What is the role of sociological theory in the information age? What kinds of theories are best s... more What is the role of sociological theory in the information age? What kinds of theories are best suited to analysing the social uses of digital technologies, and for using digital technologies in new ways to study the social? This book contributes to several ongoing conversations on how the social sciences can best adapt to contemporary information technologies and information societies. Focusing on practical or ‘usable theory,’ it surveys the challenges and opportunities of conducting social science in the information age, as well as the theoretical solutions that sociologists have developed and applied over the last two decades. With specific attention to three theoretical approaches in digital social research - critical theory, forensic theory and Bourdieusian theory - the author provides an overview of the history and main tenets of each, surveys its use in sociological research, and evaluates its successes and limitations. Taking a long-term view of theoretical development in evaluating schools of thought, and considering their productivity in analysing and using contemporary digital communication technologies, this book thus treats theory as a tool for empirical research and the development of theory as inseparable from research practice. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in research methods, the development of theory and digital technologies.
Online communities generate massive volumes of natural language data and the social sciences cont... more Online communities generate massive volumes of natural language data and the social sciences continue to learn how to best make use of this new information and the technology available for analyzing it. Text Mining brings together a broad range of contemporary qualitative and quantitative methods to provide strategic and practical guidance on analyzing large text collections. This accessible book, written by a sociologist and a computer scientist, surveys the fast-changing landscape of data sources, programming languages, software packages, and methods of analysis available today. Suitable for novice and experienced researchers alike, the book will help readers use text mining techniques more efficiently and productively.
Class-based perspectives on the persistent social gradients in health within modern welfare state... more Class-based perspectives on the persistent social gradients in health within modern welfare states largely focus on the adverse consequences of unfettered neoliberalism and entrenched meritocratic socioeconomic selection. Namely, neoliberal-driven economic inequality has fuelled resentment and stress among lower-status groups, while these groups have become more homogeneous with regard to health behaviours and outcomes. We synthesise several sociological and historical literatures to argue that, in addition to these class-based explanations, socioeconomic inequality may contribute to persistent social gradients in health due to elite class self-interest-in particular elites' preferences for overdiagnosis, overprescription and costly high-technology medical treatments over disease prevention, and for increased tolerance for regulatory capture. We demonstrate that this self-interest provides parsimonious explanations for several contemporary trends in U.S. health inequality including (A) supplyside factors in drug-related deaths, (B) longitudinal trends in the social gradients of obesity and chronic disease mortality and (C) the immigrant health Gabe Ignatow and Iliya Gutin contributed equally to this manuscript. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
While money is centrally important to globalization, inequality, and social conflict, sociologica... more While money is centrally important to globalization, inequality, and social conflict, sociological globalization theories lack a macro theoretical framework for analysis of the international monetary system. Because studies of the US dollar by Hoogvelt (2010) and Vermeiren (2013) are directly relevant to the development of such a framework, in this paper I critically review their analyses in light of (A) post-Great Financial Crisis macroeconomic and sociopolitical trends, (B) recent theoretical studies of money, and (C) empirical studies of the international monetary system. My critique of Hoogvelt and Veirmeiren’s analyses serves as a foundation for the development of a theoretical analysis of money that is both sociological and global in its orientation.
Pierre Bourdieu is renowned for his empirical research in the areas of education and cultural str... more Pierre Bourdieu is renowned for his empirical research in the areas of education and cultural stratification. But beginning even before his death in 2002, his ideas have had a major impact on research both on and with “the digital.” In this paper we review both Bourdieusian “sociology of the digital” (the application of traditional sociological methods to digital topics) and “digital sociology” (the use of digital technologies to advance sociological methodology). We argue that the success of Bourdieu’s ideas in what would have been for him technologically and geographically foreign terrain is a result of his theories’ grounding in empirical research, philosophical underpinnings, and interdisciplinary influences.
