31

M.A. SOCIOLOGY
SEMESTER II (CBCS)

CONTEMPORARY
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES

SUBJECT CODE :93330

 © UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI
Prof. Suhas Pednekar
Vice-Chancellor,
University of Mumbai,

Prof. Ravindra D. Kulkarni Prof. Prakash Mahanwar

Pro Vice-Chancellor, Director,
University of Mumbai, IDOL, University of Mumbai,

Programme Co-ordinator : Mr.Anil Bankar

Associate Professor of History and
Head Faculty of Arts,
IDOL, University of Mumbai

Course Co-ordinator : Ms. Pankti V. Surve

Assistant Professor,
IDOL, University of Mumbai, Mumbai

Course Writer : Mr. Amit Vijay Jadhav

Assistant Professor,
IDOL, University of Mumbai, Mumbai

: Prof. Mariyah Gour

Associate Professor, Head of Dept.
Rizvi College of Arts & Commerce,
Santacruz, Mumbai

: Dr. Lakshmi Periyaswamy

Assistant Professor,
Ket's Vaze College, Mulund East, Mumbai

: Dr Samya Shinde
Asst. Professor,
L.S Raheja College, Mumbai

Editor : Dr. Gazala Bhoje

Associate Professor,
Head Dept of Sociology
G.M Momin Women’s College
Bhiwandi

December 2021, Print - 1

Published by : Director,
Institute of Distance and Open Learning ,
University of Mumbai,
Vidyanagari, Mumbai - 400 098.

DTP Composed & : Mumbai University Press,

Printed by Vidyanagari, Santacruz (E), Mumbai
 CONTENTS
Unit No. Title Page No.

1A. Structural Functionalism and Conflict Theories 01

1B. Conflict Perspective 13

2. Symbolic Interactionism 25

3. Ethnomethodology and Narrative Analysis 45

4. Western marxism and the critical theory 58

5. Frankfurt School 68

6. Post Structuralism and Post Modern Theories 77

7. Theories of Structuration, Habitus and Practice 87

8. Theories of Networks, Risks and Liquidity 96

9. Postcolonial critique, standpoint theory and beyond 105

10. Feminist Critique 116

11. Sociology From Below: Dalit Sociological Perspectives 128


 M.A. SOCIOLOGY
SEM - II

CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES

Course Rationale: This course probes the development of perspectives in

Sociology, in continuity with the classical theories. The movement away
from grand theories and meta narratives in the form of micro sociological
theories is followed by the focus on the way sociological theorists have
engaged with Marxism, Feminist registers, late modernity, the post-
modern critique as well as multiple standpoint epistemologies.

Unit I: Structural Functionalism and Micro Sociology

• Structural Functionalism and Conflict Theories
• Symbolic Interactionism
• Ethnomethodology
• Narrative Analysis

Unit II: The Critical and Postmodern Turn

• Western Marxism
• Critical Theory
• The Frankfurt School
• Post-structuralist and Postmodern theories

Unit III: Theorizing Structure, Network and Risk

• Theories of Structuration
• Habitus and Practice
• Theories of Networks
• Risks and Liquidity

Unit IV: Plural Registers

• Post-colonial critique
• Standpoint Theories and Beyond
• The Feminist Critique
• Sociology from Below: Dalit Sociological Perspectives

Essential Readings
 Elliott, A. (2009). Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction.
London & New York: Routledge. Elliott, A. (Ed.). (2010). The
Routledge Companion to Social Theory. London & New York:
Routledge.
 Ritzer, G. (Ed.). (2003). The Blackwell Companion to Major
Contemporary Social Theorists. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
 Ritzer, G. (2011). Sociological Theory (8th Edition). New York:
McGraw-Hill.

I
 Wallace, R. & Wolf, A. (1995). Contemporary Sociological Theory:
Continuing the Classical Tradition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Further Readings

 Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of the Theory of Practice. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

 Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity

Press.

 Elliott, A. (2003). Critical Visions: New Directions in Social

Theory. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

 Ferguson, H. (2006). Phenomenological Sociology: Insight and

Experience in Modern Society. London: Sage.

 Giddens, A. (1993). New Rules of Sociological Method: A

Positive Cri-
 tique of Interpretive Sociologies. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.

 Green, M.E. (Ed.). (2011). Rethinking Gramsci. London & New

York: Routledge.

 Patel, S. (Ed.). (2010). The ISA Handbook of Diverse Sociological

Traditions. London: Sage. Ritzer, G. (1997). Postmodern Social
Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.\

 Seidman, S. (1994). The Postmodern Turn: New Perspectives on

Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Turner, B.S. (Ed.). (1995). [1990]. Theories of Modernity and Post

modernity. London: Sage. Turner, J. (1986). The Theory of
Structuration. American Journal of Sociology, 91 (4), 969 – 977.



II
 Module - I

1A
STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM AND
CONFLICT THEORIES
Unit Structure
1A.0 Objectives
1A.1 Introduction
1A.2 Functionalist founders
1A.2.1 Herbert Spencer
1A.2.2 Emile Durkheim
1A.2.3 Bronislaw Malinowski
1A.2.4 A.R. Radcliffe-Brown
1A.2.5 Later Functionalists
1A.2.6 Talcott Parsons
1A.2.7 R.K. Merton
1A.3 Questions
1A.4 Summary
1A.5 References

1A.0 OBJECTIVE

To understand the concept of functionalism; the contributions of

various functionalists; the causal factors of social change; the rate of social
change; the impact of social change on human society; and social change
and the future after completing this Unit.

1A.1 INTRODUCTION

Functionalism is a perspective in which sociology and social

anthropology theories have explained social institutions or other social
phenomena primarily in terms of their functions. When we talk about the
consequences of some social institutions, social activities, or social
phenomena on the operation of other institutions, activities, or society as a
whole, we're talking about things like the consequences of a crime
punishment or a reward for a rare scientific discovery. In the nineteenth
century, some social thinkers used an 'organic analogy' to explain society.
This analogy concept comes from biology, as there is a biological
organism that is analogous to it. A society can be viewed as a complicated
organism made up of multiple separate and interdependent organs. Its
origins can be traced back to early-nineteenth-century organicism. Herbert
1
Spencer was one of the pioneers of the concept of 'organic analogy.' Emile
Durkheim, a French sociologist, was another important proponent who
clearly theorised the functions of social institutions.

B. Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, for example, were early

twentieth-century British social anthropologists who championed the idea
of studying social life in terms of social functions. The idea of structural-
functionalism or structural functional perspective, which is related to
social structure, dominated the sociology scene in various parts of the
world. Two prominent sociologists, Talcott Parsons and R.K. Merton,
conducted some evaluation in American sociology in light of
contemporary social processes.

In addition to others who have not been as well recognized, the

contributions of these two American sociologists are considered path
breaking in the functional perspective. Neo-functionalism is a more recent
approach to societal theory, retaining some of the founders' basic ideas. It
identifies the flaws in existing notions of functionalism and proposes
improvements to earlier fundamental considerations of functionalism.

1A.2 FUNCTIONALIST FOUNDERS

1A.2.1 Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) is an Englishman was a British
sociologist who is regarded as a continuation of Auguste Comte's
philosophical and evolutionary perspective by certain sociologists.
However, he does not share Comte's general outlook. "Comte endeavoured
to give a coherent account of the 'development of human conceptions,'
whereas my purpose is to give a coherent account of the history of the
external world...to describe the necessary and actual, filiation of things...
to interpret the genesis of events that comprised nature," he claims (Coser
1996). Spencer categorises organic and social aggregates based on their
size progression. Social aggregates, like organic aggregates, go from
relatively undifferentiated stages in which parts resemble one another to
differentiated states in which parts differ... once parts diverge, they
become mutually dependent on one another (ibid). As a result, as
differentiation increases, so does interdependence, and thus integration.
His essential consideration of pieces with progressive differentiation
becoming interdependent and this working for or resulting in integration
indicate the genesis of “structural-functional” theorising of society as an
organism, a living whole. On the basis of such writings it is said that the
notion of social function had been formulated in the nineteenth century
most explicitly by Hebert Spencer. He provided this analysis of social
structure and function in his well-known book Principles of Sociology.
This is where sociologists first began to theorise social function
(Bottomore 1975). Other sociologists and social anthropologists
afterwards took it up methodically, thoroughly, and explicitly in the late
nineteenth century and early-mid twentieth century. The following are
Herbert Spencer's main ideas on functionalism:
2
1) Society is a collection of interconnected systems. It is a connected and
interdependent whole.
2) This system can only be comprehended in terms of the operation of
distinct structures, each of which serves a purpose in the maintenance
of the social whole.
3) The systems have needs that must be satisfied if the systems have to
survive (i.e. continuity of society). As a result, determining the
function of a structure requires an understanding of the needs it fulfills.

Though Herbert Spencer is credited with explicitly formulating the

tenets, At first, his theories on functional demands and other aspects of the
social system, to which he compared a social organism to a biological
organism and analysed its evolution, were controversial.

As a result, he is classified as an evolutionary rather than a

functionalist. "The Study of Sociology '' and "Principles of Sociology" are
two of his most well-known books among sociologists, among his many
publications during his lifetime. He was admired by radical thinkers like
John Stuart Mill, Aldous Huxley, and others.

1A.2.2 Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim was a philosopher who lived in the nineteenth
century. Durkheim, David Emile (1858-1917), was a French sociologist
who is widely regarded as the founder of both French sociology and
sociology as a distinct discipline. He devised a methodological framework
that combined empirical research and sociological theory. His research
centred on the evolution and functioning of traditional and modern
societies. Four of his publications, The Division of Labour in Society, The
Rules of Sociological Method, Le Suicide, and Elementary Forms of
Religious Life, are regarded as the most valuable by sociologists all over
the world. Emile Durkheim defined sociology and its methodology. He
selectively borrowed some ideas from Herbert Spencer's contributions. He
made a significant contribution to the development of the concept of
(social) functions and established functionalism as a coherent, transparent,
and justifiable theory. He codified the concept of function in his seminal
work, "The Division of Labor in Society," in which he examined the
division of labor's functions in society (or for the society as a whole).

Let's take a look at how he defines functions first. In his book

'Division of Labor in Society,' he starts with a simple definition of
function. 'The function of a social institution, according to him, is the
congruence between it (the institution) and the needs of the social
organism' (this analogy of social organism is derived from Spencer).

That is, a social institution meets a societal need. So, what is

society's most pressing requirement? In this study, he tackles this topic.
According to him, the maintenance of social solidarity is a critical or
fundamental need of society (in other words, integration of society). He
asks, "What is the function of division of labour in society?" when
3
studying it as a social institution. He discusses this issue in terms of the
society's most pressing need. Social solidarity, according to Durkheim, is a
critical requirement of society. The division of labour in Industrial Society
(as it was in late-nineteenth-century Western Europe) is the bedrock of
this social solidarity. In comparison to simpler societies, these are rapidly
differentiating societies. Durkheim views solidarity as a necessary
condition for society's survival, arguing that without it, the community
will disintegrate and may cease to exist.

He studies the causes and functions of religion in his later work

(last book), "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life." Durkheim argues
that religion is one of the great sources for regulating the society, thus
fulfilling the function of maintaining solidarity. Religion brings
individuals together around a shared set of beliefs (collective
consciousness), which then governs the collective's activities. He believes
that if the basic need for social solidarity is not addressed, pathological
(abnormal) forms such as 'anomie' are prone to arise. This viewpoint sets
sociology apart from other social sciences. In sociology, he is credited as
the father of functional perspective or theory. However, some social
philosophers believe that his functionalism is based on evolutionary
theory, which appears to be true to a degree. But he deserves credit for
establishing sociology as a distinct discipline with its own subject matter
and methodology. Similarly, he is credited with establishing the functional
perspective as Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was a British social
anthropologist noted for his functionalism theory. Emile Durkheim, C.G.
Seligman, and E. Westermarck are said to have had a significant academic
effect on him. Many social anthropologists were impressed by him, and
under his influence, they focused on the precise and meticulous
description of actual behaviour in specific communities. His functional
method placed a strong emphasis on field work, which included precise
observation and documentation of social behaviour. He investigated the
Trobriand Islanders using a method he developed called "participant
observation." His fieldwork on the Trobriand Islanders resulted in his
book, 'Argonauts in the Western Pacific.' With the release of this famous
book, he became a well-known anthropologist around the world. He came
out firmly against the Evolutionary Theory and the Comparative Method
of older sociologists and anthropologists, and his distinctive functionalism,
based on this precise and meticulous depiction of Trobriand civilization.
In a subsequent essay, 'A Scientific Theory of Culture,' he provided the
conceptual formulation of functional approach. He maintained that "every
'' cultural artefact contributes to the preservation of the culture as a whole,
and thus fulfils some of the culture's needs. He goes on to say that "every
cultural artefact serves an important purpose." Malinowski utilised the
concept of function to imply that society (culture) can be thought of as a
collection of interconnected elements (what he calls "cultural objects'')
that work together to meet various social demands. Malinowski's
functionalism introduced two new concepts: I the concept of system
levels, and (ii) the concept of various systems demands at each level.
There are three system levels, according to him: biological, social,
structural, and symbolic.
4
 Malinowski places a strong focus on studying culture as a whole
(or whole), with all of its functions and patterns. He investigated,
described, and analysed why and how culture works, as well as how
diverse aspects of culture are connected to form a larger cultural pattern.
Functionalism, in his opinion, tries to explain the roles that institutions
perform within the larger cultural whole. Institutions exist to meet the
needs of individuals as well as society as a whole. Every facet (element) of
culture has a role, according to Malinowski, and they are all
interdependent and interrelated. As a result, a functional unity can be
observed among them in the maintenance of human existence.

The main premise of Malinowski's thesis is that every feature of

culture serves a purpose, i.e. it satisfies a need. He divides needs into three
categories: primary, institutional, and integrative. The biological demands
of sex, food, and shelter are the most basic. Institutional needs refer to the
institutions (economic, legal, and so on) that aid in the fulfilment of
primary needs. Integrative needs, such as religion, are those that assist
society retain coherence. Some sociologists believe Malinowski's
functionalism was individualistic in nature because it focused on people'
basic biological needs. Others have referred to his functional approach as
"pure functionalism." His functional approach is also believed to have
included a strong affirmation of every society's functional integration.

1A.2.3 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R.

Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) was a British social
anthropologist whose functionalism (structural-functionalism) differed
from Malinowski's. Emile Durkheim's functionalism is said to have had a
big influence on him. He explains how functionalism can solve some of
the challenges of organic analogizing. "The concept of function is founded
on a parallel between social life and organic life," he acknowledges. He
believes that functionalism's major flaw was the tendency for analysis to
appear teleological. Using Durkheim's definition of function as "the way
in which a part (a social institution) satisfies a system's needs," Radcliffe-
Brown argued that the term "needs" should be replaced with "necessary
conditions of existence." It was his attempt to escape functionalism's
teleological consequences. As a result, he replaces Durkheim's phrase
"needs" with "essential conditions of life." For him, the question is which
conditions are required for survival, which is an empirical issue. For each
social system, it would have to be discovered. He believes that different
systems require a variety of conditions in order to survive. He avoids
asserting that every cultural item (as defined by Malinowski) must serve a
purpose and that products from different cultures must serve the same
purpose.

Radcliffe-Brown believes that structural functional analysis, rather

than a single functional analysis, includes five key assumptions — (1) One
of the conditions for a society's survival is that its parts are minimally
integrated; (2) the term function refers to the processes that maintain this
necessary integration or solidarity; (3) structural features can thus be

5
shown to contribute to the maintenance of the necessary solidarity in each
society. According to Radcliffe-Brown, the social structure and the
conditions required for its persistence are irreducible in this approach.

Radcliffe-Brown, like Durkheim, understood society as a reality in

and of itself throughout this research and understanding. As a result, he
used to think of cultural objects like family rules and religious rites as
being explicable in terms of social structure, notably the need for
solidarity and integration. Radcliffe-Brown assumes that the system must
have some level of solidarity. He looked into lineage systems and how
they affected the preservation of this bond. He examines the purpose of
weeping and dance rites in his study 'The Andaman Islanders.' These rites,
which are repeated, adjudicate issues and thereby re-establish the system's
(community's) cohesiveness (which had previously fallen apart owing to
minor conflicts). 'Functional unity (integration or solidarity) of a social
system is, of course, a theory,' says Radcliffe-Brown. Finally, he considers
function to be the contribution made by a partial activity to the overall
activity (as a whole) of which it is a part. All partial activities (parts)
contribute to the maintenance of the whole and create a sense of unity,
which is referred to as the organism's social unity. Although he is regarded
as a functionalist, his functionalist viewpoint is limited to structure.
'Structure and Function in Primitive Society,' his well-known work,
contains his specialised essays on the concept of function.

