generally presume that systems are naturally in equilibrium and negative feedback mechanisms will restore equilibrium if movement occurs away from such a stable point. This notion of naturally reestablishing equilibria can be found in general equilibrium models in economics and in sociological models of structure and agency. However, notions of emergent contradiction problematize equilibrium models (Beinhocker, 2006: chs 2, 3). In this chapter, I presume that no distinction should be made between states of equilibrium and states of growth. All systems are dynamic, processual and generate emergent effects and systemic contradictions, especially through posi-

Natural relations: horses, knowledge, technology†

Abstract: Maintaining the tensions and divisions between the human and non-human, nature and culture has been a mainstay of Euro-American thought. Drawing upon two studies of people's associations with horses, we examine how these divisions are being reworked in the social sciences as well in everyday life. We focus on how different ideas about ‘horses’, ‘horsemanship’ and how knowledge is acquired, accomplishes different social worlds. Specifically, what emerges in these differential discourses is that a paradox is put into play to make a distinction between traditional and contemporary ways of being in relation to nature and the animal; it is the paradox of what we want to refer to as ‘natural technologies’. We suggest that the paradox of ‘natural technologies’ is a proliferating feature of Euro-American cultural life that troubles old divisions between nature and culture and propose that it indicates less about a politics of nature than a politics of culture. Specifically, we show that the preoccupation with bringing nature, and the non-human, more into alignment with the human promotes ethics and equality as matters of lifestyle choice to the exclusion of very specific ideas about tradition, hierarchy, evolution and socialization.

Change and stability in commensality patterns: a comparative analysis of Belgian time‐use data from 1966, 1999 and 2004

Abstract: The decline of the family meal is a popular concern in contemporary Western society This article assesses how commensality patterns have evolved in Belgium over the last four decades and which factors have an impact on commensality The study uses Belgian time-budget data from 1966 and 1999 to obtain an insight into the evolution of commensality patterns Flemish time-use data from 2004 are used to determine the factors that affect commensality patterns It is concluded that there has been a significant decrease in family commensality between 1966 and 1999, while eating has become more individualized during the same period This holds for all days of the week and for breakfast, lunch and dinner The data also revealed that a number of factors that are often assumed to entail the individualization of eating practices, such as the increased availability of products for self-catering, have little impact on commensality patterns in practice The factor with the strongest impact on commensality patterns is living arrangements People who live alone generally do not have anyone with whom to share their meals Married and cohabiting couples, on the other hand, tend to eat together on a regular basis, while parents still share the majority of meal-times with their co-resident children

The Reproductive Revolution

Abstract: We suggest that a third revolution alongside the better known economic and political ones has been vital to the rise of modernity: the reproductive revolution, comprising a historically unrepeatable shift in the efficiency of human reproduction which for the first time brought demographic security. As well as highlighting the contribution of demographic change to the rise of modernity and addressing the limitations of orthodox theories of the demographic transition, the concept of the reproductive revolution offers a better way to integrate sociology and demography. The former has tended to pay insufficient heed to sexual reproduction, individual mortality and the generational replacement of population, while the latter has undervalued its own distinctive theoretical contribution, portraying demographic change as the effect of causes lying elsewhere. We outline a theory of the reproductive revolution, review some relevant supporting empirical evidence and briefly discuss its implications both for demographic transition theory itself, and for a range of key social changes that we suggest it made possible: the decline of patriarchy and feminisation of the public sphere, the deregulation and privatisation of sexuality, family change, the rise of identity, ‘low’ fertility and ‘population ageing’.

Conspiracy culture, blame culture, and rationalisation†

Abstract: This paper outlines an approach to conspiracy culture that attempts to resolve the conundrum posed by the parallel logics of conspiracy and sociological theorising, without reducing the former to an irrational response to hidden social forces. Rather, from a re-crafting of Weber's rationalisation thesis as an analysis of the developmental logic of theories of suffering, it argues that conspiracy culture is an outcome of the means of moral accounting, or blame attribution, that inform mundane reasoning in modernity, as also are the human sciences. As part of this, the paper sketches a tentative framework of moral accounting in relation to the notion of ‘blame culture’ based in part on a distinction between a culture of blaming and the blaming of culture. This is used to argue that there is nothing irrational about conspiracy culture – or at least no more so than there is about sociology.

