Cosmopolitan sociology and the classical canon: Ferdinand Tönnies and the emergence of global Gesellschaft

How relevant are figures from the classical sociological canon for present day efforts to found cosmopolitan forms of sociological thought? According to the critique of Ulrich Beck, the classical sociologists remain far too wedded to nation‐state‐centred ways of thinking to play an important role in the development of cosmopolitan sociology. This paper argues that such a critique fails to account for the ways in which certain classical sociologists were attuned to the emerging cosmopolitical conditions of their own time, were not wholly wedded to nation‐state‐based conceptualizations, and thus can function as both groundings of, and inspirations for, cosmopolitan sociological endeavours. The apparently unpromising case of Tönnies is focused on, the paper showing how he outlined an account of how and why a planet‐spanning condition of Gesellschaft developed a position which diverges from and counterpoints Marx's analysis of similar phenomena in important ways. The stereotype of Tönnies as an arch‐conservative is also dissolved, allowing him to be considered as one of the most important antecedents of contemporary cosmopolitan sociological practice and a canonical figure still relevant for present‐day purposes.     

Robert Nisbet and the Problem of Community

The article traces the importance and development of the concept of ‘community’ in Robert Nisbet’s sociological theory. Community and voluntary associations were key components of his view of civil society, because they stood between the individual and the state as bastions of personal liberty against authoritarianism. This idea was taken from Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of America democracy and developed by Nisbet as a critique of modern America. The article examines the conservative underpinnings of Nisbet’s sociology and compares his perspective on civil society with the idea of civil religion in J-J Rousseau and Robert Bellah. Nisbet’s perspective is criticised because not all voluntary associations have beneficial effects on civil society. The article considers how far his views on authority and community are still relevant and concludes by making a distinction between ‘sticky societies’ that are hard to join and difficult to leave and ‘elastic societies’ that are easy to join and cost-free to leave, and asks whether community is possible when the Internet has transformed sticky relationships into elastic, thin and dispersed relationships.     

Problems of Taxonomy,Issues of Class,Citizenship, Consumption,and Avdot’ia Smirnova’s KoKoKo (2012)

Sundry discussions of Russian society by scholars, journalists, and politicians suffer from imprecise taxonomy, wielding labels such as middle class, civil society, and creative class in an automatic transfer of discursive categories long defining Western societies to one at increasing odds with numerous Western values. As various surveys by Russian sociologists have indicated, a ‘middle class’ and ‘civil society’ in the traditional sense do not exist in Russia. Moreover, even ‘the intelligentsia’, as historically defined, seems to have diminished, evaporated, or emigrated. Indeed, the incisive portrayal of contemporary Russian class distinctions in Avdot’ia Smirnova’s film KoKoKo (2012) exposes the impotence of the self-serving intelligentsia, contrasted to the vitality and drive of ‘the people’, who may be the only hope for Russia’s future – neither the radiant future fantasized by the Soviet Union nor the democratic future that seemed possible after perestroika, but one that meaningful resistance to the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime will need to elaborate step by painstaking step.     

Digital Storytelling: putting young asylum seekers at the heart of the story

Abstract

As new stories from asylum seekers and refugees permeate the reality of European societies today, a whole new set of challenges and opportunities arise for building a common sense of belonging. Spaces for intercultural dialogue become crucial in connecting us all in a way that allows us to discover ‘the other’ through our own process of self-reflection and self-discovery. This paper presents our experience in working with a method of digital storytelling with a group of young asylum seekers and refugees living in Belgium and Sweden. It explores the need for adopting an intercultural perspective to our diverse societies by offering opportunities to get to know each other through our personal stories, going beyond the surface, and thus puts the focus on the potential of ‘the other’ in being an active part of the development of our common society.     

Global Governance,neoliberalism and national responses: The case of Bangladesh’s ready‐made garment (RMG) sector

This article on the ready‐made garment (RMG) sector of Bangladesh shows how over‐reliance on foreign capital for development financing and deregulated investment—a hallmark of neoliberal economic arrangements—undermines the incorporation of SDGs’ and INGOs’ equity principles, contributing to biased policy responses yielding unequal outcomes. The article cautions that while countries prioritize economic growth over social and environmental nourishment and continue to adopt neoliberal economic policies to promote economic growth, inequity is unavoidable, if not inevitable. Thus, the way forward may be to shift the focus of ‘development’ from the economy to society, to building ‘good societies’ where institutions and strategies, including those that contribute to economic growth, are organized such that these complement not compromise the evolution of such societies.     

