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Welcome

Welcome to the Sociology Post.

This is the place where I will be posting notes, comments, and reports on sociological matters and issues of sociological relevance. It is where I hope to engage with all of those who come to my website or who have read my work.

The post was launched in April 2017 on my website. Software changes have meant a transfer to Blogger, but I will soon reestablish a link to the website. All the old posts will be re-posted here over the next few weeks.

Watch this space!

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Objectivity and Subjectivity

In  Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research , which I wrote with Gayle Letherby and Malcolm Williams (Sage Publications, 2013), we set out an account of objectivity and truth in relation to the necesarilly subjective basis of social knowledge. This posting outlines a summary of the key arguments of the book. Why are so many sociologists concerned with objectivity and the pursuit of ‘truth’ when our knowledge and understanding of the social world is so self-evidently subjective and partial? The conventional view in all the sciences has been that it is only by securing objective knowledge that we can be guaranteed that it is true and that we can therefore avoid the claims of our critics that we are biased in our viewpoint and are merely parading ideology in the guise of science. This is an important justification of the search for objectivity, but many critics, especially in the social sciences, have argued that it is unrealistic: objectivity is seen as impossible and tru...
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Weber on Stratification

It is commonly held that Weber identified three dimensions of stratification: class, status, and party. This has long been the standard view and has been repeated countless times. It is not, in fact, what Weber said, or even what he implied. I have tried to counter this interpretation before, but here goes again. Weber’s explicit remarks on power were left unfinished when he died and were published only posthumously as distinct fragments on power and stratification that are now most familiar as parts of the text known, in its English translation, as  Economy and Society . In these fragments, Weber discussed the conceptualisation of power in relation to issues of social stratification through ‘class’ ( Klasse ) and ‘status’( Stände ), seeing these social phenomena as being closely associated with each other. His earliest and longest set of notes on the distribution of power, most probably written between 1910 and 1914, first appeared in an English language translation with the t...
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Interaction and Social Structure

Some of the most powerful approaches in sociology are those that analyse the interactions of individuals. These are often seen as in opposition to more abstract views of social structure. I want to argue that this is not the case and that the two approaches are complementary and imply each other. I will develop this argument in this post and will take the argument further in a later post. Interaction is the result of ongoing mutual constructions of the situation and of the attitudes and actions of its participants. Each participant constructs a representation and account and so negotiates a shared understanding that is sufficient to justify their actions as appropriate and so to ensure that the actions of the participants mesh or coordinate. Participants mutually—simultaneously and interdependently, but always imperfectly—legitimate their own actions and shape the actions of others by attempting to define limits to the options open to them. Each participant holds to an understanding...
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