Technologies in place: symbolic interpretations of renewable energy

Abstract: This chapter considers stakeholder (including the public) responses to two specific energy technologies in two particular places – the Wave Hub, Cornwall, UK and Eccleshall Biomass, Staffordshire, UK. The focus is on the role of different interpretations of place and technology in shaping the responses that stakeholders had to these developments. Investigation of a bioenergy and a wave energy development allows comparison of terrestrial and marine issues and widens the dominant focus upon wind in studies of the social acceptability of renewable energy. It is argued that stakeholder responses to renewable energy developments are, in part, related to interpretations of what the technology and the location or ‘place’ are seen to represent or symbolize. Symbolism refers to more abstract meanings that stakeholders associate with the physical developments themselves. In particular, the interest is in the multiple and potentially conflicting symbolic interpretations of both place and the technology, and how these can explain why the development does or does not ‘fit’ in a particular location for different stakeholders. Previous work on renewable energy siting controversy has identified that opposition to particular renewable energy developments may be a substantial barrier to meeting renewable energy targets (Wüstenhagen et al., 2007). Although some authors have developed theoretical frameworks (eg Bell et al., 2005), much of the work on renewable energy siting controversy has tended to focus on description rather than explanation (Devine-Wright, 2005). Notions of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) have been commonplace in both applied and academic contexts and are used as a way of discrediting objectors (Burningham, 2000). Calls for more information provision and more ‘rationality’ (eg Upreti, 2004) or describing objectors as NIMBYs (with the accusations of selfishness

Mobile connections: an exploration of the place of mobile phones in friendship relations

Abstract: This paper explores the place and meaning of mobile phones within friendship relations amongst young Pakistani-British women and men. In particular it focuses on the ways in which friendship relations are transformed and reconfigured through new mobile phone technologies; and how ‘doing’ friendship on the mobile uncovers significant insight into contemporary youth cultures of masculinity and femininity. Although the majority of young people of the ‘multimedia generation’ have fully engaged with the mobile telephony revolution, there is no work which grounds mobile phone use within theoretical perspectives on friendship, in particular in different peer group cultures. We draw upon new empirical data from research in the North East of England to explore young people's perceptions and uses of mobile phones. The resulting narratives reveal interesting gendered practices of connectivity and sociability amongst the sample group and important dimensions of developing peer group identities, including diverse perf...

Divorce: obstacles and opportunities – South Asian women in Britain

Abstract: As divorce rates appear to rise amongst South Asian communities in Britain the repercussions for their members remain invisible and neglected in the research literature. The paper argues that this oversight needs to be addressed as it explores the findings from two separate studies to highlight some of the possible ramifications of divorce on South Asian women. The experiences presented here show that whilst divorce can have the most devastating effects on women in terms of their exclusion, it also presents some opportunities and optimism for their future. Furthermore, divorced women can not only bring positive change to their own lives, but also in the process, transform the cultures in which they live.

Portrayal and betrayal: Bourdieu, photography and sociological life

Abstract: Through an examination of Bourdieu's Algerian fieldwork the article raises general questions regarding the place of photography in sociological research. In the midst of a colonial war Bourdieu used photography to make visual fieldnotes and record the mixed realities of Algeria under colonialism. Bourdieu also used photography to communicate to the Algerians an ethical and political commitment to their cause and plight. It is argued that his photographs do not simply portrayal or communicate the realities of Algeria. They are, paradoxically, at the same time full of information and mysterious and depthless. In order to read them it is necessary to ethnographically situate them in their social and historical context. It is suggested that the photographs can also be read as an inventory of Bourdieu's attentiveness as a researcher, his curiosity and ultimately his sociological imagination. They betray his concerns as a researcher but also can be used to raise ethical and political questions beyond Bourdieu's own attempts at reflexive self-analysis. The article concludes with a discussion of how Bourdieu's sociological life might contribute to the craft of sociology today.

