Contemporary Social Theory Research Articles

Mediaciones y posiciones. Una aproximación a la sociología del arte

Este texto responde a la invitación a pensar desde el concepto de inclinación que la filósofa Adriana Cavarero pone en el centro de la reflexión contemporánea, en diálogo con autores de extraordinaria significación como Judith Butler. El objetivo central del artículo es indagar en las dimensiones sociológicas del arte contemporáneo a través del análisis de las figuras de la mediación y del cuidado, a partir de un despliegue de posibles canalizaciones de la sociología del arte en la actualidad, preocupadas por las formas de hacer y producir, difundir y sostener, arte y conocimiento. En la actualidad, la noción de mediación ha adquirido centralidad en el mundo del arte, diagnosticándose una saturación de sus usos y una polisemia en sus significados, por ser una de las más relevantes en la teoría social contemporánea. El cuidado también se ha tornado central a la hora de abordar distintas formas de hacer, en el mundo del arte y en las prácticas de conocimiento. Así, este artículo postula un análisis sociológico del arte contemporáneo que aporta un despliegue de los cuidados en el arte a través de la mediación.

Rereading of Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines’ Pastoral Statement on Death Penalty and its Communion with the State

This paper will identify significant roles of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines as a critical collaborator with the State. Instead of retribution and legal execution, the leaders of the Church in the Philippines are calling the government to encourage non-retribution-based justice; a non-retaliatory principle based on love, mercy and justice being taught by Jesus. Other than theological and Biblical perspectives to support above key points, multi-disciplinary approaches such as juridical, sociological, psychological, criminal justice and other fields of thought will also be used to explain the relevance of the statement of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines as a willing yet critical cooperator with the affairs of the State. 
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 Adams & Bastoy. 2010. “Sentenced to Serving the Good Life in Norway.” Time Magazine. July 12. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2000920,00.html.
 Ager, Maila. 2017. “”Pacquiao invokes Bible to defend death penalty.”.” Philippine Daily Inquirer. January 17. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/863105/ pacquiao-invokes-bible-to-defend-death-penalty.
 Amnesty International. 2017. “Amnesty International Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2016.” Accessed January 2019. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ACT5057402017ENGLISH.PDF.
 Angeles, Albert Lee G. 2013. “Wrongful Conviction and the Case for Forensic Evidence in the Philippine Criminal Justice System .” Ateneo Law Journal 1155-1174.
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Social Change and Development: A Critical Comparison of Classical with Contemporary Sociological Theory

This study re-examines the prevalent view of classical social theorist, Auguste Comte and contemporary social theorist,Gerhard Lenski. Both social theorists are important figures in terms of social change and social development.Therefore, within context, the notion of social change theories, its relations and cause of social change are discussed,followed by an outline of the concepts of both theorists. Next, it deals with what the two perspectives share in commonand compares the differences between them. The study revealed that the two perspectives are fundamentally differentbecause Comte focused on the development of human thought while Lenski focused on social change and developmentas a result of technology. In this respect, the determinants of social change and development emerge from withinsociety itself; the deepest and the most important disagreement lies between those who see the mental or spiritualevolution of society as the main driving force of history and those who see the role of technology as its root cause.

Notes from the Editors, September 2019

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 This special issue of Monthly Review honors the fiftieth anniversary this month of Margaret Benston's landmark "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation." The essay sparked a revolution in Marxian thought, the full implications of which are only now being perceived in contemporary social reproduction theory. We have reprinted Benson’s pieces together with contributions by Silvia Federici, Martha E. Gimenez, Selma James (interviewed by Ron Augustin), Leith Mullings, Marge Piercy, and Lise Vogel, all of whom have played leading roles since the 1970s in the development of feminist historical materialism.

Changing modalities in international development and research in education: Conceptual and ethical issues

This article critically examines the nature of changing modalities in international development and related research in education. The consequences of contemporary trends and trajectories in these domains are considered with particular reference to their conceptual and ethical implications. Drawing on contemporary social theory, comparative and international research in education, and research ethics, the analysis focuses on North-South research and development partnerships, conceptions of ‘best practice’ in the arenas of education and development, the emergence of large-scale social and educational research modalities, and the potential and limitations of ‘one size fits all’ ethical frameworks in the field.