The term ‘anchor baby’ refers to children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrant parents who ar... more The term ‘anchor baby’ refers to children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrant parents who are thought to have been conceived in order to improve their parents’ chances of attaining citizenship. Though the term is considered racist and dehumanizing by many, it has recently entered into common usage. This study investigates the process by which this has occurred. We test hypotheses derived from theories of mass and new media using multiple data sources and methods of analysis, and find that the main sources of the anchor baby boom are partisan news sites. The findings suggest that new media may be influencing mass media by creating unique and unprecedented opportunities for medium-sized partisan news organizations.
Sociological propositions about the workings of cognition are rarely specified or tested, but are... more Sociological propositions about the workings of cognition are rarely specified or tested, but are of central relevance to studies of culture, social judgment, and social movements. This paper draws out lessons of recent work from sociological theory, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience on the embodied nature of knowledge and thought, and develops implications of these lessons for cultural and cognitive sociology. Knowledge ought to be conceived of as fundamentally embodied, because sensory information is a fundamental component of experience as it is stored in long-term memory, and because bodily responses and intuitions often precede reflexive or strategic thought. I argue that the challenge of embodied knowledge for cultural sociology is threefold: to develop cultural theories of motivation; to specify the ways in which the body structures discourses endogenously; and to specify how embodied motivations and embodied discourses interact.
This article argues that a modified version of Bourdieu's habitus concept can generate insights i... more This article argues that a modified version of Bourdieu's habitus concept can generate insights into moral culture and the ways people use culture to make changes in their lives. If revised in light of recent findings from cognitive neuroscience, the habitus allows for the analysis of culture as embodied cognitive structures linking individuals to primary-group discourses. To demonstrate the utility of this conception, I examine the unique abstract language and embodied metaphors used by members of religious and secular overeaters' internet support groups. The religious group used far more cleanliness metaphors, and members who made frequent use of such metaphors remained with the group longer and posted more messages. This effect was not found for either group's abstract language or for the secular group's embodied metaphors. The findings suggest that a cultural influence on social bonding can be shown when culture is operationalized in terms of embodied cognitive schemas that operate within both the habitus and group discourses. Also, traditionally religious moral culture may be more strongly associated with cultural coherence and social bonding than is modernist culture.
In lectures delivered to psychologists in the 1920s and ’30s, Marcel Mauss argued for a rapproche... more In lectures delivered to psychologists in the 1920s and ’30s, Marcel Mauss argued for a rapprochement between sociology and psychology. His goal was not disciplinary unification, but rather a more holistic sociology that recognized the mutual constitution of the body and mind, and the effects of society on the embodied person. Following a review of main points from Mauss’s lectures, I critically review several research programs that are advancing in directions similar to those Mauss advocated: cognitive science research on embodied cognition; psychology studies of cross-cultural differences in perception and emotional expression; and sociological studies of moral cultures. I argue that these research programs provide firm support for positions developed in Mauss’s lectures, and that, therefore, Mauss’s ideas provide a useful template on which future sociological studies of culture, mind, and body can be built.
Social scientists recognize that discourses are structured by historical and social processes, bu... more Social scientists recognize that discourses are structured by historical and social processes, but only rarely make the case that discourses have internal coherence due to processes of individual and social cognition. Where social scientists have argued for internal structuring, however, they have disagreed over how language and cognition interact for (1) individuals, (2) dyads, and (3) social groups. Using semantic sequence and metaphor analysis, I analyze transcripts of a series of meetings of Scottish shipyard workers in order to investigate cognitive schemas structuring the workers’ discourse. Results show how individuals’ schemas shaped their participation in their group’s discourse. Possible future uses of the analytic method developed in this paper are discussed.
Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of ... more Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of technological products being portrayed as sacred,as pure and elevated above mundane human concerns. This tradition of cultural analysis of technology has followed Durkheim’s lead (Durkheim,Emile 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press,New York) in emphasizing the sacred while eliding its opposite,the profane. In this paper I contend that symbols of the profane continue to be powerful cultural elements that animate and order modern discourses and moral worlds,and that scholarly understanding of the culture of high technology can be enriched through analysis of profane symbols. I demonstrate this through metaphoric content analysis of the jargon of American high technology industry from the 1960s through the late 1990s,and show that (1) profane metaphors are widespread in high technology jargon as compared to the jargons of other occupations; (2) profane metaphors in high tech jargon have increased over the last three decades with the growth of high tech industry; and (3) these profane metaphors are thematically ordered,such that they tend to signify threats to technological progress,while technology itself is signified through morally benign metaphors. I argue that these metaphors have proliferated in high technology industry,and much less so in other occupations,because they buttress a moral worldview that makes technological innovations meaningful to their creators. For cultural analysis,these findings point to the value of examining metaphors sociologically, and of examining the social use of profane symbols in modern discourses in which the experience of the sacred is ambiguous or individualized.
Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associate... more Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associated with the diffusion of information technology in developing countries. But cultural factors generally, and national identity in particular, have almost never been viewed as consequential. Castells and Himanen's 2002 study of the information society in Finland, in which the authors identify Finnish national culture as an impetus to the development of the country's informational welfare state, is the most prominent exception to this pattern. This article provides a critical overview of Castells and Himanen's research and revises their conceptual framework to focus on the specific choices states make in constructing their national identities and the effects of these choices on information policy and information technology diffusion. It demonstrates the value of this revised framework through a comparison of the historical trajectories of Turkey and Malaysia's nation-building projects, the incentives these projects have created for the two countries’ social and political elites, and the public information policies and programs that have resulted.
The goal of this paper is to illuminate major trends in the establishment of public libraries in ... more The goal of this paper is to illuminate major trends in the establishment of public libraries in developing countries under conditions of globalization. Based on a review of research from library history and the sociology of culture, I develop hypotheses about the conditions under which public libraries are likely to be established in relatively large numbers in developing countries. Analysis of historical trends in library establishments, and crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of UNESCO data on public libraries in six developing nations, reveal that globalization is associated with decreasing or flat numbers of public libraries on a per capita basis. The only observed exceptions are Malaysia and Chile, where public libraries have been established in large numbers partly for purposes of national integration as a counter to sectarian and ethnic heterogeneity. Implications of these findings for research in the information society paradigm, and for development theory, are discussed.
Social scientists have long debated the factors influencing public concern for the natural enviro... more Social scientists have long debated the factors influencing public concern for the natural environment. This study attempts to contribute to this debate by arguing that environmental concern is shaped by both “spiritual” and “ecological” cultural models of nature-society relations and that by distinguishing between these two, we can better recognize the social sources of variation in concern for the environment. An analysis of questionnaire data from 21 nations from the 1993 International Social Survey Program using ordinary least squares regression models shows that spiritual and ecological environmental worldviews have different social bases. Education generally positively predicts the latter but not the former. Patterns of national differences are noteworthy as well. Thus, conceptualizing public concern for the environment in terms of distinct cultural models may be more revealing than focusing on environmental concern as such.
Online news platforms and social media increasingly influence the public agenda on social issues ... more Online news platforms and social media increasingly influence the public agenda on social issues such as human trafficking. Yet despite the popularity of online news and the availability of sophisticated tools for analyzing digital texts, little is known about the relations between news coverage of human trafficking and audiences’ reactions to and interpretations of such coverage. In this paper, we examine journalists’ and commenters’ topic choices in coverage and discussion of human trafficking in the British newspaper The Guardian from 2009 to 2014. We use latent semantic analysis to identify 11 topics discussed by both journalists and readers, and analyze each topic in terms of the degree to which journalists and readers agree or disagree in their topic preferences. We find that four topics were preferred equally by journalists and commenters, four were preferred by journalists, and three were preferred by commenters. Our findings suggest that theories of ‘agenda setting’ and of the ‘active audience’ are not mutually exclusive, and the scope of explanation of each depends partly on the specific topic or subtopic that is analyzed.
