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Showing papers on "Relational sociology published in 2014"


Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2014

226 citations


Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, a new explanatory framework is proposed to understand the role of personal image and self-presentation in contemporary politics, based on relational sociology, actor-network theory and symbolic interactionism.
Abstract: This chapter suggests a new explanatory framework to understand the role of personal image and self-presentation in contemporary politics. It establishes the basics of relational sociology, actor-network theory and symbolic interactionism, explaining how the insights each approach provides are both combined in and applied to the study.

31 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that sociologists can overcome some of their deepest fears about the role of developmental psychology by developing a relational approach that integrates the biological and social aspects of children's development.
Abstract: This article will begin by outlining influential attempts by historians and sociologists to develop a more adequate theoretical understanding of past and contemporary childhoods, focusing on the major problems that stem from the pivotal role that ‘developmentalism’ plays in their arguments. I will argue that sociologists can overcome some of their deepest fears about the role of developmental psychology by developing a relational approach that integrates the biological and social aspects of children’s development. In the development of a relational sociology of early childhood we need to make important connections with closely related disciplines, but at the same time draw on and integrate research findings from relevant areas within the social and natural sciences. An alternative perspective drawn from the writings of Norbert Elias will be put forward and illustrated by discussing some of the key concepts that Elias and Vygotsky used to explain the language development of young children.

15 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that such goods can be produced only by specific social subjects, which the Author calls relational subjects, and explain in which sense and in which way relational subjects and the goods they generate, can contribute to making civil society more robust.
Abstract: From some years now, the social sciences have been highlighting the existence of a type of goods that are neither material things, nor ideas, nor functional performances but consist, instead, of social relations and, for this reason, are called relational goods. This contribution proposes to clarify this concept from the viewpoint of relational sociology, which avoids both methodological individualism and holism. Subsequently, it argues that such goods can be produced only by specific social subjects, which the Author calls ?relational subjects?. Relying upon many theoretical and empirical researches, the paper explains in which sense and in which way relational subjects, and the goods they generate, can contribute to making civil society more robust: that is, no longer the typically capitalist society of the market, but an ?associational? society able to sustain a mature democracy.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors try to explain and understand the production of society as a process of morphogenesis that takes place in terms of relational steering, characterized by recourse to relational feedbacks that generate emergent social effects.
Abstract: This article aims to show how relational sociology, in synergy with critical realism, sees social change, understood as social morphogenesis, in advanced societies. The concept of morphogenesis (MG) in the social sciences can be traced back to organic system theory. This theory became problematic once research showed that social networks cannot be treated as systems. Along the way, the relational nature of MG was revealed ever more clearly. The new perspective is that of moving beyond a mechanical definition of the concepts of variety, selection, positive/negative feedbacks and the stabilization processes that go to realize MG. It is necessary to redefine these concepts from the perspective of a relational paradigm of MG. This article tries to explain and understand the production of society as a process of MG that takes place in terms of relational steering, which is characterized by recourse to relational feedbacks that generate emergent social effects.

7 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article traced the prolific career of Andrew Lang and places that career in the context of the shifting late-Victorian literary field, which Lang served importantly to shape, and re-orients readers to a literary personality who, while known, is only rarely studied in his own right.
Abstract: This essay traces the strikingly prolific career of Andrew Lang and places that career in the context of the shifting late-Victorian literary field, which Lang served importantly to shape. The essay introduces Lang’s milieu and re-orients readers to a literary personality who, while known, is only rarely studied in his own right—a detail of reception history the essay explains with recourse to the relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and Bruno Latour. Restoring Lang’s “network effect” through historical analysis helps raise a number of conceptual questions, each of which is pursued in the essays of this special issue: such questions include the nature of textual interpretation, the changing outlines of disciplines, the philosophy of historical method, and conceptions of authorship and collaboration in the modern cultural marketplace. Placing Lang back in his proper spot at the center of the late-Victorian networks he helped convene (1) helps historicize our understanding of the modern “field of cultural production” (Bourdieu’s term) in an expanded, protodisciplinary sense and (2) discloses new genealogies of literary and theoretical history. These new genealogies in turn cast altered light on the methodological presuppositions we draw upon to evaluate Lang and his network here. “Theoretical historicism” is the term used to describe approaches that trace such feedback loops between the historical object analyzed and the modern method used to analyze them.