Check Your Progress

1. Mention the founders of Functionalism .

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. What is an organic analogy ?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
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SUBSEQUENT FUNCTIONALISTS

Talcott Parsons is a character in the film Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was an influential American
sociologist who is widely regarded as the twentieth century's most
influential theory. Early functional analysis, particularly the concept of a
social system as a collection of interconnected elements, was included into
Parsons' functionalism in an attempt to incorporate the suggestiveness of
early functional analysis. Current types of functional theorising have
attempted to address the analytical issues of teleology and tautology,
which Durkheim and Radcliffe-Brown failed to address. This modern

6
functionalism of Parsons and others supplied early sociological theorising
with a unified conceptual framework by inheriting 19th century
organicism and leveraging conceptually the unity of perceiving system
elements as having consequences for the operation of the systematic
whole.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Parsonian functionalism was

unmistakably a main point of critical debate. Even now, Parsonian
functionalism is a source of significant debate. His primary work, 'The
Structure of Social Action,' was released in 1937, and his theories reigned
for the next four decades. His main concept was based on a series of the
performers' actions. An actor is directed towards obtaining goals (social
goals, including individual goals) through functioning in situational
situations by following specific norms, values, and other ideas (as
provided in the system). Action systems emerge as a result of this. The
important word in his functional analysis is system' of social action or
social system.' Statuses, roles, and conventions make up the social system.
Actors are oriented to situations in terms of reasons, according to him
(needs). There are three sorts of motives (or needs): cognitive (need for
information or knowledge), cathetic (need for emotional attachment), and
evaluative (need for evaluation). Parsons also introduces the concept of
functional prerequisites.

He sees integration (inside and across action systems) as a basic

survival requirement (i.e., a need of the social system, or, in simpler terms,
a need of society), following Durkheim and Radcliffe-lead. He is
interested in the integration of the social system as a whole, as well as the
integration of the social system with the cultural system on the one hand
and the social system with the personality system on the other. In his
analysis, these three systems, namely the Social System, Cultural System,
and Personality System, are critical. His conceptual framework
emphasises the interconnectivity of social processes in a systematic way.
Later, he returns to the issues of culture and personality integration. The
concept of institutionalisation is another term related to his concept of
social systems. A social system can be said to exist when interactions
become institutionalised. Institutionalisation, he claims, is the process of
constructing and maintaining social structures. A social system is made up
of institutional clusters of roles, or stable patterns of interaction. He
analysed the structural aspects and functional prerequisites of the social
system in order to comprehend it. Goals, roles, norms, and values are the
structural aspects. Every social system must have functional prerequisites,
i.e., institutionalised organs (or Functionalism sub systems) within the
sphere or perimeters of the social system, in order to meet the needs of the
social system. This is presented in the 'AGIL' paradigm, which he created.
The letters A, G, I, and L stand for adaptation, goal achievement,
integration, and latency, respectively (i.e. pattern maintenance and tension
management). Adaptation is a societal system for meeting basic
necessities such as food, shelter, and so forth. According to him, the
economy, or the economic subsystem, satisfies these requirements. In all

7
cultures, this subsystem is always available. Goal attainment is a system
that focuses on how to set these objectives. He distinguishes between
individual and collective aims, with the latter receiving the most of his
attention. Polity (as a subsystem of the social system) satisfies the demand
for goal achievement within the context. Another critical requirement of
the social system is integration. Institutionalized arrangements, such as
(and most significantly) religion, are used to accomplish this. As a result,
religion, in his opinion, corresponds to the necessity to maintain social
unity. There is no way to keep a system running and maintained if there
are no controls in place. If there are any deviations or conflicts, the social
system must be able to contain them all.

Latency is maintained in Parsons' paradigm by the institutions of

law — the courts, the police, and the administrative system. As a result,
the legal system (as a subsystem) satisfies the requirement for latency.
When a social system is big and has numerous interconnected institutions,
these are referred to as subsystems. As a result, the aforementioned AGIL
is an example of interconnected subsystems. It's important to remember,
according to Parsons, that a social system is defined by cultural patterns
and imbued with personality systems. As a result, Parsons' formulations of
functionalism are well ahead of Durkheim's and Radcliffe- Brown's. The
establishment of four functional requisites – A, G, I, and L – according to
Jonathan Turner, is not a dramatic departure from previous research. True,
structures are evaluated in terms of their functional implications for
achieving the four requirements. As a result, the social system's survival
capability increases, and the Parsonian scheme begins to resemble an
extensive mapping operation. Of course, Parsonian functionalism has
received a lot of criticism, but most theoretically desirable alternatives
borrow some strands from it, whether they reject it entirely or in part. As a
result, his functionalism is a well-known twentieth-century theoretical
statement.

1A.2.4 Merton, R.K.

Robert King Merton (1911-2003) was an American sociologist
who sought to correct the flaws in functionalism as proposed by its
founders, Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown, and Malinowski. Along with
Talcott Parsons, he is one of the two major American sociologists who
dominated the functionalist theory scenario around the middle of the
twentieth century. He started with the etymological connotations of
'function,' then separated the pertinent and contextual interpretations of the
term used by early sociologists from those. In this context, function refers
to a "vital or biological activity examined in terms of how it contributes to
the organism's preservation." This definition explains how it has been
utilized in biology. Early sociologists Durkheim and Radcliffe Brown
accepted this term, with changes suitable to the study of human society (as
an organism), and so clarified the crucial idea, 'function.' Radcliffe-Brown,
according to Merton, has been the most clear in attributing the working
Perspectives in Sociology-I idea of social function to the biological

8
analogical model. Durkheim also mentioned "vital organic processes and
the organism's necessity."

Naturally, Radcliffe-Brown went on to explain the "purpose of any

recurring action, the role it plays in social life as a whole, and the
contribution it contributes to the preservation of structural continuity." All
of this, however, was predicated on a comparison between a social
organism (a society) and its constituent pieces (activity or institution in
society). The claim was also made against earlier theorists' functionalism
that functionalism solely considers maintenance, i.e., stability, and that
there was no space for understanding change, and that the notion was only
applied to simpler civilizations.

In his reformulation or refinement of the concept of function,

Merton addressed these constraints. He defines function as "those
observed outcomes that lead to the adaptation or adjustment of a particular
system." Merton believed that the old definition of function, which stated
that "functions are those observed outcomes that provide for the
adaptation or modification of a particular system," had flaws. According
to him, the term has a propensity to focus on an item's beneficial
contribution to the social or cultural system in which it is embedded.
However, he claims that some social or cultural elements make
contributions that, over time, result in the opposite, i.e., they constitute a
barrier or hindrance to adaptation or adjustment. He established the
alternative idea of 'dysfunction' in response to this possibility (which is
sometimes empirically proven). He defines dysfunctions as "those
observed effects that reduce a specific system's ability to adapt or adjust,"
as well as the empirical potential of non-functional consequences that are
simply irrelevant to the system in question. Using the terms manifest
functions' and 'latent functions,' he further expands on the concept of
function to include 'obvious and concealed implications.' It is not only a
logical possibility or utopia, but it has been proven to be true in empirical
instances as well. Merton was convinced of this truth and confirmed the
function (contribution) of certain social structures, norms, and traditions.
This basic formulation can be used to investigate the concept of function
as it was proposed by earlier functionalists. He was a keen observer of the
changes that were taking place in western civilizations in general, and in
American society in particular, during his lifetime.

The prior concept of function, as advocated by Radcliffe-Brown

and Malinowski, believed that there was no stress or conflict in society (as
there might be in simpler civilizations), but stress or conflict was a
significant feature in social life in complex societies of his (Merton's)
time. Changes of any type, let alone changes in the functions of social
institutions or social products, are indicated by the stress. He has studied
the older formulation, which he dubbed 'Prevailing Postulates of
Functional Analysis (in Sociology)', in light of these arguments. "The
function of a particular usage is the contribution it makes to the whole
social life as the functioning of the total social system," writes Radcliffe-

9
Brown when defining and applying the idea of function. This notion,
according to Merton, indicates that the social system has a particular form
of unity, which he refers to as functional unity. He defines functional unity
as a state in which all elements of a social system work in harmony and
with internal consistency (without causing any long-term problems). This
viewpoint may be correct when considering small, closely interwoven
primitive tribes, but not when considering highly varied sophisticated
societies with enormous realms. By tracing many cases, Merton explores
Functionalism's "postulate of functional unity" (codified from the term
offered by Radcliffe Brown). This complete society's oneness cannot be
predicated on observation. In order to do a functional analysis, the item
must be specified in terms of the units for which it is functional. Because a
given item may have some functional repercussions while also having
some dysfunctional ones, we cannot always assume full integration of all
cultures.

Merton looks at the second postulate of 'Universal Functionalism,'

which is derived or codified from Malinowski's views. According to
Malinowski, "the functional perspective of culture emphasises that every
custom, material object, idea, or religion plays some vital function in
every sort of civilization." This, according to Merton, may be the case in
small, illiterate civilizations. The concept of survival and function of every
cultural piece was exaggerated by functionalists. Because social things
have functions and dysfunctions, the 'net balance of consequences
(difference between positive and negative repercussions)' is what remains.
As a result, he contends that the assumption must be based on 'the net
balance of effects' in complex societies.

He returns to the third formulation, i.e., the third postulate, which

codifies Malinowski's prior statement highlighting the importance of the
word vital. Following the assumption, he uses religion (a social institution)
as an example of something that is absolutely necessary in society.
According to Malinowski's ``Functional Indispensability, "maintaining
integration' is the society's indispensable requirement, not the institution,
because the same need can be met by various social institutions in
complex varied societies. Over the assumption of functional
indispensability, Merton proposes the concept of functional alternatives,
equivalents, or substitutes.

Merton collected and simplified all of these concerns, analyses,

and reformations in a collection of points/issues he called the "Paradigm
for Functional Analysis in Sociology." All of these phrases, concepts, and
the ability of using them in empirical research in complex societies are
contained in his paradigm. This paradigm is made up of eleven points,
ranging from function principles through application and understanding of
change in system elements. In his landmark book, 'Social Theory and
Social Structure,' he presents his theories in detail.

10
Check Your Progress

1. WHAT ARE THE MANIFEST AND LATENT FUNCTIONS ?

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1A.3 SUMMARY

Functionalism's theoretical perspective tries to comprehend society

through the functioning of diverse parts (things, institutions, activities, and
so on) that contribute to the fulfilment of the social system's vital needs
(society as a whole). The founding authors focused on the social
institutions that correspond to the necessities or required conditions of
society's existence. The components or institutions are thought to be
interconnected and interdependent. Society is viewed as a collection of
functionally interconnected component pieces. These components conduct
functions that are critical to society's survival and continuance. Each
element contributes to this upkeep in a favourable way. Later sociologists
realised that, particularly in complex-differentiated societies, some
institutions have harmful long-term implications. According to Parsons,
the social structure must be capable of containing these abnormalities
(latency). Finally, Merton believes that institutions' roles are replaced by
other alternatives, allowing stresses to be addressed, some of which may
always occur in the system. This might be interpreted within the
framework of his functional analysis.

1A.4 QUESTIONS

1. Explain Functionalism and theories of its main contributors .

1A.5 REFERENCES

● Crothers, Charles (1987). Robert K. Merton. Chichester, England: Ellis

Horwood.
● Durkheim, Emile. (1997) [1893]. The Division of Labour in Society.
Trans. W. D. Halls, Intro. Lewis A. Coser. New York: Free Press.
● Durkheim, Emile. (1982) [1895]. The Rules of Sociological Method.
Tr. by W.D. Halls. New York: The Free Press.
● Durkheim, Emile. (1995) [1912]. Elementary Forms of the Religious
Life. Trans.Karen E. Fields. New York et al: Free Press.
● Malinowski, Brownislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An
Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of
Melanesian New Guinea. London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd.

11
● Malinowski, Bronislaw (1969) [1944]. A Scientific Theory of Culture
and Other Essays. London; Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press.
● Merton, R.K. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York et
al: The Free Press.
● Parsons, Talcott. (1951). The Social System. New York: The Free
Press.
● Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1922. The Andaman Islanders. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
● Radcliffe-Brown. A.R. (1951). Structure and Function in Primitive
Society: Essays and Addresses. London: Cohen & West.
● Spencer, Herbert. 1873. The Study of Sociology. New York: D.
Appleton.
● Turner, Jonathan (1995). The Structure of Sociological Theory. Jaipur:
Rawat. 30

❖❖❖❖

12
 1B
CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE

Unit Structure
1B.0 Objectives
1B. 1 Introduction
1B.2 Classical Theorist
1B.3 Conflict Schools of Modern Era
1B.4 Elite Theory
1B.5 Current Trends in Conflict Theory
1B.6 Summary
1B.7 Questions
1B.8 References

1B.0 OBJECTIVE

You will be able to comprehend the following after reading this

unit: An introduction to the notion of conflict in sociology;
● The Classical Approach to Conflict Sociology;
● The contribution of eminent academics; and
● The adaptation of conflict theory to modern culture

1B.1 INTRODUCTION

There was an early departure from traditional structural theories of

social solidarity in sociological theory. The most fundamental difference
between functionalism and conflict theory is not whether either structure
or change is absent from either, but which of these takes precedence.
Although conflict theory was first adopted into sociological theory in the
twentieth century, and only with the work of Ralph Dahrendorf and Coser
did it receive a particular designation as a sub-branch, it has been latent in
historiography since the time of ancient Greek thinkers like Thucydides.
Structure and change are both important aspects of all civilizations,
therefore conflict theory and functional theory take both into account.
Conflict and social change can only occur within existing structures, thus
if we're seeking for change, we need to start with an entity, a changing
social structure. Conflict theorists, unlike functionalists, believe that
conflict lies at the heart of social structure, driving it toward inevitable
change.

Conflict is viewed as a contributor to both good and negative

stability, as well as anomic change. Thus, concepts of social solidarity and
13
stability emerge in conflict theory just as they do in functional theory; the
only difference is how these concepts are perceived and used in
explanations of social organisation and relationship formation,
maintenance, and change.

It is critical to treat social groups as basic units rather than

individuals from a sociological standpoint. In other words, scientific
emphasis is focused on collective conflict rather than individual conflict.
Conflict theory is based on the identification and classification of such
groupings that may have a prospective or real antagonistic connection.

At its most fundamental level, conflict theory assumes that

stratification, inequality, and dominance are inherent in all civilizations.
As a result, the majority of social action is motivated by the desire to
maintain disparity or to challenge dominance. Inequality and hierarchy are
both caused and exacerbated by unequal distribution of societal resources,
which remains a major cause of conflict. As a result of the escalation of
conflict to a critical level, social transformation may occur, resulting in a
new set of organisational principles that secures the redistribution of social
resources. The Russian revolution, for example, resulted in the overthrow
of the monarchy and the establishment of a communist/socialist
administration. The antagonism between the aristocracy and the common
people had reached a tipping point, resulting in the assassination of the
entire Romanov family and a full power shift. Inequality is both a result of
and a cause of an unequal power distribution.

As a result, conflict theorists continue to be concerned about

inequality and the dynamic characteristics of hierarchy. Later generations
of conflict theorists adapted power in novel ways to fit modern cultures
with varying control and dominance structures. When addressing conflict
theory, students must be cautious in their terminology selection since
words that appear to be similar but have various meanings, such as
differentiation and stratification, as well as contradiction and conflict. As a
result, differentiation does not always imply stratification until there is
inequality, and contradiction does not always imply conflict unless it
triggers a power consolidation and confrontation that leads to action.
Conflict potential does not imply that real conflict will occur, and even if
it does, the intensity of the conflict may not be sufficient to cause large-
scale societal reform.

1B.2 CLASSICAL THEORISTS

The first theories of conflict were macro-historical in nature,

focusing on the greater structural changes that could occur as a result of
conflict between society's primary social groups, which are also interest
groups with often opposing aims. The historical circumstances for
evolution or transformation were recognised as sustained features of the
system that were naturally antagonistic. Karl Marx, a nineteenth-century
macro sociologist, was the first to offer a thorough theory of social
14
revolution through the operation of conflict between different parts of
society. His historical materialism thesis set the stage for the development
of a conflict theory of social transformation based on the fundamental
contradiction that exists between classes in society due to unequal
economic distribution. According to him, the bourgeoisie is created by
property (or capital) ownership, and the proletariats are the workers whose
labour is exploited to keep the bourgeoisie in power. In political terms,
this was interpreted as a struggle between the haves and the have-nots, as
the Communist Manifesto phrased it.

Marx, on the other hand, identified a considerably more

complicated and nuanced reality as a thinker and historiographer as he
chronicled the many historical epochs. His theory of social evolution was
also prescient, as he predicted that feudalism would give way to capitalism
(a process that was already underway), which would be followed by
socialism (the abolition of the concept of private property), which would
bring society stability by eliminating all class contradictions. His thesis
was politically incorrect, but the method Conflict Perspective of dialectics,
of opposing forces colliding to form a third stage of stability or new
oppositions as the driving force of history was accepted and is the core
premise of conflict theory in sociology. The sociological theory of
conflict, on the other hand, is largely non-political; it does not support
communism, capitalism, or any other political philosophy. The goal is to
identify the many social groups and processes that cause change, as well
as to develop a general theory of social structures and their organisation
from a dynamic standpoint.

