Theorizing the social: Émile Durkheim's theory of force and energy

This paper offers a new interpretation of Émile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) as the basis for reconsidering the Tarde–Durkheim debate of 1903 and the distinctions between a theory of social force and a theory of social assemblage. Resisting traditional interpretations of Durkheim's scientism, this essay traces how concepts of force and energy are centrally developed in Elementary Forms to draw new lines between epistemology to ontology for twentieth-century theory. I argue that Durkheim develops an ‘energetic epistemology’ that conceives of the human capacity for shared meaning as a product of invested energy in the form of continually enacted and evolving material practice, thought, and attention. According to Durkheim, when a member of a collective perceives a god or feels belief, he or she actually perceives the accumulated energy of on-going creation and maintenance of objects and ideas by members of a collective. Sacred objects, images, and ideas bear the trace of collective energy the more they are carefully crafted, maintained in spaces that are specially arranged, and written into behavioural codes. This reading of Durkheim allows us to consider him in a lineage of social constructivists and, particularly, in relation to Ludwik Fleck, who has been largely confined to different theoretical discussions when his contributions to sociology have been acknowledged at all. By reconsidering Durkheim, we have occasion to rethink his sociology and understand how he redrew the lines between thought and action, between epistemology and ontology, through the material framework of energy and force.     

Social Work's Legacy: Irreconcilable Differences?

Social Work is under attack, not the least of which comes from within its own ranks. Clinical social work appears to the hardest hit as critics question its fit with social work's historic focus on the poor and the oppressed. In addition, there continues to be ongoing controversy regarding the profession as means of social control. Clinical social work has also been attacked for its reliance on the medical model and the growth in private practice. Do these attacks and criticisms signal the end of clinical social work? Or, could this be viewed as part of a process through which social work analyzes its self in its continuing efforts to remain relevant. Is this the evolutionary path of social work? This paper explores some of these controversies and debates. The profession has grown, evolved, and responded to criticism since its inception. A current model for understanding the fit between clinical social work and social justice is presented as an example of how debate continues to lead the profession forward.     

Why Care about Scientific Controversies?

Since Kuhn claimed that scientific controversies are not always settled by means of rational evaluations of the intrinsic merits of competing theories, the view that the history of science should be recounted by examining the background of scientific controversies and how these controversies came to be settled has become a real heuristic maxim for the historian of science. We take issue with this view by arguing that controversies are not relevant by themselves but only insofar as one can make something out of them. Two important questions then arise: what did one come to learn from a given controversy and what came out of this apprenticeships. We compare Pauline Mazumdar's and Alfred Tauber's approaches to the history of immunology and argue that only the latter addressed these questions. In so doing, he was able to show the extension in which modern immunology is an outcome of Metchnikoff's success in correcting Haeckel's “fundamental biogenetic law”.     

Controversy and Ideological Hegemony in Sociological Theory*

Sociological theory has been characterized by the recurrence of several controversies since its inception. The relationship between the individual and society represents one of these. Cooley's notion of the individual and society being twin-born has been labeled one of the major breakthroughs in this controversy. According to Tiryakian, Cooley's work signaled the end of that controversy, but still it reappears. Drawing heavily from Mannheim, Berger and Pullberg, and Therborn, we examine the recurrence of the individual versus society controversy. Sociology, we contend, occupies an alienated position within capitalist society where positivist epistemology serves as an ideological veil, concealing the existence of ontological presuppositions, distorting social reality, and preventing any meaningful attempt to understand the development of sociology, or the recurrence of the individual-society controversy. As an ideological veil, positivism contributes to the recurring bifurcation of social reality. The dominance of positivism within sociology, moreover, gives it a hegemonic status, further negating any recognition that the individual and society are interdependent.     

Weathering the Storm

Abstract

Esping-Andersen's 'three worlds of welfare' typology has been the subject of an intensive and unrelenting academic debate for the past decade. This debate has been fairly extensive in its, overwhelmingly negative, evaluation but it has ignored what is arguably the most important aspect of the assessment of the typology: its robustness and validity over time. This paper provides such an assessment by presenting an updated version of Esping-Andersen's decommodification index. It compares the new index with Esping-Andersen's original and uses it to judge both the continuing validity of the 'three worlds of welfare' and broader theories that have been circulated about the convergence of welfare states.     

Social work and therapy: Reclaiming a generic therapeutic space in child and family work

This paper reflects upon some mixed messages found in recent consultation and framework documents that have been issued as part of the debate surrounding the Government's emphasis upon education and training within its 'modernisation' agenda. It identifies the long-standing arguments about 'testing' versus 'learning' or 'contextual' paradigms and suggests that, perhaps, there is still scope to influence the future direction of social work. The author has drawn upon his research with social workers and their team managers in current post-qualification award programmes to argue for a renewed emphasis upon the inter-personal and relationship aspects of educational processes within more broadly conceived socio-cultural contexts. A focus upon reflexively defined concepts of 'engagement' and 'assessment' is used to explore constructivist arguments that locate individuals within an interplay of potential and constraints. It is argued that constructive engagements within revised conceptions of assessment can form the basis of a framework of continuing professional development that starts from and develops the unique realities of social work practice. This requires the committed involvement of more people, in the negotiation of a professional practice agenda for knowledge creation through relationships, rather than the imposition of more measures.     

