Pub Date : 2021-10-27DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1972021
Alex Preda
ABSTRACT Recent sociological conceptualizations of competition emphasize its discursive or institutional aspects, such as rankings. Although macro- and meso-sociological takes on competition are more or less well established, micro-sociological approaches are less so. What does it mean to be in competition from the perspective of everyday social relationships and interactions? A possible answer is provided by the concept of rivalry. In this paper, I examine the evolution of the concept of rivalry and its development in the sociological tradition in the early to mid-twentieth century, especially in the work of Georg Simmel, Leopold von Wiese, Karl Mannheim, but also, later, Erving Goffman. I argue that a micro-sociological focus on rivalrous social relationships and interactions is able to address at least some of the issues concerning a micro-sociology of competition. Grounded in an examination of this tradition, I discuss how rivalry relates to sociological notions such as social knowledge, action, worth, and evaluation. I distinguish two intersecting logics of competition, namely, the logic of action and the logic of observation. I argue that a typology of rivalries cutting across various domains of social life can be worked out according to this intersection. A micro-sociology of rivalries can make a genuine contribution to the sociological investigation of competition.
{"title":"Rivalry as a social relationship: conceptualizing the micro-foundations of competition","authors":"Alex Preda","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1972021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1972021","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recent sociological conceptualizations of competition emphasize its discursive or institutional aspects, such as rankings. Although macro- and meso-sociological takes on competition are more or less well established, micro-sociological approaches are less so. What does it mean to be in competition from the perspective of everyday social relationships and interactions? A possible answer is provided by the concept of rivalry. In this paper, I examine the evolution of the concept of rivalry and its development in the sociological tradition in the early to mid-twentieth century, especially in the work of Georg Simmel, Leopold von Wiese, Karl Mannheim, but also, later, Erving Goffman. I argue that a micro-sociological focus on rivalrous social relationships and interactions is able to address at least some of the issues concerning a micro-sociology of competition. Grounded in an examination of this tradition, I discuss how rivalry relates to sociological notions such as social knowledge, action, worth, and evaluation. I distinguish two intersecting logics of competition, namely, the logic of action and the logic of observation. I argue that a typology of rivalries cutting across various domains of social life can be worked out according to this intersection. A micro-sociology of rivalries can make a genuine contribution to the sociological investigation of competition.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76224703","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}
Pub Date : 2021-10-27DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1991420
Iaan Reynolds
ABSTRACT This paper studies the conflict between critical rationalism and critical theory in Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno’s 1961 debate by analyzing their shared rejection of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. Despite the divergences in their respective projects of critical social research, Popper and Adorno agree that Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge is uncritical. By investigating their respective assessments of this research programme I reveal a deeper similarity between critical rationalism and critical theory. Though both agree on the importance of critique, they are less concerned with the development of critical consciousness as a focus of this project. In this way, Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, particularly in its formative stages, revolves around a set of problems relatively inaccessible to critical rationalism and critical theory, since it is centrally concerned with identifying and cultivating the possibility of critique in society. In closing, I gesture to the importance of political education in Mannheim’s early work, suggesting that a return to these experimental texts will yield resources for political thought today.
{"title":"The sociologist of knowledge in the positivism dispute","authors":"Iaan Reynolds","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1991420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1991420","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper studies the conflict between critical rationalism and critical theory in Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno’s 1961 debate by analyzing their shared rejection of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. Despite the divergences in their respective projects of critical social research, Popper and Adorno agree that Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge is uncritical. By investigating their respective assessments of this research programme I reveal a deeper similarity between critical rationalism and critical theory. Though both agree on the importance of critique, they are less concerned with the development of critical consciousness as a focus of this project. In this way, Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, particularly in its formative stages, revolves around a set of problems relatively inaccessible to critical rationalism and critical theory, since it is centrally concerned with identifying and cultivating the possibility of critique in society. In closing, I gesture to the importance of political education in Mannheim’s early work, suggesting that a return to these experimental texts will yield resources for political thought today.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78992653","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1997777
Bjørn Schiermer
ABSTRACT The paper investigates the wide spectrum of affects characteristic of creative practice. It is centred on an empirical case study of the different creative phases that characterize the work of a group of professional newspaper cartoonists. The study explores the analytical possibilities of an object-oriented and affect theoretical approach to creative practice. It is loosely inspired by the phenomenology of affect developed by British-Australian feminist and cultural scholar, Sara Ahmed. After a short sketch of the lacunae of traditional sociological theories of action as regards creativity, and an explanation of my selective adaption of Ahmed's work to cover these lacunae, I move on to the empirical section. I begin by analysing the typical affects of the work phase in which the cartoonists struggle to choose what to draw. Next, I delve into the affects belonging to the phase of the actual drawing, a phase characterized by longer moments of intense affective immersion. I then attempt to map some of the means by which the cartoonists preserve affective strength and freshness (of the drawing) during their work processes. Finally, I investigate the collective side to the work of the cartoonists and how collective and creative affects may intensify or reinforce each other.
