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The Spirit of Luc Boltanski: Chapter Outline, in The Spirit of Luc Boltanski: Essays on the ‘Pragmatic Sociology of Critique’
TL;DR: A brief summary of the key themes, issues, and controversies covered in each of the following chapters is provided in this paper, along with a discussion of the main issues and controversies.
Abstract: This Introduction contains a brief summary of the key themes, issues, and controversies covered in each of the following chapters.
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16 Jul 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the pragmatic sociology of critique to study interactional settings where BIAs engage in normative and morally-laden discussions about urban revitalization, focusing on the Downtown London BIA's involvement in the revitalization of a four-block downtown street called Dundas Place.
Abstract: BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AREAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF URBAN REVITALIZATION: USING THE PRAGMATIC SOCIOLOGY OF CRITIQUE TO UNDERSTAND NEOLIBERAL URBAN GOVERNANCE Daniel Kudla University of Guelph, 2019 Co-Advisors: Dr. Patrick Parnaby Dr. Mervyn Horgan Business Improvement Areas (hereafter BIAs) have become a central feature of urban revitalization across North America, Australia, Western Europe, and South Africa. Urban scholars describe BIAs as a neoliberal form of urban governance insofar as these quasi-state organizations use private sector strategies to make changes to public spaces. Despite growing literature highlighting BIAs’ neoliberal form of power, there is little understanding of the influence these organizations have during urban revitalization decision-making processes. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis from two BIAs in London, Ontario, I use the pragmatic sociology of critique to study interactional settings where BIAs engage in normative and morally-laden discussions about urban revitalization. I specifically focus on the Downtown London BIA’s involvement in the revitalization of a four-block downtown street called Dundas Place as well as the Old East Village BIA’s involvement in the neighbourhood’s residential development planning process. I argue that the production of BIA spaces is contingent on interactional settings where social actors engage in dialogue, debate, and negotiation. This is not to discount BIAs’ political and economic forms of power; rather, I argue these forms of power cannot be separated from socio-cultural forms of power enacted during interactional decisionmaking processes. In addition to showing the justificatory strategies used by BIAs, I show how BIArelated decision-making processes are influenced by their organizational interests and limited by certain institutional arrangements. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to the family, mentors, and friends who have supported me over the last six years. First and foremost, I would like to thank my wonderful wife Jacqueline for all her encouragement and support throughout my academic career. We have certainly experienced all the highs and lows that came along the way and I could not have done this without her (and our little dachshund Violet) by my side. I look forward to the future that lies ahead for us. To my parents, sister, and cousins, I would have never been able to attain a doctoral degree at a Canadian university without your courage to leave Poland to begin a new life in Canada when I was just 5 years old. For that I am truly grateful. There are many people who have made a direct impact on the academic I am today. First, my doctoral studies would not have been as enjoyable without the mentorship and advice from my dedicated supervisors Dr. Patrick Parnaby and Dr. Mervyn Horgan. Patrick taught me invaluable writing, research, teaching, and grading skills throughout my six years at the University of Guelph. Because he treated me as a co-researcher and not an assistant, I was able to experience for the first time what it is like to produce and publish original sociological research. Mervyn has been instrumental in helping me guide the theoretical framework in my dissertation. It was his Advanced Topics in Sociology PhD course that taught me the importance of connecting theory to practice. Many of the ideas contained in the following chapters would not have been as clear and developed without their timely and helpful comments. A special thanks to my advisory committee member Dr. Bill O’Grady whose important work on homelessness as well as his criminological approach has certainly shaped my doctoral work. I would also like to thank Dr. Joe Michalski who has been my academic role model from the beginning of my university career. Joe has played a major role helping me navigate the academic world, starting from an undergraduate student to a part-time faculty member at Kings University College at Western University. I have also benefited from frequent discussions with my fellow graduate students and colleagues, including Michael Courey, Gregg Cullen, Brittany Etmanski, Timothy Kang, Ryan Lafleur, Laura MacDiarmid, and Crystal Weston. In particular, my frequent chats with Michael Courey about community development in London as well as broader discussions about urban sociology and social theory have helped me shape and make it through my doctoral work. His passion has certainly made an impact on my work.
