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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.
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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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TL;DR: The pragmatic sociology of critique developed by French sociologist Luc Boltanski in cooperation with such authors as Laurent Thevenot and Eve Chiapello has received increasing attention in recent years as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In recent years, the pragmatic sociology of critique developed by French sociologist Luc Boltanski in cooperation with such authors as Laurent Thevenot and Eve Chiapello has received increasing att...
6 citations
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TL;DR: This paper revisited Van Gennep's Rites de passage from the point of view of gift theory and found that Gifts emerge as quasi-omnipresent and in association with all sorts as well as all phases of rites.
Abstract: This article revisits Arnold Van Gennep’s Rites de passage from the point of view of gift theory. Gifts emerge as quasi-omnipresent and in association with all sorts as well as all phases of rites ...
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01 Jan 2017TL;DR: Uber as mentioned in this paper bringt klassische Moralphilosophie with Alltagskoordination in Zusammenhang, konstatiert eine Gemeinwohlorientierung im Disput, and macht sich fur die Kritikfahigkeit der Akteure stark.
Abstract: Uber die Rechtfertigung (UR) ist in vielerlei Hinsicht ein ungewohnliches soziologisches Werk. Es bringt klassische Moralphilosophie mit Alltagskoordination in Zusammenhang, konstatiert eine Gemeinwohlorientierung im Disput, und macht sich fur die Kritikfahigkeit der Akteure stark.
4 citations
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TL;DR: This article examined what arrested individuals expect from the police, and the moral grammars they rely on to evaluate police behavior, and found that respondents care about two different moral dimensions in policing.
Abstract: This paper examines what arrested individuals expect from the police, and the moral grammars they rely on to evaluate police behavior. Drawing on interviews with recently arrested suspects in the Cleveland city jail, we analyze the moral grammars, or common worlds, that residents invoke to reflect on interactions with law enforcement. We find that respondents care about two different moral dimensions in policing. At one level, they want police to treat them with civility and politeness, and to respect their rights—thereby treating them equally with other residents in the city. Yet at a second level, they want police to show care and empathy for their local situation, and to recognize that policing the neighborhoods in which they live is different than policing other parts of the city. As a result, we find that residents who are arrested by the police deploy two orders of worth: a civic order, grounded in fairness, legal rules, equality, and civic belonging in the polity; and a domestic order, based on a politics of community and difference, emphasizing empathy, local knowledge, and personal experience. We demonstrate how individuals assess and test the moral promise of institutions to offer moral recognition, redress, and repair.
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01 Jan 2017TL;DR: Hirschman as discussed by the authors was a studierter Okonom, Widerstandskampfer im faschistischen Europa and Praktiker der Entwicklungspolitik, who in seiner spateren akademischen Laufbahn die disziplinaren Grenzen zwischen Okonomie, Politikwissenschaft und Soziologie beflissentlich ubertreten.
Abstract: Albert O. Hirschman gehort zu den Wissenschaftlern, die sich auf erfrischende Weise nicht von disziplinaren Grenzen aufhalten lassen. Als studierter Okonom, Widerstandskampfer im faschistischen Europa und Praktiker der Entwicklungspolitik hat er in seiner spateren akademischen Laufbahn die disziplinaren Grenzen zwischen Okonomie, Politikwissenschaft und Soziologie beflissentlich ubertreten.
3 citations