{"title":"Creative affects: affective phases in creative work processes","authors":"Bjørn Schiermer","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1997777","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1997777","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The paper investigates the wide spectrum of affects characteristic of creative practice. It is centred on an empirical case study of the different creative phases that characterize the work of a group of professional newspaper cartoonists. The study explores the analytical possibilities of an object-oriented and affect theoretical approach to creative practice. It is loosely inspired by the phenomenology of affect developed by British-Australian feminist and cultural scholar, Sara Ahmed. After a short sketch of the lacunae of traditional sociological theories of action as regards creativity, and an explanation of my selective adaption of Ahmed's work to cover these lacunae, I move on to the empirical section. I begin by analysing the typical affects of the work phase in which the cartoonists struggle to choose what to draw. Next, I delve into the affects belonging to the phase of the actual drawing, a phase characterized by longer moments of intense affective immersion. I then attempt to map some of the means by which the cartoonists preserve affective strength and freshness (of the drawing) during their work processes. Finally, I investigate the collective side to the work of the cartoonists and how collective and creative affects may intensify or reinforce each other.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83572688","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.2014629
Odin Lysaker
ABSTRACT Today, deep divisions run through many societies and their political discourses on contested issues such as populism, nationalism, immigration, and integration. Such divisions strengthen already existing polarizations created by various dynamics between reason and affect. In this article, I, therefore, introduce the term anarchic core of communication. In doing so, I contribute an alternative reading of Jürgen Habermas’s democratic thought. Here, I show the significance of both disagreements and feelings in his works. I depart, then, from those Habermasians and non-Habermasians claiming that Habermas appeals only to consensus and rationality. Within this Habermasian framework, therefore, I reconstruct what I conceptualize as the moral ideal of bodily felt integrity. This is a threshold above which not even the anarchic core should be morally accepted to misrecognize individuals’ embodied dignity. In result, I propose that my idea of bodily felt integrity is relevant to judge how much anarchic communication societies can recognize and remain democracies.
{"title":"Bodily felt integrity: the anarchic core of communication in Jürgen Habermas’s democratic thought","authors":"Odin Lysaker","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.2014629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.2014629","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Today, deep divisions run through many societies and their political discourses on contested issues such as populism, nationalism, immigration, and integration. Such divisions strengthen already existing polarizations created by various dynamics between reason and affect. In this article, I, therefore, introduce the term anarchic core of communication. In doing so, I contribute an alternative reading of Jürgen Habermas’s democratic thought. Here, I show the significance of both disagreements and feelings in his works. I depart, then, from those Habermasians and non-Habermasians claiming that Habermas appeals only to consensus and rationality. Within this Habermasian framework, therefore, I reconstruct what I conceptualize as the moral ideal of bodily felt integrity. This is a threshold above which not even the anarchic core should be morally accepted to misrecognize individuals’ embodied dignity. In result, I propose that my idea of bodily felt integrity is relevant to judge how much anarchic communication societies can recognize and remain democracies.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80506290","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1999839
L. Tønder
ABSTRACT This essay introduces the special issue on affect and reason in deeply divided societies. Common to all essays in the special issue is a shared belief that political and social theory need a new framework for analyzing the relationship between affect and reason. This goes especially for societies marked by ever-growing cleavages, ethnic diversity, ideological struggles, and deep political pluralism. The purpose of this introductory essay is to outline – and substantiate – the reasons behind this belief. The essay provides an overview of the current debate on affect and reason, highlighting both contributions and limitations. The essay then proceeds to outline the specifics of the alternative framework developed in the ensuing 10 essays.
