RSS 1.0Sociology and Social Anthropology
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Bellah’s Durkheim: A fruitful reinvention?The contribution is based on Robert Bellah’s introduction to Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society (1973) and second on other references to the French sociologist in Bellah’s work as well as in Bortolini’s insightful remarks on the “homology” between Durkheim and Bellah. The publication of the book took place in a time of Durkheimian effervescence: Steven Lukes’ Emile Durkheim. His Life and Work was published on the same year and a new Durkheimology appeared in the English-speaking world: attention shifted from methodology, as expressed in Suicide or in the Rules of Sociological Method, to morality with a focus on the moral basis on a non-pathological society. Bellah’s statement is quite strong: Durkheim can “be seen as a theologian of French civil religion”. The paper will examine this point of view with respect to the state of French society at the turn of the century and Durkheim’s social project. One side question concerns the choice of texts: the editor did not give enough weight to texts that might have strengthen Bellah’s point of view, particularly l’Education morale. Bortolini mentions Bob’s long and silent work on Durkheim and his critique of mainstream analysis of The Elementary forms of Religious Life, reducing religion to a mere projection of society (:142). The biographer insists on the ambivalent, if not contradictory, vision of Durkheim in Bellah’s work, in which he finds a key to the interpretation of the oeuvre. The article focuses on how to account for its complexity, which is never as clear as in the interpretation of Durkheim’s sociology in a post-rationalist direction. Bortolini’s concept of role model/hero incarnated by the founding fathers (here Weber and Durkheim) is analyzed in connection with Parsons’ reconstitution of a pantheon. The question of civil religion is reexamined in the light of the transatlantic transfers carrying different meanings of civil religion.
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Social Networks and Workers’ Earnings in Contemporary ChinaGuanxi is the central form of social capital in Chinese society that provides access to resources, assets, and benefits that facilitate social status and social mobility. Substantial empirical research has documented the importance of guanxi networks in accessing resources for getting good jobs, moving up to better jobs, and achieving higher wages. Chinese Lunar New Year is a special occasion of cultural and social significance to cultivate and maintain guanxi networks. We thus conceptualize guanxi networks as the visiting networks during the Chinese New Year celebration. Using the 2008 Chinese General Social Survey, we construct five measures of the Chinese New Year greeting networks and assess their impact on workers’ earnings as well as gender differences in their effects on earnings. We also consider two major structural constraints—the hukou and social class—that affect the extent of one’s social networks and earnings. Our findings not only confirm the overall positive effects of the Chinese New Year greeting networks on earnings but also offer nuances that enhance the understanding of how guanxi networks as a manifestation of social capital embedded in Chinese traditional culture work in the contemporary era and intensify gender gaps.
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Hukou stratification, class structure, and earnings in transitional ChinaThe massive economic transformation in China has triggered a vigorous scholarly debate on whether the persistent power of the state or the increasing market liberalization is the main driving force of inequality. In this article, we attempt to understand this debate through the lens of two coexisting stratification systems––the longstanding hukou (household registration) system and an emerging class structure. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey from 2008 to 2015, we develop new typologies for hukou stratification and class structure and examine their relative contributions in determining workers’ earnings. We further investigate differences in their effects between the Inland and Coastal regions. We find that class ranks ahead of education and hukou as the strongest determinant of earnings in China as a whole. Regionally, hukou and class are strong determinants of earnings, but hukou has a relatively stronger effect in Inland China. The findings shed light on the changing stratification dynamics in transitional China and contribute to the literature on the market transition debate.
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Social stratification and housing inequality in transitional urban ChinaThe shift to a market economy in the past few decades has privatised the housing market and transformed housing into a crucial part of social stratification in urban China as in many Western capitalist countries. The hukou system which is based on the place of origin has long been a major state institution connected with where people reside and their entitlements in China. However, the existing research has been paid little attention to the multi-dimensions of the hukou system and the emerging class structure in the process of market transformation. I conceptualise hukou stratification in transitional urban China based on three dimensions and construct a new class typology based on Wright's capitalist class theory. Using the 2010–2013 Chinese General Social Survey, I investigate the effects of hukou and class on two housing outcomes: homeownership and housing space. The findings reveal that hukou is more important than class in determining homeownership, but class is more important than hukou in determining workers’ housing space in transitional urban China. This study contributes to the ongoing market transition debate, the results of which deepen insights into the hybrid nature of the stratification outcomes in the context of China’s market transition.
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Solidifying identity discourse through the politicized monumentation of struggleThis article investigates contemporary examples of monumentation and the extent to which they solidify and reproduce a politicized discourse on identities. Focusing predominantly on the representation of refugees and migrants, the article is broken down into four sections, the first of which looks into the challenges of monumentation and the discourse it represents. The second part includes three case studies, each representing a different vestige of the struggle with the discourse propagated by certain monuments. The core of the argument concerns the parameters of social representation of the suffering subject, be it the refugee, the asylum seeker, their mother, or the colonial subject. I propose an adaptation of Fairclough's model of language and power to include monuments as replicas of texts which can be analyzed at word, discursive and social levels.
