Cosmopolitan communities of climate risk: conceptual and empirical suggestions for a new research agenda

Mitigating human‐induced climate change calls for a globalized change of consciousness and practice. These global challenges also demand a double transformation of the social sciences – first, from ‘methodological nationalism’ to ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ and, second, an empirical reorientation towards ‘cosmopolitization’ as the social force of emerging cosmopolitan realities. One of these realities is the possible emergence, locally and globally, of ‘cosmopolitan communities of climate risk’ in response to a ‘world at risk’. A key research question for contemporary social science is thus: how and where are new cosmopolitan communities of climate risk being imagined and realized? In this article, we propose and explore a research agenda formulated around this key question. We both develop a theoretical perspective and provide short empirical illustrations of case studies regarding ongoing research in Europe and East Asia on such cosmopolitan climate risk communities.     

On the relation between ‘visual research methods’ and contemporary visual culture

One of the most striking developments across the social sciences in the past decade has been the growth of research methods using visual materials. It is often suggested that this growth is somehow related to the increasing importance of visual images in contemporary social and cultural practice. However, the form of the relationship between ‘visual research methods’ and ‘contemporary visual culture’ has not yet been interrogated. This paper conducts such an interrogation, exploring the relation between ‘visual research methods’ – as they are constituted in quite particular ways by a growing number of handbooks, reviews, conference and journals – and contemporary visual culture – as characterized by discussions of ‘convergence culture’. The paper adopts a performative approach to ‘visual research methods’. It suggests that when they are used, ‘visual research methods’ create neither a ‘social’ articulated through culturally mediated images, nor a ‘research participant’ competency in using such images. Instead, the paper argues that the intersection of visual culture and ‘visual research methods’ should be located in their shared way of using images, since in both, images tend to be deployed much more as communicational tools than as representational texts. The paper concludes by placing this argument in the context of recent discussions about the production of sociological knowledge in the wider social field.     

The Sociology of Traditional,Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and traditional medicine (TM) are important social phenomena. This article reviews the sociological literature on the topic. First, it addresses the question of terminology, arguing that the naming process is a glimpse into the complexities of power and history that characterize the field. Second, focusing on the last 15 years of scholarship, it considers how sociological research on users and practitioners of TM/CAM has developed in that time. Third, it addresses two newer strands of work termed here the ‘big picture’ and the ‘big question’. The big picture includes concepts that offer interpretation of what is happening at a societal level to constrain and enable observed patterns of social practice (pluralism, integration, hybridity and activism). The big question, ‘Does it work?’, is one of epistemology and focuses on two developing fields of critical enquiry – first, social critiques of medical science knowledge production and, second, attempts to explain the nature of interventions, i.e. how they work. Finally, the article examines the role of sociology moving forward.     

Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural Sciences

The subject of this article is the relationship between cultural sociology and approaches to culture in other social science disciplines. What are the characteristics of the theoretical environment, in which cultural sociology is operating? The article begins by reviewing the literature on interdisciplinarity. Many authors argue that interdisciplinarity is increasing or should be increasing, but the general consensus is that disciplinary isolation is the norm. From this perspective, the relationships between disciplines can be understood in terms of trading zones, in which fields in different disciplines have little in common, theoretically, or empirically. Interdisciplinary communication in ‘trading zones’ requires that participants laboriously construct a set of terms that permits them to exchange ideas. Alternatively, I propose that clusters of fields in different disciplines are linked by free-floating paradigms. Participants in disciplines that share ‘free-floating paradigms’ are able to communicate with one another more readily. The article presents evidence for the second interpretation, drawn from survey articles in disciplinary handbooks. Disciplines and fields in which the study of culture draws from the same pool of paradigms and models and shares a set of lines of inquiry with cultural sociology include traditional disciplines, such as anthropology, communication, geography, history and psychology, and interdisciplinary fields, such as cultural studies, communication, feminist theory, material culture, science studies, and visual culture. Interdisciplinary fields – particularly cultural studies – perform an important role in diffusing paradigms across disciplinary boundaries. Free-floating paradigms are associated with the work of major theorists, such as Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Foucault, Bourdieu, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Clifford Geertz, Bruno Latour, Adorno, Gramsci, and Habermas.     