Perspectivas atuais para a pesquisa em educação patrimonial

O presente artigo visa examinar as condições sociais e sociológicas que configuram transformações nas definições de urbanismo e de memória social, considerando-se que tais condições, em alguma medida, engendram perspectivas para as práticas e para a pesquisa em educação patrimonial. Trata-se de uma abordagem diagnóstica, alicerçada em revisões conceituais e em exercícios analíticos fundamentados na teoria social contemporânea, a partir da realidade brasileira. Conclui que estudos sobre a temática exigem a problematização da condição estática dos bens, das práticas ou das coletividades às quais suas políticas visam proteger, assim como demandam o reconhecimento das múltiplas e dialéticas relações entre coletividades, espacialidades e patrimonialização.

Facilitating engagement with PrEP and other HIV prevention technologies through practice-based combination prevention.

IntroductionRecent years have witnessed a rapid expansion of efficacious biomedical HIV prevention technologies. Promising as they may be, they are largely delivered through standard, clinic‐based models, often in isolation from structural and behavioural interventions. This contributes to varied, and often poor, uptake and adherence. There is a critical need to develop analytical tools that can advance our understandings and responses to the combination of interventions that affect engagement with HIV prevention technologies. This commentary makes a call for practice‐based combination HIV prevention analysis and action, and presents a tool to facilitate this challenging but crucial endeavour.DiscussionModels and frameworks for combination HIV prevention already exist, but the process of identifying precisely what multi‐level factors that need to be considered as part of a combination of HIV interventions for particular populations and settings is unclear. Drawing on contemporary social practice theory, this paper develops a “table of questioning” to help interrogate the chain and combination of multi‐level factors that shape engagement with HIV prevention technologies. The tool also supports an examination of other shared social practices, which at different levels, and in different ways, affect engagement with HIV prevention technologies. It facilitates an analysis of the range of factors and social practices that need to be synchronized in order to establish engagement with HIV prevention technologies as a possible and desirable thing to do. Such analysis can help uncover local hitherto un‐identified issues and provide a platform for novel synergistic approaches for action that are not otherwise obvious. The tool is discussed in relation to PrEP among adolescent girls and young women in sub‐Saharan Africa.ConclusionsBy treating engagement with HIV prevention technologies as a social practice and site of analysis and public health action, HIV prevention service planners and evaluators can identify and respond to the combination of factors and social practices that interact to form the context that supports or prohibits engagement with HIV prevention technologies for particular populations.

Escaping from the City Means More than a Cheap House and a 10-Minute Commute

Escaping from the City Means More than a Cheap House and a 10-Minute Commute

Beyond language and the subject: machinic enslavement in contemporary European cinema

ABSTRACTContemporary subjection, notes Maurizio Lazzarato, has two very different dimensions, subjectivation (our production as subjects) and machinic enslavement (the way in which sub- and supra-individual human elements are put to work as cogs in complex machineries that are never simply technical machines). Although the latter form of subjection is increasingly dominant, critical theory almost always focuses on the former. With its intrinsically machinic functioning, cinema seems ideally placed to open up our machinic subjection to scrutiny. Can it become the Vertovian self-consciousness of a collective, machinic subject, or is it simply condemned to anticipate and embody the way in which consumer capitalism puts the human psyche and affectivity to work? Suggesting that such a polarised set of alternatives is too schematic, this article examines four contemporary, and very dissimilar, European films, probing their capacity to bring the machinic into view and make it available for self-reflexive engagement. The article draws its main theoretical inspiration from the work of contemporary social theorist, Maurizio Lazzarato, but also draws on other thinkers where relevant. The films discussed are Ma part du gâteau (Klapisch, 2011), Abendland (Geyrhalter, 2011), Lucy (Besson, 2014) and Vers Madrid: the Burning Bright (George, 2012).