27 citations
09 Oct 2020
TL;DR: Pragmatic Inquiry as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays from a group of researchers who met on a regular basis over four years to explore together novel analytical tools to make sense and account for social reality.
Abstract: Pragmatic Inquiry brings together a remarkably creative transcontinental and interdisciplinary group of researchers who met on a regular basis over four years to explore together novel analytical tools to make sense and account for social reality. It will give the reader a renewed sense of possibilities for capturing social complexity. Each chapter zooms in on a different conceptual device that aims to illuminate relatively unexplored aspects of reality. The authors draw on the work of influential scholars – for instance, Foucault’s notion of “dispositif” – but they go beyond them by digging in greater depth, extending and transposing such concepts to new objects.
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16 Jul 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the pragmatic sociology of critique to study interactional settings where BIAs engage in normative and morally-laden discussions about urban revitalization, focusing on the Downtown London BIA's involvement in the revitalization of a four-block downtown street called Dundas Place.
Abstract: BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AREAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF URBAN REVITALIZATION: USING THE PRAGMATIC SOCIOLOGY OF CRITIQUE TO UNDERSTAND NEOLIBERAL URBAN GOVERNANCE Daniel Kudla University of Guelph, 2019 Co-Advisors: Dr. Patrick Parnaby Dr. Mervyn Horgan Business Improvement Areas (hereafter BIAs) have become a central feature of urban revitalization across North America, Australia, Western Europe, and South Africa. Urban scholars describe BIAs as a neoliberal form of urban governance insofar as these quasi-state organizations use private sector strategies to make changes to public spaces. Despite growing literature highlighting BIAs’ neoliberal form of power, there is little understanding of the influence these organizations have during urban revitalization decision-making processes. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis from two BIAs in London, Ontario, I use the pragmatic sociology of critique to study interactional settings where BIAs engage in normative and morally-laden discussions about urban revitalization. I specifically focus on the Downtown London BIA’s involvement in the revitalization of a four-block downtown street called Dundas Place as well as the Old East Village BIA’s involvement in the neighbourhood’s residential development planning process. I argue that the production of BIA spaces is contingent on interactional settings where social actors engage in dialogue, debate, and negotiation. This is not to discount BIAs’ political and economic forms of power; rather, I argue these forms of power cannot be separated from socio-cultural forms of power enacted during interactional decisionmaking processes. In addition to showing the justificatory strategies used by BIAs, I show how BIArelated decision-making processes are influenced by their organizational interests and limited by certain institutional arrangements. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to the family, mentors, and friends who have supported me over the last six years. First and foremost, I would like to thank my wonderful wife Jacqueline for all her encouragement and support throughout my academic career. We have certainly experienced all the highs and lows that came along the way and I could not have done this without her (and our little dachshund Violet) by my side. I look forward to the future that lies ahead for us. To my parents, sister, and cousins, I would have never been able to attain a doctoral degree at a Canadian university without your courage to leave Poland to begin a new life in Canada when I was just 5 years old. For that I am truly grateful. There are many people who have made a direct impact on the academic I am today. First, my doctoral studies would not have been as enjoyable without the mentorship and advice from my dedicated supervisors Dr. Patrick Parnaby and Dr. Mervyn Horgan. Patrick taught me invaluable writing, research, teaching, and grading skills throughout my six years at the University of Guelph. Because he treated me as a co-researcher and not an assistant, I was able to experience for the first time what it is like to produce and publish original sociological research. Mervyn has been instrumental in helping me guide the theoretical framework in my dissertation. It was his Advanced Topics in Sociology PhD course that taught me the importance of connecting theory to practice. Many of the ideas contained in the following chapters would not have been as clear and developed without their timely and helpful comments. A special thanks to my advisory committee member Dr. Bill O’Grady whose important work on homelessness as well as his criminological approach has certainly shaped my doctoral work. I would also like to thank Dr. Joe Michalski who has been my academic role model from the beginning of my university career. Joe has played a major role helping me navigate the academic world, starting from an undergraduate student to a part-time faculty member at Kings University College at Western University. I have also benefited from frequent discussions with my fellow graduate students and colleagues, including Michael Courey, Gregg Cullen, Brittany Etmanski, Timothy Kang, Ryan Lafleur, Laura MacDiarmid, and Crystal Weston. In particular, my frequent chats with Michael Courey about community development in London as well as broader discussions about urban sociology and social theory have helped me shape and make it through my doctoral work. His passion has certainly made an impact on my work.