Max Weber is the next significant classical theorist to be

identified. His significant contribution to Marxian theory was to establish
that, in addition to economic classes, there were also non-economic status
groups and power groups that were responsible for social stratification.
Weber was especially interested in the many types of social organisations
since it is through them that important weapons of conflict and revolt are
produced, and it is through them that society asserts its weapons of
dominance and control. As a result, Weber established three ideal forms of
organisational structures: ideal-typical, bureaucratic, and patrimonial,
which can be found in any form of dominance, such as the state, the
church, or the economy. Weber was able to demonstrate how certain types
of dominance become acceptable and may endure even if they are
exploitative and discriminatory by introducing the concept of legitimacy
into power. There are societal mechanisms in place, such as socialisation,
to ensure that the general public accepts institutions like the church and
state, at least to a point, and alternative organisations that oppose them
must build their own legitimacy and structure in order to be effective.

In order to be effective, opposition forces must also organise and

establish internal bureaucracy. Organizations that begin with charismatic
leadership, such as new political parties, eventually settle down to
rational-legal, and even traditional types of leadership. As a result, they

15
may elect the next generation of leaders (bureaucratic) or follow dynastic
rule (traditional). A particular religious reform, such as the Protestant
reform (named Protestant because it protested against the Catholic
Church's existing edicts), arose from the charismatic leadership of an
individual named Martin Luther, but it later became an organisation with
its own internal bureaucracy and status hierarchy. The current protestant
church leaders are generally not charismatic, but rather rational-legal
(taking tests and receiving training), and very rarely combine charisma
with the more formal requirements.

Despite the fact that this protest movement underwent huge

alterations and that there was and still is violent struggle (as in Ireland)
over the partition of the Christian church, the new forms have become
routinized and establish a status based hierarchy. Weber had a lasting
impact on the development of sociology, even though subsequent scholars
did not expand on his contributions and instead pursued their own paths.

Lewis Coser was a key figure in the development of classical

conflict theory. He was born in Berlin in 1913 and studied at the Sorbonne
in Paris before being imprisoned and imprisoned by the French authorities
for being German during WWII. He was granted asylum in the United
States and received his Ph. D. from Columbia University in New York,
where he studied under Robert K Merton. Instead of following Weber,
Coser chose to follow Simmel. He believed that conflict is inherent not
only in society, but also in the human being; it is a component of our
natural human behaviour. He proposed the terms "absolute" and "relative"
deprivation. When a human group is deprived of all resources to the point
where members are barely able to exist, this is known as absolute
deprivation. They lack fundamental necessities such as food, drinking
water, health care, and housing.

The term "relative deprivation" refers to people who are better off
but still have enough survival resources to think about and compare
themselves to those who are far better off. When society as a whole is
well-equipped yet there are significant differences between the rich and
the poor, relative deprivation is more likely to arise. People living in
absolute poverty, as has been observed, rarely engage in violence because
they lack the resources to do so. For example, we frequently hear about
people in isolated rural places who are starving, but we seldom hear about
them fighting. However, as Coser points out, the odds of conflict grow
when people go from absolute to relative impoverishment.

The Dalit movement, for example, arose not from the rural areas
where the untouchables lived a life of bare survival and absolute misery,
but from the urban districts where the untouchables lived a life of bare
survival and total agony. It began in urban industrial areas, where the rural
poor had migrated as wage labour; despite being poor and exploited, they
had some cash income, and because they worked in larger groups as
industrial labour, they were able to band together and organise under the

16
charismatic leadership of B.R. Ambedkar. Only after they moved to cities
and were exposed to urban life were they able to realise their exploitation
and compare and contrast their living conditions.

Coser also classified conflict levels as emerging from various

social settings and conflict development conditions. Escalation and
persistence of violence are less likely when people have clearly defined
goals that are both pragmatic and rational. Because the objectives are well-
defined and attainable, such as a higher wage for workers or better living
circumstances for the poor in cities, tension will dissipate once the
demands are realised. Workers on strike, for example, may call off the
strike. When the goals are emotionally charged and transcendental, the
fight becomes more violent and persistent. Take, for example, the long-
running battles over religion, ethnicity, and sub-nationalisms. Such
emotionally charged and esoteric goals are unresolvable, much like the
unresolvable hostility between Catholics and Protestants in Northern
Ireland, which frequently bursts into great violence.

Coser, following the functional school of his time, classified

conflict into two forms, external and internal to the group, to identify the
functional characteristics of conflict. Internal group conflict is often of low
intensity but occurs frequently. When two (or more) potentially
antagonistic groups, such as Whites and Blacks in the United States,
Hindus and Muslims in India, Protestants and Catholics in the United
Kingdom, dwell in close proximity to one another, small-scale and regular
skirmishes are likely. However, most of the time, such low-intensity
violence can be contained by internal law and order processes, and
tensions tend to dissipate, resulting in comparatively extended periods of
peace. The good side of such small-scale disputes is that it leads to better
administrative machinery organisation and more developed conduct
norms. Improved labour rules, for example, restrict frequent flare-ups
between workers and management, which might be harmful to the
economy. External conflict also serves to strengthen the group's internal
cohesion and create more clearly defined boundaries.

Check Your Progress

1. What is Conflict Theory ?

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2. What do you mean by Relative Deprivation ?

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17
1B.3 CONFLICT SCHOOLS OF THE MODERN ERA

In more recent times, Ralph Dahrendorf, a German who was also

the director of the London School of Economics for many years and from
where he built up a recognised school of conflict sociology, is credited
with coining the term "conflict perspective" in sociology. Dahrendorf
believed that neither Marxism nor structural-functionalism were enough to
explain modern, industrial capitalist societies, based on current
sociological theories at the time. Marxism's failure was due to its inability
to comprehend the importance of consensus and integration in modern
democracies. Furthermore, Parsons structural functionalism acknowledges
change, whereas Marxism's theory of contradiction cannot be described
without assuming an existing structure. As a result, no society, least of all
modern democracies, is without both integrative and conflictual elements.
What stands out the most is how much more complicated social structures
are than the dialectical paradigm used by Marxism. There are many more
types of class in modern society than the bourgeoisie and proletariat,
which Marx depicted as society's basic contradictions. It's no longer a
question of one layer wielding power while another being exploited.
Workers are backed by trade unions, collective bargaining, and legislative
initiatives in modern industrial society. Other organisations, such as
international labour unions and human rights commissions, intervene in a
variety of situations.

Individual ownership of private property has been greatly tempered

by the emergence of Joint Stock Companies, in which, in addition to the
capitalist owners, managers and share-holders play important roles. "By
social class shall be understood such organised or unorganised
collectivities of individuals who share manifest or latent interests arising
from and related to the authority structure of imperatively coordinated
associations," writes Dahrendorf in his classic work, Class and Class
Conflict in Industrial Society (1959:238). Social classes are always
conflict groupings, according to the categories of latent and visible
interests.” Dahrendorf posits a broad distinction between the 'command
class' and the 'obey class' at a more generalised level to account for
differences in interest holding groups and the complicated nature of
property and authority, and class conflict would therefore refer to the
struggle between those with authority and those without.' However, the
disadvantage of this proposal is that social classes would only exist under
specific conditions, just as some people may be in charge in one region but
not in another. Furthermore, social classes will exist across society and
will lose their structural significance. As a result, Dahrendorf preferred the
term stratum for the structural and static notion of hierarchy, and regarded
class as a dynamic phenomena of real society.

Gerhard Lenski is another influential conflict theorist. By the

twentieth century, sociologists were more interested in the distribution of
power in society and how it was deployed than in the concept of class as
an economic category or static stratification. Lenski (1966:75) described
18
class as an "aggregation of individuals in society who share a comparable
position in terms of power, privilege, and status." More contemporary
sociologists had to comprehend the dynamics of power in a society that
was more dynamic and diverse, with many more roles to fill and various
sources of power to draw from. The major issue was to explain the
foundations on which power was dispersed, as well as who received what
and why. As a result, the idea of class has been superseded by that of
power classes. There are layers of authority and control in modern society,
and just like in a corporate organisation, a big number of people may be
involved at different levels.

Managers with administrative responsibility may not be able to

benefit from the profits that they contribute to. Workers can use collective
action to exert pressure and gain a portion of the earnings. As a result,
authority and control may not always imply that the same people are
reaping all of the benefits. As a result, Wright (1979:18) changed the
definition of class to align it more closely with Marx's concept of
appropriation. "Classes are determined first and foremost by relations of
surplus product appropriation, and secondarily by relations of control over
the technical division of labour and relations of authority." As a result,
managers and owners are separated. However, as long as the principle of
legitimacy applies to those in power, conflict is often latent and not
visible. As a result, in modern communities, certain people may be
considered as naturally qualified for a position of authority due to their
education and competence, while others will obey without question. As a
result, a suitable foundation for authority legitimization will lead to a
stable condition of society, and conflict may arise when such justifiable
causes are challenged or questioned.

1B.4 ELITE THEORY

Elites were also introduced by scholars such as Lenski and

Dahrendorf to explain socioeconomic class and the resulting conflict in
society. Vilfredo Pareto, an economist and political scientist (born in 1848
to an Italian father and a French mother) whose academic life flourished in
Florence, is credited with the invention of Elite theory. Pareto was also a
classical theorist who believed in societies and social systems in their
natural state of equilibrium. He advocated for a liberal philosophy and free
trading with an antipathy to state control, following Adam Smith's lead.
He saw power as a manifestation of corruption and malice, and he saw the
state as a manifestation of all of these. All difference and stratification,
however, he attributed to natural factors such as unequal capabilities, age,
sex, physical strength, and health, as well as demographic characteristics
such as fertility and fecundity. As a result, the disputes, paradoxes, and
battles that ensued were unavoidable and natural. Even if sociologists
understood them, there was nothing they could do to stop them. While he
recognised that society was always changing, he did not believe in linear
growth, preferring to express change through fluctuation and curves. In
this, as in all other areas, his conflict theory is nearly diametrically
19
opposite to Marx's. He did not attach any causation to economic or
organisational considerations, but instead blamed everything on natural
reasons, blaming human nature. He described elites as individuals who
aim to dominate others from within a group or class. The only way for
elites to stay in power, despite attempts to overthrow them, is to use force
to kill the opposition or to assimilate them into their fold. This process,
which he calls endosmosis, is a social circulation process in which
individuals move up the social ladder while society's class structure
remains unchanged.

Lenski established four sorts of elites, but Conflict Perspective

Pareto had already recognised them in terms of their innate nature. In
Pareto's nomenclature, there are four types of elites: coercive elites (lions),
inducing elites (foxes), expert elites (owls), and commanding elites
(bears). In real life, these are ideal kinds (Weber), and they may overlap.
As a result, an expert can be both commanding and coercive. Someone
who is inducing, that is, employing strategy, can also be commanding, and
so on. The command and obey classes proposed by Dahrendorf follow the
same formula of an elite and a ruled class.

The classical elite idea, according to John Scott (2001), is useless

because it is overly inclusive. As a result, when discussing broad
categories such as Dahrendorf and Pareto, a definition of power that is
overly inclusive loses its relevance. Positional studies, he claimed, should
be replaced by more dynamic categories. Furthermore, power should be
defined solely in terms of its effect. As a result, true social power might be
described as the power wielder's deliberate endeavour to influence the
behaviour of those who are subjugated.

As a result, a true elite cannot be defined in terms of skill or

prestige; rather, it should be limited to individuals who can really wield
power, or who have the capacity to wield power. Because power cannot be
wielded in a vacuum, elite theory or the concept of social power can only
be visualised in terms of two parties: those who exercise it and those who
are subjected to it. As a result, power relationships are inherently
asymmetrical, including at least two persons with opposing interests and
agendas. Elite theory is essentially a conflict theory because of its
emphasis on hierarchy and the exercise of social power.

Check Your Progress

1. Can you briefly explain Elite Theory ?

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20
1B.5 CURRENT TRENDS IN CONFLICT THEORY

In recent years, there has been a shift away from relational

structures and toward cultural building of institutional structures. Michel
Foucault, one of the most prominent intellectuals of the twentieth century,
revolutionised the way we think about power. Unlike all other traditional
understandings of power, Foucault believed that power is spread
throughout society, not concentrated in certain actors or strata. Power does
not have to be destructive; it may also be used as part of a communal
effort to develop and produce. Capillary power was a term coined by
Foucault to describe power that is diffuse and may be employed in any
setting and by anybody. Even in a group of friends, a single individual can
assume command in a crisis scenario, such as when someone becomes ill
at a picnic or when a school bus is involved in an accident, and so on.
Every connection, according to Foucault, has conflict, negotiation, and
contradictions. According to John Scott, power may be roughly defined as
possessing two types of influence. Persuasive influence, which acts via
arguments, appeals, and reasoning, and corrective influence, which
functions through penalties and incentives.

The former is classified into two types: coercion and manipulation,

while the latter is divided into two types: signification and legitimation.
The latter functions through shared cognitive meanings and value
commitments and is made effective by a communal conviction. This isn't
to say that the latter isn't exploitative or that it doesn't foster hierarchy, but
it does lead people to believe differently. Because it is possible to conceal
the truth of the situation, the latter procedure is able to control conflict and
prevent any form of protest.

Throughout his writings, Foucault demonstrated how the most

successful mechanisms of control are the ones that are least evident.
Randall Collins (1975) adds a micro dimension to conflict theory's macro
level. He, like Foucault, saw conflict in the everyday processes of
existence. On the one hand, all relationships are founded on some level of
hostility, dominance, and conflict, and on the other hand, there are patterns
of solidarity. Unlike the classical conflict theorists' broad generalised
metatheories, more modern researchers like Collins have relied on actual
evidence and more grounded theorization. Collins employed Goffman's
interaction rituals model, which included the notions of front stage and
back stage performance. These are the techniques used by humans while
putting on a front-stage show. All social contact, according to Goffman, is
akin to a stage performance, because most of us pretend and say and do
things we don't necessarily intend. As a result, persons who are given
orders to follow may do so outwardly while harbouring resentment in their
hearts.

The term "backstage performance" refers to instances in which we

let down our guard and openly chat and perform. As a result, a guy can
follow orders from his employer and be publicly subservient to him, even
21
praising him in public. When he's at home with his wife, though, he may
vent his frustrations by abusing his boss and even calling him an idiot. As
a result, performance rituals conceal actual sentiments and animosities. At
the same time, solidarity among equals is maintained via solidarity rituals
such as sharing meals or assisting one another with work. As a result, the
intricacies of organisational structures are shaped by the battle for power,
which may be subversive but occasionally spills over. As a result, tensions
in the office may rise to open rejection of the boss's authority, or a
workplace strike may occur. Scholars today are increasingly concerned
with finding the micro-processes of struggle and control in real-world
circumstances. Microprocess theorists are more interested in a more
sophisticated and thorough examination of status groups and people
performing diverse roles in the battle for resources and power than in
categorising people into bigger classes.

1B.6 SUMMARY

The student has learned about ideas that focus on society's

organisation, resource distribution, and power division in this course.
Everyone is never equal in any human society, except perhaps the
simplest, and while in a small society, people are usually allocated
according to given norms, in most other societies, the control and
distribution of resources; questions about who gets what and how are
determined by the society's structure of organisation, which is invariably
stratified. Some scholars believe that inequality is an unavoidable part of
life, while others believe that we can overcome it and achieve a more fair
and just society. While Pareto is an example of the first type, Karl Marx is
an example of the second.

As we've seen, the origins of conflict theory are frequently

assigned to Karl Marx's class theory. Later academics, although admitting
the dialectically opposed forces of warring parties in theory, disagreed on
their nature. The single criterion of economy or property ownership was
abandoned in favour of recognising many other forms of power in society,
including those based on experience, knowledge, political manoeuvring,
and other factors like gender, colour, and ethnicity. We have entered the
age of the corporate, of public sector enterprises, and of joint stock
holding companies, where ownership, authority, and control may vest in
different locations of the organisation, as a result of the arrival of a new
age capitalist society, one that differs significantly from what Marx had
conceptualised. Scholars have used a variety of approaches to granting
precedence to various forms of power. While some perceive power as a
source of authority and legitimacy, others see it as the sole source of
coercion and the capacity to force people to do what one wants. While
traditional conflict theories are macro-historical in nature, focusing on
bigger evolutionary societal shifts and their causal variables,
contemporary tendencies have shifted to examining conflict in terms of its
everyday manifestations. Recent theoreticians have a preference for

22
empirical inquiry and finding the micro-processes of contradiction,
conflict, and their results in specific places.

Conflict theorists are interested not only in the study of conflict,

but also in the settlement of conflict, as well as the research of social
solidarity and the preservation of social balance. The primary difference
between them with functionalists is that they investigate how equilibrium
and continuity are preserved in the face of potential conflict, which is
caused by the unavoidable hierarchy, inequality, and exploitation that are
inherent in all societies, varying only in degree. As a result, conflict
theorists regard conflict as a natural and fundamental part of social and
organisational interactions. As a result, society transitions from one
condition of maintaining stability to another by changing its organisational
structure. These groups strive to minimise or conceal the true nature of
conflict, which is constantly present but not always evident. Conflict
theory is essentially a study of social organisation and behaviour in
general, with the primary methodological difference being whether
scientists employ a macro-historical or a situational empirical approach.
Conflict theory has been particularly effective in the study of inequality,
stratification, and hierarchy, both in terms of comprehending and locating
the source of the problem. Overall, conflict theory may be used to reduce
or eliminate inequities, but the ideas are not political in and of themselves.