{"title":"Affect and reason in divided societies: entanglement, conflict, possibility","authors":"L. Tønder","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1999839","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1999839","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay introduces the special issue on affect and reason in deeply divided societies. Common to all essays in the special issue is a shared belief that political and social theory need a new framework for analyzing the relationship between affect and reason. This goes especially for societies marked by ever-growing cleavages, ethnic diversity, ideological struggles, and deep political pluralism. The purpose of this introductory essay is to outline – and substantiate – the reasons behind this belief. The essay provides an overview of the current debate on affect and reason, highlighting both contributions and limitations. The essay then proceeds to outline the specifics of the alternative framework developed in the ensuing 10 essays.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82763214","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}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1946116
Andrew L. Poe
ABSTRACT Recent theorizing on the concept of fanaticism has paid much attention to the identity of fanatics. Viewed in this way, fanaticism becomes a degradation, employed in the naming of existential political enemies. This political labelling helps foster identification, delineating the parameters of civility and extremism. And, in a politics that privileges compromise and sympathy, such parameters might be essential. Yet what results is a theory of fanaticism as an ideational void – always an identity applied to degrade another. By privileging incivility and extremism as political harms, such theories offer specific, rather than generalist accounts of fanaticism, as these harms are specific to secular liberal politics. Such theorizing poses a real danger, misrecognizing fanatics as only already political enemies, ignoring the positive political potential in yet incomplete fanaticisms. In this paper, I argue that failed fanatical efforts are those which receive publicly accepted identifications as fanatical, while successful fanaticisms are those which disrupt the very processes of representation. I engage a developing discourse, highlighting implicit tensions between political representation and the functioning of fanaticism. Ultimately, I aim to explain how the ascriptive irrationality applied to fanatics is only ever politically successful when fanaticism fails as a method, collapsing into an identity.
{"title":"Un-represent: theorizing the reason of political fanaticism","authors":"Andrew L. Poe","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1946116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1946116","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recent theorizing on the concept of fanaticism has paid much attention to the identity of fanatics. Viewed in this way, fanaticism becomes a degradation, employed in the naming of existential political enemies. This political labelling helps foster identification, delineating the parameters of civility and extremism. And, in a politics that privileges compromise and sympathy, such parameters might be essential. Yet what results is a theory of fanaticism as an ideational void – always an identity applied to degrade another. By privileging incivility and extremism as political harms, such theories offer specific, rather than generalist accounts of fanaticism, as these harms are specific to secular liberal politics. Such theorizing poses a real danger, misrecognizing fanatics as only already political enemies, ignoring the positive political potential in yet incomplete fanaticisms. In this paper, I argue that failed fanatical efforts are those which receive publicly accepted identifications as fanatical, while successful fanaticisms are those which disrupt the very processes of representation. I engage a developing discourse, highlighting implicit tensions between political representation and the functioning of fanaticism. Ultimately, I aim to explain how the ascriptive irrationality applied to fanatics is only ever politically successful when fanaticism fails as a method, collapsing into an identity.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86222525","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}
Pub Date : 2021-08-16DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1945644
Liv Sunnercrantz
ABSTRACT This article studies affect and reason in practices of persuasion through a rhetorical-performative framework. Focusing on the Swedish economic crisis 1988–1993, this piece argues that the successful rise and installation of neoliberal discourse at the elite policy-making level – particularly regarding privatization – can be explained by the prominent role passion played in the presentation of its case outside mainstream media channels. In describing and explaining this shift in discourse away from a previously hegemonic social-democratic regime, the author draws on post-foundational discourse theory and rhetorical political analysis, as well as corpora from a range of fora during this period. Affect and reason are operationalized as the rhetorical concepts pathos and logos. The analysis reveals how they operate in entangled ways as combinations and constellations of etho-pathetic and logo-pathetic argumentation. A significant conclusion is that the eschewing of passion by conventional, mainstream media and hegemonic actors, made it possible for advocates of neoliberal policies to establish inroads into the Swedish political and economic establishment. The article contributes by anchoring the rhetorical-performative theory in empirical research to produce new insights into the role of affect and reason in discursive change and continuity.
