{"title":"Talking Your Self into It: How and When Accounts Shape Motivation for Action","authors":"Daniel Winchester, Kyle Green","doi":"10.1177/0735275119869959","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275119869959","url":null,"abstract":"Following Mills, several prominent sociologists have encouraged researchers to analyze actors’ motive talk not as data on the subjective desires that move them to pursue particular ends but as post hoc accounts oriented toward justifying actions already undertaken. Combining insights from hermeneutic theories of the self and pragmatist theories of action, we develop a theoretical position that challenges dichotomous assumptions about whether motive accounts reflect either justifications or motivations for action, instead illustrating how they can migrate from one status to the other over time. We develop this perspective through a comparative analysis of actors’ involvements in two quite different careers of social action—religion and mixed martial arts—documenting both how and when justificatory talk about actors’ motives for initiating a course of action at one point in time became formative of their subjective motivations for sustaining these same courses of action at another.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2019-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275119869959","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44177683","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 High-hanging Fruit of the Gender Revolution: A Model of Social Reproduction and Social Change","authors":"David Calnitsky","doi":"10.1177/0735275119830448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275119830448","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes an abstract sociological model of stable patriarchal social relations and feminist social change. I describe a patriarchal equilibrium of gender inequality and propose an approach for thinking about how various kinds of interventions can short-circuit the system, pushing it onto a new equilibrium path. In particular, I focus on possible interventions into parental leave policy, describing their social structural and cultural ramifications as well as a range of objections to them. However, more important than the specific interventions proposed is the general model itself, which depicts reinforcing structures of patriarchal culture, gender inequality in labor markets, and gender inequality in the home—and moreover, how this model can evolve. It describes a feedback loop that can lock structures of gender inequality in place but also provides a means for considering the spaces available to both blunt the social reproduction of gender inequality and reinforce “genderless” social relations.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275119830448","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47319531","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":"Towards a Dynamic Theory of Civil Society: The Politics of Forward and Backward Infiltration","authors":"S. Klein, Cheol-Sung Lee","doi":"10.1177/0735275119830451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275119830451","url":null,"abstract":"This article develops a conceptual framework to theorize the processes of mutual penetration between civil society, the state, and the economy, where incumbents and challengers continuously formulate new strategies against each other. We criticize the prevailing Weberian and Tocquevillian concepts of civil society, and then, drawing on research in social movements and comparative political economy, propose a new framework: the politics of forward and backward infiltration. Under each form of infiltration, we delineate three submodes: the politics of influence, the politics of substitution, and the politics of occupation, which correspond to strategies for discursive influence, functional replacement, and institutional takeover, respectively. We challenge the exclusive focus on the politics of influence as inadequate for analyzing these processes, while highlighting the other two modes as necessary additions. Finally, we elucidate the implications of our theory of forward and backward infiltration for the study of civil society and participatory democracy more generally.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275119830451","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43515441","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":"Racial Ideology or Racial Ignorance? An Alternative Theory of Racial Cognition","authors":"Jennifer C. Mueller","doi":"10.1177/0735275120926197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275120926197","url":null,"abstract":"Directing attention to racial ignorance as a core dimension of racialized social systems, this article advances a process-focused Theory of Racial Ignorance (TRI), grounded in Critical Race Theory and the philosophical construct white ignorance. TRI embodies five tenets—epistemology of ignorance, ignorance as ends-based technology, corporate white agency, centrality of praxis, and interest convergence. TRI’s tenets explain how racial ignorance reinforces white domination, attending to mechanisms of white knowledge evasion and resistance that facilitate racial reproduction—in everyday life, through institutions, and across societies more broadly. I illustrate TRI’s assets by comparison to an extant theory of racial cognition—color-blind theory (CBT). I argue TRI generates returns by shifting from racial ideology to racial ignorance, and from era-defined structures to ongoing historical processes; and demonstrate TRI’s unique capacity to explain and predict changes in dominant logics, supporting more strategic resistance.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275120926197","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46470719","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":"Living One’s Theories: Moral Consistency in the Life of Émile Durkheim","authors":"A. Abbott","doi":"10.1177/0735275119830444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275119830444","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the relation between a theorist’s theories and his daily life practices, using Émile Durkheim as an example. That theory and practice should be consistent seems not only scientifically proper but also morally right. Yet the concept of consistency conceals several different standards: consistency with one’s own theoretical arguments, consistency with outsiders’ judgments of oneself, and consistency within one’s arguments (and actions) across time and social space. Analysis of 750 pages of Durkheim’s letters shows that Durkheim lived a life consistent with and informed by his theories for most of his career. In his professional relations, his personal relations, and his political positions, Durkheim’s moral activity usually proceeds from his theoretical commitments. However, the death of his son in combat could not be theorized within the Durkheimian system, and it broke up this long stable pattern. The analysis concludes that under modern conditions, the issue of moral consistency relates closely to the general problem of solidarity and invites more complex theorization.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275119830444","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48081269","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}