Women's Rights vs. "Fetal Rights":

Policies restricting the employment opportunities of women have a long history in the U.S. The most recent manifestation has been so-called "fetal protection" policies, which exclude women of childbearing age from jobs involving exposure to toxins considered dangerous to a developing fetus. Traditional arguments that women's biology is justification to keep them from jobs have resurfaced in a new form. In the present debate the issue is framed as one of competing rights, those of fetus versus those of the woman. An analysis of public policy on this issue from a feminist legal standpoint reveals how the law's implicit male standard hinders the attainment of equal employment opportunity for women, as they must now compete with hypothetical fetuses sa well sa with men.     

Relational Frame Theory: An Overview of the Controversy

Although Skinner''s Verbal Behavior (1957) was published over 50 years ago, behavior-analytic research on human language and cognition has been slow to develop. In recent years, a new behavioral approach to language known as relational frame theory (RFT) has generated considerable attention, research, and debate. The controversy surrounding RFT can be difficult to fully appreciate, partly because of the complexity of the theory itself and partly because the debate has spanned several years and several journals. The current paper aims to provide a concise overview of RFT and a summary of key points of debate and controversy.     

The invention and promotion of cha-rye in Korea

Cha-rye (tea etiquette), now considered representative of Korean tea culture, is a new tradition developed during the Park Chung-hee government (1961–1979) and subsequently promoted nationally and internationally. With Korea's rapid industrialization and modernization in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional culture began to disintegrate, which caused various social problems and resulted in ethical and moral confusion among the people. A tea culture revival was proposed by some tea masters as a solution for the chaos in society, and cha-rye was designated a “tradition” to be restored. Anti-Japanese nationalist ideology proved a good facilitator for the transformation of Korean traditional culture, but controversies based in practical limitations arose among tea masters in the process of establishing a Korean-style tea spirit and practice. The re-invention of cha-rye demonstrates how a tradition has been created through the complex and multi-layered dynamics of Korea's rapidly changing political and social environment in combination with nationalist ideology.     

The quiet before the storm: anticipating developments in synthetic biology

Synthetic biology aims at designing biological systems, at building ‘living machines’. The emergence of synthetic biology has reignited the cycle of public debate. The old biotechnology debate is being reiterated and the controversies are deepened. The societal debate follows the technological hype cycle. A new technology with a high visibility and high expectations also raises high controversies. For synthetic biology, this hype is currently near its peak and the first signs of disillusionment are getting visible. In policy development, on the other hand, synthetic biology is in the early stages. Governments examine the need for adaptations to existing regulatory frameworks. There is a gap between the visibility of the technological developments and policy formulation. This gap is crucial for technology assessment: while the hype in public attention is over, essential policy steps are taken. In order to close this gap, technology assessment needs to facilitate the societal–ethical debate when media attention, and thus the visibility of the technological developments, declines.     

(Mis)Understanding Abortion Regret

The debate about abortion regret rests on competing assumptions about women's attachment to pregnancy. Antiabortion claimants argue women always attach to pregnancy (inevitably regretting abortion), while abortion rights supporters counter that women do not attach to pregnancies they choose to terminate (feeling relief instead). Neither assumption explains women's experience; research shows that attachment is discursively produced. Using interview data from 21 women, this study moves past these political claims to empirically identify three sources of women's emotional difficulty around abortion: social disapproval, romantic relationship loss, and head versus heart conflict. Findings point to the importance of attention to women's lived experience and space for complex feelings around abortion.     

Dynamics of Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism

With the growing emphasis on professionalism and autonomy in social work practice, the importance of supervision is receiving new attention in the literature. In this paper the “functional” nature of supervision is analyzed through exploration of the emphasis in practice on the administrative and teaching aspects of supervision, and how these concepts appear to have become measures of exercising authority and control rather than promoting independence, while independence is epitomized as the essence of practice. Merton's views on the sociological perspective of functionalism are applied to the debate on authority in supervision versus autonomy in practice.     

The Leader as the Face of a Crisis: Philip Morris' CEO's Speeches During the 1990s

This research investigated Philip Morris' crisis communication management strategies during the 1990s through the study of its CEO's speeches. This analysis explored the company's maneuvers to camouflage controversies in acceptable social expectations. Pairing framing theory with centering resonance analysis, this research found 3 distinct frames: profitable multinational (1994–1996), litigation target (1997–1998), and corporate good citizen (1999–2001). Avoidance of talk about health issues indicated the company's strategic adaptation to a shifting legal and public opinion climate, as it sought to authenticate its right to do business by reframing the notion of corporate responsibility away from healthy products and toward high-price philanthropy.     