1B.7 QUESTIONS

1. Elaborate on the Conflict School of thought.

2. What are the current trends of Conflict theory ?

1B.8 REFERENCES

● Collins, Randal. (ed). (1994). Four Sociological Traditions. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.
● Collins, Randall. (2004). Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
● Coser, Lewis. (1956). The Functions of Social Conflict.
Routledge. 52
● Dahrendorf, Ralph. (1959). Class and Class Conflict in Industrial
Society.Stanford: Stanford University Press.
● Foucault, Michel. (1975). Discipline and Punish. London: Allen Lane.
● Giddens, Anthony. (1976). New Rules of Sociological Method.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
● Giddens, Anthony. (1979). Central Problems in Social Theory,
London: MacMillan.

23
● Lenski, Gerhard. (1966) (Reprint 1984). Power and Privilege: A
Theory of Social Stratification. North Carolina: University of North
Carolina Press.
● Mills, C Wright. (1956). The Power Elite. New York: Oxford
University Press.
● Pareto, Vilfred. (1916) (Reprint 1963). A Treatise on General
Sociology. New York: Dover.
● Poulantzas. (1975). Classes in Contemporary Capitalism. London:
New Left Books.
● Ritzer, George (ed.). (1990). Frontiers of Social Theory: The New
Synthesis. New York: Columbia University Press.
● Scott, John. (2001). Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

❖❖❖❖

24
 2
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
Unit Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction: Symbolic Interactionism
2.2 George Herbert Mead
2.3 Blumer and the Chicago School
2.4 Goffman and Dramaturgical Perspective
2.4.1 Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and
Other Inmates.
2.4.2 Stigma: Notes on The Management of Spoiled Identity.
2.4.3 Critique of Goffman
2.4.4. Contemporary significance
2.5 Criticisms of Symbolic Interactionism
2.6 Summary
2.7 Glossary
2. 8 Questions
2.9 References/ additional readings

2.0 OBJECTIVES

● To understand the main tenets of symbolic interactionism.

● To gain an insight into the contribution of G.H. Mead to symbolic
interactionism.
● To evaluate the Dramaturgical Approach of Goffman.
● To understand and acknowledge the contributions of Erving Goffman.

2.1 INTRODUCTION: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Towards the end of the 19th century, the social theorists

concentrated on complexities of the individual’s relationship to large scale
structures of society. Symbolic interactionism is a perspective that
emphasises the nature of interaction, the patterns of social action and
social relationship. Interaction is taken as a unit of analysis with
individuals who not only react but perceive, interpret and act. The
individual has not only a mind but also self which is a social process that
emerges in the course of social experience and activity. The entire process
of interaction is symbolic with the constructed meanings- the meanings of
what we communicate with others, our definition of the social world and

25
our experience of and response to the reality evolve in the process of
interaction.

Herbert Blumer was one of the key figures of symbolic

interactionism. In Europe it was sociologist George Simmel who
investigated social interaction that must exist among individuals in order
that macro structures in society can exist at all. Symbolic Interactionism
was influenced by Weber’s ideas on Verstehen. For Weber the core issues
of concern in sociology were intentional, meaningful and symbolic social
action. The first generation of American sociologists understood the
phenomena of large-scale social structures and processes such as class, the
state, family, religion was linked to individual relationships. Herbert
Blumer- who coined the term symbolic interactionism and one of the
major architects of symbolic interactionism writes: ‘The term ‘symbolic
interaction refers, of course, to the peculiar and distinctive character of
interaction as it takes place between human beings. The peculiarity
consists in the fact that human beings interpret or ‘define’ each other’s
actions instead of merely reacting to each other’s actions. Thus, human
interaction is mediated by the use of symbols, by interpretation, or by
ascertaining the meaning of one another’s actions. This mediation is
equivalent to inserting a process of interpretation between the stimulus and
the response in the case of human behaviour” (Abraham 1982: 210). All
varieties of symbolic interactionism share the view that human beings
construct their realities in a process of interaction with other human
beings.

Symbolic interactionism is represented by the ideas of Herbert

Blumer, Manford Kuhn and Goffman. The most significant of the
numerous thinkers contributing to the development of symbolic
interactionism are Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead.

Some symbolic interactionists (Blumer, 1969a; Manis and Meltzer,

1978; A. Rose, 1962; Snow, 2001) have tried to enumerate the basic
principles of the theory. The basic principles of symbolic interactionism
are:
1. Human beings, unlike lower animals, have the ability to think.
2. The ability to think is shaped by social interaction.
3. In social interaction people learn the meanings and the symbols that
allow them to utilise their distinctively human capacity for thought.
4. Meanings and symbols enable people to engage in distinctively human
action and interaction.
5. People are able to modify or alter the meanings and symbols that they
employ in action and interaction based on their interpretation of the
situation.
6. People are able to make these changes and adaptations due to their
ability to interact with themselves, which allows them to examine

26
 possible courses of action, assess their relative advantages and
disadvantages, and ultimately choose one.
7. The interconnected patterns of action and interaction makeup groups
and societies.

The crucial assumption that human beings possess the ability to

think differentiates symbolic interactionism from its behaviourist roots.
The ability to think is embedded in the mind, but the symbolic
interactionists have a somewhat unusual conception of the mind as
originating in the socialization of consciousness. They distinguish it from
the physiological brain. The mind according to symbolic interactionists is
neither an object or a physical structure but a continuing process.

It is a process that is itself part of the larger process of stimulus and

response. The mind is related to virtually every other aspect of symbolic
interactionism, including socialization, meanings, symbols, the self,
interaction, and even society (Ritzer 2011: 370). Humans act in response
to objects based on the meanings they attach to them. People's Ability to
think is shaped through the process of social interaction. People’s
meanings are formed through social interaction. Such a view leads the
symbolic interactionist to concentrate on a specific form of social
interaction— socialization. According to the symbolic interactionists,
socialization is a dynamic process that enables people to improve to think
and develop in distinctively human ways. Also socialization is not just a
one-way process in which the actor receives information, but is dynamic
in nature whereby the actor shapes and adapts the information as per his or
her own needs . Symbolic interactionists, following Mead, prefer to
attribute causal significance to social interaction. People learn both
symbols and meanings in social interaction.

Symbolic interactionists’ main concern is with the impact of

meanings and symbols on human action and interaction. Meanings and
symbols give human social action (which involves a single actor) and
social interaction (which involves two or more actors engaged in mutual
social action) distinctive characteristics. In the process of social
interaction, people symbolically communicate meanings to the others
involved. The others interpret those symbols and accordingly act on the
basis of their interpretation. These meanings are modified and handled
through an interpretive process that is used by each person in dealing with
the things they encounter.

Check your progress:

1. Enumerate the principles of symbolic interactionism.

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

27
2.2 GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

Born in the USA in 1863 Mead began his studies in sociology and
philosophy at Harvard University and focussed his attention on the
concept of ‘self’.The two most important conceptual foundations of
Mead’s work in particular, and of symbolic interactionism in general, are
the philosophy of pragmatism (D. Elliot, 2007) and psychological
behaviourism (Joas, 1985; Rock, 1979).In Mead’s analysis the social takes
precedence. He believed that self emerged from social interaction and is
shaped by society. He rejected the behaviourist views of human beings
that people blindly and unconsciously respond to an external stimulus. He
believed that people had consciousness – a self- and that it was the
responsibility of a sociologist to study this aspect of social reality.

Mead’s work is significant because he helped shift the concept of

‘self’ away from a purely psychological concept into something with a
societal context.

Mead's analytical concerns included small units of individual

interaction. He called his sociology- social psychology primarily
concerned with the study of the relationship between society and the
individual. He was interested in the nature and significance of group
membership to individual behaviour. The data of society is social act and
the task of social psychology is the analysis of the action in human
encounter. The focus is upon the behaviour of human interaction. He
argued for the centrality in behaviour of the ‘inner experience of the
individual’. Whereas Cooley relied on man’s mental cognizance of his
social world, Mead concentrated upon the resulting act of this
consciousness awareness.

For Mead symbolic interaction was an evolutionarily developed

social ability required for any kind of meaningful encounter of the
individual. Language is one of the most important social acts evolving out
of the need for individuals to cooperate in a rational way. Language has its
beginning in gesture-a social act that are either ‘preparatory- beginnings of
acts-social acts, i.e., actions and reactions which arise under the
stimulation of other individuals or reinforce and prepare indirectly for
action’ (Abraham 1982: 219).The gestures initiate and facilitate
meaningful interaction or mutually understood symbolic communication.
Social gestures are significant symbolically when members of a social
group mutually agree to their specific meaning.

His major work is Mind, Self and Society, a series of his essays
compiled after Mead's death and originally published in 1934, a work in
which he highlights how the social world shapes various mental states in
an individual.

28
 This theory of the emergence of mind and self out of the social
process of significant communication has become the foundation of the
symbolic interactionist school of sociology and social psychology. Mead
is widely regarded as the founder of the symbolic interaction approach,
arguing that social interaction creates mind and self, and it is through
symbolic forms of communication that the self and community are
constructed. From Mead's approach, Herbert Blumer and others developed
the symbolic interaction perspective. According to which, sociology is the
study of human interaction, the use of symbols and communication in
these social interactions, social action arising from humans, considering
the meaning things have for them and humans adaptability to different
situations and contexts. Mead founded the symbolic interactionist school
of sociology by establishing a method of analysis and theoretical
approach. Later sociologists in this tradition are Blumer, Erving Goffman,
Arlie Hochschild, and Norman Denzin.

In Mind, Self and Society, Mead started with the behaviourist

assumption that social psychology begins with observable activity, such as
social action and interaction and he extended behaviourism in two
directions, into the mind and into society. He argued that psychological
behaviourism, with its roots in animal psychology, ignored both the
internal (mental) and the external (social) dimensions. The goal of
sociologists is to comprehend the human mental processes. Mead was not
satisfied to postulate a society, he also wanted to give it causal importance
in his framework.

Mead’s argument progressed through three main components-

mind, self and society.

Mind

Mead saw the human mind as a social process rather than as a

thing/entity. Mead gave importance to the social world in understanding
social experience. The human mind differs qualitatively from the minds of
lower animals. Human action involves the intervention of deliberative
mental processes between stimulus and response. For e.g., a raised fist of
the opponent in human fight is more than a gesture, it is a symbol with a
set of meanings. It has a set of meanings for each of us, it may have
multiple meanings and our minds interpret the meaning based on the
situation.

Significant symbols may take the form of such physical symbols or

a linguistic form. Humans differ from other animals due to their capability
of creating, storing and using language. Language enables us to respond
not only to physical symbols but also words.

Language is a social product and allows for the existence of the

mind. The mind can be defined as an internal conversation with one's self
through the use of significant symbols. The ability to play the role of the
29
others is important in the interaction process. By putting oneself in the
place of others we can understand the meaning of what the person says or
does. The conversation we have with ourselves over the meaning of a
particular gesture in the context is the essence of the mind.

For the existence of social life actors share significant symbols.

The process of thinking, of acting and interacting are facilitated by the fact
that significant symbols have the same meaning for all and arouse the
same reaction in the people using them as in the people reacting to them.
Mead also valued the flexibility of mind that allows interaction to occur
even in situations where a given stimulus has different meanings for all
involved. The people in such a situation have the mental ability to adapt to
each other and to the situation to make sense of the particular symbol.
Mead placed special emphasis on the verbal significant symbol as we can
hear ourselves although we may not always be able to see our physical
gestures.

Mead defines the mind as a process and not as a thing. It emerges

and develops as a result of the social process and is an essential
component of that process. The social process precedes the mind; it is not
the product of the mind as many believe it to be. For Mead the process of
thinking is part of the social world. As a result, the mind is defined
functionally rather than substantively. Mind emerges from the maturing
capacity of the child’s ability to distinguish and discriminate symbols of
interaction, by perceiving, conceiving and understanding gestures and
language. The more developed the mind in terms of symbolic interaction
skills, the more advanced is the level of meaningful communication
among individuals (Abraham 1982: 221).

Self
The self is the central social feature in the symbolic interaction
approach. For Mead 'it is the self that makes the distinctively human
society possible' (Mead 1934). Rather than being passive and influenced
by values or structures, Mead considered the self as a process that is active
and creative-taking on the role of others, addressing the self by
considering these roles, and then responding. This is a reflexive process,
whereby an individual can take himself or herself to be both subject and
object. This means that the individual is an object to himself, and so it
follows that, an individual is not a self in the reflexive sense unless he is
an object to himself.

The self is a reflective process — i.e., “it is an object to itself.” For

Mead, it is the reflexivity of the self that “distinguishes it from other
objects and from the body.” and it is this reflexivity of the self that
distinguishes human from animal consciousness (Mind, Self and Society,
fn., 137).

For Mead reflexiveness or the ability to respond to one's self as

one does to others, “is the essential condition, within the social process,
30
for the development of mind" (Mead, 1934/162: 134 quoted in Ritzer
1988: 298). Self is not an object but a conscious process that involves
several dimensions:
1. The ability to respond to one's self as others respond to it.
2. The ability to respond to one's self as the collectivity, the generalized
other, responds to it.
3. The ability to take part in one's own conversation with others.
4. The ability to be aware of what one is saying and to use that awareness
to determine what one is going to do next.

This process is not mental and the ability to engage in it are

socially acquired. Language is an important aspect of it which we use and
interpret verbal significant symbols.

To acquire self, people need to learn more than language. The key
to developing self is to take the role of the other. Mead suggested that self-
consciousness emerges in three evolutionary stages viz the imitative stage,
the play stage and the game stage. In the imitative stage the child mimics
the behaviour of his parents, siblings and other ' significant others' i.e.,
people in his immediate social environment without understanding
underlying intentions and so have no self. The play stage begins where the
child assumes various roles of his significant others, especially parents.
According to Meadto play involves playing a role. The child learns to
take the roles of specific significant people that gives children a distinct
sense of social reality. Through play children learn to reflect on who they
are and to choose behaviours to meet their own ends. However, they lack a
clear or integrated sense of self. Children acquire a clearer sense of the self
in the game stage where the child develops the ability to take the roles of a
number of others at the same time and to engage in activity that involves
group participation. They learn to take the role of the generalized other.
Mead used the term generalized other to refer to the widespread cultural
norms and values we use as a reference in evaluating ourselves. Whether it
is perceiving the various and conflicting attitudes of his parents and
siblings during family conflict or the ability to play in a baseball game or
chess, he is able to enter into human interaction because he can ' imagine'
the role of others. To illustrate this idea Mead used the game of baseball.
In the play stage the child was able to take the role of fan, catcher, pitcher
etc. However, these images were separate without giving the child a clear
sense of what the game was about. However, in the game stage there is
fuller development of the self where the child's activity can be planned,
judged, selected and coordinated with the activities of the whole group.
The child develops the ability to take the role not just of a single other, but
of a generalized other. As life goes on the self continues to change along
with our social experiences.

By taking the role of the other one becomes self-aware. The two
basic components of self are the I and the me. The me is that part of the

31
self of which the actor is aware, the internalization of the organized
attitude of others, of the generalized other. It represents the forces of
conformity and of social control. The I is the part of the self of which the
actor is unaware, we are aware of it only after an act is complete. All
social experiences have both components. To put in briefly, as a me the
individual is aware of himself as an object and as an I he is aware of
himself as a subject. We initiate an action - the I phase of self and then we
continue the action based on how others respond to us- the me phase of
self.

The self continues to change along with our social experiences.

But no matter how much events and circumstances affect us, we remain
creative beings, able to act back on the world.

Society:

The third dimension in Mead's perception of the social world is

society. To him society was more than the social organisation in which
mind and self-arise. Society is a human construct- an organized activity
governed by the generalized other and within which individuals make
adjustments and cooperate with one another. It occurs in human
communications emerging out of the complex interactional adjustment of
conflict, compromise, innovation and cooperation. The institutions of
society which constitute the organised and patterned interaction among a
variety of individuals are dependent for both their emergence and
persistence upon mind and self. Through the mind coordinated activity
among several individuals is made possible. The self helps in social
control needed in any meaningful and sustained coordinated activity. For
Mead it is important to study the dynamic relationship that exists between
mind and self out of which society is generated, in addition to the
emergent process of self-consciousness. This dynamic relationship
between mind and self is responsible for the changes in society.

At the most general level, Mead uses the term society to mean the
ongoing social process that precedes both the mind and the self. Given its
importance in shaping the mind and self, society is clearly of central
importance to Mead. At another level, society to Mead represents the
ordered set of responses that are taken over by the individual in the form
of the “me.” Thus, in this sense individuals carry society around with
them, giving them the ability, through self-criticism, to control
themselves. We carry this organized set of attitudes around with us at all
times and they regulate our actions, largely through the “me.” Education
is the process by which the actor internalises the common practises of the
community (the institution).This is an essential process because, in
Mead’s opinion, people neither have selves nor are genuine members of
the community until they can respond to themselves as the larger
community does. To do this, people must have internalized the common
attitudes of the community.