Sense making through poem houses: an arts-based approach to understanding leadership

This article introduces an arts-based approach to leadership inquiry using ‘Poem houses’ – an art form developed by Brigid Collins. Poem houses are three dimensional artefacts combining visual interpretation with poetic text and which hold special significance for the maker. The bringing together of poetry and assemblage in the artworks made by Collins is a conscious attempt to create the conditions in which an ‘uncovering’ may happen, by means of a process of layered collage and juxtaposed words and images – in what amounts to ‘intermediality’. This artistic form has inspired the methods and tools used in the workshops led, with Grisoni and described in this paper. The focus for this inquiry is leadership development and, in particular, sense making processes arising from the creation of and reflections on poem houses made by workshop participants. The poem houses provide an innovative visual narrative of individual and organisational experiences of leadership. Examples are drawn from a workshop for public sector managers where we show how new insights of what it means to be a leader and collective reflections on the creative process were generated. These findings create individual and organisational narratives that contribute to our understandings of the current context of public sector leadership.     

Getting to know reality and breaking stereotypes: the experience of two generations of working disabled women

This paper sets out the results of a Spanish study of the experience and meaning of work among disabled women of two generations, with three types of disability (physical, visual and hearing). Performing a socially recognised activity such as a job is a source of emotional welfare and self‐esteem. Moreover, it confers a certain social status. For the participants in this study the kind of work involved, whether productive, paid and ‘extra‐domestic’ or ‘reproductive’, unpaid and done at home, acquires different meanings, since for disabled women, sexist stereotypes – already more or less accentuated in the culture – social attitudes towards disability and personal factors introduce relevant differences, while leading to conflicts and dilemmas that these women have to solve. At any rate, their sense of responsibility in performing all types of work should be emphasised as evidence of their sense of independence and personal competence, forming a keystone in their construction of a sense of identity and social integration.     

Social acceleration and the network effect: a defence of social ‘science fiction’ and network determinism

This essay is a response to Judy Wajcman's essay ‘Life in the fast lane? Towards a sociology of technology and time’ (2008: 59–77). In that article Wajcman argued that recent developments in the sociology of temporal change had been marked by a tendency in social theory towards a form of ‘science fiction’– a sociological theorizing, she maintains, that bears no real relation to actual, empirically provable developments in the field and should therefore be viewed as not contributing to ‘a richer analysis of the relationship between technology and time’ (2008: 61). This reply argues that as Wajcman suggests in her essay, there is indeed an ‘urgent need for increased dialogue to connect social theory with detailed empirical studies’ (2008: 59) but that the most fruitful way to proceed would not be through a constraining of ‘science fiction’ social theorizing but, rather, through its expansion – and more, that ‘science fiction’ should take the lead in the process. This essay suggests that the connection between social theory and empirical studies would be strengthened by a wider understanding of the function of knowledge and research in the context of what is termed ‘true originality’ and ‘routine originality’. The former is the domain of social theory and the latter resides within traditional sociological disciplines. It is argued that both need each other to advance our understanding of society, especially in the context of the fast‐changing processes of technological development. The example of ‘technological determinism’ is discussed as illustrative of how ‘routine originality’ can harden into dogma without the application of ‘true originality’ to continually question (sometimes through ideas that may appear to border on ‘science fiction’) comfortable assumptions that may have become ‘routine’ and shorn of their initial ‘originality’.     

