Infrastructural Fractals: Revisiting the Micro—Macro Distinction in Social Theory

10.1068/d420t ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 832-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casper B Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Electronic Patient Records ◽  
Fractal Approach ◽  
Social Theorist ◽  
Danish Health ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between the supposedly small—the micro—and the supposedly large—the macro—has been a long-standing concern in social theory. However, although many attempts have been made to link these two seemingly disjoint dimensions, in the present paper I argue against such an endeavour. Instead, I outline a fractal approach to the study of space, society, and infrastructure. A fractal orientation requires a number of related conceptual reorientations. It has implications for thinking about scale and perspective, and (sociotechnical) relations, and for considering the role of the social theorist in analyzing such relations. I find empirical illustration in the case of the development of electronic patient records in Danish health care. The role of the social theorist is explored through a comparison of the political and normative stance enabled, respectively, by a critical social theory and a fractal social theory.

scholarly journals Speech, time and suffering: Rosenstock-Huessy’s Post-Goethean, Post-Christian sociology

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-204
Author(s):  
Wayne Cristaudo
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Last Millennium ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Universal History ◽  
Social Theorist ◽  
The Social ◽  
Speech Time ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Five years ago, a new three volume edition of Eugen Rosenstock- Huessy (to translate) In the Cross of Reality: A Post-Goethean Sociology appeared in Germany. As with the two prior editions of the work (a one volume version in 1925, and a much revised and expanded two volume version 1956/8) it met with almost no critical response. This is perhaps not surprising - and it barely mentions any other sociologists, its approach is highly idiosyncratic, it is as much anthropology and history as it is sociology. Indeed, the second and third volumes mainly focus on the social formations of antiquity, and the role of Christianity and the messianic revolutions of the last millennium in creating a universal history. In this paper I take the relationship between speech, time and suffering as the key to Rosenstock-Huessy?s argument for why a theoretical grasp of Christianity as a social power is so important for social theory, and why he sees Sociology as a post-Christian form of knowledge. I also make the case for why Rosenstock-Huessy is an interesting and important social theorist.

Reading inquiry through the prism of unemployement

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-216
Author(s):  
Guillaume Heuguet
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Science Inquiry ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This exploratory text starts from a doctoral-unemployed experience and was triggered by the discussions within a collective of doctoral students on this particularly ambiguous status since it is situated between student, unemployed, worker, self-entrepreneur, citizen-subject of social rights or user-commuter in offices and forms. These discussions motivated the reading and commentary of a heterogeneous set of texts on unemployment, precariousness and the functioning of the institutions of the social state. This article thus focuses on the relationship between knowledge and unemployment, as embodied in the public space, in the relationship with Pôle Emploi, and in the academic literature. It articulates a threefold problematic : what is known and said publicly about unemployment? What can we learn from the very experience of the relationship with an institution like Pôle Emploi? How can these observations contribute to an understanding of social science inquiry and the political role of knowledge fromm precariousness?

Imagination and Art

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the role of imagination and the arts in helping social scientists to theorize well. However deep one's basic knowledge of social theory is, and however many concepts, mechanisms, and theories one knows, unless this knowledge is used in an imaginative way, the result will be dull and noncreative. A good research topic should among other things operate as an analogon—that is, it should be able to set off the theoretical imagination of the social scientist. Then, when a social scientist writes, he or she may want to write in such a way that the reader's theoretical imagination is stirred. Besides imagination, the chapter also discusses the relationship of social theory to art. There are a number of reason for this, including the fact that in modern society, art is perceived as the height of imagination and creativity.

Stretching Situated Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Standpoint Epistemology ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter, first of three to develop relational cosmology in conversation with critical social theory and IR theory, argues that at the heart of relational cosmology lies a commitment to situated knowledge. This perspective on knowledge production is similar in some regards to standpoint epistemology but also diverges from it in key respects. The chapter argues that IR scholarship can benefit from close engagement with relational cosmology suggestions as to how our knowledge is limited and how we might need to ‘deal with it’, especially in the social sciences, where there is a tendency to glorify the role of the human in knowing the human.

