`I recommend this book to all readers interested in thinking about the self; I am sure that anyone who reads it will come away with some new ideas' - Therapeutic Communities This critical and comprehensive examination of the relation of theory and identity discusses definitions of identity in classical social theory, modern social theory and psychoanalysis. The introduction is a critique of existing sociological accounts of identity, arguing that these are incurably cognitive, treating the people that they study as incapable of experiencing an internal life or internal space. The book then considers the implications of this in social theory and human practice.
This work presents a broadranging and critical overview of the many themes of social constructionism and its relevance to contemporary social and political issues. The work links the discourse of constructionism to the wider social and political world, and demonstrates that social science is enriched, not impoverished, by postmodernism. Leading ......
This text provides a thorough introduction to methods for detecting and describing cyclic patterns by clarifying key concepts and covering topics such as research design issues, preliminary data screening and identification and description of cycles.
This exciting and accessible guide to the discussions of truth in the social sciences can also be read as an account of the collapse of modernity, and the rise of new forms of thought which treat difference and ambivalence as positive values. Ross Abbinnett traces the debate on truth from the `objectifying powers' of Kant through more than 200 years of critique and reformulation to the unravelling of truth by Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida.
This exciting and accessible guide to the discussions of truth in the social sciences can also be read as an account of the collapse of modernity, and the rise of new forms of thought which treat difference and ambivalence as positive values. Ross Abbinnett traces the debate on truth from the `objectifying powers' of Kant through more than 200 years of critique and reformulation to the unravelling of truth by Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida.
This wide-ranging book responds to and moves beyond recent debates about the relationship between feminism and politics to offer a vision for the future of feminist theory. Leading figures have combined to offer a broad framework through which to articulate a `new democracy' - one that transgresses the traditional oppositions of equality and difference, sex and gender, essential and constructed, to view the `political' as complex, layered and relational. Issues addressed include: gender, ethnicity, culture and sexual orientation, always embracing the multiple terrains and spaces produced by politics.
This wide-ranging book responds to and moves beyond recent debates about the relationship between feminism and politics to offer a vision for the future of feminist theory. Leading figures have combined to offer a broad framework through which to articulate a `new democracy' - one that transgresses the traditional oppositions of equality and difference, sex and gender, essential and constructed, to view the `political' as complex, layered and relational. Issues addressed include: gender, ethnicity, culture and sexual orientation, always embracing the multiple terrains and spaces produced by politics.
This is an examination of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of culture and habitus. Within the wider intellectual context of Bourdieu's work, this book provides a systematic reading of his assessment of the role of "culture capital" in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Fowler outlines the key critical debates that inform Bourdieu's work: the roles of Marx, Lukacs and Goldmann; Benjamin's discussion of the sacred and the profane; and Foucalt's theory of discourses. She introduces Bourdieu's recent treatment of the rules of art, explains the importance of his concept of capital - economic and social, symbolic and cultural - and defines such key terms as habitus, practice and strategy, legitimate culture, popular art and distinction. The book focuses particularly on Bourdieu's account of the nature of capitalist modernity, on the emergence of bohemia and, with the growth of the market, the invention of the artist as the main historical response to the changed place of art.
This interpretation of nature and environmentalism: examines the destructive relationship between industrial society and nature; questions the utilitarian understanding of nature as an object through a careful analysis of symbolism, ritual and taboo; critically re-examines thinking on the environment; presents a cultural view of nature, which emphasizes how our relation with nature is socially mediated; offers a radical re-interpretation of the relation between society, culture and nature; and explains how environmentalism, and the social construction of nature, is a key index of social order and structure.