Little naked pangs of the self: the real performance of the self and the function of trust in Goffman's action theory

The aim of this article is to discuss some of the leading features of Erving Goffman's action theory as an alternative to the ‘orthodox’ paradigms of sociology, viewed as a structuralist and functionalist science that defines social constructs by their shared rules and values, and as a drifting of action, in the sense of intention, toward an individualistic version. The author examines Goffman's shift of the focus of attention from the boundaries of a social sense of action to the social dialectic of ‘defining a situation’ (W. Thomas) as conducted by the social actors in a renewal of Simmel's ‘empowering covenants’ (wechselwirkung) in the multiple casual social connections that make up the ‘social buzz’ in a society. The author moreover discusses Goffman's action as a kind of playacting regulating cognitive and expressive face-to-face ‘traffic’ between the social actors. This relational dynamic creates an interactive play based on encounters – in which one's opening to another is fraught with risks of deception – regulated by trust as a central resource for social interactions. Trust, in its interpersonal and systemic variants, constitutes a universal social datum and an elementary precondition for social exchanges and the cooperation between individuals. Trust, thus, functions as comparer between reciprocal expectations and a regulator of freedom tending to the stability of the social system.     

Investigating the organizational everyday: a critical feminist approach

ABSTRACT

This article considers the possibilities and limits of applying institutional ethnography, a feminist theoretical and methodological approach that contributes to collective projects of investigating and transforming social life. Elaborating on the approach, the article reports on an ethnographic exploration of visual artists’ experiences and struggles in Canada's art world – a project that started from the standpoint of practising visual artists, examined their work and relations, and explicated practices and logics of art and valued work conditioning their lives. Speaking back to formal or text-based investigations of particular institutions, the article grapples with how to engage in research that more fully reveals the ‘social,’ attending to everyday life, to the ‘life work’ that people do, and to social forms that are threaded through intersecting, localized intimate and institutional spheres.     

Index of Volume 4, 2002

This article links a theoretical debate within poststructural feminisms – whether feminist politics can be pursued without hegemonic representations of women and gender – to the practice of transnational feminist organizing in the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in Durban in 2001. It goes beyond the traditional analysis of ‘adding’ gender to a mega world conference and asks the critical question of what

gender signifies in this instance of UN politics. The article argues that feminists’ strategic use of the concept of ‘gender as intersectionality’ marks a paradigm shift from the predominant monolithic representation of gender as women, being equal to or different from men, in international human rights frameworks. It puts the issue of diversity among women at the forefront of the intergovernmental WCAR. Far from entailing an abandonment of feminist politics, as some poststructuralist feminists have suggested, it is argued that opening up ‘gender’ for unlimited signification in

the case of WCAR marks the beginning of a new phase of transnational feminist mobilization.     

Media art and the resurrection of an image: motion and sculpturing

The last decades' increase in the visual methods in social science has not been reflected in the study of religion. There is a rather perplexing absence of such methods in the study of religion, given the importance of visual symbolism in many religious traditions. This article is about photo-elicitation among young Christians, Muslims and non-religious people in the multicultural Grønland area in inner-city Oslo, Norway. We focus on two images of holy books: a Bible with a pair of aged hands folded on top, and a Qur'an with a prayer bead. Four narratives that these two images elicited form the basis of the article: (1) ‘Everyday life sociologists of religion’; (2) ‘Cousin Religion's holy book: tool for everyday cosmopolitanism’; (3) ‘Translating holy books’; and (4) ‘The image becomes sacred’. From these narratives, we discuss how photo-elicitation can work in the study of religion. We outline which participants provided which narratives. We discuss the potential of images for tapping silent knowledge about different religious life-worlds, and for bridging different social and cultural worlds.     

ENGINEERING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL INFANT: BRAIN SCIENCE,INFANT DEVELOPMENT TOYS,AND GOVERNMENTALITY

This essay re-situates current neurological research on infant brain development in terms of a matrix of cultural practices and pre-occupations. It contends that infant ‘brain science’ functions – in conjunction with the marketing promises of developmental toy manufacturers – as a form of ‘ritual magic’ (Nelson-Rowe, 1994) that ensures the transformation of ‘normal’ infants into idealized entrepreneurial subjects. Simultaneously, the discourse and practices of brain science extend and legitimize the extension of (Foucauldian) governmentality over lower income populations, which are perceived as threatening social and state security.     

