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Social theory
About: Social theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11421 publications have been published within this topic receiving 624898 citations.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the potential and relevance of paradigms that lie outside the dominant discourses and traditions of economics and psychology and detail the implications of a handful of key propositions anchored in a "strong" interpretation of practice theory.
Abstract: Understanding how societies change is core business for the social sciences and there is no shortage of theories about how transitions come about. Despite this reservoir of ideas, efforts to promote more sustainable patterns of consumer behaviour draw upon a remarkably narrow range of conceptual resources. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential and the relevance of paradigms that lie outside the dominant discourses and traditions of economics and psychology. The method is to detail the implications of a handful of key propositions anchored in a ‘strong’ interpretation of practice theory. By organising this discussion around an invented conversation between a fictional policy-maker and an equally fictional social scientist, the paper explores further questions regarding the role of social theory and evidence in contemporary policy.
195 citations
Book•
26 Apr 2002
TL;DR: In this article, Farquhar analyzes modern Chinese reflections on embodied existence to show how contemporary appetites are grounded in history, from eating well in improving economic times to memories of the late 1950s famine, from the flavors of traditional Chinese medicine to modernity's private sexual passions.
Abstract: Judith Farquhar’s innovative study of medicine and popular culture in modern China reveals the thoroughly political and historical character of pleasure. Ranging over a variety of cultural terrains--fiction, medical texts, film and television, journalism, and observations of clinics and urban daily life in Beijing— Appetites challenges the assumption that the mundane enjoyments of bodily life are natural and unvarying. Farquhar analyzes modern Chinese reflections on embodied existence to show how contemporary appetites are grounded in history.
From eating well in improving economic times to memories of the late 1950s famine, from the flavors of traditional Chinese medicine to modernity’s private sexual passions, this book argues that embodiment in all its forms must be invented and sustained in public reflections about personal and national life. As much at home in science studies and social theory as in the details of life in Beijing, this account uses anthropology, cultural studies, and literary criticism to read contemporary Chinese life in a materialist and reflexive mode. For both Maoist and market reform periods, this is a story of high culture in appetites, desire in collective life, and politics in the body and its dispositions.
195 citations
TL;DR: The notion of social practice and a family of notions akin to it play an essential role in contemporary philosophical reflection, with particular reference to the conceptualisation of historical processes as mentioned in this paper, and Turner's book A Social Theory of Practices (1994) has provided a major challenge to this family.
Abstract: The notion of social practice and a family of notions akin to it play an essential role in contemporary philosophical reflection, with particular reference to the conceptualisation of historical processes. Stephen Turner's book A Social Theory of Practices (1994) has provided a major challenge to this family of notions, and our purpose is to outline a grounding account of the notion of social practice in the form of an answer to Turner's criticisms. We try to answer three questions: first, if it is necessary to grant a tacit dimension to transmittable habits; second, if and how a tacit dimension of "meaning" could be intersubjectively transmitted; third, what is the possible role of rationality in changing social practices. Our discussion moves from Wittgenstein's argument on rule-following; in its wake we try to examine the nature of habits as a basis for rules and discuss their temporal sedimentation, inertia and modes of intersubjective transmission. In conclusion we support the idea that social practices must rely on a tacit dimension, that their tacit dimension does not represent a hindrance to intersubjective transmission, and that the possible dogmatism of social practices is not due to their "hidden" side, but to their explicit quasi-rational side.
195 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, a structural approach to social representation is presented, which is based on a theory of methods and methods of social representation. But it does not consider the relationship between social representations and social identity.
Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgments. List of Contributors. Part I: Framing the Issues. 1. Introduction. (Gina Philogene and Kay Deaux). 2. Why a Theory of Social Representations? (Serge Moscovici). Part II: Doing Social Representation Research. 3. A Theory of Methods. (Gina Philogene). 4. A Structural Approach to Social Representations. (Jean--Claude Abric). 5. The King is Naked. Critical Advertisement and Fashion: The Benetton Phenomenon: Annamaria Silvana de Rosa. 6. Social Positioning and Social Representations. (Alain Clemence). 7. Human Rights Studied as Normative Social Representations. (Willem Doise). 8. From Race to Culture: The Emergence of African American. (Gina Philogene). Part III: Social Representation and Social Construction. 9. Functional Aspects of Social Representation. (Saadi Lahlou). 10. Killer Tomatoes! Collective Symbolic Coping with Biotechnology. (Wolfgang Wagner and Nicole Kronberger). 11. Social Representations, Public Life and Social Construction. (Sandra Jovchelovitch). 12. Social Representations: Catching a Good Idea. (Hazel Rose Markus and Victoria C. Plaut). 13. What We Do and Dona t Know about the Functions of Social Representations. (John T. Jost and Gabriel Ignatow). Part IV: Social Representation and Social Categorization. 14. Social Categorization: Towards Theoretical Integration. (Martha Augoustinos). 15. The When and the Why of How: From Mental Representation to Social Representations. (Fabio Lorenzi--Cioldi). 16. Attitudes, Social Representations and Beyond. (George Gaskell). 17. Social Cognition, Social Representations, and the Dilemmas of Social Theory Construction. (Arie W. Kruglanski). 18. Social and Societal Pragmatism: Susan Fiske. Part V: Social Representation and Social Identification. 19. Representations, Identities, Resistance. (Gerard Duveen). 20. Social Representational Constraints upon Identity Development. (Glynis M Breakwell). 21. Identity, Language and Representations: A Natural System at Work. (Marisa Zavalloni). 22. Social Identities and Social Representations: A Question of Priority? (Marilynn B. Brewer). 23. Meaning and Making: Some Comments on Content and Process. (Kay Deaux). 24. Epilogue. (Kay Deaux and Gina Philogene). References. Index.
194 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The Politics of Space: Social Movements and Public Space as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays about social relations in the city, focusing on gender, sexuality, and the city.
Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Community and Solitude: Social Relations in the City. 2. Spaces of Difference and Division. 3. The Politics of Space: Social Movements and Public Space. 4. Capital and Culture: Gentrifying the City. 5. Embodied Spaces: Gender, Sexuality and the City. 6. Spatial Stories: Subjectivity in the City. 7. Making Space: Urban Cultures, Spatial Tactics. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.
194 citations