Journal of Critical Realism最新文献

{"title":"When singing strengthens the capacity to aspire: girls’ reflexivity in rural Bangladesh","authors":"Maria Jordet, S. Gullestad, H. Haavind","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2095110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2095110","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the present paper, we explore the impact of singing for girls in rural Bangladesh. Previous findings in this field-based interview study (with 18 girls) have demonstrated that singing can act as a driving force in young girls’ psychological individuation processes, implying increased agency and autonomy. A critical question, however, is to what extent the village girls will manage to maintain a feeling of agency as they pass through puberty. How do they navigate between their own wish to continue singing and pressure from cultural norms (such as getting married)? Using Margareth Archer’s morphogenetic approach and Arjun Appadurai’s approach to culture as a capacity as analytical tools, we connect different modes of reflexivity to the girls’ capacity to aspire. We discuss specific mechanisms that emerge as relevant for the girls/young women as they navigate their way through the Bengali rural society.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41485295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gesture from a critical realist perspective: beyond Peirce’s triangle","authors":"P. Donati","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2095122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2095122","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The paper deals with the theory of gesture from the point of view of relational sociology. On the one hand, the thesis of the ‘complete gesture’ developed by Giovanni Maddalena is appreciated as a significant step forward from classical pragmatism. On the other hand, since theories based essentially on phenomenology and semiotics are at risk of nominalism and constructivism, if we want to understand the gesture from a critical realistic perspective, we need to complement the theory of gesture with a relational social ontology. This means that the theory of the gesture as action (unit act) must be placed within an ontological and epistemological framework, in which Peirce’s triangle is related to the latent value of the real as indicated by the sign. A relational alternative to Peirce's semiotic triangle is presented here with the aim of connecting the sign of the gesture to the underlying reality.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45197058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why and how Barcelona has become a health inequalities research hub? A realist explanatory case study","authors":"L. Cash-Gibson, E. Martínez-Herrera, A. Escrig-Piñol, J. Benach","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2095121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2095121","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite the increase in global research on health inequalities, more needs to be done to strengthen efforts to inform local interventions. In this article, we ask what determines the local capacity to engage in research on health inequalities. A bibliometric analysis identified Spain as the 10th highest global contributor to this research field (1966–2015), yet a significant proportion of this production was affiliated to just a few institutions in Barcelona. How and why has the city produced so much health inequalities research over four decades? A realist explanatory case study was conducted to test and refine six causal mechanisms, and identify the contextual conditions that might have activated them to generate this outcome. Data was triangulated from 10 semi-structured interviews, and scientific and grey literature. Our findings confirmed that several of our proposed mechanisms - functioning under certain conditions over time - explain the large volume of health inequalities research in Barcelona. Based on these findings, key lessons from the city's experience are suggested. Further research is needed on this topic.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45266291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Objects of virtue: ‘moral grandstanding’ and the capitalization of ethics under neoliberal commodity fetishism","authors":"Steph Grohmann","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2095120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2095120","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article critiques conspicuous displays of morality within public discourse, recently framed as ‘moral grandstanding’, from the perspective of an intersubjective Critical Realist theory of ethics. Drawing on Honneth’s recognition theory as the basis of a ‘qualified explanatory critique’, I argue that these practices are not mere aberrations within moral discourse, but a necessary consequence of the neoliberal imperative to turn all aspects of the self into market assets. Neoliberal commodity fetishism also and especially involves the commodification of moral character as a means of economic competition, as exemplified in recent discussions of ‘ethical capital’. This objectification categorically precludes intersubjectivity as the basis of ethical life, and produces a cognitive structure resembling narcissistic pathology, characterized by the pervasive objectification of self and other. Critical Realists should therefore reject moral grandstanding not only for its detrimental effects on public discourse, but because in subordinating morality to the market, it is fundamentally anti-ethical.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41464142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Symposium on The Space That Separates: A Realist Theory of Art","authors":"Dave Elder-Vass, A. Sayer, Tobin Nellhaus, Ian Verstegen, A. Norrie, N. Wilson","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2087296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2087296","url":null,"abstract":"Greeks (Democritus), to Bentham, to Freud and to Skinner. Some of these are strange bedfel-lows, and not just through a critical realist lens. They produce what might be seen as a ‘ lowest common denominator ’ approach to human motivation. Freud, it is true, did write of the ‘ pleasure principle ’ , but he meant by this not the desire for positive stimulus but the desire to be free of all stimuli in the experience of a ‘ Nirvana ’ . While he was writing in these mechanical terms, another way forward was suggesting itself to him through the development of a structural account of human being as based on libido, love or Eros, a life drive leading to love of self and other through ego formation and, what would become in the work of Klein and others, the development of object relations theory. Though not in the Kleinian tradition, Hans Loewald ’ s work also stands out here. From this point of view, approach and avoidance would be governed by the forming of mind and the resulting complex relations between self and other. This is the model of course that Wilson draws upon in thinking through the contribution of psychoanalysts like Winnicott and Bollas to ‘ the space that separates ’ .","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49172137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Explaining the reorganization of political space in local governance reform: would critical realism help?","authors":"Yi Yang","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2091736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2091736","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT When explaining the causes of structural variations in local governance reform, regional studies scholars face a trilemma: how to avoid voluntarism that over-inflates individuals’ power to ‘heroically’ reorganize local governance regimes; how to avoid determinism that denies the prowess of local actors in the face of institutional constraints; and how to avoid constructivism that denies the separate existence of both individual actions and local institutions. The question they must answer is: if individuals are embedded in institutions that define their interests and shape their cognitions, how can they ever be able to change institutions? Critical realism suggests a suitable answer to this question by seeing institutional dynamics as consisting of structures, institutions, and actions, each with a distinct existence but nevertheless irreducible to each other. The practical value of this ontology – which avoids voluntarism, determinism and constructivism – is illustrated by an English devolution case study.