Organizing the organism: a re-casting of the bio-social interface for our times

I present a future-oriented look at sociology and anthropology's historical appropriation of the concept of organism. The ‘future’ of which I speak is one in which the biological and technological are blending together. In cultural and science studies, the figure of the ‘cyborg’ is often discussed in this context. But the cyborg tends to be treated as a specifically ‘postmodern’ innovation, whereas the organism has always invited the cyborg's ontological ambivalence. This sensibility goes back to the dawn of both the modern biomedical sciences and the social sciences. I begin on the relatively familiar terrain of the role that emerging medical conceptions of the organism in the mid-nineteenth century played in the formation of such founding figures of sociology and anthropology as Emile Durkheim and Franz Boas. I then move to the specific ‘relativization’ of Darwin's theory of evolution that fostered turn-of-the-century conceptions of the social organism, including that emergent entity, the ‘superorganism’, which figures prominently – albeit differently – in the attempts to characterize the uniquely ‘human’ character of culture and technology. Finally I look at one very explicitly ‘constructivist’ approach to the social organism promoted by the distinguished chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, who was in turn anathematized by Max Weber in one of the original episodes of sociology's disciplinary boundary maintenance. The pride of place that Ostwald gave to ‘catalysts’ in consolidating and enhancing social organisms – from business firms to academic disciplines – earns his perspective a second look in our time. I end with directions for further exploration, which include reviving Norbert Wiener's cybernetic vision.     

The ruins of Managua vieja: the use of expressive photography in urban ethnography

This article proposes a method of conducting urban visual work – a practice-led visual study in which researcher-generated expressive photography explores the ‘city-as-archive’ (Hetherington 2013) and contributes to the urban visual archive. The photographs used in this article focus upon the social world of material remnants in the setting of the old downtown of Managua, Nicaragua. The aim of the article is four-fold: to suggest the epistemological gains of expressive photography, to discuss the methodology and style, to present the use of these images in an urban visual ethnography of Managua and to address related ethical concerns. Although expressive photographs are used to some extent by scholars, there is a noticeable lack of discussion of the method and empirical examples in urban visual studies. In this article, I propose intentionally using expressive photography to convey the subjective and affective knowledge that is generally not communicated by more conventional, ‘realist’ documentary visual techniques. Moving into a more explicit conversation of the work process, I point out three arenas for inquiry, for which this method can be useful. I detail my own visual ethnographic practice, and present my primary visual aims in three image clusters: expressive photography in conjunction with historical images, theorising the oscillation between absence and presence and visually interpreting the vernacular design of the ruinscape. The article concludes with a consideration of ‘ruin romance’ as an ethical concern, as well as some reflections over perceived difficulties in using this method as a means of doing academic research.     

The Non-profit Sector is Dead,Long Live the Non-profit Sector!

This article engages the debates on the basic parameters of the study of ‘the space’ between the state and the market, including definitions of the organizations, theories, and boundaries of the space. This article divides the debates into two camps, ‘the non-profit paradigm’ and ‘the new paradigm’, and credits the contribution of both sides, respectively, delineating the sector and advanced theorization. It then distinguishes operationalization methods for the non-profit paradigm from operationalization methods for the new paradigm. The task is to develop the latter. The article then introduces an organizational identity approach from organizational ecology as a promising method.     

Global sport mega‐events and the politics of mobility: the case of the London 2012 Olympics

This paper examines the politics of mobility which surrounded the London 2012 Olympics. We provide a critical discussion of the mobility conflicts, problems and criticisms which emerged from our research with local people in the Stratford and wider Newham areas of London, where most Olympic events were located. The paper is divided into four broad parts. First, we identify and discuss the relevant components of the ‘mobilities paradigm’ in social science which underpin our analysis. Second, we briefly outline our research methods, centring particularly on fieldwork and interviews with different social groups. Third, we examine in detail the six main themes of mobility politics which were evident at London 2012, relating to social context, event construction, event mobility systems, commercial mobilities, the mobile politics of exclusion, and contested modes of mobility. In doing so, we seek to extend the mobilities paradigm by introducing various concepts and keywords – notably on the three‐speed city, entryability, mobility panics, instrumental mobility, and corporate kettling – which may be utilized by social scientists to examine mobility systems in other social contexts. We conclude by reaffirming the significance of mobility‐focused research at sport and other mega‐events, and by indicating future lines of inquiry for social scientists.     