32
 According to Mead, institutions should define what people ought
to do only in a very broad and general sense and should give space for
individuality and creativity. Mead here demonstrates a modern
understanding of social institutions as both confining and helping
individuals to be creative (Giddens 1984).Mead was different from the
other classical theorists in emphasising the enabling character of society
while ignoring society’s constraining power (Athens 2002).

Mead also deals with the evolution of society. But Mead has
relatively little to say explicitly about society, in spite of its centrality in
his theoretical system. His insights on mind and self are his most
important contributions. Baldwin (1986) admits that “The macro
components of Mead’s theoretical system are not as well developed as the
micro” (1986:123). What Mead lacks in his understanding of society in
general, and institutions in particular, is a true macro sense of them in the
way that theorists such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim dealt with this
level of analysis.

To conclude, at the centre of G. H. Mead's theory of the origins

and process of consciousness was the process he called "taking the role of
the other” by which humans are able to imaginatively enter the mind of
the other. Mead's theory has developed a considerable following within
sociology and social psychology, the school of thought known as
'symbolic interaction'. However, because of the unrelenting abstractness of
the theory, it has been difficult for Mead's followers to develop a clear
theory and method that could be applied to actual events. Like most social
theories, it has continued to be discussed at an abstract level that it has
never been clear how well it defines human behaviour.

Mead has contributed significantly to symbolic interactionism.

Symbolic interactionism is interpretative and definitional. Human
communication is interpretative due to its capacity to ascertain the
meaning of other persons actions and definitional as it attempts to convey
a verbal or nonverbal significant gesture as to how other individuals can
be said to be conceptualisations of social interaction as a complex of
strategic adjustments, negotiations, compromises, innovations etc between
individuals in the human environment (Abraham 1982: 232). Symbolic
interactionism is concerned with not only what the individual does but
also with his perceptions, thought processes and self-indication. Instead of
treating individuals as organisms that make up the organisation as the
social system, culture, institutions, social situation, it treats human beings
as dynamic and rational problem solvers who interpret, cooperate,
takeroles, communicate and align their acts. For Mead mind and self are
seen as emergent from the social process.

33
Check your progress:

1. Name the major work of Mead where he emphasises how the social
world develops various mental states in an individual.
____________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________

2. Explain the work of G. H. Mead.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2.3 BLUMER AND THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

A student of Mead, Blumer agreed with Mead that society is

continuously changing as a result of the interactions of individuals. He
emphasised the processual nature of society over the rigid structural
analysis of the functionalists. Society is dynamic and evolving and the
existing social structures - the roles, statuses, norms, authority etc- are not
merely determinants of action but outcomes of interaction. Significant
meaning ascribed to specific objects is because individuals have mutually
agreed upon the definition of the situation e.g., rock, chair etc.

According to Blumer the conceptualisation of the process of

constructing action through self-indication is a distinct symbolic
interactionist orientation which is different from other sociological or
psychological perspectives. The process of self indication is ‘a moving
communicative process in which an individual notes things, assesses them,
gives them a meaning, and decides to act on the basis of the meaning’; it is
through this process that humans develop their conscious action (Abraham
1982: 239).

Research methods must attempt to get at the definitions of those

individuals interacting in the social environment under analysis by means
of personal documents, case studies, participant observation and life
histories.

The features of symbolic interactionism according to Blumer are:

1. Human society is made up of individuals who have self. The self is the
central mechanism which enables the human being to make indications to
himself of things in his surroundings, to interpret the actions of others and
to guide his own action by what he observes.

34
2. Individual action is constructed, and not just a reaction, through a
process of self indication, through noting and interpreting features of the
situation in which he acts.

3. Group or collective action consists of aligning individual actions

brought about by the individuals' interpreting or taking into account other's
actions. In taking a role the individual determines the intention or direction
of the acts of others and forms and aligns his own action on the basis of
such interpretation of the act of others.

Blumer makes a distinction between definitive concepts and

sensitizing concepts. The definitive concepts provide prescriptions of what
to see, sensitizing concepts suggests the direction along which to look.
Blumer suggested that sociologists rely more on sensitizing concepts that
provide general orientation in dealing with empirical reality. Therefore,
for Blumeronly qualitative methodologies are appropriate for sociological
analysis.

Check your progress

1. Explain the contribution of Blumer to symbolic interactionism.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2.4 GOFFMAN AND DRAMATURGICAL

PERSPECTIVE:

Erving Goffman (1922–1982) is often regarded as a prominent

twentieth century micro-sociologists. Between the 1950s and the 1970s,
Goffman authored a series of books and essays that gave birth to
dramaturgical analysis as a form of symbolic interactionism. Goffman’s
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life written in 1959 is a key work in
the Symbolic interactionist paradigm that provides a detailed description
and analysis of process and meaning in daily routine interactions. Through
a micro sociological analysis, Goffman explores the details of individual
identity, group relations, the impact of environment, and the movement
and interactive meaning of information. His perspective, though limited in
scope, provides new insight into the nature of social interaction and the
psychology of the individual.

Goffman’s sense of the self was formed by his dramaturgical

approach. To Goffman , like Mead and other symbolic interactionists, ‘the
self is not an organic thing that has a specific location. . In analysing the
self then we are drawn from its possessor, from the person who will profit
or lose most by it, for he and his body merely provide the peg on which
something of collaborative manufacture will be hung for a time. . .. The

35
means of producing and maintaining selves do not reside inside the peg.
(Goffman, 1959:252–253)

Dramaturgical analysis is clearly consistent with its symbolic-

interactionist roots. It has a focus on actors, action, and interaction.
Goffman in his Dramaturgical analysis has used the metaphor of theatre to
explain small-scale social processes.

Goffman’s conception of the self is influenced by Mead’s ideas

especially his discussion of the tension between the I and the me. The
tension is due to the disparity between what people expect us to do and
what we may want to do spontaneously. We are expected to act in a
manner that others see as appropriate behaviour in a particular situation
and we are not expected to deviate. As Goffman put it, “We must not be
subject to ups and downs” (1959:56). Individuals to project a ‘stable self-
image’ perform and act for their audiences. In interaction they attempt to
manage the image they present. Social behaviour is thus similar to
theatrical performances. Goffman saw much in common between
theatrical performances and the kinds of “acts” we all put on in our day-to-
day actions and interactions. Goffman uses terms like script, audience,
identity kits, performance, props and other theatrical references. By
utilising the language of drama Goffman has provided an insightful
account of the presentation of self in everyday life. Interaction is seen as
very fragile, maintained by social performances.

The self is the product of dramatic interaction that might be

disrupted during the performance. Poor performances or disruptions are
seen as great threats to social interaction just as they are to theatrical
performances.

The dramaturgical approach is concerned with the processes by

which such disturbances are prevented. When individuals interact, they
engage in impression management- the techniques actors use to maintain
specific impressions, problems they are likely to encounter and methods
they employ to cope with these problems.

When individuals interact, they want to present a certain sense of

self that others will accept. However, as they present themselves, they are
aware that members of the audience can disturb their performance. The
actors hope that the sense of self that they present to the audience will be
strong enough for the audience to define the actors as the actors want. The
actors also hope that this will cause the audience to act voluntarily as the
actors want them to.

Using his theatrical analogy Goffman claims that social life is a

performance carried out by teams of participants in the front stage, back
stage, and off stage.

36
 In all social interaction there is a front region, which is similar to
the stage front in a theatrical performance. Actors both on the stage and in
social life are seen as being interested in appearances, wearing costumes,
and using props. Examples of front stage behaviour include the everyday
routines of people’s daily lives like shopping, going to work, students’
behaviour in the classrooms etc.

Front stage is that part of the performance that functions in rather

fixed and general ways to define the situation for those who observe the
performance. Within the front stage Goffman further distinguished
between the setting and the personal front. The setting refers to the actual
scene that must be present if the actors are to perform without which they
cannot perform e.g.for the taxi driver a cab, for an ice skater ice. The
personal front consists of those items that the audience identifies with the
performers and expects them to carry with them into the setting.

The personal front is subdivided into appearance and manner that

is expected to be consistent with each other. Appearance refers to the
items that tell us the performer's social status and the manner tells us about
the role the performer expects to play in the situation.

Individuals attempt to create an idealized image of themselves in

the front stage and conceal certain truths about themselves that are
incompatible with their performance (e.g., drinking alcohol). It may be
necessary for actors to hide from the audience the work involved in
making of the final product. They may simply show only the end result
concealing the process involved in it (a professor spending hours
preparing for the class, but showing as if they always know the material).

An important aspect of dramaturgy in the front stage is that actors

often try to convey the impression that they are closer to the audience than
they actually are and convey that the present performance is the most
important one. To do this the actors ensure that their audiences are
segregated so that the falsity of the performance is not known and even if
it is known the audiences may try to cope with the falsity so as not to
shatter the idealized image of the actor. The actor through the performance
conveys the impression that there is something unique about this
performance as well as his/her relationship to the audience. Actors try to
ensure that all parts of performance blend together. A single slip on the
part of the actor can disrupt the performance that may damage the overall
performance greatly. For e.g A slip by the priest on a sacred occasion
could be more disruptive than a taxi driver taking a wrong turn.

Goffman also discussed the back stage- the stage where facts are
suppressed in the front or the kinds of informal actions may appear. It is
cut off from the front stage. Backstage is a place “where the impression
fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted as a matter of
course” (Goffman1959:112). Backstage means how people act when they
are relaxed or unobserved. There is no need for any kind of impression
37
management and people can step out of character, shed their roles and be
themselves.

E.g.,when we are with our friends we behave in a more relaxed

manner, we are off stage, unobserved and thus more relaxed. The stage
thus becomes a metaphor where we act in ways that fulfil our need to be
accepted in society.

There is also the Off Stage, the outside that is neither front or back.
No area can be one of these three domains. A given area can also occupy
all three domains at different times. For e.g. A professor’s office is front
stage when a student visits, is the back stage when the student leaves the
office and is outside when the professor is at the marketplace.

Maintaining the separation of front and back stage is important for

impression management. It can be found in all areas of social life.
However, this distinction can also break down resulting in embarrassment
undermining the credibility of the previous performance. Whether
effective or not impression management involves an audience that also has
a stake in ensuring successful performance. Sometimes when performance
goes wrong the audience may attempt to save the day by providing
excuses for the untoward behaviour. However, as Goffman demonstrates
in Asylums (1961) and Stigma (1965) there are situations where the
audience makes the effective performance of a role difficult.

2.4.1 Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and

Other Inmates.
In this controversial work through his four essays, Goffman
provides a powerful analysis of the significance of social structure in
producing conforming behaviour, especially in environments that
Goffman labelled "total institutions", such as mental asylums, prisons and
military establishments. Goffman saw total institutions as a "forcing house
for changing persons, as a natural experiment on what can be done to the
self" (Goffman, 1961: 12). Total Institutions are those social settings in
which every aspect of the inmates is dictated and controlled. A chief
concern is to develop a sociological version of the structure of the self.

In the total institution the inmate is separated from ordinary

collaborators and engages with a staff that requires different terms of
collaboration. Inmates are exposed to a series of humiliations,
degradations and profanations of themselves and a withdrawal of all the
physical and social supports that once supported them.

The inmates may experience what Goffman calls a ‘mortification

of the self’. Total institutions impose such regimentation often with the
purpose of a radical resocialization, changing an inmate’s sense of self
through deliberate manipulation of the environment. The power of a total
institution to resocialize is also enhanced by its forcible segregation of
inmates from the ‘outside’ by means of physical barriers such as walls and
38
fences topped with barbed wire and guard towers, barred windows and
locked doors. Cut off in this way, the inmate’s entire world can be
manipulated by the administrative staff to achieve long term reform- or at
least immediate compliance – in the inmate. This process is carried out in
the name of God, country, justice or cure.

Goffman does not object to this. However, he describes the self's

resistance to its stripping. The self resists this change and struggles against
its transformation, perversely insisting on retaining some portion of its
familiar substance. He points out that inmates engage in secondary
adjustments that do not directly contradict the staff of the total institution
but they assert that they are still their own persons, with some influence
and control over their surroundings, control that is independent of God,
country or party.

In characterising the self's struggle, Goffman employs a number of

phrases - " expressed distance", "holding off from fully embracing all the
self- I implications of its affiliation, allowing some ... disaffection to be
seen, even while fulfilling ... major obligations" and perhaps most
precisely, "a defaulting not from prescribed activity, but from prescribed
being." (Goffman, 1961:188).He believes that without something to
belong to one cannot have a stable self and yet total commitment and
attachment to any social unit implies a kind of selflessness. As a
result,one's sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a
wider social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in
which we resist the pull.

2.4.2 Stigma: Notes on The Management of Spoiled Identity.

In his dramaturgical approach in The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life, Goffman suggests that the performer has extensive control
over the image of the self, but in Stigma this control is compromised. Take
for example the dwarf, disfigured, alcoholic, imprisoned, homosexual or
the stigma of race, nation and religion- there is a gap between the virtual
identity and the actual social identity. Virtual identity refers to what an
individual is intended to be in the eyes of others and actual identity is the
attributes an individual can be “proved to possess”. Social identity is
spoiled when there is a difference between the virtual and the actual
identity as is often the case for individuals with stigma. Many “normals”
believe that “the person with stigma is not quite human” and will practice
various forms of discrimination that reduces the life chances of the
stigmatised individuals. The stigmatised individuals also hold the same
belief about their identity as the ‘normals’. As a result, the stigmatised
perceive themselves as “that whatever other profess, they do not really
‘accept’ him and are not ready to make contact with him on ‘equal
grounds’” (1965:7)

In Stigma Goffman focuses primarily on the information the

stigmatised convey about themselves in mixed contacts with ‘normals’, on
their attempt to project or protect the self they believe they have, and on
39
how "we normals'' respond to their discredited features and encourage
their adoption of a good adjustment. In his book, Goffman studies various
situations (case studies, autobiographies) in which he examines a person’s
feelings about himself and his relationship to people whom society calls
“normal.” The term ‘stigma’ describes the ‘situation of the individual who
is disqualified from full social acceptance’.Goffman argues that stigma is
closely linked with stereotype, and both these are related to the
unconscious expectations and norms that govern social interactions.

2.4.3 Critique of Goffman

Critics of Goffman's approach make some similar points to those
leveled at other microsociologists. Perhaps he does not give enough
recognition to the role that power plays in structuring social relations,
tending to understand interactions from the participants' point of view. The
dramaturgical analogy can also be questioned. This may be a good model
for studies of organizations and 'total institutions', but may not be so
effective in other social settings. Similarly, Goffman's theatrical analogy
works best in modern Western societies that have established a distinction
between the public and the private spheres of life (front and back stages).
But in other societies, this division is either less evident or just does not
exist in the same form.His writings are often criticised for the subjectivist
approach that defies objectification and verification.

2.4.4. Contemporary significance:

Goffman's work has had a profound influence not only on
sociology as a discipline, but on numerous scholars, who have been
inspired to become professional sociologists as a result of reading his
writings. He is widely regarded as having made some of the most
thoughtful and stimulating contributions to the discipline. Many
sociologists still refer to his original writings for example of how to
conduct micro sociological research and the concepts he developed have
become part of the very fabric of sociology in a variety of fields.

Check your progress:

1. What is the Dramaturgical approach?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2. What does Goffman mean by the front and the back region?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

40
 3. What are total institutions?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________

4. Evaluate the works of Goffman.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2.5 CRITICISMS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Symbolic interactionism has made a significant impact on the

various branches of sociology enriching sociology of knowledge. It has
proven to be an effective theory in explaining the process of socialisation,
in the study of deviance, in the field of medicine and in the study of
organisations. Mead’s ideas were a break from psychological
behaviourism that generalised from animal behaviour to human behaviour.
He saw man as an active agent rather than a passive receiver of external
stimuli emphasising on the idea of ‘emergence’ in social relations.
However, many sociologists have criticised the ambiguity of concepts
such as mind, self, I and other core symbolic interactionist concepts
claiming that they are confusing and imprecise and incapable of providing
a firm basis for theory and research thereby making it difficult to
operationalise them (Kuhn1964, Kolb 1944, Meltzer, Petras and Reynolds
1975). They have been criticised for not paying attention to the larger
structures. Weinstein and Tanur(1976) argued that symbolic
interactionism ignores the interconnectedness of outcomes to each other. It
also ignores factors such as the unconscious and the emotions and
psychological factors like needs, motives, intentions and aspirations
focussing instead only on meaning, symbols, action and interaction. It
ignores the larger historical or social settings as well as social facts like
power, structure, and their restricting influence on human action and
interaction.

2.6 SUMMARY

The American social behaviourist George Herbert Mead is credited

with establishing the foundations for a general approach to sociology
called interactionism. This is a general label that encompasses all the
approaches that investigate the social interactions amongst individuals,
rather than society or its constituent social structures. Interactionists often
reject the very idea that social structures exist objectively or they simply
do not focus on them at all. Herbert Blumer who coined the term
'symbolic interactionism argues that all talk of social structures or social
systems is unjustified, as only individuals and their interactions can be
41
said to really exist at all. Symbolic interactionism is concerned with
micro-level interaction and the way in which meanings are constructed
and transmitted across the members of society.