27 citations
TL;DR: The concept of legitimacy has applied to wider notions concerning the civil sphere and civic action as discussed by the authors, and the concept has been widely used within civil society research and to point at new avenues for future research.
Abstract: The concept of legitimacy—i.e., being regarded as “lawful, admissible, and justified” (Edwards in NGO rights and responsibilities: a new deal for global governance, The Foreign Policy Center, London, 2000)—is pivotal within civil society research. Recently, the concept has applied to wider notions concerning the civil sphere and civic action. The introductory article of this special issue aims to provide an overview of conceptualizations of legitimacy within civil society research and to point at new avenues for future research. We depart from Suddaby et al.’s (Acad Manag Ann 11(1):451–478, 2017) configurations of legitimacy within management literature: as property, perception, and process. While these configurations are also reflected in civil society literature, with legitimacy as property being prominent, they do not capture the full scope of civil society literature on legitimacy, given its multidisciplinary nature, its inclusion of multiple levels of analysis, and the presence of complementary conceptualizations of legitimacy. We posit that the legitimacy-as-relations-in-processes perspective is valuable for advancing research in civil society organizations.
22 citations
TL;DR: The work of as mentioned in this paper examines and applies the widely influential work of Boltanski and Thevenot in order to investigate and understand the political issues or disputes within sport, including Olympic bidding and hosting, and how key social actors or stakeholders (such as local and national governments, event sponsors, and sport bodies) draw on different worlds of justification in advocating the staging of these events.
Abstract: This paper examines and applies the widely influential work of Boltanski and Thevenot in order to investigate and understand the political issues or disputes within sport. We provide a critical elaboration of Boltanski and Thevenot’s theory of the six ‘orders of worth’ or ‘worlds’ of justification that are drawn upon by social actors within these disputes. We examine how social actors may draw upon multiple justifications (or worlds) in order to advance their positions or interests; how power differences arise between these worlds; and, how weak worlds of justification may extend their influence within specific issues. To elaborate our analysis, we discuss the public issue of Olympic bidding and hosting, and how key social actors or stakeholders (such as local and national governments, event sponsors, and sport bodies) draw on different worlds of justification, particularly in advocating the staging of these events. This issue indicates that the six worlds are organized hierarchically into three ‘...
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze cases through the concept of "pragmatic registers" and show how residents, developers and civil servants can bend citizen participation and its material arrangements from workshops and public meetings to contracts and policy documents.
18 citations
TL;DR: The authors provide a review of Rodrigo Cordero's crisis and critique: On the fragile foundations of social life (2017) and identify major challenges that need to be faced in order to do justice to the tension-laden role that the relationship between critique and crisis can, and should, play in contemporary social theory.
Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to provide a review of Rodrigo Cordero’s Crisis and critique: On the fragile foundations of social life (2017). To this end, the analysis examines Cordero’s book at several levels. The first part makes some general observations on its principal strengths. The second part gives a brief overview of its thematic structure. The third part elucidates its key arguments. The fourth part sheds light on its most significant limitations. The paper concludes by identifying major challenges to which, in light of the methodical evaluation of Cordero’s study, we need to face up in order to do justice to the tension-laden role that the relationship between crisis and critique can, and should, play in contemporary social theory.
18 citations