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This paper critically explores the research and development of 'digital phenotyping', which broadly refers to the idea that digital data can measure and predict people's mental health as well as their potential risk for mental ill health. Despite increasing research and efforts to digitally track and predict ill mental health, there has been little sociological and critical engagement with this field. This paper aims to fill this gap by introducing digital phenotyping to the social sciences. We explore the origins of digital phenotyping, the concept of the digital phenotype and its potential for benefit, linking these to broader developments within the field of 'mental health sensing'. We then critically discuss the technology, offering three critiques. First, that there may be assumptions of normality and bias present in the use of algorithms; second, we critique the idea that digital data can act as a proxy for social life; and third that the often biological language employed in this field risks reifying mental health problems. Our aim is not to discredit the scientific work in this area, but rather to call for scientists to remain reflexive in their work, and for more social science engagement in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this collection we revisit the enduring phenomenon of uncertainty in health care, and demonstrate how it still offers coherence and significance as an analytic concept. Through empirical studies of contemporary examples of health care related uncertainties and their management, our collection explores the different ways in which uncertainty may be articulated, enacted and experienced. The papers address a diverse range of healthcare contexts ‐ Alzheimer's disease, neonatal surgery, cardiovascular disease prevention, cancer, addiction (use of alcohol and other drugs during pregnancy), mental health/disorders and medical education – and many tackle issues of contemporary relevance, such as an ageing population, and novel medical interventions and their sequelae. These empirical papers are complemented by a further theoretical contribution, which considers the role of 'implicit normativity' in masking and containing potential ethical uncertainty. By mapping themes across the collection, in this introduction we present a number of core analytical strands: (1) conceptualising uncertainty; (2) intersections of uncertainty with aspects of care; (3) managing uncertainty; and (4) structural constraints, economic austerity and uncertainty work. We reflect on the methodological and theoretical stances used to think sociologically about uncertainty in health care, and the strengths, silences and gaps we observe in the collection. We conclude by considering the implications of the insights gained for 'synthesising certainty' in practice and for future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the sociological relevance of contemporary research from 'relational' or 'systems' biology on the microbiome‐gut‐brain (MGB) axis. I review research on the MGB from microbial neuroendocrinology, nutritional psychiatry and other fields with a specific focus on nutrition as a critical element of the social environment influencing gene‐environment interactions and a range of social behaviors. I discuss two plausible causal pathways from nutritional factors such as dietary inflammatory potential and hypocholesterolemia to social bonding, violence, and political extremism, and conclude with a discussion of the theoretical, methodological, and epistemological implications of these pathways, and of MGB research and relational biology generally, for social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores temporal constituents of the female self in terms of their role in underpinning ongoing gender inequality. Drawing on the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Iris Marion Young, together with sociological approaches to ambivalence, I suggest that these temporal subjectivities are embodied, arise from the split subjectivity associated with woman as simultaneously subject and object, and counterpose the neoliberal emphasis on "choice" and agency with a more traditional gendered "expectation," or "waiting" style. The dialectic between both temporalities, in which neither is hegemonic, results in a chronic state of ambivalence which impedes women's ability to fully project themselves into the future, a skill significant to planning and career ambition and the absence of which suspends women instead in an extended present. The paper aims to do two things in particular. In conceptual terms it aims to explore aspects of the configuration of the gendered self that underlie the stalling and slowing down of the gender revolution and which can be seen to provide a "missing link" between structures, institutions, and micro‐cultures. In empirical terms, it suggests a future research agenda, of which this paper constitutes a beginning, through which such gendered temporalities can be explored in greater detail via ethnographies of women's lived experience of time throughout the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines why a move towards a complex adaptive systems model of behaviour is required if the goal is to generate better understanding of how individuals and groups interact with their environment in a disaster setting. To accomplish this objective, a bridge must be built between the broader social sciences and behavioural economics to incorporate discipline‐specific insights that are needed to move towards complexity. This is only possible through a deeper understanding of behaviour and how the environment in which they occur can influence actions. It is then that one can counteract the poor behavioural predictions, flawed policies based on myth, inefficient design, and suboptimal outcomes that have flourished in the absence of a complex adaptive systems model. This paper provides a conceptual framework that draws on concepts from across the natural and social sciences, such as behavioural economics, endocrinology, psychology, sociobiology, and sociology in order to build an interactive theory of disaster behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this editorial introduction, we explore how digital health is being explored at the intersection of sociology of health and science and technology studies (STS). We suggest that socio‐material approaches and practice theories provide a shared space within which productive tensions between sociology of health and STS can continue. These tensions emerge around the long‐standing challenges of avoiding technological determinism while maintaining a clear focus on the materiality and agency of technologies and recognising enduring sets of relations that emerge in new digital health practices while avoiding social determinism. The papers in this Special Issue explore diverse fields of healthcare (e.g. reproductive health, primary care, diabetes management, mental health) within which heterogenous technologies (e.g. health apps, mobile platforms, smart textiles, time‐lapse imaging) are becoming increasingly embedded. By synthesising the main arguments and contributions in each paper, we elaborate on four key dimensions within which digital technologies create ambivalence and (re)configure health practices. First, promissory digital health highlights contradictory virtues within discourses that configure digital health. Second, (re)configuring knowledge outlines ambivalences of navigating new information environments and handling quantified data. Third, (re)configuring connectivity explores the relationships that evolve through digital networks. Fourth, (re)configuring control explores how new forms of power are inscribed and handled within algorithmic decision‐making in health. We argue that these dimensions offer fruitful perspectives along which digital health can be explored across a range of technologies and health practices. We conclude by highlighting applications, methods and dimensions of digital health that require further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a key moment in the development of sociology when its status as a science was criticised from within by ethnomethodologists (Harvey Sacks and Harold Garfinkel), post‐Althusserian Marxists (Barry Hindess) and Michel Foucault. These criticisms seemed to come from different sides, but they converged in arguing their positions from the point of view of a proper conception of science through which mainstream sociology was found wanting. Neither secured its own position and each had a similar legacy of a form of interpretivism hostile both to scientific sociology and its critical project. The paper situates this moment and its legacy where both correspondence and coherence criteria for sociological knowledge claims come to be undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of the African American community in the United States continues to evolve. The growing number of professional African Americans who grew up in the postcivil rights era combined with the persistent reminders of inequity paints a complex backdrop for understanding African American relationships. The majority of our knowledge about African American couples disproportionately comes from nonclinical social science fields such as sociology and demography. Unfortunately, the scholarly literature on how to work with African American couples is relatively scant. This paper seeks to add to this limited literature by providing clinicians and scholars with a proposed set of issues to consider when conceptualizing and treating African American couples. In particular, the complexity and nuance needed to work with African American couples are best done by using an integrative model. Thus, this paper will discuss how the Integrative Systemic Therapy (IST) model is particularly well suited for working with African American couples. This paper will summarize the science on African American marriages with a focus on salient factors such as gender, SES, and trust, which will then be translated into clinical practice by utilizing a case example. The case example will be of a middle‐class couple in order to delineate the challenges and the growing heterogeneity of African Americans. The article will conclude with a commentary on the evolving heterogeneity of African Americans, which sheds light on how an integrative perspective is important for disentangling and embracing the growing complexity of African American couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "problem" of public resistance to hospital closure is a recurring trope in health policy debates around the world. Recent papers have argued that when it comes to major change to hospitals, "the public" cannot be persuaded by clinical evidence, and that mechanisms of public involvement are ill‐equipped to reconcile opposition with management desire for radical change. This paper presents data from in‐depth qualitative case studies of three hospital change processes in Scotland's National Health Service, including interviews with 44 members of the public. Informed by sociological accounts of both hospitals and publics as heterogeneous, shifting entities, I explore how hospitals play meaningful roles within their communities. I identify community responses to change proposals which go beyond simple opposition, including evading, engaging with and acquiescing to changes. Explicating both hospitals and the publics they serve as complex social phenomena strengthens the case for policy and practice to prioritise dialogic processes of engagement. It also demonstrates the continuing value of careful, empirical research into public perspectives on contentious healthcare issues in the context of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although psychological approaches have been the mainstay of scholarly research on school climate, offering state‐of‐the‐art measurements and methodologies, sociological perspectives remain essential perspectives because violence is essentially a social phenomenon. This paper offers a theoretical consideration of contributions to this field, focusing specifically on those that provide a critical historical lens. I suggest that while Foucault's approach to the disciplining of docile bodies and self‐restraint offers crucial conceptual tools, Norbert Elias's work—which is scarce in scholarly research on school climate—provides a complementary but necessary framework for understanding emotional and relational aspects of peer harassment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of the relations between emotions and personhood, with a view to advancing a critical realist account of the role of emotions in social life. It is argued that the constitution of persons has to be approached from an ontological perspective, and that this raises questions about how sociology has addressed the meaning and role of emotions. Margaret Archer's critical realist perspective on them as commentaries on human concerns is broadly endorsed, but some significant correctives are proposed, especially with respect to the important distinction between primary and secondary emotions. To this end, it is argued that the affect spectrum theory advanced by Warren TenHouten can be fruitfully appended to a critical realist theory of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral disease in early childhood is highly prevalent and costly and impacts on the child and family with significant societal costs. Current approaches have largely failed to improve young children's oral health. This paper proposes a different approach to conceptualize poor oral health in preschool children (0‐5 years) using social practices. Social practice theory offers an innovative perspective to understanding oral health by shifting emphasis away from the individual and onto how practical, social and material arrangements around the oral health of preschool children exist, change or become embedded in the social structures they inhabit. This novel approach contributes to the growing theoretical understanding in this area and has the potential to offer insights into the problem and ways it might be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Habermas' model of a post‐secular political order in the light of the debate on male circumcision that arose in Germany after a court ruled that male circumcision was an unjustifiable act of bodily harm. Central to this model is the idea that religious reasons can only become effective in central legal institutions when they are translated into secular reasons. My paper