In Mead’s most important work Mind, Self and Society, he

extended the principles of psychological behaviourism to mental
processes. His concern was the relationship between the mental processes,
action and interaction. In analysing this relationship, he defined many
concepts important in symbolic interactionism- gestures, symbols,
language, I and me and socialisation. He defined self as a process and
viewed man as freer and more active agents.

Blumer emphasised the processual nature and changing character

of the self. Blumer attributed the potential for spontaneity and
indeterminacy to human behaviour and treated men as active creators of
the world. He saw action as construction through active self-direction.

The Dramaturgical approach of Goffman is an extension of

fundamental symbolic interactionism. In his writings he observes that the
social world is not self-ordered and meaning is not inherent in behaviour.
The social order and the meaning of a particular behaviour is significant
because people value it. In interaction individuals present not only
themselves to each other but also engage in impression management.
Goffman has emphasised on face-to-face interaction. He, like the Chicago
school, bases his research on personal observations and experiences. His
writings are often criticised for being subjective, defying objectification
and verification.

2.7 GLOSSARY

Back region: An area away from 'front region' performances, characterized

by Erving Goffman, where individuals are able to relax and behave in an
informal way.

Dramaturgical analysis:Erving Goffman’s approach to the study of social

interaction based on the use of metaphors derived from the theatre.

Front region: A setting of social activity in which individuals seek to put

on a definite 'performance' for others.

Game stage: Period of self-development that follows the play stage. It

involves the development of the ability to take the role of the generalised
other and to take part in group activity.

Generalized other: A concept in the theory of George Herbert Mead,

according to which the individual takes over the general values of a given
group or society during the socialisation process.

42
Gesture: Sound or body movements that are used to stimulate the actions
of another creature such that an act involving the mutual influence of both
parties occurs.

I: Creative and imaginative phase of the self, which notes present

circumstances and environmental contexts and suggests new actions. The
self as “knower”.

Impression management: An idea associated with the American

sociologist Erving Goffman. People 'manage' or control the impressions
others have of them by choosing what to conceal and what to reveal when
they meet other people.

Me: The judgemental and the known aspect or phase of the self.

Play stage: The period of self-development in which the individuals learn

to take account the role of a single other at a time.

Self: George Herbert Mead’s term for a person’s distinct sense of identity
as developed through social interaction.

Symbolic interaction:A theoretical framework that views society as the

product of the everyday interactions of people doing things together.

Taking the role of the other: The ability to project oneself mentally into a
position where one can imagine how another or others will react to one’s
behaviour. The other can be either a particular or a generalised other.

Total institution: An institution in which members are required to live in

isolation from the rest of society.

2. 8 QUESTIONS:

Q.1 Discuss the main tenets and merits of the symbolic interactionist
approach.
Q.2 Elaborate on Mead’s important work Mind, Self and Society.
Q.3 Do you agree that the symbolic Interactionist Approach of Mead has
validity today? If yes, illustrate with examples.
Q.4 Explain in detail the works and life of G. H. Mead.
Q.5. Explain in detail the Dramaturgical Approach of Erving Goffman.
Illustrate With examples.
Q.7. Explain the validity of the works of Goffman in present times.
Q.8. Critically evaluate the works of Goffman.
Q.9. Evaluate the contribution of Blumer to the Symbolic Interactionist
Perspective.
43
2.9 REFERENCES/ ADDITIONAL READINGS:

● Abraham, Francis, 1982. Modern Sociological Theory: An

Introduction. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

● Baldwin, John C. 1986. George Herbert Mead: A Unifying Theory for

Sociology. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

● Coser, Lewis. A. 1996. Masters of Sociological Thought.Jaipur and

New Delhi: Rawat Publication (2nd edition).

● Adams, Bert.; Sydie, R. A. 2002. Sociological Theory. New Delhi:

Vistaar Publications.

● Ashey, David.; Orenstein, David Michael. 2007. Sociological Theory.

Pearson Education. 6th edition.

● Giddens, Anthony. 2009. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. (6th

Edition).

● Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

Penguin BooksLtd, Harmonds worth, Middlesex, England.

● Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums. Essays on the Social Situation of

Mental Patientsand Other Inmates. Penguin Books Ltd,
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.

● Goffman, Erving. 1965. Stigma: Noteson The Management of Spoiled

Identity. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

● Morris, Charles. (ed). 1934.Mind, Self and Society from a standpoint

of social behaviourist. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.

● Ritzer, George. 1988. Sociological Theory. New York: McGraw Hill

International Editions, (2ndedition).

● George Ritzer (ed.). 2005. Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Thousand

Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

● George Ritzer (ed.). 2007. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology.

Oxford: Blackwell

● Ritzer, George. 2011. Sociological Theory. New York: McGraw Hill

International Editions, (8th edition).

● Turner, H. Jonathan. 1999. The Structure of Sociological Theory.

Jaipur: RawatPublication: (4th edition)
❖❖❖❖
44
 3
ETHNOMETHODOLOGY AND
NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

Unit Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Garfinkel and Ethnomethodological Inquiry
3.3 Conversational analysis
3.4 Ethnomethodologists and mainstream sociology
3.5 Critique
3.6 Contemporary significance
3.7 Summary
3.8 Narrative analysis
3.9 Glossary
3.10 Questions
3.11 References/ Additional Readings

3.0 OBJECTIVES

● to give the reader an insight into Ethnomethodology

● to evaluate the contribution of Harold Garfinkel.
● To understand the conversational analysis and narrative analysis

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Ethnomethodology borrows and extends ideas from

phenomenology and symbolic interactionism. Ethnomethodology was
“invented” by Garfinkel beginning in the late 1940s. The main ideas of
ethnomethodology were first laid out with the publication of Garfinkel’s
Studies in Ethnomethodology in 1967. Over the years, ethno methodology
has grown immensely expanding in a number of different directions. Only
a decade after the publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology, Don
Zimmerman concluded that ethnomethodology encompassed “a number of
more or less distinct and sometimes incompatible lines of inquiry”
(1978:6) with several varieties of ethnomethodology.

The term Ethno methodology coined by Harold Garfinkel

examines the ‘folk methods’ people use in dealing with each other on a
daily basis. Ethnomethodology is the study of folk or common-sense
45
methods used by people to make sense of everyday activities by
constructing and maintaining social reality.

Garfinkel wanted to explore how we make sense of countless

familiar everyday situations by looking at the practical reasoning we
employ in everyday situations. We engage regularly in intentional speech
or action; but these efforts rest on deeper assumptions about the world that
we usually take for granted. Ethnomethodology studies the process by
which people invoke certain taken for granted rules about behaviour with
which they interpret an interaction situation and make it meaningful.

Ethnomethodologists do not use a common-sense method, rather

they study common sense methods of constructing reality, the common
methods people employ whether scientists, housewives, workers, teachers,
jurors, to create a sense of order about the situations in which they
interact. Zimmerman points out ethnomethodology 'is not a
comprehensive theory of society ......but rather is an approach to the study
of the fundamental biases of social order.' (Zimmerman 1978).
Ethnomethodology is the study of the methods used by members of a
group for understanding community, making decisions, being rational,
accounting for action etc.

Ethnomethodologists are interested not only in explaining human

behaviour but are interested in the interpretations people use to make
sense of social settings, how people create a sense of reality. By making
sense of the events in terms of preconceived order for society people
create an ordered world. For the ethnomethodologists emphasis is not on
questions about reliability and validity of investigators' observations but
on the methods used by the scientific investigators and layperson to
construct, maintain and alter what one believes to be a valid and reliable
set of statements about order in the world (Turner 1999: 393).

The important concepts in ethnomethodology are:

Reflexive action and interaction: Interaction sustains a particular vision

of reality. Much human action is reflexive. Humans interpret gestures,
words and other information from each other in a way that sustains a
particular vision of reality. Even contradictory evidence is reflexively
interpreted to maintain a body of belief and knowledge. E.gThe belief that
the ritual activity directed towards God sustains the belief that God
influences everyday life. Such ritual activity is reflexive action,
maintaining a certain vision of reality and upholding a belief even when
the evidence shows that the belief may be incorrect. Instead of rejecting
the belief the believers proclaim either they did not pray hard enough or
maybe the cause was not just.

Accounts: Accounting is the process by which people make sense out of

the world. Ethnomethodologists give attention to analysing people's
accounts as well as to the ways in which accounts are offered and accepted
46
or rejected by the others. E.g., When a child is giving an explanation to the
other child about a drawing of his own explaining and interpreting the
shapes and colours the child is giving an account. One of the reasons
ethnomethodologists are interested in conversational analysis is because of
this.

Indexicality: Ethnomethodologists view that all accounts, expressions and

all practical actions must be interpreted within the context in which it
occurs. To say that an expression is indexical is to underline that the
meaning of that expression is dependent on the context in which it
occurred. Ethnomethodologists must not impose their view of reality on
the actors. Instead, they must try to put themselves in the actors' place to
understand what is happening. Actors create expressions that reflect their
shared understanding of social reality. It focusses investigator’s attention
to actual interactive contexts to investigate how actors create indexical
expressions that includes words, facial and body gestures to create and
maintain the assumption that a particular reality governs everyday life.

Etcetera Principle: All situations have gaps to be filled in by the

participants. Despite being confronted with uncertainties we engage in
social life. As the action progresses, we seek information within the
context that allows us to grasp the situation. Stopping to question every
ambiguity would make social life impossible and therefore the etcetera
principle should be followed.

Documentary method: It entails taking other people’s behaviour,

statements and other external appearances as a document or reflection of
an underlying pattern that is used to analyse appearances. The need to
reveal the underlying pattern is the documentary method.

Natural language: Is a set of activities that enables people to speak, hear

and witness the objectively produced and displayed social life.

Check your progress:

1. Enumerate the important concepts in Ethnomethodology.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

3.2 GARFINKEL AND ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL

INQUIRY:

Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology firmly established

ethnomethodology as a unique field of inquiry that tries to understand the
methods people use to make sense of the world. Garfinkel emphasised the
role of language in the construction of reality. For Garfinkel ‘to do
interaction is to tell interaction '. The primary folk technique used by

47
actors is verbal description. As a result, people relyon accounts to create a
sense of reality. For e.g., when a student explains to the professor why she
couldn't give an exam, she is offering an account. The student is
attempting to make sense of the situation to provide an explanation to the
professor. Ethnomethodologists use a process called "ethnomethodological
indifference" where they do not judge the nature of accounts but study
how the accounts are used in real world action. They are interested in the
accounts and the strategies used by the speaker and listener to
comprehend, accept and reject the accounts.

Garfinkel gave emphasis to indexicality or a reality that members'

accounts are linked to a particular social context. Garfinkel used empirical
research to validate their assumptions about what is real. One of his
research methods was known as a “breaching experiment” in which the
normal course of interaction is purposefully interrupted, disrupting
temporarily the world that individuals take for granted and see how they
react.In a breaching experiment, the researcher purposely breaks a social
norm or behaves in a socially awkward manner. The goal of this is to
reveal background assumptions that have been accepted as reality for a
long time. His breaching experiments tested sociological concepts of
social norms and conformity. He argues that the only way to discover how
we make sense of the events is to observe what happens when we break
them.

He reports a series of conversations in which the student

experimenters challenged every statement of selected subjects.

One of these exchanges ran as follows (E is the student volunteer,

S is their friend):

S: How are you?

E: How am I in regard to what?
My health, my finances, my school work, my peace of mind, my...?
S: [red in the face and suddenly out of control]: Look' I was just trying to
be polite. Frankly. I don't give a damn how you are.

Why would a friend get so upset so quickly?

In this situation the experimenter was deliberately violating an

underlying rule for this type of interaction. In any interaction there are
certain implicit features that everyone should grasp and not question in
order to carry out their everyday conversational affairs without disruption.
Such strategies direct everyday activities and are critical in the formation
of the idea that an external social order exists among interacting
individuals. Through breaching Garfinkel hoped to discover the implicit
ethnomethods by forcing actors to actively participate in the process of
reality construction after the situation had been disrupted.

48
 For Garfinkelthe stability and meaningfulness of our daily social
lives are dependent on the sharing of unstated cultural assumptions about
what is said and why if we were not able to take these for granted,
meaningful communication would not be possible. Any question or
contribution to a conversation would have to be followed by a massive
'search procedure' of the sort Garfinkel's subjects were told to practice, and
interaction would simply break down. What seem at first sight to be
unimportant conventions of talk, therefore, turn out to be crucial to the
very fabric of social life, which is why their violation is so serious. In
everyday life, people occasionally feign ignorance of unstated facts. This
may be done with the intention to rebuke others, poke fun at them, cause
embarrassment or point out a double meaning in what was said.

In one of his experiments Garfinkel asked students to act as guests

in their own homes recording their parent’s reactions as they attempted to
understand the breakdown of their long-term informal relationship with
their children.

Consider, for example, this all too typical exchange between parent
(P) and teenager (T):

P: Where are you going?

T: Out.
P: What are you going to do?
T: Nothing.

In the above example the teenager provides no appropriate answers

at all- essentially saying, 'Mind your own business"

Comedy and joking thrive on such deliberate misunderstandings of

the unstated assumptions involved in talk. There is nothing threatening
about this so long as the parties concerned recognize that the intent is to
provoke laughter. By delving into the everyday world which we all
inhabit, Garfinkel shows us that the normal, smooth-running social order
that some sociologists simply take for granted is in fact a social process of
interaction, which has to be continually reproduced over the course of
everyday interactions. In his 'breaching experiments', Garfinkel was able
to demonstrate the robustness of daily life. Social reality may be socially
constructed, but this is a hard construction that cannot be ignored.

Breaching experiments are used to investigate and discover the

various unwritten social rules that control our lives. The breaching
experiments illustrate the persistence of social reality, since the subjects
move quickly to normalize the breach—that is, to render the situation
accountable in familiar terms. It is considered that the way people handle
these breaches tells us much about how they handle their everyday lives
(Handel 1982). Although these experiments seem harmless, they
frequently lead to strong emotional reactions. These strong reactions

49
reflect how crucial it is for people to engage in ordinary, common sense
activities.

Garfinkel’s research strategy illustrates the general intent of ethno

methodological inquiry to penetrate natural social settings or create social
settings in which the investigator can observe humans attempting to assert,
create, maintain or change rules for constructing the appearance of
consensus over the structure of the real world.

Check your progress:

1. Write a note on the breaching experiment.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

3.3 CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS

The guiding feature of everyday interaction is language. To

comprehend society and the means by which it is created, one should look
at language and the rules through which we speak. Human realities are
constructed through talk. Conversational analysis is a collection of
rigorous procedures to technically record and then analyse what happens
in everyday speech.

The goal of conversation analysis is “the detailed understanding of

the fundamental structures of conversational interaction” (Zimmerman,
1988:429). It is to study the taken for granted ways in which conversation
is organised. Conversation analysts analyse the relationships among
words/sounds in a conversation rather than the relationships between
speakers and hearers (Sharrock and Anderson 1986: 68).

Conversation is defined in terms that are in line with the basic

elements of the ethno methodological perspective: “Conversation is an
interactional activity exhibiting stable, orderly properties that are the
analysable achievements of the conversants” (Zimmerman, 1988:406).
Although there are rules and procedures for conversations, they do not
determine what is said but instead are used to “accomplish” a
conversation.

Zimmerman (1988) details five basic working principles of

conversation analysis.
● Conversation analysis requires the collection and analysis of extremely
detailed data on conversations.
● Even the finest detail of a conversation must be assumed to be a well-
ordered accomplishment.

50
● Interaction in general and conversation in particular have stable,
orderly properties that are the results of the actors involved.
● “The fundamental framework of conversation is sequential
organization” (Zimmerman, 1988:422).
● “The course of conversational interaction is managed on a turn-by-turn
or local basis” (Zimmerman, 1988:423).

Listening to and observing language, recording it, transcribing it

and even videotaping it is part of conversation analysis. Conversational
analysts are concerned with the ‘sequencing’ of talk: how sentences flow
from one another. Everywhere people are talking- at courts, streets,
hospitals, television- conversational analysts are interested in
understanding their talk– to see how people construct their daily talk. They
see this talk and conversation as a topic to investigate in its own right: they
are not interested in the content of what people actually say but they are
interested in its forms and rules, which they perceive as the fundamental
feature of social interaction.

Conversations are seen as internally, sequentially ordered.

‘Normal’ interaction depends upon this, and everyday life interactions can
be possible if people are willing to follow certain ‘sequencing rules’. One
of these, for instance, is ‘turn taking’: people bide their time, they take
turns at being hearers and tellers to talk to others. Another is the
‘adjacency pair’ through which most greetings, openings and closings of
conversations have an unwritten rule that as one speaks a line, so another
makes the most appropriate conventional response to it. Thus, for
example, a standard opening line may be: how are you? And this requires
a response, usually of the form: very well, thank you. Everyday life is in
this way deeply regulated by social rules (Heritage, 1984).

Methodologically, conversation analysts are led to study

conversations in naturally occurring situations, often using audiotape or
videotape. This method allows information to flow from the everyday
world rather than being imposed on it by the researcher. Rather than
relying on his/her notes the researcher can examine and re-examine an
actual conversation in minute detail. This technique also allows the
researcher to conduct in-depth analysis of conversations. Conversation
analysis is based on the assumption that conversations are the foundations
of other forms of interpersonal relations (David Gibson 2000). They are
the most common kind of communication, and a conversation “consists of
the fullest matrix of socially organized communicative practices and
procedures' ' (Heritage and Atkinson 1984:13).

