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Authors:Amanda R. Cheong Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. This article theorizes “omission,” which I define as the condition of being left out of administrative apparatuses, such as civil registers, censuses, and identity management systems. According to this theory, omission is not necessarily accidental but can constitute a political strategy. When even excluded statuses can be powerful grounds for claiming rights, resources, or membership, state actors can subvert such claims-making potential by depriving unwanted populations of the practical, material capacity to establish their legal personhood through documents and records. To situate omission, I develop a typology of documentary strategies additionally comprising “recognition,” “claims-making,” and “evasion.” Although my theorizing is informed by ethnographic research with unregistered families in Malaysia, scholars can apply this typology to multiperspectival, relational analyses of other empirical cases of documentary politics. Studying omissions has scholarly and ethical imperatives, not least to record the lives of populations denied, at times with existential consequences, the right to recognition. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-10-28T12:18:54Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231206838
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Authors:Aliza Luft Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. Scholars have long argued that dehumanization causes violence. However, others have recently argued that those who harm do so because they feel pressured or view violence as justified. Examining the Rwandan genocide, this article contends that contradictory theories of dehumanization can be reconciled through consideration of cultural and moral sociology. Research on culture and action demonstrates that when people strive to implement new practices, they often explicitly work through them cognitively and emotionally. With time, however, these conscious processes diminish until actions that were once new proceed with ease. In another vein, morality research suggests our affective responses to actions indicate their moral significance; when we do not react emotionally to actions, they are morally irrelevant. Herein, I combine these ideas with a temporal analysis of Hutus’ recollections of killing Tutsi and find cognitive, emotional, and relational transformations rendered killing mundane over time. Dehumanization was a consequence of violence, not a cause. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-10-26T12:03:06Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231203716
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Authors:Stefan Hirschauer Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. Alongside subsystems, classes, and types of socials relations, societies differentiate between categories of their personnel, referring to their age, sex, “race,” (dis)ability, performance, geographic and social origin, sexual preference, religious conviction, profession, and so on. This article outlines a theory of human differentiation with the aim of viewing processes leading to reified memberships of human categories in an encompassing comparative approach. Differentiating humans distinguishes them perceptively, categorizes them lingually, shapes them physically, segregates them spatially, and subjects them to othering and unequal evaluative treatment. The analytic vocabulary developed in this article puts forward five elementary processes—prelingual distinction, lingual categorization, official classification, material marking/dissimilation, and segregation—and three advanced processes of asymmetrical differentiation: the alterization of humans, their differential evaluation, and the escalation into boundary constitution and polarization. Processes of human differentiation are stabilized via coupling with social and societal differentiation, but they can also be practically minimalized, normatively contained, and institutionally diluted. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-10-26T11:25:35Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231206411
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Authors:Rebecca W. B. Lund Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. In this article, I argue that Smith’s continued relevance coincides with more recent retrievals of Marx-inspired materialism. This materialism and the associated understanding of human beings—the social, language, and world people share in common—certainly do not capture all there is to say about Smith’s eclectic and expansive social theory. However, the material dimension distinguishes her work from many other feminist sociologies and results in her continued relevance as a thinker who brings to the table another way of doing feminist sociology. I illustrate this by showing how Smith’s Marx-inspired materialism and its associated understanding of language offer a productive and timely alternative to the feminist social theory of anti-categorical intersectional theory and new materialist theory. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-09-26T08:10:57Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231198129
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Authors:Marjorie DeVault Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. Dorothy E. Smith was a second-wave feminist scholar of the 1970s who brought forward an insistent critique of women’s exclusion from knowledge production and the resulting distortions of sociological theory. I offer here a reading of the theory Smith developed as she worked toward a sociology that could move the field beyond those distortions, toward a method of inquiry that could be useful for women and generally for people puzzled by the circumstances of their lives. I highlight Smith’s commitment to knowledge that is anchored in a shared, material world; the originality of her approach to the investigation of textually mediated social organization; and the goal of mapping social organization that underlies her approach. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-09-08T09:02:32Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231197834
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Authors:Freeden Blume Oeur Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. In 1992, Barbara Laslett and Barrie Thorne organized a symposium in Sociological Theory with the aim of tearing down a “wall of silence” between feminist theory and the mainstream of sociological theorizing. For help, the editors turned to the work of Dorothy E. Smith, the renowned theoretician and methodologist. Smith’s theorizing today carries even greater appeal, having expanded from a sociology for women to a sociology for people. This wider scope never sacrifices her project’s theoretical versatility and nimbleness and disdain for abstraction. In offering a critical tribute to Smith, who passed away in June 2022 at the age of 95, the present symposium invited three scholars—Paige Sweet, Rebecca Lund, and Marjorie DeVault—to share new reflections on the legacy of Smith’s powerful mode of inquiry. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-09-05T09:58:45Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231197832