demonstrates that there are two distinguishable readings of this proviso. On the one hand, there is a broad reading according to which it is only necessary to reach a conclusion that is in line with the democratic principle stating that all citizens can be regarded as co‐legislators even if non‐generalizable value orientations might then shape the interpretation of fundamental rights (in the case of circumcision, the right to bodily integrity). On the other hand, a truly secular (narrow) reading would avoid the inclusion of non‐generalizable value orientations. The debate on circumcision demonstrates that these two interpretations lead to different and conflicting modes of justification. The broad reading allows for a justification of male circumcision, whereas the narrow reading makes such a justification unlikely. In addition, the filtering function of the proviso is weakened in a broad reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two decades, the checklist has risen to prominence in healthcare improvement. This paper contributes to the debate between its proponents and critics, making the case for an Science and Technology Studies‐informed understanding of the checklist that demonstrates the limitations of both the "checklist‐as‐panacea" and "checklist‐as‐socially‐determined" positions. Attending to the checklist as a socio‐material object endowed with affordances that call upon clinicians to act (Allen 2012, Hutchby 2001), the study revisits the efforts of a recent improvement initiative, the Enhanced Peri‐Operative Care for High‐risk patients trial. Rather than a singularised simple tool, this study discusses four different and relationally enacted logics of the checklist as a stop and check tool, a clinical prompt, an audit tool and a clinical record. Each logic is associated with specific temporality, beneficiaries, relationship with material forms, and interpellates (Law 2002) clinicians to initiate specific actions which can conflict. The paper seeks to make the case for intervention to improve such tools and consciously account for the consequences of their design and materiality and calls for supporting such settings and arrangements in which incoherences collected in tools can be locally negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a psychosocial hypothesis in understanding relations between recipients, and providers, of health and social care. In doing so, it draws on psychoanalytically informed work which considers the relation between the internal and external worlds and more generally the wider social context. The particular hypothesis in this paper relates to an understanding of an abusive form of relating underpinned by shame and envy. The paper suggests that exposure to these feeling states is more prevalent in a social world marked by increasing inequalities and environmental failures. This argument is underpinned with reference to qualitative and quantitative research, suggesting that antagonistic relationships are increasing and are part of a significant change in the culture. The argument is illustrated by a single detailed description of an initial consultation in an NHS psychotherapy service. An examination of the social context suggests how unhelpful or abusive relations may be manifest between health care providers and recipients, in care organizations and in the wider social world. This aspect of the argument is constructed with reference to relevant organizational and sociological literature. It is suggested that established relations of this type act to limit development, in this case a social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aim: This paper reports on the findings from 6 focus groups conducted with Australian medical students. The focus groups sought students' perspectives on how the influence of commercial interests on medical practice and education could be managed. Method: We conducted 6 focus groups with medical students in New South Wales, Australia. Participants were recruited via student‐run medical society and faculty e‐mail lists. Forty‐nine students from 6 medical schools in New South Wales participated. The research team reflected on the extent to which students uncritically appealed to science in the abstract as a management solution for conflicts of interest. Data analysis was largely inductive, looking for uses of scientific terminology, EBM, and appeals to “science” in the management of COI and applied theoretical analyses of scientism. Results: The students in our study suggested that science and evidence‐based medicine, rather than ethics or professionalism, were the best tools to deal with undue influence and bias. This paper uses philosophy of science literature to critically examine these scientistic appeals to science and EBM as a means of managing the influence of pharmaceutical reps and commercial interests. We argue that a scientistic style of reasoning is reinforced through medical curricula and that students need to be made aware of the epistemological assumptions that underpin science, medicine, and EBM to address the ethical challenges associated with commercialised health care. Conclusion: More work is needed to structure medical curricula to reflect the complexities of practice and realities of science. However, curricula change alone will not sufficiently address issues associated with commercial interests in medicine. For real change to occur, there needs to be a broader social and professional debate about the ways in which medicine and industry interact, and structural changes that restrict or mitigate commercial influences in educational, research, and policy settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between spatial mobility and social mobility. It develops a two‐skill‐type spatial equilibrium model of two regions with location preferences where each region consists of an urban area that is home to workplaces and residences and an exclusively residential suburban area. The paper demonstrates that relative regional social mobility is negatively correlated with segregation and inequality. In the model, segregation, income inequality, and social mobility are driven by differences between urban and residential areas in commuting cost differences between high‐skilled and low‐skilled workers, and also by the magnitude of taste heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical race theory is growing in popularity in Britain. However, critics and advocates of critical race theory (CRT) in Britain have neglected the racialized social system approach. Through ignoring this approach, critics have thus "missed the target" in their rebuttals of CRT, while advocates of CRT have downplayed the strength of critical race analysis. By contrast, in this paper, I argue that that through the racialized social system approach, critical race theory has the conceptual flexibility to study British society. As a practical social theory, critical race theory provides us with the tools to study the realities and reproduction of racial inequality. To demonstrate this strength of CRT, and to demonstrate its theoretical nature, I discuss the conceptual framework of the racialized social system approach, paying specific attention to the notions of social space, the racial structure and racial interests; the racialized interaction