{"title":"‘Which side are you on – Mr. Westerberg?’ Reason, affect, and division in public debate","authors":"Liv Sunnercrantz","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1945644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1945644","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article studies affect and reason in practices of persuasion through a rhetorical-performative framework. Focusing on the Swedish economic crisis 1988–1993, this piece argues that the successful rise and installation of neoliberal discourse at the elite policy-making level – particularly regarding privatization – can be explained by the prominent role passion played in the presentation of its case outside mainstream media channels. In describing and explaining this shift in discourse away from a previously hegemonic social-democratic regime, the author draws on post-foundational discourse theory and rhetorical political analysis, as well as corpora from a range of fora during this period. Affect and reason are operationalized as the rhetorical concepts pathos and logos. The analysis reveals how they operate in entangled ways as combinations and constellations of etho-pathetic and logo-pathetic argumentation. A significant conclusion is that the eschewing of passion by conventional, mainstream media and hegemonic actors, made it possible for advocates of neoliberal policies to establish inroads into the Swedish political and economic establishment. The article contributes by anchoring the rhetorical-performative theory in empirical research to produce new insights into the role of affect and reason in discursive change and continuity.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74161668","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}
Pub Date : 2021-07-23DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1945645
Jonathan Harmat
ABSTRACT Through a close analysis of Spinoza's views on prophecy and the Hebrew Republic, this article contributes insights into how certain modes of governing succeed in aligning and entangling affects with reason. I argue, first, that the prophet must be seen as a political figure immersed in the imaginative-affective domain. Through the imagination, signs, and a moral compass, the prophet utilizes affects such as humility, repentance, and devotion to exhort people to live in accordance with the guidance of reason. In this way, prophetic authority underlies a mode of governing that utilizes imaginative and affective means to reach rationally expedient ends. However, since affects are inherently inconsistent and fluctuating, something needs to be invoked to make commendable affects durable, intense, and lasting. I therefore turn to Spinoza's analysis of Moses’ government of the Hebrews to argue that by commending collective, repetitive, and bodily performances of ceremonies, rituals, and liturgy, he was able to habituate individuals to certain moods, values, and virtues that conform with the prescripts of reason on an affective basis. It is my hope that the article will enhance our ability to see that, although affects are governable, not all affects can be entangled with reason and that the difference between true and false prophets is small.
{"title":"Governing between reason and affects: Spinoza and the politics of prophets","authors":"Jonathan Harmat","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1945645","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1945645","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Through a close analysis of Spinoza's views on prophecy and the Hebrew Republic, this article contributes insights into how certain modes of governing succeed in aligning and entangling affects with reason. I argue, first, that the prophet must be seen as a political figure immersed in the imaginative-affective domain. Through the imagination, signs, and a moral compass, the prophet utilizes affects such as humility, repentance, and devotion to exhort people to live in accordance with the guidance of reason. In this way, prophetic authority underlies a mode of governing that utilizes imaginative and affective means to reach rationally expedient ends. However, since affects are inherently inconsistent and fluctuating, something needs to be invoked to make commendable affects durable, intense, and lasting. I therefore turn to Spinoza's analysis of Moses’ government of the Hebrews to argue that by commending collective, repetitive, and bodily performances of ceremonies, rituals, and liturgy, he was able to habituate individuals to certain moods, values, and virtues that conform with the prescripts of reason on an affective basis. It is my hope that the article will enhance our ability to see that, although affects are governable, not all affects can be entangled with reason and that the difference between true and false prophets is small.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83141990","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}
Pub Date : 2021-06-14DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1931901
Sofia Näsström
ABSTRACT The rise of authoritarian populism has forced many democracies to consider how best to defend democracy against its inner enemies. In the literature on democratic self-defense, one often distinguishes between three models: a legal (militant), political (procedural) and social (integrational). If much scholarly attention is on the merits and limits of the first two models, the social model has fallen behind. This is surprising given its success in the interwar years in many Scandinavian countries, and the empirical correlation between high levels of social equality and high levels of political tolerance. This article examines the merits and limits of the social model. More specifically, it makes two contributions. First, it introduces ‘the social security’ approach proposed by early Swedish social democratic thinkers as an alternative to ‘the social homogeneity’ approach proposed by Hermann Heller. The aim is to show that they provide different solutions to the loser's dilemma: the fact that losers in a democratic election must be ready to support the winners, whose decisions are at odds with their own convictions. Second, the article examines a common objection against the social security approach, namely, that it politicizes democracy, and thereby undermines the distinction between procedure and substance in the defense of democracy.