6 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the social implications of an ill or deformed child and the role of narrative in addressing social demands and the problems faced by parents in infant intensive care contexts, arguing that theorising the infant within a relational framework allows agency to be attributed to the infant and parents while also recognising the importance of the intimate social world and interactional context that it is expressed within.
Abstract: The relationship of parents and infants is ruptured at birth in the context of urgent issues such as congenital heart defects. The infants referred to in 10 semi-structured interviews had undergone cardiac surgery in a children's hospital in Australia and were participating in a new programme known as Heart Beads instigated by the cardiac ward nurses. Within the biomedical context infants are often alienated from their parents and treated as isolated bodies. The paper discusses the social implications of an ill or deformed child and the role of narrative in addressing social demands and the problems faced by parents in infant intensive care contexts. It is argued that theorising the infant within a relational framework allows agency to be attributed to the infant and parents while also recognising the importance of the intimate social world and interactional context that it is expressed within. The paper draws on Nick Crossley's relational sociology to highlight the importance of the relational embodiment that encompasses infants within a social world preceding them and enveloping them. The narrative is developed by parents in order to facilitate the social expression and integration of their child and thus plays a particularly social role in the context of infant surgery, rather than serving to adjust the individual to new circumstances. Exploring the role of narrative in this social relational sense is important for bringing the mother and the family back into the context and survival of the infant both physically and socially.

5 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Carra et al. identify, and reflect on, patterns of the couple bond, both established and ideal, in Europe and particularly in Italy and provide a new insight into the transformations of the couples' bonds and pathways (marriage, separation, divorce, etc.).
Abstract: INTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this contribution is to identify, and reflect on, patterns of the couple bond, both established and ideal, in Europe and particularly in Italy.Recent sociological literature presents diverse perspectives on the couple relationship and the extent of its formalisation as relating to the two different levels of structure and agency.1 Structural research has concentrated on the resilience of marriage, defined as a clear way to sanction and institutionalise the couple relationship within society. US literature, in particular, connects existing theories to two macro-perspectives (Amato et al., 2007): the Marital-Decline Perspective (Waite, Gallagher, 2000; Whitehead, 1996; Wilson, 2002) on the progressive weakening of marriage, due to growing individualism, and the MaritalResilience Perspective (Bengtson, Biblarz and Roberts, 2002; Coontz, 2000; Hackstaff, 1999; Scanzoni, 2001), on the actual transformations undergone by the marriage institution.Agency theories differ as to the importance they attribute to the institutional and relational aspects of the actual couple relationship (Table 1).What can be done, then, in order to keep together and fully grasp the interweaving of structure and agency? One answer is provided by Relational Sociology (Donati, 2011), which regards the couple as a relationship with is own identity and able to connect and articulate, according to the different forms assumed by the couple bond (marriage, cohabitation, LAT), a number of factors, such as2 sexuality, generative tension, reciprocity in the exchanges, and a spirit of donation (Donati, 2012a, 2013). The couple relationship is therefore inseparable from the intergenerational relationship, as it creates a network of horizontal bonds, vertical bonds and generative factors. Wherever a bond is formed, in fact, the persons' histories are modified and something new is created. This becomes visible when considering not just the individuals but also their relationship.The term "relationship" derives from the Latin re-ligo ("to set a link between"), referring to an interactive bond between two or more subjects, with the dual connotation of tie and resource. It also echoes the term re-latum ("referred to"), indicating that an interactive bond carries a shared symbolical baggage, i.e., a sort of memory connecting it with history and with other bonds that make it meaningful (Rossi and Bramanti, 2012). In other words, there is an exchange between subjects carrying a cultural heritage which they represent from within the bond. The couple is the encounter between two inevitable histories, as each subject constitutes anode in a generational fabric (Cigoli and Scabini, 2006; Prandini, 2013).Such a theoretical frame can provide an insight in the complexity underlying the couple formation process (Carra, 2012). Until a few decades ago this process followed precise social norms, either explicit or implicit (falling in love, engagement, religious marriage, the birth of children). Today, however, in Italy as in the rest of Europe, becoming a couple occurs in ways that cannot (according to Relational Sociology) be reduced to personal structural options. In fact, the basic assumption in the present contribution is that value orientations and behaviours (or couple patterns) are closely interdependent. The truth of this assumption will be tested through the analysis of data from the European Values Study (EVS)'s fourth wave (2008-2009).3The EVS survey, in fact, has been chosen for its focus on value orientations, that is, the deepest-set components of individual and collective behaviours, ultimately referring to the concepts of true and fair, good or bad, desirable or undesirable, rather than to delusions, prejudices, stereotypes, unconscious beliefs. Values coincide with cultural judgements expressing what is worth believing, thinking and acting by, according to the reflexivity distinguishing the human subject as such, Besides being focused on value orientations as to marriage, family and parents-children relationships, the EVS's fourth wave offers a new insight into the transformations of the couple's bonds and pathways (marriage, separation, divorce, cohabitation, LAT). …

