This volume explores the sociological legacy of the late Pierre Bourdieu through an examination of the intellectual division between his reception in the world of French social sciences and his reception in the Anglophone world.
This article is a contribution to the revival of `virtue ethics'. If we regard human rights as a crucial development in the establishment of global institutions of justice and equality, then we need to explore the obligations that correspond to such rights. It is argued that cosmopolitan virtue a respect for other cultures and an ironic stance towards one's own culture spells out this obligation side of the human rights movement. Cosmopolitanism of course can assume very different forms. The article (...) traces various cosmopolitan ethics from the Greeks, Roman Stoics and Christian philosophers. Contemporary cosmopolitanism needs to be ironic to function usefully in hybrid global cultures, but it is open to the charge of being culturally `flat' and elitist. These criticisms are examined through the confrontation between Maurizio Viroli and Martha Nussbaum. While American patriotism is not a promising foundation for ironic cosmopolitanism, the republican tradition of virtue does offer a viable method of developing cosmopolitanism. Ironic cosmopolitan care for other cultures is founded on the commonalities of social existence, of which there are two central components: ontological vulnerability and political precariousness. (shrink)
Through a re-articulation of Derridean différance, Bernard Stiegler claims that the human is defined by an originary default that displaces all psychic and social life onto technical supplements. His philosophy of technics re-articulates the logic of the supplement as concerning both human reflexivity and its supports, and the history of the différance of life itself. This has been criticised for reducing Derrida's work to a metaphysics of presence, and for instituting a humanism of the relation to the inorganic. By refuting (...) these claims, this article will show that Stiegler's doubling of différance enables him to articulate the human as constituted by both the individuation characteristic of ‘life’, and that of a technical, psychic, and collective individuation. Putting forward a reading of the logic of the trace in life, and emphasising the aspects of Leroi-Gourhan, Simondon, and Canguilhem that Stiegler uses in his reading of Derrida, I will demonstrate that the political stakes of adaption and adoption in his Noopolitics require this re-articulation of différance. Technics shapes the human future, arising from this differential mutation; marking the invention of the human as the site of the political. (shrink)
Political theorists have developed and refined the concept of culture through much critical discussion with anthropology. This article will deepen this engagement by claiming that political theory...
The human body has been a potent and persistent metaphor for social and political relations throughout human history. For example, different parts of the body have traditionally represented different social functions. We refer to the ‘head of state’ without really recognizing the metaphor, and the heart has been a rich source of ideas about life, imagination and emotions. The heart is the house of the soul and the book of life, and the ‘tables of the heart’ provided an insight into (...) the whole of Nature. The hand also plays an important role in conventional imagination regarding things that are beautiful or damaged and incomplete. We can generalize from these diverse examples to argue that the fluids flowing from the inside of the body to the outside are regarded as socially dangerous and contaminating, because these fluids on the outside of the body directly challenge our sense of order and orderliness. This inside/outside division of the body combines with a wet/dry dichotomy to delineate these risky borders. Although leaking bodies have been a source of ancient metaphors of disorder, the modern world, that sociologists increasingly characterize by its liquidity, is peculiarly fascinated by flow as an image of global flexibility. The more our world is economically and militarily interconnected, the more we fear social fluidity. In political terms, asylum seekers and terrorists are thought not to respect our bodies or our borders; we are especially sensitive to their capacity to disrupt the solidity of sovereignty. In short, metaphors of the human body, even in an age of high technology, continue to shape the social and political imagination, but they are challenged by emerging metaphors of liquidity, that is by liquid modernity. (shrink)
In traditional societies, knowledge is organized in hierarchical chains through which authority is legitimated by custom. Because the majority of the population is illiterate, sacred knowledge is conveyed orally and ritualistically, but the ultimate source of religious authority is typically invested in the Book. The hadith are a good example of traditional practice. These chains of Islamic knowledge were also characteristically local, consensual and lay, unlike in Christianity, with its emergent ecclesiastical bureaucracies, episcopal structures and ordained priests. In one sense, (...) Islam has no church. While there are important institutional differences between the world religions, network society opens up significant challenges to traditional authority, rapidly increasing the flow of religious knowledge and commodities. With global flows of knowledge on the Internet, power is no longer embodied and the person is simply a switchpoint in the information flow. The logic of networking is that control cannot be concentrated for long at any single point in the system; knowledge, which is by definition only temporary, is democratically produced at an infinite number of sites. In this Andy Warhol world, every human can, in principle, have their own site. While the Chinese Communist Party and several Middle Eastern states attempt to control this flow, their efforts are only partially successful. The result is that traditional forms of religious authority are constantly disrupted and challenged, but at the same time the Internet creates new opportunities for evangelism, religious instruction and piety. The outcome of these processes is, however, unknown and unknowable. There is a need, therefore, to invent a new theory of authority that is post-Weberian in reconstructing the conventional format of charisma, tradition and legal rationalism. (shrink)
