Symbolische Gewalt, Normalisierungsdispositiv und/oder Stigma? Soziologie der Behinderung im Anschluss an Goffman, Foucault und Bourdieu

Is Pierre Bourdieu??s sociology helpful in order to analyse dis/ability as social construction? As a first step, this paper offers a sketch of the German-speaking sociology of disability. Subsequently, it considers two approaches which are already established in this discourse. Erving Goffman??s stigma theory focuses on ??doing dis/ability??, but it reveals a naturalistic core, when it comes to phenomena of embodied difference. Drawing on Michel Foucault, his discourse analysis and theory of power, one can analyse ??making dis/ability?? by using the dimensions of discourse, discipline, normativity and normalization, but the level of agency tends to be neglected. Thirdly, the article looks at Bourdieu??s concept of symbolic violence as a possible contribution to the sociology of disability. This concept proposes that dis/ability can be described as an embodied effect of power relationships; it brings the aspect of ??being disabled?? into view. Finally, the paper discusses the added value created by the triangulation of the three theoretical approaches; it concludes with suggestions to be drawn from the analysis of disability for the sociology after Bourdieu.     

The sociology of consumption: Deriving new social indicators

A new area of research is emerging from an integration of sociology and consumer research. It is called the ‘sociology of consumption’. To date, its applications have been most thoroughly spelled out for marketers and consumer researchers. This paper explores the relevance of the sociology of consumption for social indicators research. It begins by defining this new area of research, then it discusses how a society's consumption may be conceptualized and measured. It concludes with several examples of how the study of consumption can not only be used to characterize societies but to reveal their social processes as well.     

Sinne, Kommunikation und Gesellschaft — Eine Theorieskizze

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for the sociology of the senses in which different forms of interaction and communication can be analyzed. The pragmatics of the senses are structured by a) characteristics of the senses as perceptual systems and therefore as an anthropological condition of action, communication and society, b) a pre-reflexive cultural concept of the senses which guide our experience by a five-part, organological and isolationistic pattern which is related to functional conditions of the coordination of behavior and c) a specific part of the interaction order which makes perception mutually expectable.     

The Emotions and Reproductive Health

It is surprising that social demography has so little to say on the emotional underpinnings of demographic behavior. The central proposition of this essay is that emotions are particularly important for understanding the problems of reproductive health. This understanding allows one to consider the usual determinants of personal autonomy, or access to knowledge or services, but also to take into account the fact that much sexual and reproductive behavior is motivated by emotional states that can suppress prior knowledge, services, or agency. The essay draws upon the emerging theoretical literature on emotions in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology to explore the role of emotions in behavior and outcomes related to reproductive health. It looks especially at the cultural meaning, the ideal, and the experienced reality of the emotion of “love.” All these aspects of what is a positive emotion have important positive as well as negative implications for the diagnosis and treatment of reproductive tract problems and for unsafe sexual activity.     

Forschungsfeld geografische Kriminalstrukturanalyse

This paper introduces a research interface between urban sociology and criminology, which has experienced a tremendous development elsewhere, but has been neglected as an own scientific field of research in Austria. A ?Geographic crime-patterns analysis“ represents an interesting and germane discipline for both qualitative- and quantitative- oriented social scientists. With regard to comprehensive crime prevention the discussion about the ?future of crime control institutions“ does not only evolve around crime prevention techniques, but also and foremost addresses elaborated methods of crime analysis. A sociological analysis of crime builds on the grounds of criminalistics: Crime hot spots are correlated with socio-demographic and spatial data as social conditions of the lifeworld in order to elaborate a theory of crime-opportunities and finally to inform authorities concerned with public safety. Once the police has realised that they can only guarantee public safety in collaboration with social and housing authorities, they must also accept an approach for a comprehensive analysis of crime statistics with regard to social phenomena. This paper shall present the scientific potential of a geographic analysis of crime.     