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Liquid indigeneity: Wine, science, and colonial politics in Israel/PalestineIsrael/Palestine is a site of bitter struggle over definitions of indigeneity and settlerness. In 2008 the first Palestinian “indigenous wine” was released, introducing a discourse of primordial place-based authenticity into the wine field. Today, winemakers, scientists, autochthonous grapes, and native wines reconfigure the field of gastronationalism. Palestinian and Israeli wine industries can now claim exclusive historical entitlement in a global era in which terroir, that is, the idiosyncratic place, shapes economic and cultural value. Against the dominance of “international varieties,” this indigenous turn in the wine world mobilizes genetics, enology, and ancient texts to rewrite the longue durée of the Israeli/Palestinian landscape. The appropriation of the indigenous grape illustrates the power of science, craft, and taste to reconfigure the human and nonhuman politics of settler colonialism.
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Terroir and Territory on the Colonial Frontier: Making New-Old World Wine in the Holy LandEtymologically related, the concepts of terroir and territoriality display divergent cultural histories. While one designates the palatable characteristics of place as a branded story of geographic distinction, the other imbues the soil with political meaning. This paper traces the production of eno-locality in a contested space on both sides of the Green Line in Israel/Palestine. The case of the Yatir award-winning winery shows how terroir and territory are blended in the political economy and cultural politics of colonial place-making. Located on a multiscalar frontier—climatic, geopolitical, and viticultural—Yatir Winery positions itself simultaneously within the Mediterranean transnational landscape and in a biblical site of historical authenticity. Enacting strategic regimes of signification to target the increasing demand for high-end wines on both the global and local markets, it makes a claim for place, while appropriating Palestinian land and redefining ancient Jewish heritage. The result articulates a settler colonial landscape whose symbolic and material transformations are reflected in the Israeli search for rooted identity. Analytically, we explore the power of border and frontier wines to reconfigure the differences between New World and Old World paradigms. We conclude by outlining a comparative framework of the charged relations between terroir and territory that articulates the nexus between border typologies and the colonial politics of wine.
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The shipWhen Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021, it dramatically brought to light the fragile dependency of global trade on maritime infrastructures. It also drew attention to ships as actors within this global system of mobility. In this article, I centre on the figure of the ship to reflect on maritime passages and blockages and the particular forms of sociality that emerge through them. Drawing on ethnography from onboard container ships, I explore how crews interact with various actors, such as authorities, pilots, boatmen and peddlers, who, at times facilitate, at times obstruct, ships’ passages. Through this ethnographic lens, I make visible the intersecting dynamics of mobility and immobility, flow and friction, and connection and isolation that permeate the Suez Canal and the contemporary maritime, and which shape the social worlds on and around ships.
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A new ‘Great Schism'? Theopolitics of communion and canonical territory in the Orthodox ChurchThis article examines the recent ‘schism’ in Eastern Orthodoxy to show how religion and politics are strongly intertwined in disputes over territory and sovereignty. It argues that two logics are at play in this conflict: one grounded in the theological-political concept of ‘canonical territory’, the other in the notion of ‘communion’ at the basis of the Christian fellowship. The first is deployed in claims for national sovereignty as well as imperial domination, while the latter can make or break communities of faith. Drawing a parallel between the post-socialist revival of religion in Ukraine and the current mobilization on the ground, it shows how these contradictory logics shape the fate of people, churches and states.
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A double-headed hydra: Marine Le Pen’s charisma, between political masculinity and political femininityAlthough charisma is more commonly associated with masculine leadership, Marine Le Pen (MLP) is a woman politician whom supporters view as charismatic. Combining theories of hegemonic masculinity, and hegemonic femininity, with Max Weber’s typology of legitimate domination, this paper elaborates a framework for identifying how political masculinity and femininity are relationally structured within types of legitimate domination, including charismatic domination. I apply this framework to empirical analysis of the French radical rightwing leader and her supporters. Charisma, I suggest, is a form of political masculinity a woman can enact, but which allows for expression of political femininity. Drawing from participant observation data gathered on the French National Front between 2013 and 2017, and from interviews with party members, I show how activists viewed MLP as an admirably virile figure. Simultaneously, she was venerated for her feminine corporality, and her expression of feminine care, or caritas. Like a double-headed hydra, MLP was viewed as extraordinary due to her combined political masculinity and political femininity. Contra theories of hegemonic masculinity, MLP shows that a charismatic woman can perform hegemonic masculinity without being punished by supporters for doing so. Rational-bureaucratic domination, by contrast, is predominantly masculine, and allows for little expression of political femininity.