order, racialized emotions, and structure and agency; and racial ideology, racial grammar, and racialized cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The materialist thread within health sociology has observed a clear gradient linking inequalities in health with measures of social class and poverty. More recently, Bourdieu's approach to social class complemented the 'economic capital' of Marxist analysis with 'symbolic' capitals such as 'social' and 'cultural'. However, efforts to assess how symbolic capital interacts with health disparities reveal complex or contradictory effects. In this paper, we re‐materialise the study of health and social position via a new materialist focus on the interactions between humans and non‐human matter (NHM). We analyse empirical data to disclose the range of human/NHM interactions in daily life, and how these affect people's health status. These interactions establish physical, psychological and social opportunities and constraints on what human bodies can do, contributing to relative advantages and disadvantages. We argue for a revised materialist understanding of sociomaterial position as constituted by a 'thousand tiny dis/advantages', and suggest that health and wellbeing are inextricably linked to dis/advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no literature to guide mental health nursing in bushfire‐affected communities. Using autoethnographic methods, the author reflects on his experience of mental health nursing during the Australian bushfires of 2019–20 and the challenges of identifying existing practice guidance. Applying an existing nursing model and insights from gestalt, he analyses his field notes to identify and describe practices which he found important and useful for working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. Eight suggestions are provided to assist mental health nurses to practise in an informed way and promote recovery. This paper makes a contribution to a small body of existing mental health nursing research using autoethnographic methods, and it is the first contribution to the mental health nursing literature about working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary critiques Betthäuser, Bourne and Bukodi's (2020) paper which finds that cognitive ability does not substantially mediate class of origin effects on educational and occupational outcomes. From these results, they conclude that cognitive ability is only of minor importance for social stratification, reasserting their view of the primacy of class origins for social stratification. The central issue surrounding cognitive ability in social stratification is its effects on socioeconomic attainments vis‐à‐vis socioeconomic origins, not the extent that cognitive ability mediates classorigin effects. Their analytical strategy of estimating the extent that cognitive ability mediates class origineffects is misleading because: it ignores the only moderate associations of socioeconomic origins with educational and occupational outcomes; the stronger direct effects of cognitive ability; the associations of parents' ability with their own socioeconomic attainments; and the genetic transmission of cognitive ability and other traits relevant to social stratification from parents to their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much attention has been devoted to measuring levels of social mobility over time, less attention has been given to the possibility of changing pathways to social mobility. This paper examines pathways from social origins to socio‐economic destinations in midlife for two British cohorts, born in 1958 and 1970 respectively, using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). We address the roles of cognitive attainment, private schooling and educational attainment in mediating the link between social origins and destinations. Have these mechanisms become more or less important over time, in a context of structural change in the state schooling system and educational expansion? We find that private schools displayed greater academic selectivity and an increased link to high levels of educational attainment for the younger cohort. Essentially, private schools adapted to changing circumstances, becoming more academically selective and less socially selective, and more focused on educational credentials. Childhood social origins were less strongly linked to childhood cognitive scores in the younger cohort, but cognitive scores were also more weakly linked to educational attainment for this cohort. We also find a decreased association between social origins and educational attainment for the younger cohort. While the finding that educational inequalities weakened over this time period is positive, the lack of a corresponding reduction in the overall link between social origins and destinations suggests that reducing educational inequalities was not sufficient to increase social mobility when accompanied by countervailing changes in the role of private schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author argues that trans-identification and its associated medical treatment can constitute an attempt to evade experiences of psychological distress. This occurs on three levels. Firstly, the trans person themselves may seek to evade dysregulated affects associated with such experiences as attachment trauma, childhood abuse, and ego-alien sexual feelings. Secondly, therapists may attempt to evade feelings, such as fear and hatred, evoked by engaging with these dysregulated affects. Thirdly, we, as a society, may wish to evade acknowledging the reality of such trauma, abuse and sexual distress by hypothesizing that trans-identification is a biological issue, best treated medically. The author argues that the quality of evidence supporting the biomedical approach is extremely poor. This puts young trans people at risk of receiving potentially damaging medical treatment they may later seek to reverse or come to regret, while their underlying psychological issues remain unaddressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Our sense of belonging rarely stands still, yet the research literature has hitherto paid little attention to the temporal nature of belonging. Based on an analysis of 62 Mass Observation Project (MOP) accounts written by people living in the UK aged from their 20s to their 90s, this paper argues that as people age, how they locate belonging in time shifts. This has to do with changing concerns related to belonging, but also to metaphysical issues of temporality and mortality, namely how people experience their own finite lifetime. The paper thus offers an illustrative example of how time can be empirically researched in sociology, with a particular focus on the important role that the future plays in how people construct their ‘functional present’ (Mead ). The central argument put forward is that time itself can be an important source of belonging, but one that is unequally accessible to people of different ages because of contemporary cultural scripts that present life as a linear progression into the future and construct the future as a more meaningful temporal horizon than the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper addresses an apparent gap in the work of Niklas Luhmann. While the issue of trust