scholarly journals Fractured Lives, Dissenting Voices, Recovering ‘Truth’: Frontiers of Research and Resistance

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Phil Scraton
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Critical Social

Emerging from critical conferences in the early 1970s involving academic researchers, community-based workers and activists, critical social research challenged the role and legitimacy of mainstream social sciences in their support of social orders fractured by class, ‘race’, sectarianism, gender, sexuality and age. This article opens with a brief reflection on the emergence and consolidation of critical social theory as the foundation and context for research that challenges state-institutionalised power and authority. It draws on long-term, in-depth primary research into the operational policies and practices of policing and incarceration, exploring the profound challenges involved in bearing witness to the ‘pain of others’. Recounting personal testimonies ‘from below’, revealing institutionalised deceit and pursuing ‘truth recovery’, it argues that dissenting voices are the foundation of hope, resistance and transformation.

Relations, Human and Non-human

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-135
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter argues for an extension of how we think relationally via relational cosmology. It places relational cosmology in a conversation with varied relational perspectives in critical social theory and argues that specific kinds of extensions and dialogues emerge from this perspective. In particular, a conversation on how to think relationality without fixing its meaning is advanced. This chapter also discusses in detail how to extend beyond discussion of ‘human’ relationalities towards comprehending the wider ‘mesh’ of relations that matter but are hard to capture for situated knowers in the social sciences and IR. This key chapter seeks to provide the basis for a translation between relational cosmology, critical social theory, critical humanism and International Relations theory.

Stretching Situated Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Milja Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Standpoint Epistemology ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter, first of three to develop relational cosmology in conversation with critical social theory and IR theory, argues that at the heart of relational cosmology lies a commitment to situated knowledge. This perspective on knowledge production is similar in some regards to standpoint epistemology but also diverges from it in key respects. The chapter argues that IR scholarship can benefit from close engagement with relational cosmology suggestions as to how our knowledge is limited and how we might need to ‘deal with it’, especially in the social sciences, where there is a tendency to glorify the role of the human in knowing the human.

It’s a sprint, not a marathon: a case for building short-term partnerships for community-based participatory research

2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110294
Author(s):  
Lucero Radonic ◽  
Cara Jacob ◽  
Rowenn Kalman ◽  
E. Yvonne Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Participatory Research ◽  
Rapid Assessment ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Time Frames ◽  
Is Value

Academic calendars and university timelines set an urgent pace for researchers, which can hinder the establishment of long-term community partnerships. Given community-based participatory research’s (CBPR) emphasis on community-led research, time constraints can inhibit academic researchers’ commitments to collaborative methodologies and participatory research. This article considers how CBPR can be adapted for shorter-term engagements while still producing mutually beneficial research. In doing so, we contribute to the existing corpus on rapid assessment methodologies, characterized for adopting methods traditionally practiced over a longer duration to shorter time frames. We review the successes and limitations of a CBPR project executed within the timespan of six months in Flint, Michigan. In the case discussed, photo-voice enabled the inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, horizontal partnerships, reciprocal learning, and an accessible disemmination format within a CBPR framework. In conclusion we assert that there is value in short-term CBPR, especially for emergent issues where there is a need for rapid, responsive methodologies. However, short-term CBPR is a sprint, rather than a marathon; although shorter in duration, it is more intensive. It requires significant methodological commitments, flexibility, and an intensified workload for those involved.

scholarly journals Theory in Emancipative Action: Aligning Action Research in Information Systems Education with Critical Social Research in Information Systems

Systems ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Goede ◽  
Taylorlien
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Systems Education ◽  
Information Systems Research ◽  
Critical Social

As educators, we want to guide our students so that they develop to the best of their ability and are emancipated. As researchers in education, we often use action research. We use proven theories to guide our intervention to emancipate our students. Or do we? Recently, prominent information systems journals have published few papers in the field of information systems education. We demonstrate that the guidelines for action research from a critical social research perspective in information systems are not evident in action research studies in information systems education. The emancipative goals of pure critical social research and reliance on critical social theory to guide our intervention are lacking in these educational studies. Our aim is to provide alignment between educational action research in information systems and information systems research conducted from a critical social theory perspective. Our methodology is to explicitly propose phases of action research from a critical social research perspective, grounded both in information systems and education literature. Then, we demonstrate the value of this approach in a study on the improvement of a data warehousing module. We conclude that by using proven theories and reflecting on the presuppositions in a problem environment, the researcher is able to guide the development of students and the community.

scholarly journals Zum Programm einer kritischen Sozialwissenschaft−Empirie und Theorie

1979 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Baurmann ◽  
Anton Leist ◽  
Dieter Mans
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Empirical Social Science ◽  
Critical Social Science ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Critical Social ◽  
Critique Of Ideology