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Non au gender: Moral epistemics and French conservative strategies of distinctionCatholic bourgeois contestations against ‘le gender’, and against ‘bourgeoisbohemians’, characterised ‘La Manif Pour Tous’ and ‘Les Veilleurs’, French social movements which mobilised intensely in 2013 against legalisation of same-sex marriage. Drawing from primary field observations of movement events, and from interviews, I argue that moral epistemics – knowledge politics oriented around moral issues – were central to the movements. Additionally, these moral epistemics were structured by the class positioning of conservative bourgeois Catholics. I trace how contestations against ‘le gender’ were framed as critiques of how moral knowledge is produced and irresponsibly disseminated by rival bourgeois actors, and how conservative activists contrasted themselves as educated and thoughtful subjects whose ideas emerged autonomously and outside the Church hierarchy. Studies of conservatism should thus not only analyse the theological content of religiously-grounded conservative movements, but should also examine how conservatives criticise the circuits of knowledge-production and dissemination of relationally antagonistic groups.
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“It's All for the Child”: The Discontents of Middle-class Chinese Parenting and Migration to EuropeMiddle-class parents in China are increasingly torn between the need to secure their child's future in an environment where competition starts in kindergarten and parenting ideologies focusing on the child's individuality, creativity and freedom. Our study, based on ethnographic fieldwork among middle-class Chinese migrants in Budapest, shows that one result of this tension is a new wave of emigration that is justified in terms of securing a relaxed, healthy and free environment for the child. These migrants consciously reject what they see as a materialistic and dehumanizing social environment in China and pursue a “European” lifestyle that they imagine as wholesome and human-centred; yet while they rejoice in the “happiness” of their children, they retain a deep-seated anxiety about their children's future. Thus, the search for a mentally and physically wholesome environment consonant with China's discourse of national revitalization becomes decoupled from its original agenda and triggers a new trend in international mobility. This study illustrates how the broader tensions in the relationship between China's middle class and the state are externalized to the global stage.
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Employment Precarity, COVID-19 Risk, and Workers' Well-Being During the Pandemic in EuropeThe COVID-19 crisis highlights a growing precarity in employment and the importance of employment for workers' well-being. Existing studies primarily examine the consequences of employment precarity through non-standard employment arrangements or the perception of job insecurity as a one-dimensional measure. Recent scholars advocate a multidimensional construct with a wide range of objective and subjective characteristics of precariousness. Using data from Eurofound's Living, Working, and COVID-19 surveys, I define employment precarity as the objective form of employment instability, as well as subjective terms of job insecurity and emotional precariousness. I also investigate whether and how various facets of employment precarity along with COVID-19 risk are associated with workers' mental and subjective well-being across 27 European Union member states during the pandemic. This study sheds light on a comprehensive understanding of objective and subjective dimensions of employment precarity, as well as their effects on workers' well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Shifting informalities: Motorcycle taxis, ride-hailing apps, and urban mobility in BangkokThis article reconstructs the shifting uses of local concepts of “informality“ (nǭk rabop) over the last 35 years in the streets of Bangkok, with a particular attention to the birth of the motorcycle taxi business in the 1980s, its development after the 1997 economic crisis, and its transformation since the arrival of ride-hailing apps in 2016. Based on more than 10 years of qualitative and quantitative research with motorcycle taxi drivers, state officials, city planners and everyday users in Bangkok, this archaeology of informality expand on contemporary theorizations of informality as a logic of planning, a heuristic device, and a practice. I do so by focusing on the highly relational, contingent, and ultimately contested nature of informality, the role of non-state actors in shaping it and, the performative power of informality as a categorical label. In this sense, I propose a double conceptualization of informality: on one side as an ever-shifting relationship between established and codified practices (whether regarding land, labor, property rights, or everyday actions), a governmental and legal system, and people who control and interact with these practices; on the other, as a label, often deployed tactically by actors trying to make sense and make do with the world around them. In this duality between a shifting set of relationships and an almost intuitive and referential label that allow for categorical assessments resides, I show, the central efficacy of “informality” as a concept good to think with, to govern with, and to resist with.
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Orbán’s Ordonationalism as Post-Neoliberal HegemonyThis essay examines Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and his cultivation of a new form of authoritarian and hyper-nationalist neoliberalism, which I call ordonationalist. With particular emphasis placed on tracing resurgence of the national state, ordonationalism points to the neoliberal intensifications, but also the ruptures to neoliberalism through post-neoliberal advances, exemplified by the Hungarian state. Ordonationalism combines: (1) a newly empowered nationalist state invested in flexibilizing domestic labour and controlling access to domestic capitalist accumulation; (2) a national state captured by political actors as a means towards controlling access to domestic capital accumulation; (3) a novel regime of social reproduction, linking financialization, flexibilization of labour, steep decline in supporting social reproduction, and supporting consumption as a source of social reproduction. This project is hegemonic. However, the contradictions between radical neoliberalization and radical nationalism generate ever-more instances where an authoritarian state steps in to solve crises generated by its contradictions.