continues to receive widespread attention in the social sciences, Luhmann's interest in this topic declined following the development of his systems theory. It is argued that this decline does not reflect any diminished relevance of trust for systems theory, but rather that the architectural remodeling of theory cannot easily be applied to the issue of trust. Here, the issue of trust is reconceptualized as a connection medium. This entails a reconstruction of Luhmann's early theory of trust, especially with regard to function and social positioning. In this context, trust can in turn be linked to the concept of medium in Luhmann's late work. As a connection medium, trust mediates between the different levels of sociality—interaction, organization, and society. These theoretical considerations are employed to develop a more applied framework for empirical research, with a brief case study from southern Italy. From this perspective, the idea of trust as society's glue is seen to be overly simplistic. The common ethical understanding that more trust leads to a better society is also questioned on the grounds that social cooperation can also lead to social sclerosis. Finally, risk and trust are shown to accommodate the formation of different cultures of trust. The paper shows how Luhmann's updated version of trust can inspire current research and enhance our understanding of how trust operates in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines methodological challenges involved in conducting research on family photographs from persecuted communities, using Japanese Canadian photos as a case study. Approaching family photography as a social practice that instills dominant familial ideologies, the paper examines their “performative scripts” that arrange family members according to normative identities and roles. The paper argues that researchers are not immune to scripts that shape how and what we have been socialized to see (and not see) in family photos. The paper thus presents techniques to distance oneself from these performative scripts and one's involvement in their social and emotional dynamics. Once able to disentangle oneself from the genre's normative practices, the paper argues it is necessary to situate the photos in their social and political context of persecution and survival. Given the insular, inward looking character of family photographs, the paper concludes by calling for intersectional analyses, reflecting on how one might bring one's own family photos into engagement with the photos of Indigenous families and turns to those of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bourdieu is an important thinker within the sociological tradition and has a philosophically sophisticated approach to theoretical knowledge and research practice. In this paper, we examine the implication of his work for nursing and the health sciences more broadly. We argue that his work is best described as a reflexive realist who provides a space for a nonpositivist approach to knowledge that does not fall into the trap of idealism or relativism. We emphasize that Bourdieu was not an abstract theorist, but only utilized theories to understand and explain the social world in all its empirical complexity. Theory is emphasized over method without denying the importance of method. We then provide a brief overview of some of his key concepts: habitus, field and capital. His work is a scientifically astute practice that has an emancipatory purpose, with particular resonance to the problems of nursing as a social practice. Some have criticized Bourdieu for undermining agency and we briefly address this issue, but argue that his conceptual framework helps us to understand what endures in social practice and why change is often problematic. In short, this paper argues that Bourdieu's work is a fruitful resource for critiquing existing nursing approaches that are preoccupied with agency over structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the annual meeting of the society of scientific study of religion at Vista International Hotel Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This year's theme of religious marginality encourages participants to go beyond core beliefs and practices of members of mainline churches to the expressions of interest or disinterest in religion that are less common religious experience, mixed intermarriage, unclear interpreting "don't know" responses to questions on belief, nonestablishment (religion among street people), or rejections of religion atheism and apostasy. List of topics related to this year's theme would include, denominational switching and conversion, sources of membership change in the mainline churches, apostates and returnees, new nones (apostates) vs. stable nones with no prior ties, inter-religious marriage and religion of children, divorce, religious socialization of children, religiosity and the life cycle, Inter-racial marriage and religion and the Black Church.

Phenomenological sociology is one of the most recognized approaches for explaining the constitution of social behaviour and the construction of social reality. To this day, phenomenological sociology usually belongs to the tradition of Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and to Alfred Schütz's mundane phenomenology, thus generally presenting itself as sociology of lifeworld, sociology of everyday life, and sociology of knowledge. In contrast to this, this paper intends to outline an alternative kind of phenomenological sociology that finds its philosophical foundation in Hermann Schmitz's "New Phenomenology". With regards especially to Schmitz's theory of the felt body ("Leib") and his theory of situation, the basic principles of Neophenomenological Sociology (NPS) will be introduced. Their main components are (1) felt body and affective involvement as the pre‐personal apriori of sociality, (2) felt‐bodily communication as the basic unit of sociality, and (3) joint situations as the socio‐ontological foundation and empirical manifestation of sociality. With these specific key concepts, NPS proves itself to be a socio‐theoretical approach whose foremost strength is that it can identify and properly analyse the pathic dimensions of social behaviour and social situations that social sciences tend to overlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the concepts of "duration" and "temporal patterns," this paper discusses how key steps during sampling change, if researchers take temporality seriously: When defining cases, scholars have to select a suitable temporal scale and reflect on possible changes of boundaries and properties of cases. When defining the population or field, researchers need to set an appropriate time frame and define periods within this time frame to be analyzed. When selecting the actual cases for analysis, researchers have to choose an appropriate sampling procedure, decide upon relevant periods of analysis as well as the number of points in time to be analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that encounters between welfare bureaucracies and their clients have been reconfigured under neoliberalism to address the problem of "welfare dependency." Contemporary bureaucratic encounters therefore entail measures to activate clients' entrepreneurial/self‐governing