Self made women,agency and work commitment

The study of work commitment has been confronted by two major impediments. First, a basic problem, is the absence of a shared definition of commitment, a state of affairs that lends support to the view that commitment is a multiple and complex phenomenon. Secondly, most established theoretical frameworks have assumed that commitment to paid work is determined either by an individual's prior life goal or organisational reward structures such as wages and status. The oscillation of the debate has meant that our understanding of the phenomenon is inconclusive. In an effort to move the debate forward this paper develops a theoretical account which conceptualises commitment as a structural mechanism that explains situations where an agent's past and present activity in a social organisation has, in effect constrained their future activity. The paper links these ideas with recent feminist accounts which show that organisations are gendered social structures that have a tendency to reproduce gendered definitions of commitment. The paper concludes that these gendered definitions of commitment constrain women's life-style choices.     

Dilemmas in child care practice and the role for state sponsored social workers

Since the publication of Messages from Research (Department of Health, 1995) there has been intense and extensive debate about the limitations and implications of this summary for contemporary child care practice (Duxbury, 1997; Hughes, 1996; Parton, 1996; Littlechild, 1998; White, 1998). Unsurprisingly, in such a highly contentious arena, there is little consensus as to the appropriateness of the analysis or the recommendations contained in the report, particularly the overview to the research summaries. This short article seeks to add to the debate through the use of case study material to articulate social work practice dilemmas that the author has experienced; practice dilemmas that render problematic some of the assertions contained in Messages from Research. In doing so the author does not seek to undermine the importance of research for practice, as we seek to articulate an appropriate theoretical base for professional interventions in the lives of children and families, but to question whose interests are served by what can be seen as the selective representation of findings. As Stevenson (1991) states, we need to explore and understand what personal, professional and organisational processes may impede the implementation of research in practice within the child care arena. It might also behold us to ask what political or social processes may also impact on the way/s in which research for practice are 'produced' and/or 'consumed'. Overall, the author wishes to engage with, and stimulate further debate around, a core issue for practitioners and students as they explore the contemporary statutory social work role with children and their families.     

An Ontological Turn for Childhood Studies?

The so‐called ‘ontological turn’ in the social sciences has brought with it yet another layer of theoretical concerns, except that this time the interest is in ontology rather than epistemology. New materialist thinking which has emerged in recent years promises to rethink the task of social theory in ways that circumvent modernist dualisms. In this paper, I explore what this might entail for childhood studies. What might such an ontological shift which emphasises among others relationality, connectedness and materiality mean for the further development of childhood studies? How would a decentring of children and the field's overpowering concerns for studying children's perspectives/voices/standpoints help rethink childhood studies and its remit? How, in short, would a shift from the child as an independent unit of analysis and of childhood as a categorical identity to a new ontology of emerging phenomena which implicate children, adults and non‐human forces affect the field's direction in the future?     

North Korea's Militant Nationalism and People's Everyday Lives: Past and Present

North Korea's anti‐American state power has operated in individuals' everyday practices by focusing on its post‐war militant nationalism. Existing studies have neglected an aspect of North Korea's nationalist power that has been neither necessarily top‐down nor violent, but rather productive and diffusive in people's everyday lives. While the regime's anti‐American mobilization has come from above, people's politics of hatred, patriotism, and emotion have been reproduced from below. Along this line, I examine the historical and social changes in North Korea's militant nationalism and people's ways of life through a comparison between two periods: from the 1950s through the 1980s and from the 1990s through the present. I focus on how the state's anti‐American power was legitimated by people's solid micro‐fascism from the 1950s through the 1980s, and how it has been contested and recreated through both change and persistence in people's micro‐fascism from the 1990s through the present.     

Parsons's Early Voluntarism*

This paper is intended as a critique of the conventional understanding of Parsons's voluntarism. On the level of analytical theory. Parsons's scheme does not refer to the conscious choices of concrete individuals in concrete social situations, but is a system of abstract causal properties characterizing social action as a process of resolution of the inherent tension of normative and conditional aspects of reality through the mechanism of effort. The recent debate about Parsons's voluntarism misses this central dynamic.     

‘Nothing comes without its world’: thinking with care

What is the significance of caring for thinking and knowing? Thinking and knowing are essentially relational processes. Grounded on a relational conception of ontology the essay argues that ‘thinking with care’ is a vital requisite of collective thinking in interdependent worlds, but also one that necessitates a thick vision of caring. A speculative exploration of forms of thinking with care unfolds through a rereading of Donna Haraway's work, specifically of its take on feminist discussions on the situated character of knowledge. The notion of thinking with care is articulated through a series of concrete moves: thinking‐with, dissenting‐within and thinking‐for. While weaving Haraway's thinking and writing practices with the trope of care offers a particular understanding of this author's knowledge politics, the task of caring also appears in a different light.