The Geostationary Orbit: A Critical Legal Geography of Space's Most Valuable Real Estate:

Abstract: This chapter attends to the legal and political geographies of one of Earth's most important, valuable, and pressured spaces: the geostationary orbit. Since the first, NASA, satellite entered it in 1964, this small, defined band of Outer Space, 35,786km from the Earth's surface, and only 30km wide, has become a highly charged legal and geopolitical environment, yet it remains a space which is curiously unheard of outside of specialist circles. For the thousands of satellites which now underpin the Earth's communication, media, and data industries and flows, the geostationary orbit is the prime position in Space. The geostationary orbit only has the physical capacity to hold approximately 1500 satellites; in 1997 there were approximately 1000. It is no overstatement to assert that media, communication, and data industries would not be what they are today if it was not for the geostationary orbit.------ This chapter provides a critical legal geography of the geostationary orbit, charting the topography of the debates and struggles to define and manage this highly-important space. Drawing on key legal documents such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty, the chapter addresses fundamental questions about the legal geography of the orbit, questions which are of growing importance as the orbit’s available satellite spaces diminish and the orbit comes under increasing pressure. Who owns the geostationary orbit? Who, and whose rules, govern what may or may not (literally) take place within it? Who decides which satellites can occupy the orbit? Is the geostationary orbit the sovereign property of the equatorial states it supertends, as these states argued in the 1970s? Or is it a part of the res communis, or common property of humanity, which currently legally characterises Outer Space? As challenges to the existing legal spatiality of the orbit from launch states, companies, and potential launch states, it is particularly critical that the current spatiality of the orbit is understood and considered.------ One of the busiest areas of Outer Space’s spatiality is international territorial law. Mentions of Space law tend to evoke incredulity and ‘little green men’ jokes, but as Space becomes busier and busier, international Space law is growing in complexity and importance. The chapter draws on two key fields of research: cultural geography, and critical legal geography. The chapter is framed by the cultural geographical concept of ‘spatiality’, a term which signals the multiple and dynamic nature of geographical space. As spatial theorists such as Henri Lefebvre assert, a space is never simply physical; rather, any space is always a jostling composite of material, imagined, and practiced geographies (Lefebvre 1991). The ways in which a culture perceives, represents, and legislates that space are as constitutive of its identity--its spatiality--as the physical topography of the ground itself. The second field in which this chapter is situated—critical legal geography—derives from cultural geography’s focus on the cultural construction of spatiality. In his Law, Space and the Geographies of Power (1994), Nicholas Blomley asserts that analyses of territorial law largely neglect the spatial dimension of their investigations; rather than seeing the law as a force that produces specific kinds of spaces, they tend to position space as a neutral, universally-legible entity which is neatly governed by the equally neutral 'external variable' of territorial law (28). 'In the hegemonic conception of the law,' Pue similarly argues, 'the entire world is transmuted into one vast isotropic surface' (1990: 568) on which law simply acts. But as the emerging field of critical legal geography demonstrates, law is not a neutral organiser of space, but is instead a powerful cultural technology of spatial production. Or as Delaney states, legal debates are “episodes in the social production of space” (2001, p. 494). International territorial law, in other words, makes space, and does not simply govern it. Drawing on these tenets of the field of critical legal geography, as well as on Lefebvrian concept of multipartite spatiality, this chapter does two things. First, it extends the field of critical legal geography into Space, a domain with which the field has yet to substantially engage. Second, it demonstrates that the legal spatiality of the geostationary orbit is both complex and contested, and argues that it is crucial that we understand this dynamic legal space on which the Earth’s communications systems rely.

Sensing a post‐colonial Bourdieu: an introduction

Abstract: A textured reading of intellectual writings and relations, as well as the complicated ways in which they are interwoven across time with specific issues, is likely to shed light on the social conditions of production of what we count as knowledge, including what we see as post-colonial knowledge. The colonial context of social theory is not automatically acknowledged by sociological practice. By turning our attention to the contexts, alliances and commitments – as well as the readings and ideas – that informed the development of Pierre Bourdieu’s thought, we can start to appreciate the colonial and post-colonial textures of his work.This requires us to pay attention to Bourdieu’s references, influences, collaborations and relations. Attentiveness to epistemic and symbolic violence became a hallmark of Bourdieu’s reflexivity.This was not developed without an understanding of the violence and inventive modes for survival within colonial Algeria. For Bourdieu, his experience of Algeria continued to impact upon his theoretical formulations, position takings or as he would say the ‘space of possibles’ in the academic field, most notably in the tensions within philosophy, anthropology and an emerging sociology, as well as how he intervened and conducted himself as an intellectual in the public realm. In recent times, a number of collections on Bourdieu have started to evaluate how Algeria was critical to his political and intellectual development, including the formulation of key concepts such as habitus (see the journal Ethnography, 2004 (5); ReedDanahay, 2005; Goodman and Silverstein, 2009). Despite these recent developments, Bourdieu is still overwhelmingly received in the UK, as a theorist of class, who has very little awareness of racism or post-colonial conditions in France. Thus it is not surprising that students of sociology often find it difficult to see the link between Bourdieu’s widely used concepts – such as cultural capital and social space – and his work on French pacification policies, displacement and migration. The colonial and post-colonial presence in the historical practice of his intellectual explorations has not been centred in the communication of his intellectual corpus in lecture theatres. Despite a scholarly emphasis on the reading of basic texts as vehicles