Sociological TheoryPub Date : 2019-03-01Epub Date: 2019-03-25DOI: 10.1177/0735275119830450
Douglas W Maynard, Jason Turowetz
{"title":"Doing Abstraction: Autism, Diagnosis, and Social Theory.","authors":"Douglas W Maynard, Jason Turowetz","doi":"10.1177/0735275119830450","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0735275119830450","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic upsurge in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As researchers have investigated the responsible sociohistorical conditions, they have neglected how clinicians determine the diagnosis in local encounters in the first place. Articulating a position \"between Foucault and Goffman,\" we ask how the interaction order of the clinic articulates with larger-scale historical forces affecting the definition and distribution of ASD. First, we show how the diagnostic process has a narrative structure. Second, case data from three decades show how narrative practices accommodate to different periods in the history of the disorder, including changing diagnostic nomenclatures. Third, we show how two different forms of abstraction-Type A, which is categorical, and Type B, which is concrete and particular-inhabit the diagnostic process. Our analysis contributes to the sociology of autism, the sociology of diagnosis, the sociology of abstraction, and social theory.</p>","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6541456/pdf/nihms-1021535.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37298297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Structure of Causal Chains","authors":"Neil Gross","doi":"10.1177/0735275118811377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275118811377","url":null,"abstract":"Sociologists are increasingly attentive to the mechanisms responsible for cause-and-effect relationships in the social world. But an aspect of mechanistic causality has not been sufficiently considered. It is well recognized that most phenomena of interest to social science result from multiple mechanisms operating in sequence. However, causal chains—sequentially linked mechanisms and their enabling background conditions—vary not just substantively, by the kind of causal work they do, but also structurally, by their formal properties. In this article, the author examines the nature of causal chains, identifies major structural dimensions along which they differ, and makes a case that a mechanism-based explanation would be enhanced if causal chains and their structures were brought to the analytical forefront.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275118811377","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45336881","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":"Coleman’s Boat Revisited: Causal Sequences and the Micro-macro Link","authors":"Gustav Ramström","doi":"10.1177/0735275118813676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275118813676","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that empirical social scientists can be freed from having to account for “micro-to-macro transitions.” The article shows, in opposition to the (still) dominant perspective based on Coleman’s macro-micro-macro model, that no micro-macro transitions or mechanisms connect the individual level to the macro level in empirical social science. Rather, when considering that social macro entities and properties are micro manifest rather than macro manifest, it becomes clear that the micro-macro move in empirical social science is purely conceptual or analytical.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275118813676","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44669745","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":"Against Teleology in the Study of Race: Toward the Abolition of the Progress Paradigm","authors":"Louise Seamster, Victor Ray","doi":"10.1177/0735275118813614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275118813614","url":null,"abstract":"We argue that claims of racial progress rest upon untenable teleological assumptions founded in Enlightenment discourse. We examine the theoretical and methodological focus on progress and its historical roots. We argue research should examine the concrete mechanisms that produce racial stability and change, and we offer three alternative frameworks for interpreting longitudinal racial data and phenomena. The first sees racism as a “fundamental cause,” arguing that race remains a “master category” of social differentiation. The second builds on Glenn’s “settler colonialism as structure” framework to describe race relations as a mutually constituted and place-based system of resource allocation. The third framework draws attention to racialized agency.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275118813614","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41550905","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":"Migration-Facilitating Capital: A Bourdieusian Theory of International Migration","authors":"Jaeeun Kim","doi":"10.1177/0735275118794982","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275118794982","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the centrality of the notion of “capital,” scholarship on international migration has yet to fully explore the generative potential of Bourdieu’s theory. This article “thinks with” Bourdieu to theorize how states, aspiring migrants, and migration brokers interact over the valorization, conversion, and legitimization of various types of capital for migration purposes. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theorization on the state, I identify the variegated ways in which state policies and their enactment by frontline gatekeepers constitute migration-facilitating capital. I show how migration brokers help migrants acquire adequate capital—or the semblance of possession of such capital—to contest the state’s monopolistic claim over the governance of identity, qualification, and mobility. Drawing on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of field, habitus, illusio, and symbolic violence, I analyze how migrants partake in “organized striving” for migration-facilitating capital, the uneven distribution of which produces material and symbolic stratification.","PeriodicalId":48131,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0735275118794982","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44803401","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}