{"title":"Democratic self-defense: bringing the social model back in","authors":"Sofia Näsström","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1931901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1931901","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The rise of authoritarian populism has forced many democracies to consider how best to defend democracy against its inner enemies. In the literature on democratic self-defense, one often distinguishes between three models: a legal (militant), political (procedural) and social (integrational). If much scholarly attention is on the merits and limits of the first two models, the social model has fallen behind. This is surprising given its success in the interwar years in many Scandinavian countries, and the empirical correlation between high levels of social equality and high levels of political tolerance. This article examines the merits and limits of the social model. More specifically, it makes two contributions. First, it introduces ‘the social security’ approach proposed by early Swedish social democratic thinkers as an alternative to ‘the social homogeneity’ approach proposed by Hermann Heller. The aim is to show that they provide different solutions to the loser's dilemma: the fact that losers in a democratic election must be ready to support the winners, whose decisions are at odds with their own convictions. Second, the article examines a common objection against the social security approach, namely, that it politicizes democracy, and thereby undermines the distinction between procedure and substance in the defense of democracy.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86946375","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}
Pub Date : 2021-06-13DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2021.1934506
Josef Barla
ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of the broad reception of Karen Barad's framework of agential realism, it comes as a surprise that there has been little discussion so far of her core concept of diffraction in the social studies of science. This article aims to evaluate the methodological potentials of a diffractive approach for science studies. In order to achieve this, I will examine Barad's take on quantum mechanics, which serves as the foundation for her ethico-onto-epistemological framework of agential realism. In doing so, I will unpack the crucial role played by diffraction in reworking the relation between the objects of observation and the agencies of observation, and subsequently in reshaping the question of the referent of objectivity. Building on this analysis, I propose the notion of the researcher as transducer, demonstrating how such a take allows for the emergence of an understanding of the researcher as themselves materializing in intra-action with other human and more-than-human forces and practices. As I will show, such a diffractive approach not only shifts our attention even more to the performative power of research as a material practice but also to the constitutive nature of knowledge-making practices, along with their ethical and political implications.
{"title":"Beyond reflexivity and representation: diffraction as a methodological sensitivity in science studies","authors":"Josef Barla","doi":"10.1080/1600910X.2021.1934506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1934506","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of the broad reception of Karen Barad's framework of agential realism, it comes as a surprise that there has been little discussion so far of her core concept of diffraction in the social studies of science. This article aims to evaluate the methodological potentials of a diffractive approach for science studies. In order to achieve this, I will examine Barad's take on quantum mechanics, which serves as the foundation for her ethico-onto-epistemological framework of agential realism. In doing so, I will unpack the crucial role played by diffraction in reworking the relation between the objects of observation and the agencies of observation, and subsequently in reshaping the question of the referent of objectivity. Building on this analysis, I propose the notion of the researcher as transducer, demonstrating how such a take allows for the emergence of an understanding of the researcher as themselves materializing in intra-action with other human and more-than-human forces and practices. As I will show, such a diffractive approach not only shifts our attention even more to the performative power of research as a material practice but also to the constitutive nature of knowledge-making practices, along with their ethical and political implications.","PeriodicalId":42670,"journal":{"name":"Distinktion-Journal of Social Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73074186","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}
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