Check your progress:

1. Write a note on Conversational Analysis.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
51
3.4 ETHNOMETHODOLOGISTS AND MAINSTREAM
SOCIOLOGY

Ethnomethodologists are critical of mainstream sociology for

imposing their sense of social reality on people rather than researching
what people actually do. Sociologists distort the social world in many
ways by imposing their concepts, data, and so on. Sociologists are also
criticised for confusing topic and resource—that is, treating the everyday
world as a resource rather than as a topic in its own right.
Ethnomethodologists suggest that mainstream sociologists have treated
human beings as a "cultural dope" who act out things as per the directives
of society. Ethnomethodologists on the contrary, treat human beings as
thinking creatures, who evaluate every situation according to the context
and then give it meaning. As a result, humans shape their own social
world rather than being shaped by it. The "conventional" sociologists treat
the social world with an objective reality of its own. Therefore, they treat
aspects like suicide and crime as having an independent existence and
attempt to give an explanation for the same. But ethnomethodologists
contend that the social reality consists of members’ interpretations and
accounts to make sense of the world. Therefore, sociologists should be
studying the accounting procedures which the members use.

3.5 CRITIQUE

The ethnomethodologists have been criticized by mainstream

sociologists as "folk sociologists." They are criticised for taking a
detached view of the members of society. According to them the kind
of members whom the ethnomethodologists are talking about, lack
motives and goals in life. Ethnomethodologists overlook the impact
that nature of power and power differentials can have on members'
motives. Also, many ethnomethodologists overlook the objects and
situations which are not interpreted by people.

3.6 CONTEMPORARY SIGNIFICANCE

Ethnomethodology is an important approach to the study of

everyday life and social interaction, Ethno methodology has produced
much insightful work on the process of daily life and how it is experienced
and made sense of by the people who constitute and reproduce it. As a
result, it remains an influential perspective among academics and students
of everyday life. To conclude ethnomethodology is significantly more
widely accepted today than it was a decade or two ago while others argue
that ethnomethodologists are losing sight of their phenomenological
foundations.

Sociologists who are interested in large-scale social structures,

power relations within the international system of nation-states and long-

52
term socio-historical change will always find ethnomethodology
disappointing, Mainstream sociologists believe that ethnomethodology
focuses on simple matters ignoring the more important issues of society.
Ethnomethodologists on the other hand feel that studying everyday life is
an important topic of study.

It could be said that the human capacity to produce order out of

chaos is the only worthwhile capacity in the eyes of the
ethnomethodologist. For them other human capacities, such as moral
judgement, would only be seen as subjective and therefore possessing no
true reality for them. However, ethnomethodology is a good method to
understand how individuals make sense of the social world for themselves,
building their own reality from limited real information provided.

Check your progress:

1. How does Ethnomethodology differ from mainstream sociology?

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2. Critically evaluate ethnomethodology.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

3. Discuss the contemporary significance of ethnomethodology.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

3.7 SUMMARY

Ethnomethodology is the study of the methods used by people to

make sense of the social world and tends to emphasize empirical research
focusing on action and interaction. The ethnomethodologist is primarily
interested in the world as perceived by the people and as interpreted by
them within social relations.

It is not the sense of order that makes society possible but rather
the ability of humans to actively construct and use rules for persuading
one another that there is a real world. They emphasise on the need for
understanding the situation from the actors’ point of view. To the
ethnomethodologists the mainstream sociologist's concepts, techniques
and statistics misrepresent the real nature of social reality. They critique

53
the traditional sociologist's tendency to impose its sense of reality on the
social world rather than letting the sense emerge from the context. Basic
concepts of ethnomethodology include reflexivity, accounts, indexicality,
the etcetera principle, documentary method and natural language.

3.8 NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

Narrative analysis is a qualitative research method for analysing

stories or narratives where researchers interpret stories delivered in the
context of research and/or are shared in everyday life. Established within
the social sciences since the 1990’s it focuses on the narratives and
stories for research. Narratives represent storied ways of knowing and
communicating (Hinchman and Hinchman, 1997). Narratives can be
found in various forms. They can be obtained from journals,
conversations, recorded histories, autobiographies, media texts,
transcripts of in-depth interviews, policy documents etc. It is
interdisciplinary in nature and borrows from theoretical orientation like
phenomenology, interactionism and is applied to a wide range of social
sciences like sociology, psychology, education and anthropology.

Narrative analysis is the basic human way of making sense of the

world- we live storied lives (Reissman 1993). It is a necessary
component of reality and identity. Narratives or stories occur when one
or more speakers engage in sharing and recounting an experience or
event. The telling of a story occupies multiple turns in the course of a
conversation and stories or narratives and may have structural
similarities. Researchers conducting this type of analysis make
substantial and meaningful interpretations and conclusions by focusing
on several components like the way in which the story is structured, the
functions the story serves, the substance of the story and how the story is
performed. They understand how research participants construct stories
and narratives from their own individual personal experiences. The
research participants first interpret their own lives through narrative and
then the researcher interprets the construction of the narrative as
presented by the research participant.

A common assumption of narrative methods is that people tell

stories to help organize and make sense of their lives and their storied
accounts are functional, and purposeful. Narrative sociology is based on
the understanding that people construct meaning through the stories that
define their everyday lives. Simply stated, narratives are the stories we tell
one another. They order and connect events forming meaningful patterns.
What makes such diverse texts “narrative” is sequence and consequence:
events are selected, organised, connected, and evaluated as meaningful for
a particular audience.

Critics argue that narrative research can make the interior “self”,
pretend to offer an “authentic” voice – unalloyed subjective truth, and

54
idealise individual agency (Atkinson and Silverman, 1997; Bury, 2001).
Narrative approaches are ineffective for studies of large numbers of
nameless and faceless subjects. Structured interviews that follow a
question answer format or written surveys, are less likely to capture
narrative data. Narratives do not reflect the past rather they refract it.
Imagination and strategic interests influence how storytellers choose to
connect events and make them meaningful for others. Narratives are
useful in research precisely because storytellers interpret the past rather
than reproduce it as it was. The “truths” of narrative accounts are not in
their faithful representations of a past world, but in the shifting
connections they forge among past, present, and future. They provide a
way for storytellers to re-imagine lives. Building on C. Wright Mills,
narrative analysis can create connections between personal biography and
social structure – the personal and the political’ (Reissman 2003)

Conclusion:
Since the 'narrative turn' in the social sciences, narratives or
stories have been the focus of considerable interest. This is because
researchers have come to understand that personal, social, and cultural
experiences are constructed through the sharing of stories. Narrative
analysis can be used to examine how narratives reflect and shape social
contexts. They are crucial as we use stories to make sense of the world.

Check your progress:

1. Explain Narrative analysis as a qualitative research method.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

3.9 GLOSSARY OF TERMS:

Conversation analysis: The empirical study of conversations,

employing techniques drawn from ethnomethodology. Conversation
analysis examines details of naturally occurring conversations to reveal
the organizational principles of talk and its role in the production and
reproduction of social order. conversational analysis a rigorous set of
techniques to technically record and then analyse what happens in
everyday speech

Ethnomethodology: Harold Garfinkel’s term for the study of how

people make sense of what others say and do in the course of day-to-day
social interaction. Ethno methodology is concerned with the 'ethno
methods' by means of which human beings sustain meaningful
interchanges with one another.

Narrative Analysis: In qualitative research narrative analysis takes

stories as an investigative focus and the ways in which people create
meaning through the stories they say.
55
3.10 QUESTIONS:

1) What is Ethnomethodology? Explain the contribution of Harold

Garfinkeltowards its development?
2) Explain the concepts of reflexivity and indexicality as used in
ethnomethodology.
3) Explain the concept of social order as understood by
Ethnomethodologistsin comparison to other schools of thought in
sociology.
4) How do ethnomethodologists distinguish themselves from mainstream
sociologists? Give a critique of ethnomethodology.
5) Write short notes on:
Conversational Analysis
Narrative analyses.

3.11 REFERENCES/ ADDITIONAL READINGS:

● Abraham Francis M. 1982. ModernSociological Theory- An

Introduction.New Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press.
● Atkinson, Paul. 1988 “Ethnomethodology: A Critical Review.” Annual
Review of Sociology 14:441–465.
● Giddens, A. 2009. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. (6th Edition).

● Handel, Warren. 1982. Ethnomethodology: How People Make Sense.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
● Haralambos M and Heald R M. 1999. Sociology- Themes and
Perspectives. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

● Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge,

UK: Polity Press.

● Heritage, John, and Atkinson, J. Maxwell (eds.). 1984. Structures of

Social Action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

● Macionis, J and Plummer. 2008. Sociology: A Global Introduction. 4th

Edition. England: Pearson Education Limited.

● Riessman, CK. 1993. Narrative Analysis. Qualitative Research

Methods Series 30. Newbury Park, CA; Sage Publications.

● Reissman, C. 2003. Narrative Analysis in M.S. Lewis-Beck, A.

Bryman and T. Futing Liao, eds.,The Sage Encyclopaedia of Social
Science Research Methods, 3 Vol. boxed set, Sage.

56
● Narrative analysis in the Sage Encyclopaedia of Communication
Research Methods, 2017 edited by Mike Allen available at
https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483381411.n368

● Ritzer, George. 1988. Sociological Theory. New York: McGraw Hill

International Editions, (2ndedition).

● George Ritzer (ed.). 2005. Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Thousand

Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

● George Ritzer (ed.). 2007. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology.

Oxford: Blackwell

● Ritzer, George. 2011. Sociological Theory. New York: McGraw Hill

International Editions, (8th edition).

● Sharrock, Wes, and Anderson, Bob. 1986.The Ethnomethodologists.

Chichester, Eng.: Ellis Horwood.

● Turner, H. Jonathan. 1999. The Structure of Sociological Theory.

Jaipur: RawatPublication (4th edition)

● Zimmerman, D. 1978. Ethnomethodology. American Sociologist

13: 5-15

❖❖❖❖

57
 Module - II

4
WESTERN MARXISM
AND
THE CRITICAL THEORY
Unit Structure
4.0 Objective
4.1 Introduction and History of Western Marxism
4.2 Introduction of Critical Theory
4.3 Criticisms of Marxian Theory
4.4 Criticisms of Positivism
4.5 Criticisms of Sociology
4.6 Critique of Modern Society
4.7 Critique of Culture
4.8 Criticisms of Critical Theory
4.9 The Ideas of Jurgen Habermas
4.10 Rationalization
4.11 Communication
4.12 Summary
4.13 Questions
4.14 References

4.0 OBJECTIVE

You will be able to comprehend the following after reading this unit:
● An introduction to the idea of Western Marxism in sociology
● The Classical Approach to Critical Theory Sociology
● The contribution of eminent thinkers and academics in Western
Marxism and Critical Theory

4.1 INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY OF WESTERN

MARXISM

All philosophising in the Soviet Union and its eastern European

satellites began with the framework of nineteenth-century Marxism, which
was supplemented by philosophical recommendations from Lenin.
However, much of Lenin's thought was focused on more practical
problems like violent methods and the Communist Party's role in bringing
about and strengthening the proletariat revolution. Following classic
58
Marxism, this practical interest was maintained, owing to the fact that it
preserved the essential Marxist notion of what philosophy is and should
be. Marxism (like pragmatism) linked theoretical concerns to practical
concerns. It established the fundamental unification of theory and practise
by discovering that the former serves the latter. Both Marx and Lenin
believed that thought was always an expression of class interests, and that
philosophy should be converted into an instrument for advancing the class
struggle. Philosophy's job was to build the intellectual weapons of the
proletariat, not to find the truth in an abstract sense. As a result, the two
were inextricably linked.

In the West, there were two primary types of Marxism: orthodox

communist parties, as described above, and Western Marxism, which
included the more diffuse New Left organisations of the late 1950s and
1960s. Western Marxism, on the other hand, was a rejection of Marxism-
Leninism, even if its proponents thought they were following the Soviet
Communist Party's philosophy when it was initially developed in the
1920s. GyörgyLukács, Karl Korsch, and Lucien Goldmann of Hungary;
Antonio Gramsci of Italy; Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert
Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas of Germany; and Henri Lefebvre, Jean-
Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty of France were all important
figures in the development of Western Marxism.

Western Marxism was formed mostly by the failure of the Western

world's socialist revolution. The philosophical formulation of Marxism,
especially in regard to cultural and historical studies, was more important
to Western Marxists than the actual political or economic implementation
of Marxism. They thought it was vital to investigate and comprehend non-
Marxist views as well as all areas of bourgeois culture in order to explain
capitalism's undisputed triumph.

Marx expected that revolution would first take place in Europe, but
the newly decolonized countries of Africa and Asia proved to be more
receptive. The technological advancements connected with capitalism
were also championed by Orthodox Marxism, who saw them as crucial to
the advancement of socialism. However, experience taught Western
Marxists that technological advancements did not always cause the crises
envisaged by Marx, nor did they always lead to revolution. They disputed,
in particular, Engels' claim that Marxism is an integrated, scientific
philosophy that can be applied universally to nature; instead, they saw it as
a criticism of human existence rather than an objective general science.
Disillusioned with Stalin's terrorism and the communist-party system's
bureaucracy, they campaigned for worker councils to rule instead of
professional politicians, believing that this would better serve the interests
of the working class. Later, when the working class looked to be too fully
integrated into the capitalist system, Western Marxists advocated for
stronger anarchist measures. In general, they shared Marx's early humanist
works rather than later dogmatic interpretations.

59
 Western Marxism drew support from academics rather than
workers, and orthodox Marxists dismissed it as unrealistic. Nonetheless,
non-Marxists' perceptions of the world have been affected by Western
Marxists' focus on Marx's social theory and critical appraisal of Marxist
methods and ideas.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain Western Marxism in brief.

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

4.2 INTRODUCTION CRITICAL THEORY

Critical theory is the product of a group of German neo-Marxists

who were dissatisfied with the state of Marxian theory, particularly its
tendency toward economic determinism. The organization associated with
critical theory, the Institute of Social Research, was officially founded in
Frankfurt, Germany, on February 23, 1923. Critical theory has spread
beyond the confines of the Frankfurt school. Critical theory was and is
largely a European orientation, although its influence in American
sociology has grown.

Critical theory is composed largely of criticisms of various aspects

of social and intellectual life, but its ultimate goal is to reveal more
accurately the nature of society.

4.3 CRITICISMS OF MARXIAN THEORY

Critical theory takes as its starting point a critique of Marxian

theories. The critical theorists are most disturbed by the economic
determinists—the mechanistic, or mechanical, Marxists (Antonio, 1981;
Schroyer, 1973; Sewart, 1978). Some (for example, Habermas, 1971)
criticize the determinism implicit in parts of Marx’s original work, but
most focus their criticisms on the neo-Marxists, primarily because they
had interpreted Marx’s work too mechanistically. The critical theorists do
not say that economic determinists were wrong in focusing on the
economic realm but that they should have been concerned with other
aspects of social life as well. The critical school seeks to rectify this
imbalance by focusing its attention on the cultural realm (Fuery and
Mansfield, 2000; Schroyer, 1973:33). In addition to attacking other
Marxian theories, the critical school critiqued societies, such as the former
Soviet Union, built ostensibly on Marxian theory (Marcuse, 1958).

60
4.4 CRITICISMS OF POSITIVISM

Critical theorists also focus on the philosophical underpinnings of

scientific inquiry, especially positivism (Bottomore, 1984; Fuller, 2007a;
Halfpenny, 2001, 2005; Morrow, 1994). The criticism of positivism is
related, at least in part, to the criticism of economic determinism, because
some of those who were determinists accepted part or all of the positivist
theory of knowledge. Positivism is depicted as accepting the idea that a
single scientific method is applicable to all fields of study.

Positivism is opposed by the critical school on various grounds

(Sewart, 1978). For one thing, positivism tends to reify the social world
and see it as a natural process. The critical theorists prefer to focus on
human activity as well as on the ways in which such activity affects larger
social structures. . In short, positivism loses sight of the actors (Habermas,
1971), reducing them to passive entities determined by “natural forces.”
Given their belief in the distinctiveness of the actor, the critical theorists
would not accept the idea that the general laws of science can be applied
without question to human action.

Positivism is depicted as accepting the idea that a single scientific

method is applicable to all fields of study. It takes the physical sciences as
the standard of certainty and exactness for all disciplines. Positivists
believe that knowledge is inherently neutral. They feel that they can keep
human values out of their work.

4.5 CRITICISMS OF SOCIOLOGY

Sociology is attacked for its “scientism,” that is, for making the
scientific method an end in itself. In addition, sociology is accused of
accepting the status quo. The critical school maintains that sociology does
not seriously criticize society or seek to transcend the contemporary social
structure. Sociology, the critical school contends, has surrendered its
obligation to help people oppressed by contemporary society. Members of
this school are critical of sociologists’ focus on society as a whole rather
than on individuals in society; sociologists are accused of ignoring the
interaction of the individual and society. Although most sociological
perspectives are not guilty of ignoring this interaction, this view is a
cornerstone of the critical school’s attacks on sociologists. Because they
ignore the individual, sociologists are seen as being unable to say anything
meaningful about political changes that could lead to a “just and humane
society” (Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, 1973:46).