5 citations


01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: It is argued that, in order to trace the process of assembling a network, the authors need to take into account the technologies that enable the quantification and visualization of network-flows, which will establish a new direction in network research.
Abstract: In his recent writings, Bruno Latour (e.g. 2013: 31) has insisted on distinguishing social science that treats networks as results from research that concerns itself with networks as process. Whereas the first type of research focuses on what circulates once everything has been put into place, the second focuses on the assembling itself. For Latour Actor Network Theory (ANT) only refers to the second and therefore has to be strictly separated from other kinds of Network Theory, such as “Relational Sociology” (Crossley, 2010; Donati, 2010; Emirbyayer, 1997, Hausling, 2010) or Manuel Castells’ (1996) conception of “Network Society”. In this contribution, we are asking the question whether this implies that there can be no analysis of digital social networks on the basis of Actor-Network Theory? By focusing more closely on practical methods of researching Facebook (in particular, we will analyse a Fan Page in terms of modalities of association, actual occurrences or entities, temporality and degree centrality and betweenness centrality) and how they are being deployed, we will argue that, in order trace the process of assembling a network, we need to take into account the technologies that enable the quantification and visualization of network-flows. By opening up ANT to a conceptualization of the virtual, we hope to establish a new direction in network research that can benefit from both existing traditions by showing that (1) ANT can help Network Analysis to become more theoretically precise and sociologically relevant; (2) Network Analysis can further support ANT in developing an analytical grasp of the empirical dimension of the technological infrastructure of social networking through its distinctively graphical modes of visualization, and (3) any empirical account of networking requires from the outset a thorough engagement with optical mediation including its technical facilitation and a conception of the virtual in order to understand the social.