The role of social media in political change in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahya Fatah
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

This study deals with the relationship between the political field and the media field especially the role of the social media platforms on the political transformation recently in Kurdistan region of Iraq. This is done through a scientific and theoretical study about the controversial relationship between both politic and media and by directing a group of questions concerning this subject to the media experts and socialists in both of Sulaymaniyah and Polytechnic University of Sulaymaniyah. Finally the researcher reaches a group of results, of which: most of the sample members see that the social media platforms is a suitable environment to express and oppose the authority in the Kurdistan region but it is also see that the social media platforms causes stirring up strife and chaos in the region and they also see that it encourages violence which leads to burning party headquarters and governmental institutes in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. On the other hand, most of the sample people see that the role of the religious leaders is stronger than the role of the social media on the community in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

scholarly journals TRIPLE IDENTITY IN CONFLICT: ethnography in legislative media and its possibilities

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 424-451
Author(s):  
Cristiane Brum Bernardes ◽  
Sarah Albertina Cerqueira Nunez
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Public Servant ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Journalism Research ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT – This article analyzes the challenges, obstacles, and theoretical and methodological advances that the ethnography of organizations can bring to journalism research based on two studies on legislative media in the Brazilian National Congress. It discusses how the triple identity of ethnographer-journalist-public servant complicates the analysis of these media outlets, creating an environment favorable to reflexivity. Based on the assumption that such media are a privileged space to observe the relationship between the political and journalistic fields, this study concludes that the ethnography advantages are related to the possibility of perceiving and understanding the hybrid identity of the observed subjects, and the researchers themselves. The political role of actors in this context is complex and emphasized in order to further the understanding of the social role of journalism.RESUMO – Este estudo analisa desafios, obstáculos e avanços teóricos e metodológicos que a perspectiva da etnografia das organizações pode trazer à pesquisa em jornalismo, com base em duas análises das mídias legislativas do Congresso Nacional. Discute-se como a tripla identidade de etnógrafa-jornalistaservidora pública complexifica as análises sobre esses veículos, criando um ambiente favorável à reflexividade. Partindo do pressuposto de que tais mídias são um espaço privilegiado para observar a relação entre os campos político e jornalístico, o estudo conclui que os ganhos da etnografia estão relacionados à possibilidade de perceber e compreender a identidade híbrida dos sujeitos observados, e do próprio pesquisador. No contexto estudado, o papel político dos atores é complexificado e colocado em evidência, o que amplia a compreensão do papel social do jornalismo.RESUMEN – Este estudio aborda desafíos, obstáculos y avances teóricos y metodológicos que la perspectiva de la etnografía de las organizaciones puede aportar a la investigación en periodismo, a partir de dos análisis de los medios legislativos del Congreso Nacional brasileño. Se discute cómo la triple identidad de etnógrafo-periodista-servidor público compleja el análisis de estos vehículos, creando un ambiente favorable a la reflexividad. Partiendo del supuesto de que dichos medios son un espacio privilegiado para observar la relación entre los campos político y periodístico, el estudio concluye que las ganancias de la etnografía están relacionadas con la posibilidad de percibir y comprender la identidad híbrida de los sujetos observados y del propio investigador. En el contexto estudiado, se compleja y resalta el rol político de los actores, lo que amplía la comprensión de la función social del periodismo.

scholarly journals The Social Theory of Communication: its viability to study the relationship between the political and the public communication systems in the USA

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Rosa González Martín ◽  
◽  
Hilda Saladrigas Medina ◽  
Sonia Almazán del Olmo ◽  
Jacinto Valdés-Dapena Vivanco
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals The role of the State, the private sector and the social sector in the different health political cycles in Portugal

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 2507-2513
Author(s):  
Jorge Simões ◽  
Inês Fronteira
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sector ◽  
Political Cycles ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opinion Article

Abstract The Portuguese health system comprises three critical sectors: The State, which intervenes as a regulator of the entire system, and as a planner, provider, and financer of the National Health Service (NHS); the social sector, with a relevant intervention, mainly in continued care; and the private sector, with an essential role in the provision of some types of care. During the last forty years, the State, social, and private sectors’ roles have changed either in its definition or terms of the relationship between them. In general, it is possible to identify, and we shall present them in this opinion article, eight political cycles that reflect the political contexts in Portugal, and, consequently, the ideological framework of each cycle.

On Metaphysics and the Political: A Polemics of Reading Baudelaire in the 1930s

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.

Social Explanation: Structures, Stories, and Ontology. A Reply to Díaz León, Saul, and Sterken

Disputatio ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (50) ◽  
pp. 245-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Haslanger
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
Social Explanation ◽  
Critical Social

Abstract In response to commentaries by Esa Díaz León, Jennifer Saul, and Ra- chel Sterken, I develop more fully my views on the role of structure in social and metaphysical explanation. Although I believe that social agency, quite generally, occurs within practices and structures, the relevance of structure depends on the sort of questions we are asking and what interventions we are considering. The emphasis on questions is also relevant in considering metaphysical and meta-metaphysical is- sues about realism with respect to gender and race. I aim to demon- strate that tools we develop in the context of critical social theory can change the questions we ask, what forms of explanation are called for, and how we do philosophy.

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