Hierarchical multiplicity in the international monetary system: from the slave trade to the Franc CFA in West Africa

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the relationship between international currency hierarchies and ‘societal multiplicity’. I provide an historical sketch of how West African societies and the rest of the world have engaged in trading money for slaves and raw commodities for centuries. I concur that societal multiplicity can indeed be seen as lying at the root of the global monetary system with its multiple currencies. However, my analysis offers three criticisms: First, the multiplicity project fails to give adequate attention to hierarchies in general and to those that come with monetary relations in particular. Second, Because of the existence of the world market, there is always a global and hierarchical sphere that is non-identical to societies and transcends their interaction. Third, money as both global and multiple relation points at the need for a more dynamic understanding of ‘society’ as political and economic borders do not necessarily map unto each other.     

Distorted integration: Problems of monolithic order

For generating a theory of integration in today's modem multicultural societies, we must go beyond reductionists’ ‘objective’ interpretations and instead use a concept of social solidarity based on individuals’ loyally to society and its values. The matter of integration cannot be reduced to a process of adoption of the host societies’ ‘norms’ and ‘values’ by immigrants. Such a process does not completely change the people's lifestyles, but it modifies them. One of the most important characteristics of integrated society has to do with the individuals’ active participation in the production and reproduction of their own life with little or no dependence on state subsidies.     

What Not to Wear? Girls,Clothing and ‘Showing’ the Body

Consumption practices of children in contemporary Western societies are implicated in the reconstruction of childhood, according to both popular debate and to those academic perspectives stressing the individualisation of identities within the life course of late modern consumer societies. Yet, little is known about the meanings children themselves give to their own consumption. Drawing from an ethnographic study of children aged 6–11 years and their families, the paper presents girls’ constructions of fashion in relation to their own bodies and to those of others. It is shown that although girls may both desire and actually ‘dress up’ in fashionable clothing, they present a range of contingent and contradictory meanings for doing so. For some girls, ‘dressing up’ in certain clothes may be a way of ‘ageing up’ toward feminine adulthood, albeit in restricted contexts and after negotiations between themselves and their parents as to what can be worn and where. Nonetheless, girls in the study also showed anxieties and disapproval of ‘showing the body’ through ‘revealing’ clothing. The article concludes by considering the implication of these findings for debates about gendered childhoods, and intergenerational relations in late modern consumer society.     

Metabolism and colonization. Modes of production and the physical exchange between societies and nature

Written by a sociologist and a biologist, this paper attempts an interdisciplinary approach to describing the basic exchange relations between human societies and their natural environments. One type of exchange relation is termed ‘metabolism’ and related to the biological metabolism member organisms of societies require. A historical overview (part 1) demonstrates this exchange relation in terms of mass throughput per inhabitant to have grown in the course of human cultural evolution—without necessarily increasing the quality of life of those concerned—to the twentyfold it now amounts to in industrial societies (as is demonstrated empirically for Austria in part 3). A strategy of ‘contraction of physical metabolism’ (reduction of physical growth irrespective of ‘economic’ growth) of industrial societies is proposed as a strategic means of survival and possible ways to this goal are discussed quantitatively. The other exchange relation termed ‘colonization’ refers to treatments of natural environments that purposively change some components to render better exploitability (for the purpose of social metabolism), while still relying upon their basic self‐regenerating qualities. It is sketched how colonization strategies developed historically, and it is demonstrated empirically that industrial societies now use about 50% of the available plant biomass (the energetic basis of all animal life) upon their territories for human purposes (part 4). Part 5 classifies different ‘paradigms’ for judging the ‘harmfulness’ of social interventions into the environment and outlines the logic of an information system that would enable society to generate an awareness of its own interventions into nature. On the whole the paper presents a theoretical as well as an empirical attempt to view societies as physical systems (among other physical systems on this planet) and confront sociology with the paradigmatic task to analyze the social regulation of these physical processes.     

What was Bitcoin,what will it be? The techno-economic imaginaries of a new money technology

In its first decade, Bitcoin has not proven to be a practical money form for most circumstances, but it has become a staging ground for debate around the cultural role of money in society. This debate is poised between two related but ultimately incompatible techno-economic imaginaries: infrastructural mutualism and digital metallism. Each offers a theory not just of money, but also of relations, identities, and the larger imaginaries we call ‘society’ and ‘the economy’. In particular, they offer distinct visions of what it means to be a ‘peer’ in a peer-to-peer money system, and perhaps, a peer-to-peer society. This article traces the pre-history of Bitcoin, as well as more recent developments, to inquire about its future, as well as the future of money more broadly.     