What is the role of sociological theory in the information age? What kinds of theories are best s... more What is the role of sociological theory in the information age? What kinds of theories are best suited to analysing the social uses of digital technologies, and for using digital technologies in new ways to study the social? This book contributes to several ongoing conversations on how the social sciences can best adapt to contemporary information technologies and information societies. Focusing on practical or ‘usable theory,’ it surveys the challenges and opportunities of conducting social science in the information age, as well as the theoretical solutions that sociologists have developed and applied over the last two decades. With specific attention to three theoretical approaches in digital social research - critical theory, forensic theory and Bourdieusian theory - the author provides an overview of the history and main tenets of each, surveys its use in sociological research, and evaluates its successes and limitations. Taking a long-term view of theoretical development in evaluating schools of thought, and considering their productivity in analysing and using contemporary digital communication technologies, this book thus treats theory as a tool for empirical research and the development of theory as inseparable from research practice. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in research methods, the development of theory and digital technologies.
Online communities generate massive volumes of natural language data and the social sciences cont... more Online communities generate massive volumes of natural language data and the social sciences continue to learn how to best make use of this new information and the technology available for analyzing it. Text Mining brings together a broad range of contemporary qualitative and quantitative methods to provide strategic and practical guidance on analyzing large text collections. This accessible book, written by a sociologist and a computer scientist, surveys the fast-changing landscape of data sources, programming languages, software packages, and methods of analysis available today. Suitable for novice and experienced researchers alike, the book will help readers use text mining techniques more efficiently and productively.
Class-based perspectives on the persistent social gradients in health within modern welfare state... more Class-based perspectives on the persistent social gradients in health within modern welfare states largely focus on the adverse consequences of unfettered neoliberalism and entrenched meritocratic socioeconomic selection. Namely, neoliberal-driven economic inequality has fuelled resentment and stress among lower-status groups, while these groups have become more homogeneous with regard to health behaviours and outcomes. We synthesise several sociological and historical literatures to argue that, in addition to these class-based explanations, socioeconomic inequality may contribute to persistent social gradients in health due to elite class self-interest-in particular elites' preferences for overdiagnosis, overprescription and costly high-technology medical treatments over disease prevention, and for increased tolerance for regulatory capture. We demonstrate that this self-interest provides parsimonious explanations for several contemporary trends in U.S. health inequality including (A) supplyside factors in drug-related deaths, (B) longitudinal trends in the social gradients of obesity and chronic disease mortality and (C) the immigrant health Gabe Ignatow and Iliya Gutin contributed equally to this manuscript. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
While money is centrally important to globalization, inequality, and social conflict, sociologica... more While money is centrally important to globalization, inequality, and social conflict, sociological globalization theories lack a macro theoretical framework for analysis of the international monetary system. Because studies of the US dollar by Hoogvelt (2010) and Vermeiren (2013) are directly relevant to the development of such a framework, in this paper I critically review their analyses in light of (A) post-Great Financial Crisis macroeconomic and sociopolitical trends, (B) recent theoretical studies of money, and (C) empirical studies of the international monetary system. My critique of Hoogvelt and Veirmeiren’s analyses serves as a foundation for the development of a theoretical analysis of money that is both sociological and global in its orientation.
Pierre Bourdieu is renowned for his empirical research in the areas of education and cultural str... more Pierre Bourdieu is renowned for his empirical research in the areas of education and cultural stratification. But beginning even before his death in 2002, his ideas have had a major impact on research both on and with “the digital.” In this paper we review both Bourdieusian “sociology of the digital” (the application of traditional sociological methods to digital topics) and “digital sociology” (the use of digital technologies to advance sociological methodology). We argue that the success of Bourdieu’s ideas in what would have been for him technologically and geographically foreign terrain is a result of his theories’ grounding in empirical research, philosophical underpinnings, and interdisciplinary influences.