capacities, and conditionality/sanctioning practices to deal with clients who behave "irresponsibly." Despite the dominance of the neoliberal model, recent research has identified a counter‐trend in the practices of housing services away from entrepreneurializing and punitive strategies and towards a more supportive approach. This paper examines this counter‐trend and its implications for neoliberal welfare governance. To do this, it presents findings from research into social housing governance in Queensland, Australia, where the neoliberal focus on welfare independence, conditionality and sanctioning has been tempered by a new supportive approach focused on assisting vulnerable clients to maintain and benefit from access to welfare/housing support. Following Larner, we argue that this shift signals the emergence of an "after neoliberal" governmental formation, wherein key features of neoliberal governmentality are replaced by, or redeployed in the service of, progressive initiatives that address neoliberalism's failings at the street level, but leave broader neoliberal policy settings undisturbed. We also challenge recent sociological accounts that construe supportive welfare practices as a function of an all‐encompassing neoliberal project, arguing instead for appreciation of the contingency of these developments and the progressive political affordances that they entail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on qualitative data of an upper‐secondary school in Sweden's primary elite community, Djursholm, I propose how medical diagnosis of students as dyslexics contributes to consecrating them by offering a short cut to successful performance, while at the same time reproducing differences between social classes. The study suggests how students that do not score top can be labeled dyslexic and the social and moral consequences of that. I introduce the concept of "consecrating medicalization" in order to discriminate between the effects of medical diagnosis of members of different social classes. In this way, this paper contributes to further examining some key problems in medical sociology and the sociology of elites, by offering a framework of synthesis and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Fine was among the most original social theorists in Britain of the past 30 years, and the aim of this paper is to offer a first systematic assessment of his intellectual contribution. There are sound intellectual reasons to explore Fine's scholarship. He maintained a problematic relation with mainstream sociology and, against the reduction of sociology to questions of method, culture, or class, he argued that sociologists must continue to ask difficult normative questions as part of the social world they ought to explain. And there are also pressing political concerns that justify a reconsideration of his writings. Global politics is currently marked by a populist wave that decries the very ideas and values that were central to Fine's social theory: the need to uphold the rule of law at home and abroad, the politics of cosmopolitan solidarity, and the significance of antisemitism and its relationships with different forms of authoritarian politics. My main argument is that there is a dialectics of universality that drives forward Fine's intellectual project. By this, I mean that a universalistic idea of humanity—an all‐inclusive conception of all human beings—is the most important normative intuition of modern times. This idea of humanity moves forward in history through a dual process of emancipation and domination: successful forms of social, legal, and political inclusion help make visible previous dynamics of exclusion but may also create or recreate discriminatory practices. Building on the work of French historian Michael Löwy on heterodox Jewish thinkers, I explain the three main tenets of Fine's work: (a) his reconstruction of critical social theory; (b) the notion of cosmopolitan solidarity; and (c) the significance and main features of modern antisemitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to Nick Gane's "Against a descriptive turn". I argue that descriptive research strategies are more open and inclusive than those which purport to be causal where explanatory adequacy is assessed by expert insiders. I also show how open descriptive strategies can assist a wider explanatory purpose when these are conceived in non‐positivist ways. I argue that epochalist sociology lacks an adequate temporal ontology because it collapses descriptive specificity back into overarching epoch descriptions. Finally, I argue that if the entire range of publications associated with the Great British Class Survey are considered, that it has demonstrated a productive way of recognising the significance of class which has facilitated major research advances in its wake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lighting is increasingly recognized as a significant social intervention by both lighting professionals and academic social scientists. However, what counts as 'the social' is diverse and contested, with consequences for what kind of 'social' is performed or invented. Based on a long‐term research programme, we argue that collaboration between sociologists and lighting professionals requires negotiating discourses and practices of 'the social'. This paper explores the quality and kinds of spaces made for 'the social' in professional practices and academic collaborations, focusing on two case studies of urban lighting that demonstrate how the space of 'the social' is constrained and impoverished by an institutionalized division between technical and aesthetic lighting. We consider the potential role of sociologists in making more productive spaces for 'the social' in urban design, as part of the central sociological task of 'inventing the social' (Marres, Guggenheim and Wilkie 2018) in the process of studying it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses ethnographic data to engage a critical reflection on the tension between individual responsibility for the environment and inequality. While research has shown that the majority of sustainable consumers are middle and upper class, educated and white individuals, the study explores how the ethical injunction to ecological sustainability is being introduced to lower‐income neighbourhoods in France. It draws on the observation of a national programme which aims at supporting inhabitants of public housing estates in the process of greening their lifestyle in order to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The paper analyses how environmental responsibilization is specific in that it calls upon a responsibility towards others, towards the common good. Using the Foucauldian concept of 'subjectivation', it describes and analyses the moral work implied by such behaviour change programmes. It demonstrates that a negative representation of poor households and a moral framing of the responsibility for the environment lead to a moralization of their lifestyle under the heading of 'eco‐friendly behaviours'. A paradoxical result of such endeavours is that the social group with the least impactful lifestyle on the environment is the one which is moralized in the most intrusive and resolute manner. The article shows, however, that