From Indymedia to Anonymous: rethinking action and identity in digital cultures

The period following the social mobilizations of 2011 has seen a renewed focus on the place of communication in collective action, linked to the increasing importance of digital communications. Framed in terms of personalized ‘connective action’ or the social morphology of networks, these analyses have criticized previously dominant models of ‘collective identity’, arguing that collective action needs to be understood as ‘digital networking’. These influential approaches have been significantly constructed as a response to models of communication and action evident in the rise of Independent Media Centres in the period following 1999. After considering the rise of the ‘digital networking’ paradigm linked to analyses of Indymedia, this article considers the emergence of the internet-based collaboration known as Anonymous, focusing on its origins on the 4chan manga site and its 2008 campaign against Scientology, and also considers the ‘I am the 99%’ microblog that emerged as part of the Occupy movement. The emergence of Anonymous highlights dimensions of digital culture such as the ephemeral, the importance of memes, an ethic of lulz, the mask and the grotesque. These forms of communication are discussed in the light of dominant attempts to shape digital space in terms of radical transparency, the knowable and the calculable. It is argued that these contrasting approaches may amount to opposing social models of an emerging information society, and that the analysis of contemporary conflicts and mobilizations needs to be alert to novel forms of communicative practice at work in digital cultures today.     

Not necessarily a place: How mobile transnational online workers (digital nomads) construct and experience ‘home’

This article adds to current research on mobile transnational online workers (digital nomads) who travel the world in search of a holistic lifestyle that balances work and leisure. Using Kannisto's (2014) and D'Andrea's (2007) work on ‘global nomads’ as a theoretical lens and Nowicka's (2007) research on mobile professionals as a guide, I discuss the multiple meanings of ‘home’ for digital nomads who stayed in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2019. I will show that people feel at home when travelling with a loved one or by surrounding themselves with objects of emotional value. Furthermore, digital nomads create a feeling of being at home by connecting with their family via social media and video calling apps, while at the same time keeping them at a comfortable distance. Finally, some digital nomads envision an idealized ‘home base’ that is defined by social relations and not necessarily by the geography or amenities of a place.     

Isolated housewives and complex maternal worlds – The significance of social contacts between women with young children in industrial societies*

This article reconsiders the picture of the mother of young children in industrialised societies as the ‘isolated housewife’, suggesting this notion is by no means straightforward. We suggest there is considerable evidence for the existence of mothers' social contacts and their significance both as ‘work’ and ‘friendship’ in industrial societies. A pre-occupation with the notion of the ‘isolation’ of ‘housewives’ has led social researchers to neglect sustained examination of the social relationships within which many/most mothers are involved on a day-to-day basis. Complexities of interpretation, for example what ‘isolation’ can actually mean, need to be drawn out from the existing literature. Evidence presented from two recent ethnographic studies shows patterned opportunities/constraints occurring in relation to mothers' social contacts within localised settings, whether through organised groups or other personal ties. The complex nature of individual women's social contacts is thus brought out. Some key questions are raised for the importance to sociology, anthropology and social policy of these apparently insignificant or invisible women's networks.     

Re-conceptualizing Civil Society: Towards a Radical Understanding

The article examines problematic aspects of contemporary theoretical thinking about civil society within a Western liberal-democratic context. The impact of neo-liberalism upon narratives of civil society, the assumption that civility resides more conspicuously within the world of associational life, and the tendency to conflate ‘civil society’ with the ‘third sector’ are areas critically discussed. Such conceptual incongruities, it is argued, obscure the path to a more radical theoretical understanding of civil society. In the second part of the article an alternative model of civil society is proposed. Supporting Evers premise that ‘every attempt to narrow down civil society to the third sector seriously impoverishes the very concept of civil society’ (Evers, Voluntary Sector Review 1:116, 2010), it is argued that civil society is best understood as a normative political concept, as being contingent in nature and distinct from the third sector.     

Institutionalization of Mongolian shamanism: from primitivism to civilization

This article traced the construction of the Mongolian term and concept böö mörgöl, which denotes ‘shamanism’, later developed to böögiin shashin meaning ‘shamanic religion’. Although the term bö’e (alternatively böge or böö), referring to spiritual practitioners such as shamans, appears early in the literature from the thirteenth century onward, the combination böö mörgöl and khara shajin meaning ‘black religion’ is fairly recent and first appeared in sources from the nineteenth century. Its latest version, böögiin shashin, has an even shorter history dating as recently to 1980s, and has spread rapidly over the last two decades. I argue that ‘shamanism’ in Mongolia has been constructed in scholarly works mostly by public involvement and shamans themselves. More precisely, academic discourses have played a key role in institutionalizing individual spiritual practitioners in two fields, first by creating a history for ‘Mongolian shamanism’ and second by creating archetypes for miscellaneous spiritual practices and practitioners. The concept böö mörgöl have been used in translating and importing the Western construction of ‘shamanism’ while in the next step of development, böögiin shashin was important in institutionalizing a national religion of shamanism versus world religions. As a result, Mongols have an original religion which has been the main building block in constructing Mongolian ‘nomadic civilization’.     

