{"title":"Rights Projects: A Relational Sociology of Rights in Globalization","authors":"Minwoo Jung","doi":"10.1177/07352751241265366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241265366","url":null,"abstract":"Building on and extending relational sociology, this article establishes a relational sociology of rights. I argue that rights should not be viewed as substances but as social constructs that derive their meanings and significance within a relational setting. To illustrate how rights are constructed relationally, I introduce a new analytic concept: the rights project, the context-specific endeavor of marginalized communities to envision, claim, and achieve rights on their own terms and in their own ways. The relational construction of rights projects occurs locally, regionally, and globally. The concept of the rights project demonstrates how marginalized communities undertake diverse political and cultural endeavors tailored to specific relational contexts, developing distinct goals, priorities, and strategies in the name of rights. A relational sociology of rights allows us to gain a more nuanced understanding of the conditions of possibility for marginalized communities beyond the Euro-American registers of rights.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141796740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Entangled Emergencies of COVID-19","authors":"C. L. Decoteau","doi":"10.1177/07352751241247567","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241247567","url":null,"abstract":"City of Chicago officials adopted a “racial equity” approach to mitigate the disproportionate racial impact of COVID-19, yet according to interviews with racially and socioeconomically marginalized Chicagoans, this approach failed to address core vulnerabilities associated with health, housing, mental health, and welfare. This article argues that COVID-19 represents and reifies the convergence of three sets of emergencies. First, federal and local governments governed through emergency, enacting temporally bounded governmental strategies that presumed scarcity, triaged care, and naturalized structural inequality by delinking the effects of racism from its causes. This response was spectacular and anticipatory—designed to safeguard the status quo until “normalcy” could be restored. This approach exacerbated two existing endemic emergencies: (1) the slow emergencies racially marginalized populations have faced for decades due to neoliberal restructuring and fragmented care infrastructure and (2) the sacrifice of lower-income frontline workers to premature death to safeguard the economy and protect the middle class.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140667821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Class Experience Mobility through Consumption, Work, and Relationships","authors":"Taylor Laemmli","doi":"10.1177/07352751241242804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241242804","url":null,"abstract":"Sociological analyses of class mobility focus on enduring class movement. How might we reconceptualize class mobility to capture more shifting experiences of class? I propose a new way to theorize class mobility that is oriented toward the analysis of short-term class mobility. Class experience mobility (CEM) is a form of class mobility in which people temporarily access a class lifestyle that does not correspond to their class position, tasting another life before returning to their own. In this theory-building article, I first conceptualize CEM, situating it relative to mainstream class analysis. I then describe six class experience processes that enable temporary upward class mobility through consumption, work, and relationships. Finally, I show how the processes by which people engage in CEM can serve as mechanisms shaping long-term class mobility and people’s classed self-understandings.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140711169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Relational Durkheim: Homo Duplex as the Foundation of a Formalist Cultural Sociology","authors":"Kyle Puetz","doi":"10.1177/07352751241241517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241241517","url":null,"abstract":"I propose that the sociology of Émile Durkheim can serve as a useful foundation for a formalist cultural sociology. Durkheim’s homo duplex model of human cognition directs analytic attention to the relative balance of opportunities that the moral integration of society as a system of representations affords for establishing moral unity with others, on one hand, and realizing personal autonomy, on the other. This apriority, like Simmel’s forms, operates independently of any specific representational contents to produce outcomes related to solidarity, well-being, affect, and existential security. Accordingly, Durkheim provides conceptual resources for a hypothetico-deductive research program that promotes the development of testable hypotheses grounded in intuitions about how individuals phenomenologically experience formal properties of belief networks or other systems of social ideation.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140718564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Playing up Difference","authors":"Krystal Laryea","doi":"10.1177/07352751241241081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241241081","url":null,"abstract":"How do groups reckon with differences in members’ identities and beliefs? A tension exists between groups, whose identities are singular and stably positioned, and their members, whose identities are intertwined and constituted in interaction. Existing work shows how this tension is addressed through downplaying difference, but we know less about how differences are played up in group life. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 56 interviews with a racially and politically diverse religious group, I examine how members play up identities and beliefs that are not shared by all and how comembers respond. This analysis reveals two pathways that playing up difference takes: an engagement pathway and an avoidance pathway. The engagement pathway depends on the activation of shared structural, relational, and epistemic foundations. I conclude with a broader consideration of how playing up difference relates to the pursuit of plurality and wholeness in contemporary organizations and communities.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140778767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stranger in the Mirror: Exploring Somatic Defamiliarization","authors":"Eduardo Duran","doi":"10.1177/07352751241240527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241240527","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the centrality of the senses for the maintenance or disruption of people’s commonsensical familiarity with the world. Drawing from in-depth interviews with people affected by depersonalization/derealization, which the American Psychiatric Association defines as a dissociative condition in which people perceive the world as dream-like, I conceptualize what I term somatic defamiliarization. I define somatic defamiliarization as a process whereby people experience previously unquestioned sensory phenomena, such as mundane objects or their bodies, as unfamiliar. Building on Berger and Luckmann’s work, I contend that somatic defamiliarization is a perpetual, albeit latent, condition of social life that threatens reality maintenance. I discuss how the concept of somatic defamiliarization can be applied to explore the somatic qualities of experiential ruptures that people may undergo in various circumstances, such as immigration or war.