Das Ende der Beliebigkeit — zum evolutionär-biologischen Fundament des Menschen

The relationship between biology and sociology has always been difficult, even though (or even because) both are interested in the same human subject. Historic mishaps, such as the severe abuse of biology by political systems, ideological inferences and simple misunderstandings still strain the dialogue. In contrast to sociologists, biologists employ a comparative approach within a firm Darwinian framework for posing questions. A hypothesis only qualifies as “scientific” when rigorously testable. Along with the overwhelming success of biology in the 20^th century, the biological base of the human existence is now generally acknowledged. But the explanatory potential of the Darwinian approach is still expanding.c Over the past decades, biologist even ventured into the “cultural” domains, which lead to new battles with sociologists, but also to some cross-fertilization. It showed, that even morals and ethics have a biological and hence, an evolutionary base. Without the prefrontal cortex of the brain, humans are not able to act socially responsible. This example also shows that the long-outdated distinction between “innate” and “learned” (still a major obstacle for dialogue between biology and sociology) is indeed, obsolete, because the morphological substrate only develops towards its full functionality, when adequately stimulated via implicit social learning during early childhood. Further examples for the heuristic power of modern behavioural biology are insights into social organization and sexual strategies, evolutionary explanations of socio-sexual violence against women and children, new results towards showing the biological foundations of personality, or even the contribution of modern biology towards explaining mentalities. With the increasing dominance of biology, arbitrariness comes to an end. Today, the basidemand on all theories and concepts which claim to explain aspects of Homo sapiens scientifically, no matter whether from the humanities, social sciences or even philosophy, is their consistency and logic coherence, with evolutionary theory.     

Die analytische Soziologie: Soziale Mechanismen, DBO-Theorie und Agentenbasierte Modelle

Within the analytical sociology, Peter Hedström — professor at School of Social Sciences of the Singapore Management University — developed an approach to come to valid explanations of social phenomena. In this article, his approach will be described and critically assessed. The approach is based on the micro-macro view in sociology. With the assistance of the so called DBO-theory, certain social mechanisms are formulated on the micro- and macro levels to come to a sufficient (middle-range) theory for the explanation of social phenomena. To investigate the validity of the theory, agent-based models are calculated.     

Simmels ‚Exkurs über die Soziologie der Sinne’ — Zentraltext einer anthropologischen Soziologie

The article reconstructs Simmel’s essay “Excursus on the Sociology of the Senses” as a central text of a sociology of the body, as a paradigmatic approach to an anthropological sociology. It re-systemizes Simmel’s partly implicit, partly explicit non-or pre-sociological aesthesiological premises on the senses as well as his twofold sociological perspective on the senses, i.e. the senses as a constituting factor of social relations on the one hand and the social regulation and construction of the senses on the other hand. Simmel’s phenomenological view on the structure and function of the senses (their immanence of abstraction, double perspective, difference and combination) is shown to be the aesthesiological foundation of his sociological approach, being perhaps part of a philosophical anthropology, that systematically reconstructs the basic significance of the senses or the body as prefiguring a person’s relation to him/herself, to the world and to others while at the same time saving him from biologistic reduction. The senses have their share in constituting the social world by which they are at the same time interpreted, modeled and constructed. Methodologically systemized in this way, Simmel’s essay in nuce reveals an aesthesiology of the senses that opens up the possibility of an anthropological sociology apt to rebalance the linguistic turn not only by an iconic turn but also by an acoustic turn (that can rediscover the sociological relevance of ‘parole’ against the dominance of ‘langue’).     

Paradigmenwechsel in der Sozialwirtschaft – Sozialmarketing als neue Steuerungsphilosophie?

Against the background of developments in society and in the light of the reform efforts in the social economy, the question arises which of the steering concepts successfully employed elsewhere can also be applied in social economic organizations. In particular, “marketing” has already proven to be a widely adaptable social technology. While management and consulting practice, however, mostly argue pragmatically with its usefulness and thereof derive their normative claims, theoretical analyses are rare. This contribution provides such a background analysis and investigates the causes of the paradigmatic connectivity of marketing as a management technique. On the grounds of basic social science theory, a genuinely sociological perspective on marketing is developed, though without reducing sociology to an instrumental supplying function for business administration.     