Sharing beyond Slacktivism: the effect of socially observable prosocial media sharing on subsequent offline helping behavior

New forms of youth social and political participation have been termed ‘Slacktivism’ – low-cost online forms of social engagement that decrease subsequent offline participation. Previous experimental work has provided support for a ‘Slacktivism effect,’ but it is unclear if this theoretical model applies to youth media sharing on social networking sites. This study uses a novel sharing simulation paradigm to test the effect of publicly vs. anonymously sharing a social cause video on subsequent willingness to engage in offline helping behavior. Results show that publicly (as compared to anonymously) sharing a selected video on one’s own Facebook wall led to a greater willingness to volunteer for an issue-related cause. Participants’ existing use of social media for engagement in social issues/causes moderated the effect, such that only participants low in use of social media for social engagement were susceptible to the sharing manipulation. Implications for reconceptualizing media sharing as a unique form of online participation beyond ‘Slacktivism’ are discussed.     

A STRUCTURE TO PLAY WITH: ON THE ITALIAN ADAGE, 'SE NON E VERO E BEN TROVATO'

‘Se non è vero è ben trovato’: if it is not true, then it is well put. What is it that is ‘well put’? This article argues that there must be two kinds of truth: empirical, applying to the first part of the adage, and another, applying to the second. This study tries the twelve positive and negative permutations of the two parts of the adage, first semantically, then with regard to human relations, and finally, with regard to this paper. This sort of taxonomic orgy becomes tiresome, however, thus leading to a call for and demonstration of playfulness – also as a component of a social science different from the mainstream, but the more ‘scientific’ for it.     

The problem of social generations: a critique of the new emerging orthodoxy in youth studies

Over the previous seven years the application of a social generation paradigm or ‘theory’ has gained increasing currency as a method in analysing young people's relationship with the life course. Whilst not a new concept or approach its resurgence and reconfiguration to ‘new’ times has seen some writers positioning it as a ‘new orthodoxy’ or ‘consensus’ within youth studies. In this it is seen as providing a conceptual framework that better helps us understand the complexity of circumstances and conditions that shape youth identities in late modern society. In this paper we examine and explore the underlying assumptions and claims that are made by those advocating the social generational paradigm, raising questions and seeking further clarification on a number of key themes. We accept youth studies needs to move beyond ‘old models’ that define and understand social context as a simply a tension between ‘structure or/and agency’ or as a ‘flavour’ to social action. To conclude therefore we propose the need to have an approach that is ecological and both accepts ‘social change’ and ‘continuity’ as critical parts of the life course, one that recognises the nature and influence of power and social reproduction, especially for different social classes, in shaping the experience of being young.     

Towards proteophilic competence? Intercultural learning and language education in Latvia

The new paradigm of language education envisages that teachers become intercultural mediators. However, there is no agreement about implementing the new paradigm in school practice and language teacher education. The author believes that the intercultural dimension of language education is strongly linked to integrating intercultural learning in language education. It implies cooperation with teachers from other subject areas and attitude change. The author recently designed a new course to prepare language teachers for understanding the processes involved in intercultural learning. The present article presents a case study carried out while piloting the course ‘Integrating intercultural learning in language education’ at the University of Latvia, Faculty of Modern Languages. The student teachers commented that pupils’ intercultural competence cannot be fostered by teachers alone, without the support of parents and broader Latvian society. The author recommends introducing a special course on intercultural learning in the compulsory part of all higher education programs.