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Modern capitalism favors values that undermine our face-to-face bonds with friends and family members. Focusing on the post-communist world, and comparing it to more "developed" societies, this book reveals the mixed effects of capitalist culture on interpersonal relationships. While most observers blame the egoism and asocial behavior found in new free-market societies on their communist pasts, this work shows how relationships are also threatened by the profit orientations and personal ambition unleashed by economic development. Successful people in societies as diverse as China, Russia, and Eastern Germany adjust to the market economy at a social cost, relaxing their morals in order to ob...
The sociology of art is now an established sub-discipline of sociology. But little work has been done to explore the implications not of society on art, but of art on the nature and principles of sociology itself. Vision and Society explores the ways in which art (here mainly understood as visual art) structures in fundamental ways the constitution of society, the relations between societies and the ways in which society and culture should be theorized. Building initially on an unfulfilled project by the French sociologist of art Nathalie Heinich to derive a sociology from art, this book pushes this idea in unconventional directions. Rethinking the relationships between the study of art and the study of sociology and anthropology, this book explores how this rethinking might impact sociological theory in general, and certain aspects of it in particular – especially the study of social movements, social change, the urban, the constitution of space and the ways in which human social relationships are mediated and expressed.
The year 1989 marks an upheaval in Central and Eastern Europe and stands for a radical change in such spheres as society, economy, politics and culture in this region. This volume presents a collection of articles and analyses exploring a broad range of aspects of post-1989 developments ranging from historical legacies and politics of history, changing values and mentality, old and new inequalities, elites and European integration, written by recognised social scientists from both Eastern and Western Europe. The chapters included in the volume present not only recent advances and findings, but also state-of-the-art of research and emerging trends and future challenges in the above-mentioned areas.
In today’s individualized, culturally diverse and globalized society, many sociologists have concluded that the conceptualizations developed by classical sociology are no longer sufficient to promote social cohesion. So what kind of solidarity can achieve this? Engaging with recent thought in social and political theory and philosophy (including Honneth, Forst, Ricoeur, Bauman, Sennett, Taylor, Rawls, MacIntyre and many others), this book develops a renewed concept of solidarity based on the notion of ‘recognition’ with regard to others. With attention to the implications of such an account for justice and judgement – particularly where competing claims for recognition arise – Soli...
Concerns about immigration and the rising visibility of minorities have triggered a lively scholarly debate on the consequences of ethnic diversity for trust, cooperation, and other aspects of social cohesion. In this accessibly written volume, leading scholars explore where, when, and why ethnic diversity affects social cohesion by way of analyses covering the major European immigration countries, as well as the United States and Canada. They explore the merits of competing theoretical accounts and give rare insights into the underlying mechanisms through which diversity affects social cohesion. The volume offers a nuanced picture of the topic by explicitly exploring the conditions under which ethnic diversity affects the ‘glue’ that holds societies together. With its interdisciplinary perspective and contributions by sociologists, political scientists, social psychologists, as well as economists, the book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the link between ethnic diversity and social cohesion that is currently available.
Over the past 15 years, a series of empirical studies in different countries have shown that our increasing genetic knowledge leads to new forms of exclusion, disadvantaging and stigmatization. The spectrum of this "genetic discrimination" ranges from disadvantages at work, via problems with insurance policies, to difficulties with adoption agencies. The empirical studies on the problem of genetic discrimination have not gone unnoticed. Since the beginning of the 1990s, a series of legislative initiatives and statements, both on the national level and on the part of international and supranational organizations and commissions, have been put forward as ways of protecting people from genetic discrimination. This is the first book to critically evaluate the empirical evidence and the theoretical usefulness of the concept of "genetic discrimination." It discusses the advantages and limitations of adopting the concept, and offers a more complex account distinguishing between several dimensions and forms of genetic discrimination.
The distinction between online and offline realities is becoming more and more difficult to sustain. As computer-mediated communication evolves and as interaction becomes more and more dependent on the Internet, social, cultural, and political aspects begin to get caught and entangled in the web of contemporary digital communication technologies. Digital tools and platforms for communication are progressively becoming commonplace, while the cultural conceptions that surround these technologies—immediacy, constant accessibility, availability—are becoming increasingly mainstream. Hybrid Media Culture is an interdisciplinary exploration of how the online and the offline interact in present-...
In Retail and Social Change Steven Miles, presents a cross-disciplinary analysis of the evolution of retail and how in both its material and virtual guises it has come to reframe our relationship with the social world. Retail has become increasingly influential in homogenising the urban experience. And yet in reacting to trends in virtual consumption retailers are also becoming more and more conscious of the need to engage with consumers in more sophisticated ways. Retail and Social Change will interest students and scholars in geography, cultural studies, sociology, marketing and business studies interested in how and why retail pervades both our physical and emotional lives in increasingly unexpected ways. It will provide a lively, comparative and thought-provoking contribution that interrogates the implications of retail change, for what it means to be a citizen of a consumer society in the twenty-first century.
Based on a three-year ethnographic study of a steadily growing suburban Muslim immigrant congregation in Midwest America, this book examines the micro-processes through which a group of Muslim immigrants from diverse backgrounds negotiate multiple identities while seeking to become part of American society in the years following 9/11. The author looks into frictions, conflicts, and schisms within the community to debunk myths and provide a close-up look at the experiences of ordinary immigrant Muslims in the United States. Instead of treating Muslim immigrants as fundamentally different from others, this book views Muslims as multidimensional individuals whose identities are defined by a num...
The writings of Ibn Khaldūn, particularly the Muqaddimah (Prolegomenon) have rightly been regarded as being sociological in nature. For this reason, Ibn Khaldūn has been widely regarded as the founder of sociology, or at least a precursor of modern sociology. While he was given this recognition, however, few works went beyond proclaiming him as a founder or precursor to the systematic application of his theoretical perspective to specific historical and contemporary aspects of Muslim societies in North Africa and the Middle East. The continuing presence of Eurocentrism in the social sciences has not helped in this regard: it often stands in the way of the consideration of non-Western sourc...