As figurational sociologists and sociolinguists, we need to know that we currently find support from other fields in our efforts to construct a sociocultural science focused on interdependencies and processes, creating a multidimensional picture of human beings, one in which the brain and its mental and emotional processes are properly recognized. The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century physics, the contributions made by biology to our understanding of living beings, the conceptual constructions built around the theories of systems, self-organization and complexity, all (...) these implore that we reflect on social sciences paradigms in the light of the great changes in these other disciplines. The application of metaphors or theoretical images of complexity and figurational sociology in understanding language and socio-communication phenomena is of great use, since language is not an ‘object’, but a ‘complex’; it exists simultaneously in and among different domains. ‘Languaging’ and interaction are co-phenomena. The former exists within the latter, and the latter within the former. By visualizing, for instance, the different levels of linguistic structure not as separate entities but rather as united and integrated within the same theoretical frame, by seeing their functional interdependencies, by situating them in a greater multidimensionality that includes what for a long time was considered ‘external’ – the individual and his or her mind-brain, the sociocultural system, the physical world, etc. – and expanding in this way our classical view, we should be able to make important, if not essential, theoretical and practical advances. (shrink)

Throughout most of the 20th century, analytical and reductionist approaches have dominated in biological, social, and humanistic sciences, including linguistics and communication. We generally believed we could account for fundamental phenomena in invoking basic elemental units. Although the amount of knowledge generated was certainly impressive, we have also seen limitations of this approach. Discovering the sound formants of human languages, for example, has allowed us to know vital aspects of the ‘material’ plane of verbal codes, but it tells us little (...) about significant aspects of their social functions. I firmly believe, therefore, that alongside a linguistics that looks ‘inward’ there should also be a linguistics that looks ‘outward’, or one even that is constructed ‘from the outside’, a linguistics that I refer to elsewhere as ‘holistic’ though it could be identified by a different name. My current vision is to promote simultaneously the perspective that goes from the part to the whole and that which goes from the whole to the parts, i.e., both from the top down and from the bottom up. This goal is shared with other disciplines which recognize that many phenomena related to life are interwoven, self-organising, emergent and processual. Thus, we need to re-examine how we have conceived of reality, both the way we have looked at it and the images we have used to talk about it. Several approaches now grouped under the label of complexity have been elaborated towards this objective of finding new concepts and ways of thinking that better fit the complex organisation of facts and events. (shrink)

Intergroup competition over resources is attested since the dawn of history. Written and archaeological evidence go back to at least the fourth millennium BC. According to accepted views, evolution has favored humans because of their ability to have cumulative cultures, which has made flexible adaptation possible. One major aspect of this adaptation has been the ability to handle power contests without engaging physical force. Instead, increasing prestige dynamics has allowed contest management by displaying symbolic assets. These have growingly been instrumental (...) in deterring external assaults, thus guaranteeing the possession – or expansion – of a group’s resources. However, while material assets are believed to create status by the evidence of their tangible usefulness (such as foods, husbandry and tools), symbolic assets are by definition subject to ongoing negotiation, entirely dependent on being socio-semiotically recognized as types of capital. Symbolic stock exchanges thus appear to have been determinative since antiquity in hierarchizing ethnic and political groups fighting over resources, prioritizing ones over the others. They have culminated in repertoires of more solid tangible and intangible assets, from impressive buildings, city gates, gardens and temples, to ideas such as freedom, quality of life and wealth, justice, personal security, or whatever values that have gained universal recognition. The article discusses the creation and expansion of such symbolic repertoires and their uncertain position in recent times. (shrink)

Jeffrey Olick is one of the most prominent researchers in the field of memory studies today. Yet, none of his works have been translated into Russian. “Figurations of memory” is one of his most important texts. It is dedicated to the process-relational methodology. J. Olick criticizes traditional approaches to collective memory as a static thing, whereas it should be studied as a process. On the other hand, the author criticizes a mainstream understanding of memory as a unified object. Instead, he (...) suggests that there are multiple mnemonic forms and practices that should be investigated. As a result he presents a new methodology that is based on analysis of the four essential aspects of memory work: field, medium, genre, and profile. This method of analysis leads to emergence of additional empirical categories, such as official, vernacular, public, and private memory; affective, aesthetic-expressive, instrumental-cognitive, and political-moral media; the normal legitimation, German traditions, German victimhood, and German guilt genres; and the reliable, moral, and normal profiles. Though the final model may seem rather complex, the author claims that it is clearer and more precise that other models of research of collective memory. He claims that this methodology is universal for studying a large number of sociological topics. (shrink)

This article investigates the status of Norbert Elias’s conception of the sociology of knowledge as the means to provide a new epistemological security for sociology. The author of the article argues that this translates into an effective critique of the underlaboring model of the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences, which is consistent with Elias’s attempt to consolidate his own sociological theory. Nevertheless, the author argues that Elias’s sociology of knowledge runs into problems in its attempt to evade the (...) problem of relativism in explanation, and in its conception of human agency. (shrink)

Norbert Elias’s early work – specifically ‘Idea and Individual’ – offers a positive account of philosophy’s potential contribution towards historically oriented concrete sociological investigation. His later work, on the other hand, characterizes philosophical investigation as little more than a distraction from the myth-exposing vocation of the sociologist. This later ‘post-philosophical’ account of figurational sociology predominates today. Within this article, however, I suggest it has come to prominence through a series of dubious rhetorical strategies, most notably subtextual hearsay and disingenuous caricature. (...) By dispensing with the post-philosophical rhetoric, I argue, figurational sociologists might again, following the Elias of ‘Idea and Individual’, take the possibility of a philosophically grounded sociology seriously. If the article does not convince figurational sociologists to revisit philosophy as a potentially positive sociological resource, however, my effort will not have been wasted for as long as it demonstrates the presently dubious nature of their post-philosophical rhetoric. (shrink)

This article takes up, but in a different key, an argument of postmodernists that the over-rationalized conception of society tends to ignore important phenomena such as those belonging to the symbolic domain. It is suggested that the emerging programme of symbolic sociology may contribute toward a new synthetic and interdisciplinary thinking in social sciences. The concept of symbolism as a social phenomenon rather than as an autonomous linguistic or semiotic system is presented; and the argument is made that if social (...) knowledge is constitutive of society, similarly collective sentiments, temporality and collective memory are also symbolically produced. They are created from and create discursive symbolism, symbolic objects and symbolic behaviours. Finally, the article focuses on collective actions where the sociology of symbolic processes is most promising. (shrink)

Norbert Elias (1897–1990) achieved international recognition as a major sociologist only towards the end of his long life. As a German Jewish refugee in England, he did not even gain a secure academic post (at the University of Leicester) until he was 57. Apart from his magnum opus, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation [The Civilizing Process], which was published obscurely in 1939, all his other books and most of his essays were published after his formal retirement. These personal recollections date (...) from that last highly productive part of his life, when he gradually attracted an extensive international following. They depict his foibles, some endearing, some that seemed perversely to stand in the way of his growing reputation. (shrink)

The emergence of processes of globalization has gone hand in hand with a theoretical ?crisis? in sociology. According to an increasing number of scholars, ?global society? has transformed the ?social? to such an extent that classical sociological theory and that of the nineteenth century no longer seem adequate for conceptualizing not only the ?new society,? but (human) society as such. The very distinction between human and non-human society has gone lost. In this context, is it still possible to formulate a (...) ?theory of society? and what form should such a theory take? (shrink)