The term ‘anchor baby’ refers to children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrant parents who ar... more The term ‘anchor baby’ refers to children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrant parents who are thought to have been conceived in order to improve their parents’ chances of attaining citizenship. Though the term is considered racist and dehumanizing by many, it has recently entered into common usage. This study investigates the process by which this has occurred. We test hypotheses derived from theories of mass and new media using multiple data sources and methods of analysis, and find that the main sources of the anchor baby boom are partisan news sites. The findings suggest that new media may be influencing mass media by creating unique and unprecedented opportunities for medium-sized partisan news organizations.
Sociological propositions about the workings of cognition are rarely specified or tested, but are... more Sociological propositions about the workings of cognition are rarely specified or tested, but are of central relevance to studies of culture, social judgment, and social movements. This paper draws out lessons of recent work from sociological theory, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience on the embodied nature of knowledge and thought, and develops implications of these lessons for cultural and cognitive sociology. Knowledge ought to be conceived of as fundamentally embodied, because sensory information is a fundamental component of experience as it is stored in long-term memory, and because bodily responses and intuitions often precede reflexive or strategic thought. I argue that the challenge of embodied knowledge for cultural sociology is threefold: to develop cultural theories of motivation; to specify the ways in which the body structures discourses endogenously; and to specify how embodied motivations and embodied discourses interact.
This article argues that a modified version of Bourdieu's habitus concept can generate insights i... more This article argues that a modified version of Bourdieu's habitus concept can generate insights into moral culture and the ways people use culture to make changes in their lives. If revised in light of recent findings from cognitive neuroscience, the habitus allows for the analysis of culture as embodied cognitive structures linking individuals to primary-group discourses. To demonstrate the utility of this conception, I examine the unique abstract language and embodied metaphors used by members of religious and secular overeaters' internet support groups. The religious group used far more cleanliness metaphors, and members who made frequent use of such metaphors remained with the group longer and posted more messages. This effect was not found for either group's abstract language or for the secular group's embodied metaphors. The findings suggest that a cultural influence on social bonding can be shown when culture is operationalized in terms of embodied cognitive schemas that operate within both the habitus and group discourses. Also, traditionally religious moral culture may be more strongly associated with cultural coherence and social bonding than is modernist culture.
In lectures delivered to psychologists in the 1920s and ’30s, Marcel Mauss argued for a rapproche... more In lectures delivered to psychologists in the 1920s and ’30s, Marcel Mauss argued for a rapprochement between sociology and psychology. His goal was not disciplinary unification, but rather a more holistic sociology that recognized the mutual constitution of the body and mind, and the effects of society on the embodied person. Following a review of main points from Mauss’s lectures, I critically review several research programs that are advancing in directions similar to those Mauss advocated: cognitive science research on embodied cognition; psychology studies of cross-cultural differences in perception and emotional expression; and sociological studies of moral cultures. I argue that these research programs provide firm support for positions developed in Mauss’s lectures, and that, therefore, Mauss’s ideas provide a useful template on which future sociological studies of culture, mind, and body can be built.
Social scientists recognize that discourses are structured by historical and social processes, bu... more Social scientists recognize that discourses are structured by historical and social processes, but only rarely make the case that discourses have internal coherence due to processes of individual and social cognition. Where social scientists have argued for internal structuring, however, they have disagreed over how language and cognition interact for (1) individuals, (2) dyads, and (3) social groups. Using semantic sequence and metaphor analysis, I analyze transcripts of a series of meetings of Scottish shipyard workers in order to investigate cognitive schemas structuring the workers’ discourse. Results show how individuals’ schemas shaped their participation in their group’s discourse. Possible future uses of the analytic method developed in this paper are discussed.
Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of ... more Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of technological products being portrayed as sacred,as pure and elevated above mundane human concerns. This tradition of cultural analysis of technology has followed Durkheim’s lead (Durkheim,Emile 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press,New York) in emphasizing the sacred while eliding its opposite,the profane. In this paper I contend that symbols of the profane continue to be powerful cultural elements that animate and order modern discourses and moral worlds,and that scholarly understanding of the culture of high technology can be enriched through analysis of profane symbols. I demonstrate this through metaphoric content analysis of the jargon of American high technology industry from the 1960s through the late 1990s,and show that (1) profane metaphors are widespread in high technology jargon as compared to the jargons of other occupations; (2) profane metaphors in high tech jargon have increased over the last three decades with the growth of high tech industry; and (3) these profane metaphors are thematically ordered,such that they tend to signify threats to technological progress,while technology itself is signified through morally benign metaphors. I argue that these metaphors have proliferated in high technology industry,and much less so in other occupations,because they buttress a moral worldview that makes technological innovations meaningful to their creators. For cultural analysis,these findings point to the value of examining metaphors sociologically, and of examining the social use of profane symbols in modern discourses in which the experience of the sacred is ambiguous or individualized.
Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associate... more Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associated with the diffusion of information technology in developing countries. But cultural factors generally, and national identity in particular, have almost never been viewed as consequential. Castells and Himanen's 2002 study of the information society in Finland, in which the authors identify Finnish national culture as an impetus to the development of the country's informational welfare state, is the most prominent exception to this pattern. This article provides a critical overview of Castells and Himanen's research and revises their conceptual framework to focus on the specific choices states make in constructing their national identities and the effects of these choices on information policy and information technology diffusion. It demonstrates the value of this revised framework through a comparison of the historical trajectories of Turkey and Malaysia's nation-building projects, the incentives these projects have created for the two countries’ social and political elites, and the public information policies and programs that have resulted.
The goal of this paper is to illuminate major trends in the establishment of public libraries in ... more The goal of this paper is to illuminate major trends in the establishment of public libraries in developing countries under conditions of globalization. Based on a review of research from library history and the sociology of culture, I develop hypotheses about the conditions under which public libraries are likely to be established in relatively large numbers in developing countries. Analysis of historical trends in library establishments, and crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of UNESCO data on public libraries in six developing nations, reveal that globalization is associated with decreasing or flat numbers of public libraries on a per capita basis. The only observed exceptions are Malaysia and Chile, where public libraries have been established in large numbers partly for purposes of national integration as a counter to sectarian and ethnic heterogeneity. Implications of these findings for research in the information society paradigm, and for development theory, are discussed.
Social scientists have long debated the factors influencing public concern for the natural enviro... more Social scientists have long debated the factors influencing public concern for the natural environment. This study attempts to contribute to this debate by arguing that environmental concern is shaped by both “spiritual” and “ecological” cultural models of nature-society relations and that by distinguishing between these two, we can better recognize the social sources of variation in concern for the environment. An analysis of questionnaire data from 21 nations from the 1993 International Social Survey Program using ordinary least squares regression models shows that spiritual and ecological environmental worldviews have different social bases. Education generally positively predicts the latter but not the former. Patterns of national differences are noteworthy as well. Thus, conceptualizing public concern for the environment in terms of distinct cultural models may be more revealing than focusing on environmental concern as such.
Online news platforms and social media increasingly influence the public agenda on social issues ... more Online news platforms and social media increasingly influence the public agenda on social issues such as human trafficking. Yet despite the popularity of online news and the availability of sophisticated tools for analyzing digital texts, little is known about the relations between news coverage of human trafficking and audiences’ reactions to and interpretations of such coverage. In this paper, we examine journalists’ and commenters’ topic choices in coverage and discussion of human trafficking in the British newspaper The Guardian from 2009 to 2014. We use latent semantic analysis to identify 11 topics discussed by both journalists and readers, and analyze each topic in terms of the degree to which journalists and readers agree or disagree in their topic preferences. We find that four topics were preferred equally by journalists and commenters, four were preferred by journalists, and three were preferred by commenters. Our findings suggest that theories of ‘agenda setting’ and of the ‘active audience’ are not mutually exclusive, and the scope of explanation of each depends partly on the specific topic or subtopic that is analyzed.