The aim of this paper is to investigate how alternative land ethics of agricultural stakeholders may help explain recent land use changes. The paper first explores the historical development of the land ethic concept in the United States and how those ethics have impacted land use policy and use of private lands. Secondly, primary data gathered from semi-structured interviews of farmers, ranchers, and influential stakeholders are then analyzed using stakeholder analysis methods to identify major factors considered in land use decisions, (...) priorities of factors of each group, and to define relevant mental models describing each group’s view of the land ethic concept. Results show that these stakeholder groups prioritize land use factors qualitatively differently and possess strikingly different land ethics. It is concluded that shifts in stakeholder land ethics have contributed to recent land use changes. Lastly, we discuss how current agricultural policy sends mixed signals about preferred land use and the potential ramifications based on the different land ethics we’ve described. (shrink)
It is a common complaint that sociology has little regard for history. One important exception to this standard criticism is the sociology of religion of Robert N. Bellah and his ‘revival’ of Karl Jasper’s notion of the axial age. In this article, Bellah’s evolutionary notions of religion are explored within a debate about historical disjunctures and continuities. A significant challenge to the idea of the continuity of axial-age religions comes from the notion of an Anthropocene. Our relationship to nature has (...) fundamentally changed and the possibilities for ‘improving’ the human body create a significant ontological challenge to the continuity/preservation of embodied practice as the underpinning of axial-age religions. The Anthropocene age presents a turning away from the religious legacies of the past, because biotechnical developments change not only our relationship to nature but they presage a radical change to the human body. Can the axial-age religions as our contemporaries survive the construction of hybrid post-bodies? In conclusion, insofar as there has been a ‘protestantization’ of religions with modernity involving an erosion of habitualized religion, an individualized and dis-embodied religiosity may be compatible with our anthropocenic future, but this possibility represents a discontinuity with the past and not a continuity. (shrink)
A global transformation of modes of religious authority has been taking place at an increasing pace in recent years. The social and political implications of the growing dominance of neo-scripturalist discourses on Islam have been particularly noticeable after 11 September 2001. This evolution of religiosity, which is mediated by mass media and new media technology, creates the conditions of existence of a post-Weberian and post-Durkheimian order. In this new social context, legitimacy can be more easily disconnected from the institutionalized framework (...) of religious and political authority. Both in Muslim countries and in Western democracies, the attempt by Islamic activists to make the Shari’a relevant in contemporary settings creates new opportunities and challenges for legal pluralism. At the same time, the multiplication of Muslim voices claiming to be able to interpret the sacred texts, particularly in virtual communities, creates an increasingly inchoate ‘noise’ about Islamic orthodoxy. In the context of an exponential increase in the global possibilities for religious identification and expression, the growth of neo-scripturalist interpretations of Islam reflects a quest for parsimony and stability. (shrink)
The Huntington thesis of the clash of cultures and American foreign policy analysis are both aspects of the legacy of Carl Schmitt's distinction between friend and foe. This article explores Schmitt's political theology as the theoretical basis of modern politics in terms of the concepts of state sovereignty and the idea of a permanent emergency. Within this Schmittian framework, the analysis of Islam as presented by writers such as Huntington, Fukuyama and Barber is critically analysed. Their analysis of fundamentalism and (...) political Islam fails to grasp the complexity and diversity of modern Islam. The article concludes by examining a number of social and economic processes that make the political division between friend and foe untenable. (shrink)
This article makes a contribution to the on-going debates about universalism and cultural relativism from the perspective of sociology. We argue that bioethics has a universal range because it relates to three shared human characteristics,—human vulnerability, institutional precariousness and scarcity of resources. These three components of our argument provide support for a related notion of ‘weak foundationalism’ that emphasizes the universality and interrelatedness of human experience, rather than their cultural differences. After presenting a theoretical position on vulnerability and human rights, (...) we draw on recent criticism of this approach in order to paint a more nuanced picture. We conclude that the dichotomy between universalism and cultural relativism has some conceptual merit, but it also has obvious limitations when we consider the political economy of health and its impact on social inequality. (shrink)
Understanding mudrocks and shale reservoirs has become a significant area of interest within industry and academia in recent years. Of particular interest is understanding the pervasive variability present within these units. This variability became apparent when conventional approaches, such as lithostratigraphic analysis and well log correlation, were coupled with recent developments in palynostratigraphy and chemostratigraphy. A single shallow Woodford Shale research core in the western Arkoma Basin from Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, was used to identify three scales of stratigraphic cyclicity. By (...) comparing the relative abundances of continental sourced pollen and spores to marine-derived acritarchs over a stratigraphic interval, it was possible to extrapolate the overall trends in shoreline trajectory. Conventional well log analysis, such as gamma ray logs, provided a balanced understanding of the interplay between localized changes in sedimentation and regional shifts in the stratigraphic base level, in addition to providing a means to tie these analyses to extensive subsurface data sets. Chemostratigraphic correlations resolved subtle, but stratigraphically significant, shifts in localized patterns in sedimentation. Using these approaches, the Lower and Middle Woodford Shale can be divided into four chemostratigraphic parasequences within a transgressive systems tract defined by well log and core analysis. The Upper Woodford can be separated into an additional four chemostratigraphic parasequences within a highstand systems tract. Chemostratigraphic data also revealed the changing bottom water conditions present at the time of deposition, with a period of localized anoxic conditions recorded in the Lower and Upper Woodford in this part of the basin. These localized changes in sedimentation and environmental conditions can be nested into two longer term regional transgressions and regressions. (shrink)