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140756986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Interactional Zoo: Lessons for Sociology from Erving Goffman’s Engagement with Animal Ethology","authors":"Colin Jerolmack, Belicia Teo, Abigail Westberry","doi":"10.1177/07352751241230955","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241230955","url":null,"abstract":"Erving Goffman is one of sociology’s most influential thinkers. Scholars debate the extent to which he worked in competing theoretical traditions (e.g., interactionist or structuralist), yet few acknowledge his intellectual indebtedness to animal ethology. This article traces how naturalistic studies of paralinguistic animal communication influenced Goffman’s corpus and specifies the ideas he built on from that field, especially territoriality and ritualized display. Goffman’s comparative approach to animal and human interaction reveals the shortcomings of sociologists’ lingua-centric approach to interaction; elevates animals to social actors, capable of metacommunication, reading others’ intentions, and adjusting their behavior accordingly; and humbles humans, who he finds enacting rituals of civility for the same reason animals engage in ritualized display: to manage threats and facilitate bonding. Goffman’s thesis on the similarities between animal and human social behavior compels sociology to consider animal studies, and his use of ethology helps reconcile his interactionist and Durkheimian tendencies.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140079351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Public Sociology to Sociological Publics: The Importance of Reverse Tutelage to Social Theory","authors":"A. Meghji","doi":"10.1177/07352751241227429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241227429","url":null,"abstract":"This article develops an alternative vision of public sociology. Whereas public sociology is often defined through the actions of professional sociologists, this article calls for a recognition of reverse tutelage in public sociology. Here, publics are seen as sociological interlocutors who can, and often do, produce sociological theories and analyses that can inform professional sociology. I demonstrate this reverse tutelage by focusing on anticolonial and anti-racist social movements, including the Zapatistas, Black Lives Matter, Palestine Action, and Cops Are Flops. I highlight how they produce sociological theories of power, neoliberalism, race, bordering, and violence that can orient professional sociology toward relational forms of analysis that build connections between different sites of resistance. In doing so, I highlight how the boundary between what Burawoy terms “professional” and “critical” sociology is much more porous than initially theorized and that critical sociology—from wider publics—can significantly shape professional sociology.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139796595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Public Sociology to Sociological Publics: The Importance of Reverse Tutelage to Social Theory","authors":"A. Meghji","doi":"10.1177/07352751241227429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751241227429","url":null,"abstract":"This article develops an alternative vision of public sociology. Whereas public sociology is often defined through the actions of professional sociologists, this article calls for a recognition of reverse tutelage in public sociology. Here, publics are seen as sociological interlocutors who can, and often do, produce sociological theories and analyses that can inform professional sociology. I demonstrate this reverse tutelage by focusing on anticolonial and anti-racist social movements, including the Zapatistas, Black Lives Matter, Palestine Action, and Cops Are Flops. I highlight how they produce sociological theories of power, neoliberalism, race, bordering, and violence that can orient professional sociology toward relational forms of analysis that build connections between different sites of resistance. In doing so, I highlight how the boundary between what Burawoy terms “professional” and “critical” sociology is much more porous than initially theorized and that critical sociology—from wider publics—can significantly shape professional sociology.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139856400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Performing Social Control: Poverty Governance, Public Finance, and the Politics of Visibility","authors":"John N. Robinson, Spencer Headworth, Shai Karp","doi":"10.1177/07352751231222476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751231222476","url":null,"abstract":"The visibility of populations, policies, and the state matters greatly for questions of power, inequality, and democratic life. This article builds on existing scholarship by examining how visibility operates as a lever and effect of social control in a racially and economically stratified society. By doing so, the article identifies a paradox. Race- and class-empowered groups often pressure state actors to implement punitive policies or otherwise visibly contain and control disadvantaged populations. But they also tend to decry and disavow the necessary public costs of these disciplinary interventions. This creates a conundrum for authorities: how to satisfy popular demands for social control while concealing resource commitments. We use the term disciplinary tensions to describe the contradictory political desires that state actors must navigate to maintain legitimacy with privileged constituents. We examine two state projects that, in different ways, crystallize this dilemma: the expansion of low-income housing development in New York in the 1960s and 1970s and state prison construction in California in the 1980s and 1990s. In both episodes, officials responded to disciplinary tensions by turning to covert public finance options: specifically, revenue bonds, which seemingly detach policy from conventional tax-and-spend public finance. We argue that these cases shed light on the shifting nature of power as finance has come to pervade all aspects of government and covert governing tactics supplement and supplant society’s more direct practices of social control. Revenue bonds, in particular, allow governing actors to appease and placate the populace by reconfiguring the state’s disciplinary power so that social control appears to pay for itself.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140482325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}