Images of Modernity in the 21st Century: Altermodernism

The article discusses an actual problem of the contemporary social theory – a problem of post-postmodernism that is the answer to the question: what comes to replace the supposedly outdated postmodernism. Post-postmodernism in an umbrella term that brings together various concepts like digimodernism, automodernism, metamodernism, hypermodernism, supermodernism, etc. One of the replacing postmodernism theories is the French curator and art theorist Nicolas Bourriaud’s concept that was called “altermodern” or “other modernism.” In his previous books Bourriaud proposed to rewrite modernism and, as the result, developed a new theory. The concept appeared in 2009 when Bourriaud presented the exhibition in London, timed to the publication of his manifesto Altermodern, and edited and published the book of collected papers of the same title. Globalization, which opened borders for art, is a central concept of the altermodernism theory. The main terms of altermodern are heterochrony (time diversity) and viatorisation (nomadism). The main social subject of the alternodern era is a free travelling artist, who interprets the meanings of “rewritten” art for the public. They are “rewritten” because Bourriaud proposes to use phenomena and products of past ages to make them work in a new way. However Bourriaud’s concept should be considered critically, as it was formerly done by several researchers. The article proposes a critical review that answers to the question: to what extent the idea of altermodern is heuristic and therefore it could compete with other concepts that abolish postmodern. The author gives a negative answer to this question first of all because altermodern just borrows a lot of elements of the language and apparatus of postmodernism and actually does not offer anything new.

THE ANTINOMIES OF HABERMAS'RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

There are few attempts to reformulate the historical perspective of classical sociological theory comparable to that of Jürgen Habermas’ reconstruction of historical materialism. Habermas considered historical materialism to be principally a theory of social evolution and he sought to revise its conception of historical development. In Habermas’ opinion, the logic of the development of normative structures, social identities and cultural understandings differs from that of material production and the organizational complexity of social systems. My analysis reveals how the major innovation of Habermas’ reconstruction of historical materialism is the ensuing conceptualizations of the social relations of production as forms of social integration and the function of systematically distorted communication in their historical institution. Despite the significant implications of this supplementation of the paradigm of production with a theory of communication, Habermas’ reconstruction of historical materialism is shown to be limited by its inflexible logic of development and disengagement from the conflicts internal to processes of material production. It is proposed that the historical perspective of other strands of contemporary social theory may rectify these limitations through their concern with social creativity, institutional variations and the dialectics of social struggle.

Cosmopolitan Acceptance: A Model for Understanding Views of Acceptance Towards Asylum Seekers

This article offers a broad overview of how the concept of cosmopolitanism can inform an understanding of the acceptance of asylum seekers by members of settled populations. We begin with a brief history of cosmopolitan thought before summarising how the concept is understood in contemporary social theory. We then propose a theoretical framework which links inclusionary views towards asylum seekers with theories of cosmopolitanism and provides a model that allows ’cosmopolitan acceptance’ to be operationalised for the purposes of empirical research.

The postsecular Marx

The emergence of ‘postsecularism’ prompts a re-assessment of the question of Marxism-and-religion, following a long period of polarization then a later twentieth-century phase of ambivalent reticence. But much hangs on whether postsecularism is taken to entail anti-secularism, and whether the latter, though a notable tendency in contemporary social theory, is convincing. The main thrust of this article is to counter two influential strands of theoretical anti-secularism: one drawing on postcolonialist themes and the other headed by Charles Taylor’s now-classic work A Secular Age. My arguments help us to re-specify the atheism-secularism of Marx himself and to identify current options. Singling out for critical note the postsecular positions of ‘compatibilism’ and ‘theologism’, the overall stance that guides the article is that of an expansive intellectual secularism. The point is neither to deny the subjective or political importance of religion nor to underestimate its (variable) societal functionality. Rather, I want to reaffirm an analytical, socio-naturalistic approach to what we understand by religion, and accordingly resist the moralistic, approving tone of many discussions of religion’s ‘revival’. More generally, the cultural, epistemic and imaginative resources of (critically minded) science seem to me still central for social understanding and progressive politics alike, an emphasis that remains one of Marx’s and Engels’ enduring contributions to social thought.