AbstractThe article argues for a synthesis between analytical philosophy and social sciences as relevant and necessary. The motivation and framework of such a synthesis is outlined on the basis of a critical social science. The authors illuminate such a perspective negatively in a critique of empirical and theoretical sociology, then positively in a clarification of the critical standpoint. Four theses, two under each-aspect, are defended:1. Concerning empirical social sciencesNeither the quantitative nor the qualitative paradigm of empirical social science is able to put forward adequate methods for social research. Instead, the development of reconstructive methods is proposed to combine the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages of the quantitative and qualitative paradigms.2. Concerning theoretical sociologyMacrosociological theories tend to resist empirical corrobation. Pure theoretical and philosophical justification abounds instead. In this situation the tools of analytic theory of science are proposed in order to clarify the necessary steps towards a further development of theories, which can be empirically tested.3. Concerning the critique of societyA critical social science must incorporate a theory of a just society in order to analyse social institutions in a normative way. In this context an ethical realist approach is offered which tries to fulfill two conditions for sociologically relevant normative reasonings: satisfaction of individual interests and the rational consensus of all persons concerned.4. Concerning critique of ideologyThe tools of analytic philosophy can be given new application by combining them with an analysis of interests under the title of critique of ideology.

scholarly journals Bearing Witness to the ‘Pain of Others’: Researching Power, Violence and Resistance in a Women’s Prison

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Scraton
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
The North ◽  
Women In Prison ◽  
Women's Prison

Addressing the dynamics of interpersonal violence, institutionalised abuses and prisoner isolation, this article consolidates critical analyses as challenges to the essentially liberal constructions and interpretations of prisoner agency and penal reformism. Grounded in long-term research with women in prison in the North of Ireland, it connects embedded, punitive responses that undermine women prisoners’ self-esteem and mental health to the brutalising manifestations of formal and informal punishments, including lockdowns and isolation. It argues that critical social research into penal policy and prison regimes has a moral duty, an ethical obligation and a political responsibility to investigate abuses of power, seek out the ‘view from below’. Challenging the revisionism implicit within the ‘healthy prison’ discourse, it argues for alternatives to prison as the foundation of decarceration and abolition.

Final Remarks

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-132
Author(s):  
Dariusz Jemielniak
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Sharing Economy ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Sociological Studies

This chapter includes the final remarks about conducting digital social studies. It summarizes the book briefly and encourages to start own independent projects. This monograph has presented the variety of approaches and tools to conduct social research of and through the online world. It explained why the Internet ought to be the subject of sociological studies, and why even traditional social sciences projects ought to include elements of online research. It identified three trends that are strictly connected with the development of communication technology and networks (online transformation of interpersonal relations, crisis of expert knowledge, and the sharing economy). It indicated their importance in many areas, and the need for deep and recurring social science analyses due to the high changeability of the phenomena. It then described the main quantitative approaches, focusing on those that do not require long-term specialist training. It highlighted those qualitative methods that may be used to interpret quantitative research and be a starting point for qualitative analysis. It outlined the possibilities of doing online cultural studies—studying products of Internet culture as a valid method of doing social sciences. Finally, it outlined the ethical considerations that every author of a digital study ought to consider.

scholarly journals Don’t they really represent us?

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Luca Sebastiani ◽  
Ariana S. Cota
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Critical Social

In this article we position ourselves as socially and politically committed anthropologists, thinking about the possible ways research and activism come together in contemporary anthropology. We emphasize how critical social sciences have contributed to this debate mainly around two key ideas: the democratization of knowledge production and the politicization of that knowledge. We examine our experiences in the Spanish 15M movement and share four examples -two ‘failed’ and two ‘successful’ experiences- in which we discuss two key aspects of being activist academics. First, the difficulties and advantages of doing activism and research as a combined anthropological engagement; and, secondly, the usefulness of combining a long-term commitment to social justice as an effort to democratize mechanisms of knowledge production.

scholarly journals Pathologies of recognition: An introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Neal Harris
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Social Pathology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Social

For generations, critical social theorists have turned to the framing of ‘pathology’ to provide a theoretical infrastructure for their critique. Such an approach famously undergirds much of the Frankfurt School’s canonical work. Axel Honneth, current chair of the Institute of Social Research, continues this tradition. While Frankfurt School approaches have largely tied pathology diagnosis to a critique of historically mediated reason, a plurality of alternate conceptions exist. With the ascendancy of an intersubjective approach to critical social theory, the pathologies of the social have increasingly been comprehended as ‘pathologies of recognition’. Advocates of such a framing point to the ease of establishing an immanent basis to their critique, and of the empirical evidence supporting the need for recognition. Yet, today’s academy is increasingly spilt between those who embrace a ‘pathologies of recognition’ framework, and those who consider the development a ‘domestication’ of the Critical Theoretical tradition. This special issue brings together contributors from both sides of this divide. While the optimal framing of social pathology remains contested, the contributors to this collection are committed to furthering forms of social critique which transcend the limited liberal framings of injustice and illegitimacy.

Basic Christian Communities: Their Social Role and Missiological Promise

1987 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Curt Cadorette
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Critical Social Theory ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Social

This article discusses the social dynamics of basic Christian communities using insights derived from the social sciences. Drawing from critical social theory, the author first analyzes the ideological forces at play among marginalized people. He then discusses how these oppressive forces can be and are overcome by the community of committed Christians. Underlying the discussion is the assumption that contemporary social analysis has much to offer our understanding of ecclesial communities and that the lived faith of poor Christians provides a dynamic model of resistance to oppression which must likewise be taken into account by committed social theorists.

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