the tenants manage to resist the normalizing discourse on sustainable living, for reasons which are not anti‐environmentalist. This piece thus provides interesting results for sustainability studies as well as for the sociology of the regulation of underprivileged neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature and role of social groups is a central tension in sociology. On the one hand, the idea of a group enables sociologists to locate and describe individuals in terms of characteristics that are shared with others. On the other, emphasizing the fluidity of categories such as gender or ethnicity undermines their legitimacy as ways of classifying people and, by extension, the legitimacy of categorization as a goal of sociological research. In this paper, we use a new research method known as the Imitation Game to defend the social group as a sociological concept. We show that, despite the diversity of practices that may be consistent with self‐identified membership of a group, there are also shared normative expectations – typically narrower in nature than the diversity displayed by individual group members – that shape the ways in which category membership can be discussed with, and performed to, others. Two claims follow from this. First, the Imitation Game provides a way of simultaneously revealing both the diversity and 'groupishness' of social groups. Second, that the social group, in the quasi‐Durkheimian sense of something that transcends the individual, remains an important concept for sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that far‐right (FR) populism in the West is fuelled by inequality. In this paper, we argue that three social psychological processes are central to explaining these phenomena. We suggest that these processes are recursive although we do not specify their temporal order. Drawing on the social identity tradition, we first examine how inequality is linked to reduced social trust and cohesion, which has consequences for both low‐ and high‐income groups. We examine the known effects of perceived threat in amplifying tensions between groups and consolidating identity positions. Second, we argue that national identity consolidation is a particularly likely response to inequality, which, in turn, reduces tolerance of cultural diversity as an associated consequence. Finally, we consider the value of these strengthened national identities to those who harness them effectively to gain political ground. In this way, those who offer FR populist rhetoric aligned with nationalism can blame immigrants, "foreign" powers, and mainstream politics for both the lack of social cohesion and reduced economic circumstances of many. We conclude that FR populist leaders not only tap into the negative social consequences of inequality, their policy positions also fail to address and may even compound the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forms of large‐scale change, such as the regiona l re‐distribution of clinical services, are an enduring reform orthodoxy in health systems of high‐income countries. The topic is of relevance and importance to medical sociology because of the way that large‐scale change significantly disrupts and transforms therapeutic landscapes, relationships and practices. In this paper we review the literature on large‐scale change. We find that the literature is dominated by competing forms of knowledge, such as health services research, and show how sociology can contribute new and critical perspectives and insights on what is for many people a troubling issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To review and synthesise research related to the ageing farming workforce influence on the health and sustainability of agricultural communities. Design: Using the PRISMA framework as a guide, the CINHAL and Medline databases were searched. Search 1 used the key search terms of ageing OR aging, farm*, workforce. Search 2 used health, sustainability and 'agricultural OR farm communit*. Search 3 combined Searches 1 and 2. Search 4 followed journal citations to identify other relevant articles. A process of narrative synthesis was applied to the results through the prism of rural social capital that described the current state of knowledge and understanding under four themes. Result: Database searches and searching of citations identified 16 contemporary articles. Seven of the papers were from Australia, and the balance from five other high‐income countries. The four that themes emerged are: vulnerabilities of ageing farmers; economic and climatic drivers; social capital and sustainability; and integrative strategies, that might offer a way forward. Conclusion: Integrating these forces of nature, economics and sociology to address the ageing farming workforce and the associated health and sustainability of agricultural communities remains a major challenge for researchers, governments, the agricultural sector and rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I critically discuss Helmes‐Hayes and Milne's institutional perspective, as well as Neil McLaughlin's emphasis on scientific intellectual movements and Coserian intellectual sects, in explaining the emergence and potential future of symbolic interactionist theory in Canada. I contest claims that the interactionism is on the verge of disappearing and instead offer an explanation grounded in insights about shared meaning. I conclude that it is ironic that debates over the presumed demise of symbolic interaction may well contribute to its continued existence within the canon of Canadian sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the intellectual biography of the American philosopher and anthropologist Lawrence Krader (1919-1998) as a contribution to the sociology of intellectuals and history of ideas. We trace Krader's career trajectory to his intellectual self-concept, his scholarly and political worldviews, and his financial independence. Krader entertained a self-concept of a lone pioneer that led him to reject the competition for attention as highlighted in the current literature, dominated as it is by an emphasis on field, habitus, the accumulation and reproduction of power, and symbolic capital. His self-concept and his happier financial circumstance kept him relatively aloof from key intellectual networks and narrow institutional constraints. Our paper seeks to combine the new sociology of ideas with its focus on institutions and networks with traditional Wissenssoziologie that emphasized the role of class, status, and worldviews to explain the rise and fall of theories and thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a great tradition of looking at health and illness from a systems perspective. For clinicians and people with illnesses a lot can be gained by mapping the interface of different sectors to understand the nature of conditions. This paper aims to use Sturmberg et als. paper as a stepping off point to present a sociological approach to understanding multimorbidities and gain insights into the illness experience of these people in the greater social system of health and illness. Parsons' sick role provides a useful systems concept through which we can understand the role of doctors and the experience of illness as social, beyond the personal. We also use Bourdieu's