Eros e società-mondo

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Adam Kuper

"For a century, European social anthropology has been one of the most stimulating and creative influences within the social sciences. Social theory has had to grapple with the varieties of human experience reported by ethnographers; and out of their ethnographic experience, social anthropologists have constructed unique theoretical insights. The contributors to this volume, leading figures in European social anthropology today, reanimate this great tradition. They confront the models current in the social sciences with the diverse, often exotic, experiences and models of their subjects." "But if the broad project is accepted, theoretical strategies are the subject of urgent debate. The authors in this volume advocate diverse approaches to social theory, ranging from the action-based models of network theorists through the subtleties of the neo-structuralists to the daring experiments of the new cognitivists. Their lively debates refer to fascinating case studies, drawn from wide ethnographic experience." "Conceptualizing Society represents a significant contribution to social theory. It will be required reading for all social anthropologists, and for all those whose concern with social theory transcends the most parochial span."--Jacket.

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Scott R. Harris

Has constructionism become a victim of its own success? Scott Harris argues that, as more scholars adopt the approach, its key concepts are being used in differing and even contradictory ways - thus undercutting the vitality of its application as a research tool. To help clear the waters, he critically examines current debates and delivers a powerful call to launch a renewed constructionism. Harris traces how constructionism has evolved into two distinct perspectives - interpretative and objective - as he delves into timely topics such as social inequality, marital equality, and family diversity. He also evaluates each perspective's strengths, as well as its unique contributions. Sharpened definitions of the goals and vocabulary of both schools of thought, he demonstrates, give us a more lucid understanding of the pressing social issues of our time. Harris clarifies and assesses the power of differing constructionist approaches for understanding a range of critical social issues. -- Publisher description.

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José Medina

This book explores the epistemic side of oppression, focusing on racial and sexual oppression and their interconnections. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from interacting epistemically in fruitful ways--from listening to each other, learning from each other, and mutually enriching each other's perspectives. Medina's epistemology of resistance offers a contextualist theory of our complicity with epistemic injustices and a social connection model of shared responsibility for improving epistemic conditions of participation in social practices. Through the articulation of a new interactionism and polyphonic contextualism, the book develops a sustained argument about the role of the imagination in mediating social perceptions and interactions. It concludes that only through the cultivation of practices of resistance can we develop a social imagination that can help us become sensitive to the suffering of excluded and stigmatized subjects. Drawing on Feminist Standpoint Theory and Critical Race Theory, this book makes contributions to social epistemology and to recent discussions of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, epistemic responsibility, counter-performativity, and solidarity in the fight against racism and sexism.

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Michael E. Gardiner

Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning interest in the study of everyday life within the social sciences and humanities. In Critiques of Everyday Life Michael Gardiner proposes that there exists a counter-tradition within everyday life theorising. This counter-tradition has sought not merely to describe lived experience, but to transform it by elevating our understanding of the everyday to the status of a critical knowledge.In his analysis Gardiner engages with the work of a number of significant theorists and approaches that have been marginalized by mainstream academe, including:*The French tradition of everyday life theorising, from the surrealists to Henri Lefebvre, and from the Situationist International to Michel de Certeau*Agnes Heller and the relationship between the everyday, rationality and ethics*Carnival, prosaics and intersubjectivity in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin*Dorothy E. Smith's feminist perspective on everyday life.Critiques of Everyday Life demonstrates the importance of an alternative, multidisciplinary everyday life paradigm and offers a myriad of new possibilities for critical social and cultural theorising and empirical research.