Soziologie und soziale Ontologie

Recent philosophical work attempts to describe social phenomena in general categories, an approach also interesting for sociologists. The questions as of what constitutes social objects or facts and whether there is a common structure of social phenomena are mostly neglected in sociology. This neglect is problematic because basic questions about conceptualisation and explanation in sociology cannot be pursued without a clear understanding of social phenomena. The philosophical discussions take place vis-à-vis the doctrine of ontological individualism which means that social phenomena are shadow phenomena without reality. Only the actions of individuals and the mental processes being constitutive elements of the actions are real. In opposition to this dogma, Gilbert, Searle and Ruben argue that social phenomena cannot be reduced to actions. Quite the contrary, actions can only be understood if the existence of the phenomena is presupposed. From a sociological point of view there are three remarkable aspects: First, all three authors offer good arguments against ontological individualism. Second, their arguments are based on the reconstruction of the use of everyday concepts referring to social phenomena and are therefore comprehensible. Third, the understanding of social phenomena merely as collective subjects, intentions or systems of interlocking beliefs is too restrictive. Despite this failure these theories show a way to gain a more realistic understanding of social phenomena.     

Dienstboten der Nation: Ausbeutung informeller Laienpflege und die Revitalisierung eines totgeglaubten Klassikers

The decline of Marxist theory is best exemplified by the concept of “exploitation”. For decades now and not only in sociology, the former mainspring of the social critique has been carving out a niche existence. While the concept of exploitation has all but vanished from the social sciences together with its Marxist legacy, it seems like everyone is talking about exploitation. Moreover, the retrenchment of Marxist theory has left a gap that has not yet been filled. This article aims to show that exploitation can be a useful instrument for the theoretical and empirical study of society. The article proposes a sociological concept of exploitation that draws on the sociologies of work, inequality and gender in an empirical analysis of so-called “caring communities” currently garnering widespread societal and political support in the context of Germany’s eldercare crisis. In so doing, the article aims to end the presumed obsolescence of a classic sociological concept that is as relevant today as it ever was.     

Bastler — Sammler — Spurensucher. Zum Verhältnis von Geschichte und Systematik der soziologischen Theorie nach Robert K. Merton

For the history of sociology not to lose its relevance to the discipline, it should not be understood as a biographically oriented parade of recognized and forgotten classics, but rather complement sociological theory. Writing upon these premises, the historian of sociology would cease to act as the discipline's identity engineer who, considering the competitive field of theories and subjects, conservatively serves sociology to find and stabilize its historical identity. Furthermore, s/he would no longer operate as collector of ideas in search in the history of sociology for concepts of sociological analysis that were abandoned at some point, and in doing so, would cease to pursue the objective of critically undermining the dominating paradigms in contemporary sociology. On the contrary, since the ‘historic turn’ in the philosophy of science, the historian of sociology has to take up a trace-tracking role. In contrast to Robert K. Merton's stance, the theory and history of sociology should not be understood as two separate ventures. Rather, the genealogical exploration will lead to a historical epistemology of disciplinary paradigms that emphasizes that theoretical paradigms must be analyzed within the social context of their genesis. Such an approach would enable us to systematically identify the prerequisites and range of contemporary theoretical paradigms. Beyond Merton's former analysis, theory construction in sociology requires that systematic and historical reconstructions go hand-in-hand.     

Soziologie und Geschlechterforschung in entsicherten Verhältnissen — Plädoyer für eine praxeologische Öffnung

Starting point of the article are the upheavals in post-Fordist societies. The author argues that the sometimes paradoxical social dynamics of these radical changes produce situations of social uncertainty. This is a great challenge for the analytic abilities of sociology and gender studies which are both strongly influenced by the thought patterns of ?organized modernity“. On the (empirical) example of a praxeological sociology of gender, the author tries to show what gender studies and sociology can contribute mutually to an opening of their own terms and categories.     