concept of habitas and of structure and agency to make sense of multimorbidities being social, economic and a broader part of experiencing social systems. We posit that one option for people coping with multiple conditions is to change identity. We also examine the doctor and patient encounter for mutlimorbidities as being problematic as it forces attention on competence and responsibility in that continuing encounter [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanying the ageing of contemporary ageing societies is an increase in age associated morbidity, with dementia having an important impact. Mental frailty in later life is a source of fear for many and a major policy concern to all those concerned with health and welfare services. This introduction to the special issue on 'Ageing, dementia and the social mind' situates the selected papers within the context of debates about dementia and its social relations. In particular it draws attention to the importance of the social imaginary of the fourth age and what this means for the issue of personhood, care, social representations of dementia and its social contextualisation. The papers illuminating these themes draw on a variety of disciplines and approaches; from the social sciences to the humanities and from the theoretical to the empirical in order to help orientate future researchers to the complexities of dementia and the social and cultural matrix in which it exists. This paper provides an introduction to the potential for a more extended sociology of dementia; one which could combine the insights from medical sociology with the concerns of social gerontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the value of a normative account of the relationship between agents and institutions for contemporary efforts to explain ever more complex and disorganized forms of social life. The character of social institutions, as they relate to practices, agents and norms, is explored through an engagement with the common claim that family life has been de-institutionalized. The paper argues that a normative rather than empirical definition of institutions avoids a false distinction between institutions and practices. Drawing on ideas of social freedom and creative action from critical theory, the changes in family life are explained not as an effect of de-institutionalization, but as a shift from an organized to a disorganized institutional type. This is understood as a response to changes in the wider normative structure, as a norm of individual freedom has undermined the legitimacy of the organized patriarchal nuclear family, with gender ascribed roles and associated duties. Contemporary motherhood is drawn on to illustrate the value of analysing the dynamic interactions between institutions, roles and practices for capturing both the complexity and the patterned quality of social experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in information studies suggests that the tradition of seeing the discipline as weak is still alive and kicking. This is a problem because the discourse of the weak discipline creates conceptual confusion in relation to interdisciplinarity. Considering the growth of the iSchools and what is assumed to be a major institutional redrawing of boundaries, there is a pressing need to conceptualize interdisciplinary practices and boundary work. This paper explores the 'weak' discipline through a discourse analytical lens and identifies a myth. Perceiving the discipline as weak is part of a myth, fueled by the ideal of a unitary discipline; the ideal discipline has strong boundaries, and as long as the discourse continues to focus on a need for boundaries, the only available discourse is one that articulates the discipline as weak. Thus, the myth is a vicious circle that can be broken if weakness is no longer ascribed to the discipline by tradition. The paper offers an explanation of the workings of the myth so that its particular way of interpreting the world does not mislead us when theorizing interdisciplinarity. This is a conceptual paper, and the examples serve as an empirical backdrop to the conceptual argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends the concept of 'fetishism' as an explanatory parameter in sociological theorizing on Durkheimian grounds, while at the same time paying due attention to important insights regarding the role of objects in social life, originating from Actor-Network Theory (ANT). It critically assesses the current critique of the concept of fetishism propagated by ANT protagonist Bruno Latour. Latour and suggests a compromise between these two 'schools'. First, to place the paper firmly in context, I analyse some examples of modern fetishism and outline the themes of the ensuing discussion. Next, I turn to Durkheim, seeking to develop a distinct interpretation of the concept of the social and of fetishism, and then point to some of Durkheim's shortcomings and attempt to make room for Latourian perspectives. Finally, I critically assess Latour's dismissal of forms of social 'explanation' and of the concept of fetishism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the empirical, conceptual and theoretical gains that can be made using cosmopolitan social theory to think through the urban transformations that scholars have in recent years termed planetary urbanization. Recognizing the global spread of urbanization makes the need for a cosmopolitan urban sociology more pressing than ever. Here, it is suggested that critical urban sociology can be invigorated by focusing upon the disconnect that Henri Lefebvre posits between the planetarization of the urban - which he views as economically and technologically driven - and his dis-alienated notion of a global urban society. The first aim of this paper is to highlight the benefits of using 'cosmopolitan' social theory to understand Lefebvre's urban problematic (and to establish why this is also a cosmopolitan problematic) ; the second is to identify the core cosmopolitan contradictions of planetary urbanization, tensions that are both actually existing and reproduced in scholarly accounts. The article begins by examining the challenges presented to urban sociology by planetary urbanization, before considering how cosmopolitan sociological theory helps provide an analytical 'grip' on the deep lying social realities of contemporary urbanization, especially in relation to questions about difference, culture and history. These insights are used to identify three cosmopolitan contradictions that exist within urbanized (and urbanizing) space; tensions that provide a basis for a thoroughgoing cosmopolitan investigation of planetary urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the firm belief that rural sociology is currently in a state of malaise, this paper attempts to diagnose the sickness. Some of the main aspects of what is called 'conventional rural sociology' are outlined and their limitations discussed. It is argued strongly that rural sociology must become more theoretically-oriented in the problems it sets itself and that more attention be given to conceptual and theoretical issues. It is hoped that the paper will provide a focus which will stimulate debate around the questions raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]