{"title":"The Particular and the Provincial: Thinking with Dorothy Smith’s Phenomenology","authors":"Paige L. Sweet","doi":"10.1177/07352751231197833","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"I focus on Smith’s phenomenological insights related to the concepts of “bifurcation” and “consciousness” to explore the persistent tension in her work between particularity and abstraction. For Smith, because marginalized groups’ experiences are excluded from dominant ways of knowing, we must begin inquiry from the embodied activity of everyday life, never from the abstracted categories of accepted knowledge. Smith’s concept of bifurcation is essential to understanding this. When people experience the world as bifurcated, we should ask how that split illuminates the ongoing production of marginality as constituted by historically specific relations of ruling. “Consciousness” is likewise essential for Smith because it reflects her concern with how forms of domination get incorporated. For Smith, consciousness is not “micro” but reflects the temporal organization of social power. Starting from the particular seems “small” but is actually incredibly ambitious: The most shrouded aspects of social power are visible there.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sociological Theory","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751231197833","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
I focus on Smith’s phenomenological insights related to the concepts of “bifurcation” and “consciousness” to explore the persistent tension in her work between particularity and abstraction. For Smith, because marginalized groups’ experiences are excluded from dominant ways of knowing, we must begin inquiry from the embodied activity of everyday life, never from the abstracted categories of accepted knowledge. Smith’s concept of bifurcation is essential to understanding this. When people experience the world as bifurcated, we should ask how that split illuminates the ongoing production of marginality as constituted by historically specific relations of ruling. “Consciousness” is likewise essential for Smith because it reflects her concern with how forms of domination get incorporated. For Smith, consciousness is not “micro” but reflects the temporal organization of social power. Starting from the particular seems “small” but is actually incredibly ambitious: The most shrouded aspects of social power are visible there.
期刊介绍:
Published for the American Sociological Association, this important journal covers the full range of sociological theory - from ethnomethodology to world systems analysis, from commentaries on the classics to the latest cutting-edge ideas, and from re-examinations of neglected theorists to metatheoretical inquiries. Its themes and contributions are interdisciplinary, its orientation pluralistic, its pages open to commentary and debate. Renowned for publishing the best international research and scholarship, Sociological Theory is essential reading for sociologists and social theorists alike.