Interactionism in the age of ubiquitous telecommunication

ABSTRACTThe following paper aims to engage recent reconsiderations of Gibson’s theory of affordances and Goffman’s concept of copresence in the context of the material turn – especially in the form expressed by Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory. The paper’s central claim is that microsociology cannot avoid engaging material turn theory. It will be argued that contemporary attempts to reconceptualize classical microsociological frameworks set out on a path that invariably leads to problems investigated by thinkers like Latour: as communication technology advances, the importance of mediated interaction grows, prompting attempts to update interactionism for non-face-to-face interactions such as teleconferencing, social networks and virtual reality. These new social situations are then made sense of in terms of the way these technologies have a transformative effect on interaction. This effect ‒ be it a modifier of the temporal structure of the interaction, or of the interactional capacity of the agents ‒ is argued to always lead back to a central question of the material turn: if technology is a static transformational effect, where is its agency? Or, conversely: if a technological object’s effect is uniform across all external factors, how is that not a form of technological determinism? The paper investigates whether attempts to avoid determinism manage to keep Latourian metaphysics at bay. The paper concludes by suggesting that contemporary social theory must work towards a middle way that does not gloss over important contributions of material turn theorists whilst also not ignoring the importance of considering human political responsibility.

Entering the era of limits and scarcity: the radical implications for social theory

The article argues that contemporary social theory has not recognized the significance of Limits to Growth. A global overshoot in resource consumption suggests we are at a dramatic turning point in human history, the end of the era of constant 'wealth' expansion and the beginning of an era of severe limits and scarcity. This has profound implications for critical social thought, and for addressing current social problems. Recognizing limits will influence the form that a sustainable and just society must take, and transitions to it. Radical and large scale 'de-growth' involves localized, cooperative, frugal, self-sufficient and self-governing lifestyles, settlements and systems. Key elements in the required 'Simpler Way' are discussed as workable and attractive. More importantly, the article argues that these transitions are non-negotiable; no alternative can resolve the predicament of limits. There are important implications for transition theory and practice. Social theory will pursue new directions in this context, with greater convergence around support for an Anarchist perspective on social goals and means.Keywords: Limits to growth, social theory, transition, alternatives, The Simpler Way

Afecto y emoción en la ecología política urbana

En los últimos 20 años, ha sido un giro hacia lo emocional y afectivo en la teoría social contemporánea y en varias partes de la geografía humana, incluyendo la ecología política urbana. Éste artículo ofrece una metodología para aproximar la emoción y el afecto en las geografías del consumo cotidiano, tomando los shopping malls como un lugar especial, por su enfoque en manipular esas áreas de la experiencia del visitante. Enfocando en un estudio etnográfico sobre el Mall Paseo Chiloé y su contexto de cambio socio-espacial rápido, éste artículo muestra algunos métodos para ese tipo de investigación y algunas reflexiones sobre mi experiencia usando estos métodos como una manera de mostrar que tipos de desafíos pueden aparecer. También están incluidos algunos resultados para mostrar el potencial de esa aproximación. Como ya existe literatura sobre los afectos y emociones en las ciencias sociales, este artículo se basa en el trabajo de campo y los aportes metodológicos para llevar a cabo tal estudio. Así, el énfasis está en los detalles alrededor de métodos fundamentales, como la observación participativa, métodos innovadores, como la entrevista móvil y algunas estrategias de usar materiales visuales en la investigación.