Lorist,reformist and romanticist: The nineteenth‐century response to Gypsy‐travellers

Gypsy‐travellers have always occupied an uncertain and contradictory position in sedentary‐based societies. Although performing significant economic and social functions this contribution was more usually overshadowed by the points at which they clashed with the structures and ideologies of the dominant and ‘host’ society. In the nineteenth century the Gypsy‐travellers were popularly presented in two distinct ways: as a Romany race and as degenerate itinerants. These varying perspectives originated from different sources and represented contrasting approaches to the Gypsy/nomadic ‘problem’. The validity, purpose and consequences of these apparently conflicting images form the subject of this article.     

Imaginaries of postponed arrival: on seeing ‘society’ and its ‘immigrants’

This paper discusses a logic of seeing in official assessments of the ‘integration of immigrants’ in West European societies and interprets these as arrival narratives. In postcolonial and diasporic literature, the arrival narrative is not concerned with the actual date of arrival but with the question ‘how much has someone really arrived?’ (Quayson, A. 2013. Postcolonialism and the diasporic imaginary. Lecture series: New directions in literary postcolonial studies. Utrecht University, 7 Oct.). The official, state-initiated monitoring of immigrant integration is based upon measurements of the degree to which the population classified as ‘immigrant’ is ‘integrated’ in a ‘host society’. In literary terms, this can be interpreted as a narrative in which a personage – classified in highly specific, contingent ways, as ‘immigrant’ – is portrayed as being in a mode of arriving but without having arrived and without ever really arriving. The way in which this narrative of postponed arrival is shaped involves a specific way of seeing in the routinized work of quantitatively assessing immigrant integration. With the narratological concept of focalization we analyse a logic of seeing present in the reports and images of immigrant integration monitoring practices in the Netherlands. Moreover, we discuss the workings of a societal gaze, instituted on the basis of particular societal norms reproduced at the ‘place of arrival’, that is, the place imagined as ‘society’. This societal gaze operates as a performative practice distributing a way of seeing, thereby enacting the reproduction of existing power asymmetries between ‘members of society’ and ‘immigrants’. As such, we conclude, the hope for ‘arrival’ constitutes a form of ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant, L., 2011. Cruel optimism. Durham: Duke University Press).     

Competing Sovereignties,Contested Processes: Insights from the Venezuelan Food Sovereignty Experiment

Abstract

This article explores how ‘competing sovereignties’ are shaping the political construction of food sovereignty—broadly defined as ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems'. This study was motivated by a lack of clarity on the ‘sovereignty’ of food sovereignty, as noted by numerous scholars—sovereignty for whom, and how? As there is a growing consensus that there are in fact ‘multiple sovereignties’ of food sovereignty that cut across jurisdictions and scales, there is the question of how these sovereignties are competing with each other in the attempted construction of food sovereignty. This question is becoming ever more relevant as food sovereignty is increasingly adopted into state policy at various levels, calling for state and societal actors to redefine their terms of engagement. This article explores questions of ‘competing sovereignties’ by developing an analytical framework, using the lenses of scale, geography, and institutions, and applying it to Venezuela, where for the past 15 years a food sovereignty experiment has been underway in the context of a dynamic shift in state–society relations.     

Communicating mixed messages about religion through internet memes

This article investigates the dominant messages Internet memes communicate about religion. Internet memes about religion are defined as, ‘memes circulated on the Internet whose images and texts focus on a variety of religious themes and/or religious traditions’ (Bellar et al., 2013). By drawing on meme genres identified by Shifman (2012) and analyzing techniques used to frame ideas concerning religion in memes, this study identifies common genres found amongst religious Internet meme and core frames used to present messages and assumptions about religion online. This article further draws attention to the importance of studying religion in digital contexts, as it highlights trends, recognized by scholars toward ‘Lived Religion’ within digital culture (Campbell, 2012). Lived Religion argues that contemporary media and digital culture provide important resources for presenting popular beliefs about religion. This study also suggests that studying Internet memes about religion provides a useful lens for understanding popular conceptions about religion within mainstream culture.