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MonographDOI

Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach

01 Sep 1997-Social Forces (Cambridge University Press)-Vol. 22, Iss: 1, pp 335
TL;DR: The Morphogenetic Cycle: the basis of the morphogenetic approach 7. Structural and cultural conditioning 8. The morphogenesis of agency 9. Social elaboration.
Abstract: Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.
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Book ChapterDOI
01 Sep 2021

25 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that if political science is to rise above the level of investigative journalism, then it is necessary to grapple with some difficult issues surrounding theories of the state following a brief review of Weberian approaches to the state.
Abstract: This article indicates how Marxist principles can be used to study political science and, in particular, be applied to an analysis of governing problems and responses in the British context It proceeds by suggesting that if political science is to rise above the level of investigative journalism, then it is necessary to grapple with some difficult issues surrounding theories of the state Following a brief review of Weberian approaches to the state, the article concentrates on ‘open Marxist’ discussions of the state The central contention of the article is that deriving the state from Marx's account of the circuit of capital allows a conceptualisation of governing, and the limits of state action, which is absent in most orthodox political science

25 citations

Dissertation
01 Oct 2019
TL;DR: Gillan et al. as mentioned in this paper presented a social movement analysis of safe standing and in doing, produced a largely untold thirty-year social history of English football supporter activism, and argued that a small core network of approximately 30 supporters, to which they gained insider access, stand to potentially impact and shape the consumption habits of a leisure practice all over the world.
Abstract: Twenty eight years after the Taylor report into the Hillsborough stadium disaster recommended that all Premier League and Championship football grounds in England and Wales should become all-seated, the UK Government Sports Minister Tracey Crouch, in June 2018, announced a government review into the safety of modern standing areas and whether new developments in stadium safety and spectator accommodation, might justify changing the current all-seating legislation to permit Safe Standing. In October 2019, the review concluded that their remains significant scope for further research to build an evidence base to trial different standing areas, alongside monitoring clubs taking different approaches to the management of standing. These recent events are the outcome of a thirty-year social movement in which a critical mass of football supporters, through the networks they formed, have built relational collective action across the neoliberal timescape of English football from 1989-2019. This thesis presents a social movement analysis of Safe Standing and in doing, produces a largely untold thirty year social history of English football supporter activism. To achieve this, it applies a relational sociology approach (Crossley, 2011; 2015) to capture the importance of football supporter networks, relationships and interactions which built this social movement across different temporal periods, or what Gillan (2018) refers to as multiple timescales. It offers an original contribution to knowledge of football supporter social movements through a rich micro-level analysis of the most important issue which fans collectively coalesce around, and the legacy of the worst sporting disaster in the UK, which has dominated public consciousness for thirty years. And as a social movement, I argue Safe Standing is one of the most important recent development in the game, because it evidences how supporters, who have been deeply affected by the all-seating legislation, are now in a position to affect the future consumption of English football. My analysis showed how this was achieved, and argued that a small core network of approximately 30 supporters, to which I gained insider access, stand to potentially impact and shape the consumption habits of a leisure practice all over the world. In doing so, the thesis represents the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the 30 year movement against the all-seating legislation and offers an important social history which informed both the focus of the government review and its primary conclusions.

25 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT)-based collaboration and research team dynamics and argue that good intentions are not sufficient to cope with these challenges.
Abstract: This self-ethnography complements the other articles in this special issue by spotlighting a set of key challenges facing international research teams. The study is focused on the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT)-based collaboration and research team dynamics. Our diverse team, drawn from researchers in five countries and three projects, argues that an ironic casualty of the powerful, global phenomena we study, is a lack of insight into what happens to generic research team dynamics, when groups are ‘stretched’ in terms of geographical distance, generations, cultural beliefs, values and norms, as well as disciplinary/specialist traditions. Good intentions are not sufficient to cope with these challenges. This is because of the emerging complexity inherent in many types of international, interdisciplinary fields of study and the complexity of the career trajectories needed to make these studies a reality. Our study underlines that there are no beliefs, values, norms and practices linked to research team dynamics, that hold across the current territory, generations, disciplines, cultures, organizations and individuals leading and conducting comparative studies—and even less reflection on the implications of this fact. Compounding this lack of awareness is a less-than-perfect understanding of the way in which ICT-based collaboration bears on research team dynamics. We assert that a holistic, critical, long-term approach to emerging insights into the global division of academic labor, serves our field better than folk psychology or the methodological parochialism that sustains convention at the expense of creativity. Careful consideration of emergent processes, relationships and linkages that explain how short-term cooperation—within projects—begins to make sense—over careers—illuminates key focal points, which, in turn qualitatively illuminates the way forward concerning conceptualization and problematization of our practice; and novel methodological routes available for those interested in attaining better outcomes, over the long term.

25 citations

Book ChapterDOI
16 Sep 2021

25 citations