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48172149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A critical realist approach to thematic analysis: producing causal explanations","authors":"T. Fryer","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2076776","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2076776","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Thematic analysis (TA) is one of the most popular methods in social science. There are several different approaches to TA that hold different ontological commitments, ranging from positivistic coding reliability TA to constructivist reflexive TA. However, there has been less focus on developing an approach that is informed by critical realism, with the notable exception of Wiltshire and Ronkainen. The first part of this paper proposes a five-step critical realist approach to TA. This approach aims to produce nuanced causal explanations of events, countering the mistaken assumption that qualitative research cannot produce causal knowledge. The second part of the paper brings this critical realist approach to TA into conversation with three alternatives: coding reliability, reflexive, and Wiltshire and Ronkainen’s approach. The approach to TA in this paper builds on the strengths of these alternatives, offering an accessible way to adopt a critical realist philosophical grounding when doing TA.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47059866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Round table: is the common ground between pragmatism and critical realism more important than the differences?","authors":"Karin Zotzmann, Emily Barman, D. Porpora, M. Carrigan, Dave Elder-Vass","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2073674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2073674","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT One theme of this special issue is an incitement to reconsider the relationship between pragmatism and critical realism. While their advocates sometimes come into conflict, there are also clearly borrowings and overlaps between the traditions, and we therefore invited scholars with feet in either or indeed both camps to discuss their relationship. The discussion was conducted virtually, with participants submitting initial contributions, reviewing each other’s submissions, and then responding to each other in their second round of contributions.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47483161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overlapping traditions with divergent implications? Introduction to the special issue on pragmatism and critical realism","authors":"Dave Elder-Vass, Karin Zotzmann","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2073692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2073692","url":null,"abstract":"Intellectual traditions can be seen as complex patchworks of ideas, constructed differently by each observer as they learn about the tradition, and harmonized to an extent through the boundary work done by those interpreters who come to be seen as most authoritative for the tradition concerned (Elder-Vass and Morgan 2022; Elder-Vass 2022; Gieryn 1983). From this perspective, different traditions may sometimes overlap or interleave, and yet also sometimes conflict, with different interpreters forming different understandings of those overlaps and conflicts. This special issue provides ample evidence to support this view of the relationship between critical realism and pragmatism. That the traditions overlap should be no surprise given that leading critical realists have in places drawn, implicitly or explicitly, on the work of leading pragmatists. Roy Bhaskar himself mentions that the people who influenced him – namely the ‘anti-deductivists’, who included his supervisor Rom Harre – were themselves influenced by, amongst others, the founder of pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce, although Bhaskar also critiques these influences for their lack of an ontology (Bhaskar 1986, 3). Bridget Ritz’s recent paper on abduction and retroduction in the two traditions seems to suggest that these concepts, for example, came to critical realism from Peirce, and critical realists have then developed their own variation of the concept of retroduction (Ritz 2020) (also see Danermark, Ekström, and Karlsson 2019, 109–122). Margaret Archer draws more explicitly on George Herbert Mead’s work on the internal conversation in her influential work on reflexivity (Archer 2003). We also find intriguing parallels between the traditions even in cases where lines of influence are invisible and perhaps unlikely. Roy Bhaskar’s understanding of language and its relation to the world is remarkably similar to the work of Charles Peirce though it is unclear whether he was directly influenced by Peirce’s work (Nellhaus 1998). They are certainly close enough for Kieran Cashell to argue recently that we need a synthesis of Peirce and Bhaskar’s work on representation (Cashell 2009). Stephen Pratten provides another example in this issue in his comparison of Tony Lawson and his Cambridge group’s social positioning theory with the neglected work of John Dewey on the concept of the offices that people and things may occupy (Pratten 2022). Even in the absence of lines of influence, parallel theory developments like this suggest some similarity in the broad philosophical orientations of pragmatism and critical realism, and some potential for these traditions learning more from each other. Jamie Morgan, for example, has suggested that critical realists would find value in the work of the leading contemporary pragmatist Nicholas Rescher (Morgan 2019). Further evidence of affinity is provided by scholars who have passed through both traditions and indeed often continue to find both useful for thei","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47838014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Realist by inclination, childhood studies, dialectic and bodily concerns: an interview with Priscilla Alderson","authors":"P. Alderson, J. Morgan","doi":"10.1080/14767430.2022.2068261","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2068261","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this wide-ranging interview Priscilla Alderson discusses how she came to research parental and childhood consent and became a sociologist and how, late in her career, she became convenor of the critical realism group started by Roy Bhaskar at the Institute for Education in London. She discusses aspects of her seminal research over the years on multiple subjects, such as the rights of children, and reflects on what critical realism has added to her social research.","PeriodicalId":45557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Critical Realism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48400266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}