Relational sociology

About: Relational sociology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 215 publications have been published within this topic receiving 6927 citations. The topic is also known as: Structural interactionism.

Culture and Social Networks

Abstract: Since the early 1990s, social networks and culture are increasingly seen as intertwined and studied in conjunction. This “cultural turn” of network research is based on the relational sociology of Harrison White and others. It links classical structuralism with cultural analysis. Three approaches to the linkage of culture and social networks can be distinguished: The first traces cultural developments, for example, in science or in art, to network constellations: collective identities arise out of densely connected networks; new styles emerge at the intersection of network clusters from the combination of previously unconnected repertoires. The second approach views social networks themselves as intricately interwoven with culture. Roles in a network (e.g., kinship roles) are built on culturally available blueprints (institutions). As are relationships that varyingly adopt relationship frames such as “love” or “patronage.” Styles and collective identities develop from network constellations and shape them in turn. The third approach analyzes culture itself as a network of symbols and concepts. Their meaning lies in the relations to other concepts and symbols. Network analyses of culture have frequently analyzed the meaning of role categories and of relationship frames, thus linking the three approaches. Areas of particular interest for going forward include research on micro-events in networks, the interplay of networks with ethnic categories and cultural differences, and the role of networks in societal fields. Keywords: social networks; culture; institution; role; relationships; style; collective identity; category; identity; story

Spontaneous order and relational sociology: from the Scottish Enlightenment to human figurations

Abstract: If viewed from a long-term and large-scale perspective, human interdependencies today can be seen as approaching species integration on a worldwide level. However, emergent worldwide processes of integration and differentiation tend to be reduced to static concept-things such as “governmentality”, “globalization”, “cosmopolitanization”, “mobilities”, and “networks”, helping to obscure the mundane processes of institution formation, in particular the tenacious endurance of the nation-state. This paper argues that the pathological realism of neoliberal globalization today can be more adequately approached by engaging with the historical precursors of the so-called “relational turn” in contemporary sociology. The earlier relational sociology of the Scottish enlightenment, particularly Adam Ferguson (1767), Adam Smith (1776) and David Hume (1739) developed ideas of spontaneous order and such related concepts as “the invisible hand” and “unintended consequences” in an attempt to understand and control the rapid transformation of Scotland, a relatively under-developed economy on the edge of Europe. The Scottish spontaneous order tradition is compared to Elias’s idea of “figuration” as an unplanned but patterned process of increasingly complex and opaque social interdependencies and functional democratization. This process appears to have reached definite limits. Humanity is ensnared in a compelling global double-bind process of armed states that continue to threaten, endanger and fear each other, and a pervasive elite belief in the spontaneous efficiency and self-correcting mechanisms of the global “magic market”.

The “Relational Turn” in the Social Sciences

Abstract: The chapter starts with an argument that informs the entire book: the major difference between relational and non-relational approaches is not in their emphasis on the importance of social relations in their analyses, but the fundamentally different understanding of those relations. Relational approaches view relations as constitutive and therefore, the entities and their relations cannot be considered as being separate from one another. A non-relational approach presumes the primacy and givenness of entities that might or might not enter relations with other such entities. In most cases, the relations in that sense are presumed to be causal, which entails considering relations and entities as being separate from one another. This simple distinction between relational and non-relational approaches is “tested” by the discussions between “substantialism” and “relationalism” as they are found in discussions of relational sociology. The chapter concludes by comparing the substantialist and relational understandings of social processes.

Nternet and prospects of sociology

Abstract: This article examines how the Internet and new data analytics challenges established epistemologies. Opportunities and limitations of two different sociologic approaches related to the social network analysis – “social network analysis” and “relational sociology” – are considered by the author. With the emergence of the Internet several new topics have been put on the sociological agenda: social network analysis, big data; rethinking the methodology of data collection and production; changing nature of the object of sociology. The basic conclusions are as follows. The online space, from its origins until now, has been an amorphous social phenomenon without existing structures (social forms), without institutional hierarchy but with strong and frequent new semiotic streams, with a topology not yet known to us. Credible hypotheses including such categories as “human”, “culture”, “structures” should be proposed to understand and forecast the evolution of the complicated social systems. Sociologists will get rid of the naturalistic absolutization of such categories as “space”, “time”, “social structures”. New practices and social technologies will be introduced to better understand and predict things, events and meanings. The semiotics will take strong positions in sociological studies; it will deal with the observed socio-cultural phenomena (system of proximity, myths, fashion, behavior patterns) providing researchers with an “access code” to the everyday life.