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Authors:Paige L. Sweet Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. I focus on Smith’s phenomenological insights related to the concepts of “bifurcation” and “consciousness” to explore the persistent tension in her work between particularity and abstraction. For Smith, because marginalized groups’ experiences are excluded from dominant ways of knowing, we must begin inquiry from the embodied activity of everyday life, never from the abstracted categories of accepted knowledge. Smith’s concept of bifurcation is essential to understanding this. When people experience the world as bifurcated, we should ask how that split illuminates the ongoing production of marginality as constituted by historically specific relations of ruling. “Consciousness” is likewise essential for Smith because it reflects her concern with how forms of domination get incorporated. For Smith, consciousness is not “micro” but reflects the temporal organization of social power. Starting from the particular seems “small” but is actually incredibly ambitious: The most shrouded aspects of social power are visible there. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-08-31T11:24:50Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231197833
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Authors:Barbara Kiviat Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. Like many modes of rationalized governance, algorithms depend on rendering people as cases: discrete entities defined by regularized, atemporal attributes. This enables the computation behind the behavioral predictions organizations increasingly use to allocate benefits and burdens. Yet it elides another foundational way of understanding people: as actors in the unfolding narratives of their lives. This has epistemic implications because each cultural form entails a distinct information infrastructure. In this article, I argue that construing people as cases carries consequences for moral reasoning as well because different moral standards require different information. While rendering people as cases affords adjudications of comparative justice, parsing noncomparative justice often necessitates narrative. This explains why people frequently reach for stories that sit beyond the representations of individuals found in records and databases. With this argument, I contribute to the sociology of categorization/classification and draw broader conclusions about modern systems of bureaucratic, computational, and quantitative governance. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-07-14T11:46:50Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231186797
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Authors:Christopher M. Rea, Scott Frickel Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. Basic oppositions between economic growth and environmental protection are well understood by sociologists, but the state’s role in environmental protection and regulation is underspecified in sociological theory. We define the environmental state and theorize two structuring forces central to its provision of environmental welfare. First, culturally distinctive constructions of nature shape environmental politics and statecraft. State actions linked to charismatic “special” nature often win broad political support, whereas actions linked to less resonant “ordinary” nature do not. Second, historical legacies of developmentalism shape environmental coalitions. Arms of the environmental state that combine extractive pasts with newer regulatory responsibilities are better able to build broad support, whereas narrowly regulatory or developmental arms struggle to do so. We illustrate the relevance of each process for the politics of environmental regulation and of technoscientific expertise. Both processes help explain the varied efficacy of environmental states and set the stage for their comparative study. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-07-10T08:27:31Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231184462
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Authors:Xiaohong Xu, Isaac Ariail Reed Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. This article develops a new approach to the sociology of time by examining how the contentious politics of newness shapes modern revolutionary politics. It goes beyond the prevalent dualistic conception of social time and develops a tripartite model by distinguishing two kinds of unordinary time—carnival time and new time—that are conflated in the dualistic conception. We analyze the Chinese Cultural Revolution (CCR) as a crucial case for understanding the importance of new time to modern revolutionary politics. The effort to forge an ongoing, widely experienced “new time” created a series of contradictions and difficulties in the CCR regarding the power dynamics and boundaries of the experiences of radical newness. The eventual failure of the Jacobin politics of the CCR conditioned the post-CCR suspicion of mass movements and political changes. More broadly, the politics of the interpretation of time provides a different angle on the sociology of political modernity. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-06-27T12:27:06Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231183721
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Authors:Paul Joosse, Dominik Zelinsky Abstract: Sociological Theory, Ahead of Print. Moving beyond frameworks of charisma scholarship that stress antagonism between charisma and establishment society, this article discerns and theoretically accounts for more mutualistic forms of influence between charismatic leaders and elite representatives of traditional or rational-legal institutions. Specifically, we combine contemporary work in the cultural sociology of charisma with Girard’s notion of mimesis to provide a theory of charismatic mimicry; we explain situations where, rather than opposing the charismatic leader, elites align themselves with the new sources of legitimacy being proffered by the charismatic leader. At times, these institutional elites even co-opt new charismatic protocols into their own vocabularies of leadership. We demonstrate the usefulness of our model for interpreting the case of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his encounters with European leaders. Citation: Sociological Theory PubDate: 2023-06-03T06:34:14Z DOI: 10.1177/07352751231174436
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