Contemporary Social Theory as a Tool to Understand the Experiences of Disabled Students in Higher Education

This is a conceptual article which seeks to consider the use of contemporary social theory to help understand the experience of disabled students in higher education. The use of social theoretical insights has been criticised by many as demonstrating a lack of engagement with the everyday experiences of disabled people. Work which strives to embed theoretical insights into the study of disability has also been criticised for lacking engagement with the ‘reality’ of impairment. In this article I intend to address some of these criticisms by suggesting some ways in which the use of contemporary social theory may provide an explanatory tool which disentangles confusion regarding the journey undertaken by the disabled student. I will discuss how the writings of several social theorists may be helpful in making sense of disabled student journeys. I will begin by discussing why the work of Jacques Derrida can be useful in this regard. These writings will be considered alongside a debate which draws on the writings of Michel Foucault on the use of power in contemporary higher education institutions. I will critically discuss the theoretical insights of Deleuze and Guattari and their offerings on the notion of ‘becoming’. I will then critically interrogate the work of Rosi Braidotti and apply these to a re-imagining of the disabled student journey. The writings of these important theorists have been used before to explore the experiences of disabled people. However, this article is unique in that it proposes that these writings can be used to demystify the experiences of disabled students in higher education. I suggest some ways the work of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari and Braidotti enable a greater understanding of my personal student journey. I suggest that they could be used to make sense of a far wider range of student journeys. I conclude the article by offering a model which utilises some important aspects of these theoretical insights.

Fallgirls: Gender and the Framing of Torture at Abu Ghraib (Classical and Contemporary Social Theory), by Ryan Ashley Caldwell

Initially published in 2012 and now reedited, this book constitutes a peculiar contribution to the torture literature on perpetrators. Existing books have already covered: self-justifying perspectives written by perpetrators (i.e. Aussaresses, 2010; Moore-King, 1998; Pardo, 2014; Troccoli, 1996); interviews with perpetrators or analysis from autobiographical texts (i.e. Conroy, 2000; Crelinsten & Schmid, Alex P (Eds.), 1995; Haritos-Fatouros, 2003; Payne, 2008; Pérez-Sales, 2017); and analysis of the interaction from a survivor’s viewpoint (Gil, 1999). There also exists a wealth of social psychology books that attempt to theorize the logic and dynamics of becoming a perpetrator (i.e. Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Browning, 1992; Miller, 2004; Staub, 1999). Caldwell’s book adopts the extreme hypothesis that the soldiers England and Harman, judged for acts of misconduct in Abu Ghraib after the leakage of dozens of terrible pictures, are innocent. The book goes on to defend the nearly untenable thesis that England and Harman must be considered victims themselves. It is thus wholly unsurprising to find out that Caldwell was part of the legal defence team for both soldiers.

Reading Architectural Utopia(nism)s: A Proposal

Utopia’s relationship with the production of space, implicit or explicit, has always been enduring and has generated channels of experiment. As utopia carved its path to the surface through these channels and gained materialized bodies, disappointments, and thus, criticisms were aroused. One immediate and strict response to such disappointments was to reject the utopian altogether and to seek ways to strip real-world practices of any remaining utopian garb. On the other hand, many and possibly most contemporary social theorists believe that this is a null attempt, if not, as put by Harvey, ‘impossible’. For this reason, theorists agreeing on this line put the blame on the social processes mobilized in the materialization of utopias, rather than on the utopias themselves.This shifts the stress from the concept towards the process. To this end, this text, based on this second line of thought, proposes an alternative way of collating architectural utopia(nism)s that intends to expose different dimensions and patterns of relationships between architectural utopianisms and architectural space.

Siting re-assemblage: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Focusing on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as a dramatic case, this essay reimagines landscape as an assemblage practice in the context of assemblage thinking in the visual arts, contemporary social theory, and urban geography. The essay shows landscape to be both a productive object of assemblage analysis and a new resource for the analytic itself, contributing to an assemblage epistemology by foregrounding the need to think across extremes of scale (from the microbiological to the macroeconomic); to apprehend not just horizontal but also vertical composition; to consider the vitality of matter as the empirically given; and to recognize assemblage in time, as a perpetual process of re-assemblage. A complex physical and technological re-assembly project in different modes, the Park has a double life_as the primary site of the XXX Olympiad and Paralympics and, post-Olympics, as a long-term socioeconomic catalyst for East London. But to succeed as a catalyst, the re-assemblage must sustain enough centrifugal, de-territorializing force to effect new socio-material assemblies.