The Cosmos as Capitalism's Outside:

Abstract: Can capitalism go on expanding forever? It is a question many people have asked for many years. It is also a relevant question when considering the prospect of capitalism’s potentially infinite expansion into the cosmos. In the early decades of the 20th century, Rosa Luxemburg suggested that capitalism always needs an ‘outside’, a zone of non-capitalism in which people would buy goods made in capitalist societies (Luxemburg, 2004). To continue expanding, capitalism needs to continue placing a large part of its surplus into the means of production, machines and technology. Imperialism, according to Luxemburg, is the competitive struggle between capitalist nations for what remains of the non-capitalist ‘outside’. And yet, Luxemburg also argued, there is a fundamental contradiction, one ultimately leading to capitalism’s collapse. As it increasingly draws its ‘outside’ into itself, capitalism also destroys the very demand it needs for its products. The surplus value produced by capitalism simply cannot be absorbed. This is not the place to assess in detail Luxemburg’s arguments or the debates she has generated. Suffice to note that many Marxists now argue that, while crises of underconsumption are important, crises stemming from overaccumulation of capital and the need for ‘outside’ regions in which to invest are even more significant as regards the further expansion of capitalism (Brewer, 1990; Harvey, 2003). Luxemburg was nevertheless the first attempt explicitly to raise the question of how capitalism relates to a non-capitalist ‘outside’ and whether capitalism can, in principle, last forever as it colonizes its outside. The question of capitalism’s ‘outside’ is now being asked again, albeit in a rather different form. Hardt and Negri, in their influential text Empire, tell us that ‘there is no more outside.’ They state that ‘in the passage from modern to postmodern, from Imperialism to Empire, there is progressively less distinction between inside and outside’ (2000: 187). They make this case in relation to the economy, politics and militarism in today’s form of globalization. As regards economics, Hardt and Negri admit that the capitalist market has always run counter to any division between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. It has been constantly expanded globally and yet has encountered barriers. But at the same

The politics of figurational sociology

Abstract: Figurational sociology is so often said to distance itself from the political issues of the day Whilst this is certainly true with regards to the present day, it in no way follows that figurational sociology seeks to distance itself from politics as such On the contrary, as will be shown within this paper, politics is and always has been a central concern for figurational sociologists This political concern, however, is an exclusively long term concern; figurational sociology purposively postpones present political engagement for the sake of developing a sufficiently detached sociology that would eventually facilitate in the delivery of effective practical and political measures This paper discusses the stakes involved in, as well as the reasoning behind, the assignment of such a place to politics It gestures towards two distinct and separate concepts of social control that exist within figurational sociology and then proceeds to offer a critical consideration of the consequences that can be derived from any temporal demarcation of the political done on their basis The paper ultimately suggests that figurational sociology's position on politics raises a series of as yet unanswered questions, questions which can no longer remain unanswered by the contemporary figurational sociologist

Social activity, social isolation and ethnicity

Abstract: This paper explores the extent to which social activity in England and Wales varies by ethnic group and whether risks of social isolation are higher for some groups than others It aims to enhance our understanding of social deprivation as a particular dimension of poverty and its variation by ethnicity It also provides empirical evidence that informs discussions of social capital formation which focus on informal measures of participation, and amplifies our understanding of ethnic capital within groups Estimating the characteristics associated with four measures of social activity together, using a multivariate probit model, the analysis identifies the extent to which ethnic group is associated with low participation on any given measure Cross-equation correlations between observables within the model can additionally indicate an underlying propensity to social isolation The paper concludes that there are distinctive patterns of social activity across ethnic groups, that social isolation is not coterminous with material deprivation, and that greater attention should be paid to social isolation as a particular dimension of deprivation that is unevenly distributed

Capitalists in space

Abstract: 'Space Travel and Culture' explores the significance of the first Apollo moon landing and how the countless books, films and products associated with factual space fiction had an affect on popular culture and artistic practice, but not social sciences and humanities.