ABSTRACT This article explores some implications of the interplay of neoliberal economic policy a... more ABSTRACT This article explores some implications of the interplay of neoliberal economic policy and religion for Leslie Sklair's global system theory (GST), and some implications of Sklair's theory for the study of contemporary religion. We first suggest that Sklair needlessly restricted his theory's scope by analyzing culture in terms of consumerist ideologies without systematic consideration of religious doctrines and practices. Second, based on studies of ‘market Islam’ and our own research on neo-Pentecostal Christianity in Guatemala, we argue that Sklair's notion of a transnational capitalist class is needed for an adequate understanding of the rapid growth of these religious movements. We conclude that GST can benefit from consideration of contemporary religious change, while the study of contemporary religion has perhaps even more to gain from theorizing the influence of transnational elites.
Though Pierre Bourdieu has been criticized for ignoring the moral dimensions of social judgments,... more Though Pierre Bourdieu has been criticized for ignoring the moral dimensions of social judgments, I suggest that his habitus concept can provide a useful theoretical foundation for a sociological analysis of morality. If the habitus is revised in a way that recognizes the embodied nature of cognition, it can be treated as a foundation for moral judgments of the self and of others. A revised habitus concept can account for two processes by which moral judgments are shaped by social settings:(1) cultural influences on feelings and ...
ABSTRACT Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for, and found, ev... more ABSTRACT Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for, and found, evidence of technological products being portrayed as sacred, as pure and elevated above mundane human concerns. This tradition of cultural analysis of technology has followed Durkheim's lead (Durkheim, Emile 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press, New York) in emphasizing the sacred while eliding its opposite, the profane. In this paper I contend that symbols of the profane continue to be powerful cultural elements that animate and order modern discourses and moral worlds, and that scholarly understanding of the culture of high technology can be enriched through analysis of profane symbols. I demonstrate this through metaphoric content analysis of the jargon of American high technology industry from the 1960s through the late 1990s, and show that (1) profane metaphors are widespread in high technology jargon as compared to the jargons of other occupations; (2) profane metaphors in high tech jargon have increased over the last three decades with the growth of high tech industry; and (3) these profane metaphors are thematically ordered, such that they tend to signify threats to technological progress, while technology itself is signified through morally benign metaphors. I argue that these metaphors have proliferated in high technology industry, and much less so in other occupations, because they buttress a moral worldview that makes technological innovations meaningful to their creators. For cultural analysis, these findings point to the value of examining metaphors sociologically, and of examining the social use of profane symbols in modern discourses in which the experience of the sacred is ambiguous or individualized.
Social scientists have developed two main arguments regarding the impacts of globalization on env... more Social scientists have developed two main arguments regarding the impacts of globalization on environmental activism and politics. Environmental activism is thought to be associated with instances of local resistance to transnational corporations, and also with a diffusion of environmentalist ideas, practices, and regulations from global core to periphery. Alternatively, this paper argues that by eroding states' sovereignty and supporting ethnic and religious minority groups within and across nations, globalization processes have fused ...
Postmodern social theory has had little impact on studies of global environmental activism and po... more Postmodern social theory has had little impact on studies of global environmental activism and politics, and has often been treated with suspicion. Yet, in this article, I argue that social science theories of both postmodernization and cultural modernization can provide insights into how globalizing processes have affected environmental politics. Where current perspectives on globalization and environmental politics tend to focus on globalization's homogenizing effects, postmodernization arguments suggest that globalization and ...
Abstract Studies of public opinion on environmental issues have been influenced by theories of cl... more Abstract Studies of public opinion on environmental issues have been influenced by theories of class conflict and of value change resulting from economic security, but not much by dependency theories. This paper argues that the economic dependence of developing nations on wealthier nations and international lending institutions can substantially affect public opinion within developing nations. Specifically, in developing nations, citizens' awareness of their country's dependence on foreign investment and loans, and of the ...
