Theories and Themes

University Content - Semester 2

What is a Standpoint?

‘The world looks different depending on peoples’ perspective, understanding this is key as it can impact the relationship between Sociology and the powerful (states and corporations.)’

List key themes of Becker’s (1967) ‘Whose Side Are we on?’

• Governments and colonialism

• War and genocidal violence

• Civil rights movement

• Student protests

Is the notion of ‘objective’ Sociology problematic?

Yes

What does C. Wright-Mills (1959: 5) say about The Sociological Imagination?

“A quality of mind that will help to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves.”

According to C. Wright Mills (1959: 5) what are some of the ‘imaginative questions’ we can ask about the social world?

• What is the structure of this particular society as a whole?

• Where does this society stand in human history?

• What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period?

What did Bruno Latour (2004) say?

‘Social is used too casually, as a kind of ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card [fans of Monopoly will get the reference]’

What did Bruno Latour (2004) say about objects and technologies?

Technology is not just digital and alongside objects allow us to shape interactions we have with individuals and in order to create the world we rely on these objects to have human interaction.

What does Harding (1990: 27) say?

‘Men have to work out their own feminism just as whites have to work out our own antiracism.’

How to prevent the idea that the people in power have a monopoly of truth?

We need to listen to the perspectives of those who are oppressed in society and not listen to the voices that overshadow them.

What did Donna Haraway (1974)) find in ‘Primate Visions?’

• Masculinised field affects ‘scientific’ judgments therein

• One’s position conditions one’s interpretation of reality

• Power of the scientific community; what is not said, assumptions etc

What does bell hooks’ work talk about?

Entanglements between gender, racism, and homophobia which is a fundamental question for ‘post-feminism.’

What did Edward Said find in Orientalism?

• The construction and devaluation of ‘the other’

• Emphasis on difference/exoticness

• Hierarchical binaries

• Critique of the ways in which Imperalism/colonialism is justfied, legitimated and made meaningful

• False representations of the world from the powerful

• Academic knowledge can showcase this

What else did Edward Said say?

Construction of ‘other’ in the context colonialism - Wealth, culture, etc. as being more ‘significant.’ - Society tells stories of individuals and groups, we view ourselves in relation to some of these stories. How do different groups think about one another based on these notions? - How does the ‘West’ represent the ‘East’? - Orientalist Tropes with the powerful representing the powerless.

What did Kieran Healey say about Nuance?

‘Nuance is not a virtue of good sociological theory. Our research problems are complex, rich, and multifaceted. When sophisticated thinkers face a rich and complex world, how can nuance not be the wisest approach?’

How do we avoid nuance then? (Kieran Healey)

• Painting with bold colours is best

• Show your process, show your workings, show your evidence

• Highlight, illuminate, contextualise

How does Kieran Healey (2017) talk about nuance?

“It is the act of making — or the call to make — some bit of theory ‘richer’ or ‘more sophisticated’ by adding complexity to it, usually by way of some additional dimension, level, or aspects, but in the absence of any strong means of disciplining of specifying the relationship between the new elements and the existing ones.”

According to Kieran Healey (2017), what are the three key aspects of Nuance?

1. “The ever more detailed, merely empirical description of the world.”

2. “The evermore extensive expansion of some theoretically stem in a way that effectively doses fit off, from rebuttal or disconfirmation by anything in the world.”

3. “The insinuation that a sensitivity to nuance is a manifestation of one’s distinctive ability to grasp and express the richness, texture and flow of social reality itself.”

What is the most important thing about a theory according to Kieran Healey (2017)?

“The quality of a theory on principled grounds is ultimately the most important thing about it.”