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Sociology of unintended consequences is commonly depicted as a framework for understanding the outcomes that run counter to the initial intentions of social actors because of factors such as ignorance, error and complexity. This conventional approach, however, is now undergoing change under the influence of more encompassing shifts in framing in social sciences. Indeed, in the last few years, the study of the unintended has evidently moved from the question'What are the sources of the unintended?'to the inquiry'What is it that makes the unintended possible?'or'What risks, but also opportunities, do the unintended entail?'Explaining this puzzle in relation to the internal dynamics of sociology of unintended consequences, Adriana Mica makes an erudite journey in relation to its three main analytical frameworks, their semantic shifts, setbacks and theoretical revivals. Certainly, through the examination of the use of protective headgear in boxing, this volume renders explicitly the possibilistic turn not only in the specific research of the unintended, but in sociology more generally.Presenting the contributions of leading sociology theorists in a new light, Sociology as Analysis of the Unintended will appeal to graduate students and researchers interested in fields such as theoretical sociology, sociology of substantive issues and sociology of sport.

This Handbook examines the study of failure in social sciences, its manifestations in the contemporary world, and the modalities of dealing with it – both in theory and in practice. It draws together a comprehensive approach to failing, and invisible forms of cancelling out and denial of future perspectives. Underlining critical mechanisms for challenging and reimagining norms of success in contemporary society, it allows readers to understand how contemporary regimes of failure are being formed and institutionalized in relation to policy and economic models, such as neo-liberalism. While capturing the diversity of approaches in framing failure, it assesses the conflations and shifts which have occurred in the study of failure over time. Intended for scholars who research processes of inequality and invisibility, this Handbook aims to formulate a critical manifesto and activism agenda for contemporary society. Presenting an integrated view about failure, the Handbook will be an essential reading for students in sociology, social theory, anthropology, international relations and development research, organization theory, public policy, management studies, queer theory, disability studies, sports, and performance research.

Ignorance and Change analyses the European refugee crisis of 2015–2016 from the perspective of ignorance studies showing how the media, decision-makers and academics engaged in the projection and reification of the future in relation to the crisis, the asylum system, and the solutions that were proposed.Why do recent crises fail to bring meaningful change? Why do we often see replication of the regimes of ignorance, inefficient knowledge and expertise practices? This book answers these questions by shifting the focus from the issue of change to our projections and expectations of what change will look like. Building on three comprehensive case studies, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, it demonstrates how ignorance and projectivity were essential for new Member States not only for managing the crisis but also for reaching a higher level of autonomy in relation to the EU.Employing an innovative interactional approach to ignorance, it bridges ignorance studies with sociology of future and migration research. Challenging the dominant interest in defining ignorance, it moves the focus from what ignorance is to what ignorance does. It incorporates the concept of future into ignorance studies and develops notions such as “projective agency,” “reification of the future,” “projection by proxy,” and “projectors of EU asylum policies.” The book provides an erudite background, comprehensive empirical research, and original tools of analysis for graduate students, researchers, and policy makers interested in crisis studies, public policy, ignorance studies, social theory, migration studies, and sociology of the future.

This book illustrates the applicability of the seminal and controversial metaphor of the «invisible hand» in modern sociological theory. It shows that sociologists have long been part of a field mainly associated with economists and political philosophers. Though unlike the framing that builds directly on Adam Smith, sociological theory focuses on undesirable and perverse outcomes. Furthermore, the sociological angle favors the explanation of invisible hand-like mechanisms as contingent upon social structures and broader processes. Thus, it goes beyond its classical formulation in terms of interdependence, interaction and aggregation of individual actions. This book gathers contributions of remarkable authors who are linked directly either with the invisible hand metaphor, with the spontaneous order phenomenon or with the unintended consequences issue and aims to describe the traditional and contemporary applicability of the sociological framing of the invisible hand for social sciences.