Abstract This article discusses the environmental activism of the Aukuras and Romuva movements in... more Abstract This article discusses the environmental activism of the Aukuras and Romuva movements in Lithuania, and of several organizations opposed to a dam project in the Tunceli region of Turkey. Since the late 1980s, these movements have combined celebration of cultural traditions and identities with environmental protests, lobbying and education projects. Implicit in these movements is a response to criticisms that environmentalism has become overly bureaucratized and perhaps hegemonic, and a ...
... Other important influences include Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Kelly Besecke, Japonica Brown-Saracino,... more ... Other important influences include Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Kelly Besecke, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Matt Desmond, Jeremy Freese, Art Goldberger, Stephen Kalberg ... Press I thank acquisitions editor Peter Wissoker, ed-itor in chief Peter Potter, Susan Specter, Katy Meigs, Rachel ...
Environmental social movements include protest movements and lobbying groups, generally started b... more Environmental social movements include protest movements and lobbying groups, generally started by ordinary citizens, that work to preserve and protect the natural environment in local communities, and at national and international levels. Such groups have a history dating ...
Sociologists who study morality have incorporated a variety of models of mind-body connections in... more Sociologists who study morality have incorporated a variety of models of mind-body connections into their research. These models generally fall within three categories: cognitivist, intuitionist, and holistic models. Cognitivist research is focused on deliberative,“rational” thought, schemas, and cognitive frames. Intuitionist research emphasizes “pre-rational” emotions related to empathy, shame, anger, and disgust. Holistic research treats cognition and emotion as super-tightly integrated, and investigates them ...
Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment attempts to transcend current social science ... more Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment attempts to transcend current social science paradigms for interpreting the relations between globalization and environmental activism, and to develop an alternative perspective that recognizes the effects of economic globalization, accelerating migration, and the retreat of the state on environmental social movements and politics. The book is a study in global sociology, and makes use of both quantitative analysis and qualitative case studies. By addressing cutting-edge theories of ...
This study investigates the influence of generational peers on alcohol misuse among immigrant you... more This study investigates the influence of generational peers on alcohol misuse among immigrant youth. We derive hypotheses from sociological theories of generations regarding race/ethnicity, gender, and immigrant generation, and test these hypotheses using a measure that accounts for the proportion of peers within a given peer network that are of the same immigrant generation. Results show that generational ties decreased the odds of alcohol misuse for immigrants and that these effects depend partly on race/ethnicity and gender. We conclude that generational ties play a meaningful role in the health and well-being of immigrant youth, and discuss possible future avenues for research on immigrant generational peers.
This paper argues for the sociological relevance of contemporary research from 'relational' or 's... more This paper argues for the sociological relevance of contemporary research from 'relational' or 'systems' biology on the microbiome-gut-brain (MGB) axis. I review research on the MGB from microbial neuroendocrinology, nutritional psychiatry and other fields with a specific focus on nutrition as a critical element of the social environment influencing gene-environment interactions and a range of social behaviors. I discuss two plausible causal pathways from nutritional factors such as dietary inflammatory potential and hypocholesterolemia to social bonding, violence, and political extremism, and conclude with a discussion of the theoretical, methodological, and epistemological implications of these pathways, and of MGB research and relational biology generally, for social science.
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two, we can better recognize the social sources of variation in concern for the environment. An analysis of questionnaire data from 21 nations from the 1993 International Social Survey Program using ordinary least squares regression models shows that spiritual and ecological environmental worldviews have different social bases. Education generally positively predicts the latter but not the former. Patterns of national differences are noteworthy as well. Thus, conceptualizing public concern for the environment in terms of distinct cultural models may be more revealing than focusing on environmental concern as such.
two, we can better recognize the social sources of variation in concern for the environment. An analysis of questionnaire data from 21 nations from the 1993 International Social Survey Program using ordinary least squares regression models shows that spiritual and ecological environmental worldviews have different social bases. Education generally positively predicts the latter but not the former. Patterns of national differences are noteworthy as well. Thus, conceptualizing public concern for the environment in terms of distinct cultural models may be more revealing than focusing on environmental concern as such.