Soziale Klasse in der Arbeitssoziologie. Zur Relevanz eines totgesagten Begriffs

Social class as analytical term has a longstanding tradition in sociology. Starting with Karl Marx and Max Weber international class analysis has developed heterogenous theoretical and empirical approaches. The paper outlines trends in the usage of social class in industrial sociology and the sociology of work in German-speaking countries from the after-war period to the paradigmatic shift heralded by Becks individualization thesis. The displacement of social class is interpreted as manifestation of symbolic struggles over the legitimate view of social reality, which has created considerable blind spots in the analysis of social inequalities. With reference to recent international developments in class research Pierre Bourdieu’s approach is used to explore ways to connect current subject-orientated approaches with questions of social class. Focussing on the class formation of subjectivity draws attention to the development of different orientations towards work and the dealing with the exigencies of work.     

Mysterium tremendum und mysterium fascinans

The history of Western modernity must not only be regarded as a linear process of secularisation: even the “classics” of sociology like Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel have dealt with the ambiguities of the modern age, thereby referring to both the “disenchantment” and the “re-enchantment”. Worldly replacements such as science and political movements partly took over the function and the meaning of traditional religions. Political ‘religions’ not only adopted, transformed and amalgamated the contents of Christian texts and imaginations and used Christian rites and symbols, but also fulfilled special functions for their “believers”. One of the most important functions both of traditional religions and political ‘religion’ is to evoke emotions and to give opportunities to act on emotions. The article deals with the relationship between traditional ‘religions’ and political ‘religions’ with regard to emotions. In this context, the political ‘religion’ of Soviet communism until Stalin’s death is examined.     

The Socioemotional Well-Being Index (SEWBI): Theoretical Framework and Empirical Operationalisation

This article presents the design, process of construction, content and validation of the Socioemotional Well-Being Index. This index is a composite indicator of subjective well-being, and has been designed with the aim of providing a measurement device for the sociological analysis of the subjective components of quality of life and social quality. Two spheres of knowledge have been combined in its construction: research in social indicators, the recent development of which has been oriented toward the elaboration of composite indicators, and the theoretical content developed in recent decades by the sociology of emotions. As a composite indicator, the index presented in this article offers a hierarchical and multidimensional alternative to the univariate scales measuring happiness and satisfaction most often used in social research. In addition, in comparison to measures of subjective well-being grounded in cognitive evaluations, this index is based on the evaluation of a series of emotional states recently experienced by individuals. The conceptual definition of socioemotional well-being is based on Thomas Kemper’s social interactional theory of emotions and Randall Collins’ theory of interaction ritual chains. A “4 factor, 10 variable” solution has been obtained by applying common factor analysis to the data of the European Social Survey, 2006.     

Verantwortliches Handeln als soziologischer Grundbegriff

As a critical modification of Parsons voluntaristic theory of action as well as of the theories of rational choice, this contribution suggests Max Weber’s concept of “responsibility” or “responsible action” as an enclosing model of action rationality, integrating both individual freedom of choice as well as over-individual categorical values. This systematical benefit of the concept of “responsibility” is especially due to the idea of a “value discussion”. This dialogical enlargement of rationality includes a modern theory of validity essentially needed to save the rationality of categorical values and to allow the equality of value-rational orientations next to questions of utility. This being said, responsibility can be presented as a basic concept of sociology, containing the key to an integrative social theory based on methodological individualism.     

Repetitive Visiting as a Pre‐return Transnational Strategy among Youthful Trinidadian Returnees

Abstract

This paper will develop and illustrate a concept of institutional viscosity to balance the more agentive concept of motility with a theoretical account of structural conditions. The argument articulates with two bodies of work: broad social theory of reflexivity as negotiating agency and social structures; and sociology of mobility and mobility systems . It then illustrates the concept of viscosity as a variable (low to high viscosity) through two empirical studies conducted in the sociology of education that help demonstrate how degrees of viscosity interact with degrees of motility, and how this interaction can impact on motility over time. The first study explored how Australian Defence Force families cope with their children’s disrupted education given frequent forced relocations. The other study explored how middle class professionals relate to career and educational opportunities in rural and remote Queensland. These two life conditions have produced very different institutional practices to make relocations thinkable and doable, by variously constraining or enabling mobility. In turn, the degrees of viscosity mobile individuals meet with over time can erode or elevate their motility.