The concept of generation has had little refinement and application in recent sociology. After reviewing the literature, this article modifies Mannheim's original conceptualization through Bourdieu's notion of habitus, with the aim of providing a framework for the comparative study of generations. To this end, generation is defined as a cohort of persons passing through time who come to share a common habitus, hexis and culture, a function of which is to provide them with a collective memory that serves to integrate (...) the cohort over a finite period of time. (shrink)
There are broadly five interconnected meanings of the noun ‘discipline’. Disciplinawere instructions to disciples, and hence a branch of instruction or department of knowledge. This religious context provided the modern educational notion of a ‘body of knowledge’, or a discipline such as sociology or economics. We can define discipline as a body of knowledge and knowledge for the body, because the training of the mind has inevitably involved a training of the body. Second, it signified a method of training or (...) instruction in a body of knowledge. Discipline had an important military connection involving drill, practice in the use of weapons. Third, there is an ecclesiastical meaning referring to a system of rules by which order is maintained in a church. It included the use of penal methods to achieve obedience. To discipline is to chastise. Fourth, to discipline is to bring about obedience through various forms of punishment; it is a means of correction. Finally there is a rare use of the term to describe a medical regimen in which ‘doctor's orders’ brings about a discipline of the patient. In contemporary society, there is, following the work of Michel Foucault, the notion of increasing personal regulation resulting in a ‘disciplinary society’ or a society based upon carceral institutions. (shrink)
Body.Bryan S. Turner - 2006 - Theory, Culture and Society 23 (2-3):223-229.details
Contemporary academic interest in the human body is a response to fundamental changes in the relationship between body, economy, technology and society. Scientific advances, particularly new reproductive technologies and therapeutic cloning techniques, have given the human body a problematic status. Ageing, disease and death no longer appear to be immutable facts about the human condition. The emergence of the body as a topic of research in the humanities and social sciences is also a response to the women's and gay liberation (...) movements, and environmentalism, animal rights, anti-globalism, religious fundamentalism and conservative politics. Further, the human body is now central to economic growth in various biotechnology industries, in which disease itself has become a productive factor in the global economy and the body a code or system of information from which profits can be extracted through patents. In modern social theory, the body has been studied in the contexts of advertising and consumerism, in ethical debates about cloning, in research on HIV/AIDS, in postmodern reflections on cybernetics, cyberbodies and cyberpunk, and in the analysis of the global trade in human organs. The body is a central feature of contemporary politics, because its ambiguities, vulnerability and plasticity have been amplified by new genetic technologies. (shrink)
Norbert Elias produced one of the most influential theories on the history of violence in human societies in terms of ‘the civilizing process’. With the transformation of feudalism, the rise of bourgeois society and the development of the modern state, interpersonal violence was increasingly regulated by social norms that emphasized self-restraint and personal discipline. His theory was a moral pedagogics of the body in which the ‘passions’ are self-regulated through detailed social regimes. While his theory is influential, it has also (...) been the subject of systematic criticism. I examine three obvious lacunae in Elias’ theory. First, his theory does not provide an adequate account of the role of religion in the civilizing process, particularly with respect to controlling human violence, and I examine Elias’ theory through a commentary on charisma and the sacred in human society, namely the role of sacred violence. Second, Elias had relatively little to say about the interaction between military technology and interpersonal norms. Modern technology has made it possible, both in peace and war, for the state and modern military institutions to gain control of forms of mass violence that were unimaginable in less civilized societies. We could accept Elias’ proposition about constraint in terms of interpersonal violence, but argue that modern technology has obviously enhanced the capacity of the means of violence in society. This ‘de-personalization’ of violence is consistent with aspects of Elias’ civilization theory. However, the theme of technology was completely understated. Third, apart from Elias’ interest in art and society as a consequence of his teaching appointment in Ghana, his theory was primarily concerned to explain aspects of social change in European society. An exploration of the evolution of military violence and charisma among American Plains Indians, especially the Cheyenne, is intended as an elaboration of the debate around Elias’ ‘figurational sociology’. Through an examination of the training of warriors in nomadic Plains culture, their mode of warfare is defined as a form of spiritual violence, because warfare was bound up with religious norms of conduct and their military interaction was highly ritualized. These spiritual technologies are an important illustration of military technologies of self-creation. My account concludes with an examination of the nature of modern conflict between professional armies within an international human rights framework. The democratization of warfare results in the routinization of military charisma and the charismatic hero survives primarily in popular culture as a celebrity. (shrink)