This collection of essays aims to revive the sociological debate on the unintended, unanticipated and unexpected consequences of social action, as started by Robert K. Merton in a classic study of 1936. The contributing authors provide insights on both Merton's work and the reception it received in the academia. They also go beyond his original formulations to encompass new theoretical perspectives and empirical interests that have emerged in the intellectual circumstances different from, or opposed to, his functionalist theory. The contributing authors delve into fields as diverse as education, law, politics, financial markets, consumption, risks and accidents, systemic transformation, organizations and institutional work, innovations, and Polish studies.

The Routledge International Handbook of Valuation and Society builds on the growing research interest in practices of valuation throughout contemporary society, providing an up-to-date overview of the different facets of research in the sociology of valuation.The handbook is divided into five major sections with attention to the treatment of valuation in major areas of sociological theory, as well as its key concepts, discourses, and approaches:Part I: Theoretical perspectivesPart II: Central valuation practices in societal spheresPart III: Cross-cutting valuation practicesPart IV: Valuation and societal changePart V: ReflectionsTogether, the chapters in this book characterize distinctive practices of valuation across different societal spheres, such as education and science, arts and culture, economic life, the environment or digital culture and social media. They also examine the role of valuation in contemporary society and consider the ways it effects social change.This seminal handbook aims at taking stock of the development of the study of valuation with a selection of topics that are important for understanding core perspectives and developments as well as anticipating its future orientation. It will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interest in the ubiquity of the valuation practices and its effects on social life.

The first wide-ranging, organic analysis of the sociology of unmarkedness and taken-for-grantedness, this volume investigates the asymmetry between how we attend to the culturally emphasized features of social reality and ignore the culturally unmarked ones. Concerned with the structures of cultural invisibility, unconscious rules of irrelevance, automatic frames of meaning, and collective attention patterns, it brings together scholarship spanning sociology, anthropology, and social psychology, to cover various aspects of humdrum, unglamorous, nondescript, nothing-to-write-at-home-about social phenomena, developing the key assumptions, underpinnings, and implications of this field of study.As comprehensive analysis of unremarked features of our social existence, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in social theory and the sociology of everyday life.

Volume III of Archerian Studies, which we now deliver to our readers, focuses on the question of culture. Despite the numerous motifs which were introduced to the discourse pertaining to Margaret S. Archer's concept, we see that some repeat here constantly. We hope that this way of depicting considerations inspired by the thought of prominent scholars will not only become an occasion for this scientific literary output to become widespread, but will also open new research perspectives in sociology.

Attention and Responsibility in Global Health shows the construction of health through what is neglected and how the label of neglect is used to make the case that a shift in attitudes towards tropical diseases is based on changing policy practices of health and disease.Tropical diseases have moved from being of high importance for European empires to being neglected and unknown, and then returning to the spotlight once again. During this process, the understanding, framing, and overall character of the disease grouping has changed through a rediscovery of a health issue once rendered neglectable. The book depicts this change in relevance of tropical diseases from colonial history to the present day diseases across political, cultural, and socio- economic contexts. It shows the transformation of tropical diseases as a grouping that uncovers the changing strategies, tactics, and unintended consequences of advocacy campaigning by scientists, NGOs, and policymakers to drive disease issues up the policy agenda.Drawing on the emergent field of ignorance studies, the book explores ideas about the uses and deployment of both strategic and unintentional'not knowing'. It is aimed at academics and students in science and technology studies, the sociology of health and medicine, environmental sociology, public policy, and the history of science.

Pragmatist thought is central to sociology. However, sociologists typically encounter pragmatism indirectly, as a philosophy of science or as an influence on canonical social scientists, rather than as a vital source of theory, research questions, and methodological reflection in sociology today.In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historical and theoretical connection to classical pragmatism. The book examines questions of methodology, social interaction, and politics across the broad themes of inquiry, agency, and democracy. Essays engage widely and deeply with topics that motivate both pragmatist philosophy and sociology, including rationality, speech, truth, expertise, and methodological pluralism.Contributors include Natalie Aviles, Karida Brown, Daniel Cefaï, Mazen Elfakhani, Luis Flores, Daniel Huebner, Cayce C. Hughes, Paul Lichterman, John Levi Martin, Ann Mische, Vontrese D. Pamphile, Jeffrey N. Parker, Susan Sibley, Daniel Silver, Mario Small, Iddo Tavory, Stefan Timmermans, Luna White, and Joshua Whitford.

Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita worldwide and is central to European policies of outsourcing migration management. Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty is the first book to critically and comprehensively explore the parallels between the country's engagement with the recent Syrian refugee influx and the more protracted Palestinian presence. Drawing on fieldwork, qualitative case-studies, and critical policy analysis, it questions the dominant idea that the haphazardness, inconsistency, and fragmentation of refugee governance are only the result of forced displacement or host state fragility and the related capacity problems. It demonstrates that the endemic ambiguity that determines refugee governance also results from a lack of political will to create coherent and comprehensive rules of engagement to address refugee ‘crises.'Building on emerging literatures in the fields of critical refugee studies, hybrid governance, and ignorance studies, it proposes an innovative conceptual framework to capture the spatial, temporal, and procedural dimensions of the uncertainty that refugees face and to tease out the strategic components of the reproduction and extension of such informality, liminality, and exceptionalism. In developing the notion of a ‘politics of uncertainty,'ambiguity is explored as a component of a governmentality that enables the control, exploitation, and expulsion of refugees.Introduction Chapter of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The author of the book discusses the essence and social consequences of the postmodern era in the field of psychology of work and technology. He describes the relationship between the human being and the goals achieved through the use of technical tools, which is of interest to the industrial and engineering psychology. The second chapter provides a detailed classification of operator-machine system models: technocentric, anthropocentric, and operator–machine interface. In the third chapter, the author focuses on psychological characteristics of the operator–machine–interface system based on the example of jet plane pilot's activity. The fourth chapter focuses on learning new operator activities and training of operator's action in comprehensive simulators as analogues of work experience. In the fifth chapter the author examines occupational safety and reliability of the operator-machine system. In the sixth chapter, the author discusses the computer as a virtual operator serving the optimization of the quality of life.

This book focuses on the question of relationality. Despite the numerous motifs introduced to the discourse pertaining to Margaret S. Archer's concept, we notice that some often reappear. What frequently appears is the concept of agency, closely related to the matter of the subject's reflexivity. We also include papers that refer to methodological dilemmas. However, all collected texts directly consider the essence of the concept of the human person and society in reaction to the ontology of the person proposed by Archer. The common thread and horizon of these elaborations is Archer's concept and Pierpaolo Donati's relational sociology. Thus, this publication seeks to gain broader public and open new research perspectives in sociology.

The book contains analyses and interpretations of multidimensional perspectives in philosophical, economical and psychological research on imagination. The authors analyse Russian (N. Bierdiajew) and French philosophy and anthropology (G. Bachelard, G. Durand), German conceptions (I. Kant's, F. Baader's, F. Schiller's or Heideggerian interpretations) of the role of imagination in art, science and sociopolitical domains. Image and imagination play the main role in the contemporary social world. It is investigated by psychology, sociology and political sciences, and many subdisciplines of philosophy have their own traditions in approaches to image and imagination problem. The authors try to integrate the results of these research efforts.

This monograph is the first book in medical sociology that comprehensively describes the research conceptions of the co-founder of the European medical sociology, Professor Magdalena Sokołowska (1922–1989). The study characterizes the stages of formation of the scientific foundations of medical sociology in Europe: the evolution of approach to the phenomena of health and illness from the medical to sociological perspective, the development of feminist studies in medical sociology, the emergence of scientific identity of the subdiscipline, models of interdisciplinary studies on health, and research into complementary and alternative medicine.

If we want to understand the vicissitudes of modern democracy then, argues the author, we need to analyse the ideas upon which representative government is based rather than compare contemporary conditions with the Greek ideal. These principal ideas have been presented clearly in past centuries, when the relation between democracy and representation was still a matter of political judgement. The old masters of political thinking clarified the functions of representation: legitimising power, creating sovereignty but also setting its limits, and pursuing the common good while still reflecting social diversity. Because institutions of representation are expected to fulfil a variety of functions, these institutions have in recent times come under attack for standing in the way of radical programs for democratising democracy. The author of this book reminds us that these functions are necessary in every political order, whether democratic or not. Instead of rejecting representation, political theorists should focus on making government more accountable.