3 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare Pierpaolo Donati's Relational Theory of Society (also called Relational Sociology), and the theoretical proposal of Jan Fuhse's relational Sociology.
Abstract: This paper aims to compare Pierpaolo Donati’s Relational Theory of Society (also called Relational Sociology), and the theoretical proposal of Jan Fuhse’s Relational Sociology. It focuses on two main issues: 1) Epistemology - the «Relational Sociology» paradigm; 2) Ontology - what the social relation consists of. Both perspectives (Donati and Fuhse) aim at describing the social reality as a "relational construct". The core issue and the real distinguishing divergence point between these two theories is precisely the concept of "relation", then its application in methodological and empirical fields. Fuhse starts with the network analysis sociological tradition (White) to reach a relational "communicative" theory of society (Luhmann), whereas Donati insists to build his sociological paradigm from the perspective of the "relation" concept. The former reduces and considers networks as "communicative events", the latter does not renounce to analyse social facts as "relations", synthetizing structure, culture and agency in a wide "relational" social theory.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Alexander and Armitage as mentioned in this paper make the case that networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) suffer from a demonstrability dilemma and propose a social relational network perspective to address this problem.
Abstract: Roff (2014) made the case that networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) suffer from a demonstrability dilemma. According to Roff (2014) this demonstrability dilemma concerns illustrating and measuring the ‘added value’ of networks of MPAs compared with stand-alone MPAs. He makes a number of important points regarding MPA networks including the current lack of data, the inconsistencies in how they are defined, the little consideration given thus far for evaluating their performance and outcomes, and the importance of proper documentation of their ‘added value’ (e.g. species range extensions and/or re-establishment). However, the demonstrability problem is not solely ecological, it is also about people and their interactions related to the planning and management of MPA networks – which brings us into the realm of governance. Accordingly, addressing this challenge requires moving beyond an ecological perspective. While an ecological perspective provides a great starting point, there is merit in taking a parallel social relational network perspective that builds upon the ecological network ideas outlined by Roff (2014). Identifying and examining the connections between individuals, organizations and agencies – i.e. governance networks – provide an entree to consider the social reality within which MPA networks are embedded. Accordingly, it is through these governance networks that decisions are made and actions implemented concerning MPA networks. A social relational network perspective includes a conceptual model, the accompanying theoretical assumptions, and its associated methodological toolbox (sensu Alexander and Armitage, 2014). This perspective is largely informed by relational sociology and social network analysis. Three theoretical assumptions are central to this social relational network perspective: (i) emphasis is placed on relations rather than personal attributes; (ii) analytical and theoretical emphasis is placed on examining networks rather than groups; and (iii) we can only understand specific relations or patterns of relations relative to their broader relational context (Alexander and Armitage, 2014). Consideration of the social connectivity associated with networks of MPAs faces a similar *Correspondence to: Steven M. Alexander, Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1. E-mail: s22alexa@uwaterloo.ca Response to: Editorial: ‘Networks of marine protected areas – the demonstrability dilemma’ By John C. Roff A group is defined here as a discretely bounded collective of individuals organized formally or informally.


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make an essay about the point of view of "Relational Sociology" developed by Pierpaolo Donati and add some new lines, like a study between "Ethics-Sociology" and the human side of Sports in front of all the negative culture.
Abstract: In this text, I will try to make an essay about the point of view of "Relational Sociology" developed by Pierpaolo Donati. Donati is a very important author in sociological questions. Relational Sociology criticizes basically the lib-lab model of Economy, because it only produces problems (individualism, "better-profit-utilitarism"). When these kind of consequences penetrate in Sports, all this worlds loses its most important values (humanism, fair relationships). My proposal consists on adding some new lines, like a study between "Ethics-Sociology" and the human side of Sports in front of all the negative culture. Also it proposes the use of AGIL model in Sports.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the most relevant concepts in the different relational sociologies proposed, respectively, by Nick Crossley and Pierpaolo Donati, with the aim of finding similarities and differences between the two paradigms.
Abstract: This article presents some of the most relevant concepts in the different relational sociologies proposed, respectively, by Nick Crossley and Pierpaolo Donati, with the aim of finding similarities and differences between the two paradigms. The article shows that the two relational paradigms are quite different. The relational sociology theorized by Crossley inscribes the social reality within an "interaction frame of reference", whereas the relational sociology proposed by Donati suggests a "relational frame of reference". At the methodological level, however, both paradigms allow to study properly the social networks. Although starting from different epistemological perspectives, the two relational sociologies tend to analyze the social reality as a network structure of relations, promoting the use of social network analysis.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical exposure of Mustafa Emirbayer's sociological proposal, with particular attention to its position within a specific relational approach, which the author explicitly defines as "transactional", is presented.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is the critical exposure of Mustafa Emirbayer’s sociological proposal, with particular attention to its position within a specific relational approach, which the author explicitly defines as "transactional". The article first discusses part of the author's work. In dealing with Social Network Analysis, Emirbayer begins to outline his idea of social relationship as a connection between individuals. We then proceed to analyse the thesis underpinning the Manifesto, published in 1997 with the explicit intent of providing the epistemological connotation of social relations as a transaction. In the following sections, we deal with the theoretical and empirical implications of this proposal, with particular reference to the development of the theory of agency and the overcoming of the dichotomies that still characterize the contemporary sociological thought. Finally, we compare Mustafa Emirbayer’s transactional sociology and Pierpaolo Donati's relational sociology, trying to identify their main differences.