Dans ce que l'auteur de ce livre dit au sujet de la république des savants, il tente d'éviter le pathos que l'on rencontre non seulement sur les pages hagiographiques, mais aussi dans des discours de circonstance ou celui de louange (par exemple, ceux qu'on prononce à toutes sortes d'anniversaires et enterrements). Cela justifie le titre choisi : sans révérence. Cependant, dans la vie universitaire, il existe des situations où un pathos spécifique est non seulement indiqué, mais également attendu, et son absence pourrait témoigner d'un manque de savoir-être universitaire. Le but de ces considérations n'est pas de diminuer la valeur de ce qui, en vérité, n'apparaît pas aussi grand qu'on ne le pense, mais personne ne souhaite qu'on lui rappelle ses plus grandes faiblesses. Cependant, rappeler celles qui sont plus légères est nécessaire pour éviter la surestime de soi.

Deliberate ignorance has been known as the'Ostrich Instruction'in law courts since the 1860s. It illustrates a recurring pattern in history in which figureheads for major companies, political leaders and industry bigwigs plead ignorance to avoid culpability. So why do so many figures at the top still get away with it when disasters on their watch damage so many people's lives? Does the idea that knowledge is power still apply in today's post-truth world?A bold, wide-ranging exploration of the relationship between ignorance and power in the modern age, from debates over colonial power and economic rent-seeking in the 18th and 19th centuries to the legal defences of today, The Unknowers shows that strategic ignorance has not only long been an inherent part of modern power and big business, but also that true power lies in the ability to convince others of where the boundary between ignorance and knowledge lies.

This book aims to provide empirical evidence regarding the consequences of changes in European societies, focussing on migration and related phenomena of discrimination and xenophobia. The comparative analyses cover all countries of the European Social Survey in the period 2002–2014. They reveal that native members of so-called vulnerable groups, such as the unemployed, retired, permanently sick or disabled and the elderly, were more likely to experience threats and to exhibit anti-immigration attitudes. The contributors further examine social openness defined in terms of marital homogamy, social trust in the context of legitimization and social conditions of sleeplessness. A final methodological section presents the results of a mixed mode experiment involving the face-to-face mode.

This study critically discusses the thesis on the sociological vacuum formulated by Stefan Nowak. The author's aim is to refute the claim that the sociological vacuum is relevant for major social processes occurring in Poland. He presents the sociological vacuum in the context of the debate on micro and macro levels and discusses how the theory of fields and social network analysis is useful to reconcile the micro-macro divide. The book considers the uses of the sociological vacuum in explaining such phenomena as the Solidarność social movement, civil society, social capital, and democracy. In the empirical part, the author confronts the data on identifications with the data on relations and claims that the vacuum is not in the society but it in sociology.

This book refers to the question of cultural normativity. The texts of the book present the diverse profiles of cultural normativity: from philosophical assumptions and indications relating to the sources of axiology and normativity in general to analyses of selected examples of social practices and the reconstruction of declared or presupposed kinds of cultural normativity. The authors evaluate the distinction between normativity and normativeness as a state of norms, they describe the relationships between cultural normativity and ethics. This issue is particularly important with regard to the 20th-century criticism of essentialism, the primacy of the culturalist position in humanities and the importance of the concept of difference in social sciences.

Disasters are part of the modern condition, a source of physical anxiety and existential angst, and they are increasing in frequency, cost and severity. Drawing on both disaster research and social theory, this book offers a critical examination of their causes, consequences and future avoidance.

The analysis of social distinction cannot indefinitely remain confined to logics of reasoning that are markedly ethnocentric. Rather than just applying the consecrated schemes of Veblen or Bourdieu, Daloz provides new foundations in this book for understanding 21st Century Dubai, China, Russia and settings of the past.