61
Check Your Progress

1. What is critical theory?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. What is the connection between Western Marxism and Critical Theory ?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

4.6 CRITIQUE OF MODERN SOCIETY

The critical school focuses primarily on one form of formal

rationality—modern technology (Feenberg, 1996). Marcuse (1964), for
example, was a severe critic of modern technology, at least as it is
employed in capitalism. He saw technology in modern capitalist society as
leading to totalitarianism. In fact, he viewed it as leading to new, more
effective, and even more “pleasant” methods of external control over
individuals. The prime example is the use of television to socialize and
pacify the population (other examples are mass sport, and pervasive
exploitation of sex). Marcuse rejected the idea that technology is neutral in
the modern world and saw it instead as a means to dominate people. It is
effective because it is made to seem neutral when it is in fact enslaving. It
serves to suppress individuality. The actor’s inner freedom has been
“invaded and whittled down” by modern technology. The result is what
Marcuse called “one dimensional society,” in which individuals lose the
ability to think critically and negatively about society. Marcuse did not see
technology per se as the enemy, but rather technology as it is employed in
modern capitalist society: “Technology, no matter how ‘pure,’ sustains
and streamlines the continuum of domination. This fatal link can be cut
only by a revolution which makes technology and technique subservient to
the needs and goals of free men” (1969:56). Marcuse retained Marx’s
original view that technology is not inherently a problem and that it can be
used to develop a “better” society.

4.7 CRITIQUE OF CULTURE

The critical theorists level significant criticisms at what they call

the “culture industry” (Kellner and Lewis, 2007), the rationalized,
bureaucratized structures (for example, the television networks) that
control modern culture. Interest in the culture industry reflects their
concern with the Marxian concept of “superstructure” rather than with the
economic base (Beamish, 2007e). The culture industry, producing what is
conventionally called “mass culture,” is defined as the “administered . . .

62
nonspontaneous, reified, phony culture rather than the real thing” (Jay,
1973:216; see also Lash and Urry, 2007). 2 Two things worry the critical
thinkers most about this industry. First, they are concerned about its
falseness. They think of it as a prepackaged set of ideas mass-produced
and disseminated to the masses by the media. Second, the critical theorists
are disturbed by its pacifying, repressive, and stupefying effect on people
(D. Cook, 1996; G. Friedman, 1981; Tar, 1977:83; Zipes, 1994).

The critical school is also interested in and critical of what it calls

the “knowledge industry,” which refers to entities concerned with
knowledge production (for example, universities and research institutes)
that have become autonomous structures in our society. Their autonomy
has allowed them to extend themselves beyond their original mandate
(Schroyer, 1970). They have become oppressive structures interested in
expanding their influence throughout society.

4.8 CRITICISMS OF CRITICAL THEORY

A number of criticisms have been leveled at critical theory

(Bottomore, 1984). First, critical theory has been accused of being largely
ahistorical, of examining a variety of events without paying much
attention to their historical and comparative contexts (for example, Nazism
in the 1930s, anti-Semitism in the 1940s, student revolts in the 1960s).
This is a damning criticism of any Marxian theory, which should be
inherently historical and comparative. Second, the critical school, as we
have seen already, generally has ignored the economy. Finally, and
relatedly, critical theorists have tended to argue that the working class has
disappeared as a revolutionary force, a position decidedly in opposition to
traditional Marxian analysis. Criticisms such as these led traditional
Marxists such as Bottomore to conclude, “The Frankfurt School, in its
original form, and as a school of Marxism or sociology, is dead”
(1984:76). Similar sentiments have been expressed by Greisman, who
labels critical theory “the paradigm that failed” (1986:273). If it is dead as
a distinctive school, that is because many of its basic ideas have found
their way into Marxism, neo-Marxian sociology, and even mainstream
sociology. Thus, as Bottomore himself concludes in the case of Habermas,
the critical school has undergone a rapprochement with Marxism and
sociology, and “at the same time some of the distinctive ideas of the
Frankfurt School are conserved and developed” (1984:76).

4.9 THE IDEAS OF JURGEN HABERMAS

Although critical theory may be on the decline, JurgenHabermas

and his theories are very much alive (J. Bernstein, 1995; R. Brown and
Goodman, 2001; Outhwaite, 1994).

Habermas (1971) argues that Marx failed to distinguish between

two analytically distinct components of species-being—work (or labor,

63
purposive-rational action) and social (or symbolic) interaction (or
communicative action). In Habermas’s view, Marx tended to ignore the
latter and to reduce it to work.

Throughout his writings, Habermas’s work is informed by this

distinction, although he is most prone to use the terms purposive-rational
action (work) and communicative action (interaction).

Under the heading “purposive-rational action,” Habermas

distinguishes between instrumental action and strategic action. Both
involve the calculated pursuit of self interest. Instrumental action involves
a single actor rationally calculating the best means to a given goal.
Strategic action involves two or more individuals coordinating purposive-
rational action in the pursuit of a goal. The objective of both instrumental
and strategic action is instrumental mastery. Habermas is most interested
in communicative action, in which the actions of the agents involved are
coordinated not through egocentric calculations of success but through
acts of reaching understanding. In communicative action participants are
not primarily oriented to their own successes; they pursue their individual
goals under the condition that they can harmonize their plans of action on
the basis of common situation definitions. (Habermas, 1984:286; italics
added)

Whereas the end of purposive-rational action is to achieve a goal,

the objective of communicative action is to achieve communicative
understanding (Sean Stryker, 1998). Clearly, there is an important speech
component in communicative action. However, such action is broader than
that encompassing “speech acts or equivalent nonverbal expressions”
(Habermas, 1984:278).

Habermas’s key point of departure from Marx is to argue that

communicative action, not purposive-rational action (work), is the most
distinctive and most pervasive human phenomenon. It (not work) is the
foundation of all socio-cultural life as well as all the human sciences.
Whereas Marx was led to focus on work, Habermas is led to focus on
communication.

4.10 RATIONALIZATION

The rationalization of communicative action leads to

communication free from domination, free and open communication.
Rationalization here involves emancipation, “removing restrictions on
communication”. This is where Habermas’s previously mentioned work
on legitimations and, more generally, ideology fits in. That is, these are
two of the main causes of distorted communication, causes that must be
eliminated if we are to have free and open communication.

At the level of social norms, such rationalization would involve

decreases in normative repressiveness and rigidity leading to increases in
64
individual flexibility and reflectivity. The development of this new, less-
restrictive or nonrestrictive normative system lies at the heart of
Habermas’s theory of social evolution. Instead of a new productive
system, rationalization for Habermas (1979) leads to a new, less-distorting
normative system. Although he regards it as a misunderstanding of his
position, many have accused Habermas of cutting his Marxian roots in this
shift from the material level to the normative level.

The end point of this evolution for Habermas is a rational society

(Delanty, 1997). Rationality here means removal of the barriers that distort
communication, but more generally it means a communication system in
which ideas are openly presented and defended against criticism;
unconstrained agreement develops during argumentation.

4.11 COMMUNICATION

Habermas distinguishes between the previously discussed

communicative action and discourse. Whereas communicative action
occurs in everyday life, discourse is that form of communication that is
removed from contexts of experience and action and whose structure
assures us: that the bracketed validity claims of assertions,
recommendations, or warnings are the exclusive object of discussion; that
participants, themes, and contributions are not restricted except with
reference to the goal of testing the validity claims in questions; that no
force except that of the better argument is exercised; and that all motives
except that of the cooperative search for truth are excluded. (Habermas,
1975:107–108)

In the theoretical world of discourse, but also hidden and

underlying the world of communicative actions, is the “ideal speech
situation,” in which force or power does not determine which arguments
win out; instead the better argument emerges victorious. The weight of
evidence and argumentation determine what is considered valid or true.
The arguments that emerge from such a discourse (and that the
participants agree on) are true (Hesse, 1995). Thus Habermas adopts a
consensus theory of truth (rather than a copy [or “reality”] theory of truth
[Outhwaite, 1994:41]). This truth is part of all communication, and its full
expression is the goal of Habermas’s evolutionary theory. As Thomas
McCarthy says, “The idea of truth points ultimately to a form of
interaction that is free from all distorting influences. The ‘good and true
life’ that is the goal of critical theory is inherent in the notion of truth; it is
anticipated in every act of speech” (1982:308).

Consensus arises theoretically in discourse (and pre theoretically in

communicative action) when four types of validity claims are raised and
recognized by interactants. First, the speaker’s utterances are seen as
understandable, comprehensible. Second, the propositions offered by the
speaker are true; that is, the speaker is offering reliable knowledge. Third,
the speaker is being truthful (veracious) and sincere in offering the
65
propositions; the speaker is reliable. Fourth, it is right and proper for the
speaker to utter such propositions; he or she has the normative basis to do
so. Consensus arises when all these validity claims are raised and
accepted; it breaks down when one or more are questioned. Returning to
an earlier point, there are forces in the modern world that distort this
process, prevent the emergence of a consensus, and would have to be
overcome for Habermas’s ideal society to come about (Morris, 2001)

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss Contribution of Habermas in Critical Theory.

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

4.12 SUMMARY

In the West, there were two primary types of Marxism: orthodox

communist parties, as described above, and Western Marxism, which
included the more diffuse New Left organisations of the late 1950s and
1960s. Western Marxism was a rejection of Marxism-Leninism, even if its
proponents thought they were following the Soviet Communist Party's
philosophy. GyörgyLukács, Karl Korsch, and Lucien Goldmann were all
important figures in the development of Western Marxism. Western
Marxism drew support from academics rather than workers, and orthodox
Marxists dismissed it as unrealistic. They disputed, in particular, Engels'
claim that Marxism is an integrated, scientific philosophy that can be
applied universally to nature.

Disillusioned with Stalin's terrorism and the communist-party

system's bureaucracy, they campaigned for worker councils to rule instead
of professional politicians. When the working class looked to be too fully
integrated into the capitalist system, Western Marxists advocated for
stronger anarchist measures.

Critical theory is composed largely of criticisms of various aspects

of social and intellectual life. Its ultimate goal is to reveal more accurately
the nature of society. Critical theory was and is largely a European
orientation, although its influence in U.S. sociology has grown. Positivism
is depicted as accepting the idea that a single scientific method is
applicable to all fields of study. Critical school contends that sociology
does not seriously criticize society or seek to transcend the contemporary
social structure.

Sociology is attacked for its "scientism," that is, for making the
scientific method an end in itself. Critical school focuses primarily on one
form of formal rationality—modern technology. Herbert Marcuse (1964)

66
was a severe critic of modern technology, at least as it is employed in
capitalism. Marcuse retained Marx's original view that technology can be
used to develop a "better" society.

Critical theorists are concerned with what they call the "culture
industry". Culture industry is defined as the "administered. . .
nonspontaneous, reified, phony culture rather than the real thing". Critical
theorists are disturbed by its pacifying, repressive, and stupefying effect
on people. Critical theory has been criticized for being largely ahistorical
and ignoring the economy. Many of its basic ideas have found their way
into Marxism, neo-Marxian sociology, and mainstream sociology.

Although critical theory may be on the decline, JurgenHabermas

and his theories are very much alive. Communicative action, not work, is
the foundation of all socio-cultural life and sciences, says Habermas. In
communicative action participants are not primarily oriented to their own
successes. They pursue their individual goals under the condition that they
can harmonize their plans of action.

4.13 QUESTIONS
1. Explain Western Marxism . Elaborate on its historical context .
2. Elaborate on the ideas of Jurgen Habermas.

4.14 REFERENCES

● Ritzer, George. (2011). Sociological Theory:. New York: McGraw

Hill Publication.
● Poulantzas. (1975). Classes in Contemporary Capitalism. London:
New Left Books.
● Gordon,P., Breckman, W.(ed.). (2019). The Cambridge History of
Modern European Thought. UK: Cambridge University Press.
● Harrington, Austin. (ed.). (2005) Modern Social Theory: An
Introduction. UK: Oxford University Press.

❖❖❖❖

67
 5
FRANKFURT SCHOOL
Unit Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Meaning of school
5.3 Origin of Frankfurt School
5.4 Frankfurt school vs. Cultural Studies
5.5 Culture Industry
5.6 View on Mass Culture
5.7 View on Technology
5.8 View on Media
5.9 Criticism of the American dream.
5.10 Observation on the transition in the society
5.11 Phases of Frankfurt school.
5.12 Summary
5.13 Questions
5.14 References

5.0 OBJECTIVES

● To learn about the origin of the Frankfurt school

● To understand its growth and work.
● To learn about the view of the Frankfurt school on media, technology.

5.1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we will look into the historical context through

which the Frankfurt school emerged. We will also look into the process of
Frankfurt school, its growth and impact on the larger sociological
theorization. This chapter is more theoretical. Learning about Frankfurt
school is very important as it is a part of Social theory. It could be a topic
even in your entrance exams or higher studies. Since the setting in which
Frankfurt school emerged in Europe, it becomes difficult to apply it to the
Indian setting. However, understanding this school becomes essential to
understand the critical theory largely used while locating social problems
in our society. The standard reference book for Social theory is Ritzer; you
can read that book if you are more interested in learning about Social
theory and critical theory. Let us now look into the Frankfurt school in
detail.
68
5.2 MEANING OF SCHOOL

Before understanding Frankfurt school, let us first learn about what

a school is. A school in lay person's language is a secondary group that
helps in an individual's socialization. It plays an important role in the
development of the child and society at large. However, here the meaning
refers to an institution where scholars come together and work on a
specific area. These schools produce a body of work that further leads to
the development of the discipline. It helps in bringing further discussion,
debates with the work they produced. It is only then a random university
or institute qualifies to be called a school. A school is viewed as more
serious than just a department in a University. It is also seen as an
important body and has a say in the discipline. Generally, the school is
built around a university or even associated with a particular study
location. For example, in Urban Sociology, there are two dominant
schools, i.e., Los Angeles School and Chicago School of Sociology.

5.3 ORIGIN OF FRANKFURT SCHOOL

The development of the Frankfurt school (German: Frankfurter

Schule) is closely associated with the Institute of Social Research at
Goethe, University Frankfurt (1929). Institute was founded in the early
1920s to promote radical intellectual ideas not controlled by traditional
Marxist and social democratic parties or academic disciplines (Jay, 1973).

Over time, several universities' research capacities had developed

through research commissions and third-party funds, particularly in
Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Gottingen in the 1950s. With this, the
"New Frankfurt School" began with the help of Max Horkheimer and
Theodor W. Adorno. The Frankfurt School remained consciously critical
and even dismissive of American sociology and used selected Marxist and
Freudian categories as a theoretical foundation for analyzing
contemporary society.

The Frankfurt School is an influential school of thought that helped

bring continental philosophy and German intellectual traditions to
America. This school was associated with Frankfurt University in the
1920s and early 1930s and again in the 1950s through the 1960s (with a
Nazi-era exile in Geneva and Columbia University and a post-war stay in
California). The Frankfurt School thinkers produced an innovative blend
of radical philosophy and social science. The Frankfurt School was a tight
network of independent radical philosophers, economists, and sociologists
associated with the German Institute for Social Research - essentially a
Marxist think tank funded by a German millionaire grain merchant
(Wiggershaus, 1994; Jay, 1973).

The Frankfurt School provides rich material for the sociology of

knowledge. It is an example of how a once marginal school of thought
69
gained widespread influence and crossed the boundaries between
disciplines, social movements, psychoanalysis, Marxism and national
tradition. Marxism is an interdisciplinary subject that can be connected
with any discipline. Here even Frankfurt school was influenced by it. The
Frankfurt school developed through many difficulties where they had to
constantly keep on moving due to the War happening in countries.
However, they added it to it and shaped it according to their belief
systems. Frankfurt school is associated with (Adorno, Horkheimer,
Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Kluge, Benjamin, Kracauer).

5.4 FRANKFURT SCHOOL VS. CULTURAL STUDIES

Both Frankfurt school and British Cultural studies were influenced

by Gramsci's critique of the dominant mode of culture and media and it
provided many valuable tools for cultural criticism. Lukács and Bloch
developed the concepts of ideology, utopia and historical-materialist
cultural analysis that influenced the trajectory of Frankfurt school cultural
studies.

Thus, the work of the Frankfurt school has been central in

establishing the basis for critical cultural studies. Equally important to the
history of cultural studies and social theory is the Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), or the "Birmingham school,"
established at the University of Birmingham, England, in the 1960s. In
contrast to what many now see as the overly elitist perspective of the
Frankfurt school, members of the CCCS offered theories of popular
culture and the media that combined elements of Marxism,
poststructuralism, feminist analysis, semiology, and many other
perspectives. The views of both of these schools are addressed in entries
on cultures, such as Media Critique, Television and Social Theory,
Cultural Marxism and British Cultural Studies, and many others.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain in a few lines your understanding of the origin of the Frankfurt
school.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2. Explain Cultural studies vs. Frankfurt school in a few lines.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

70
5.5 CULTURE INDUSTRY

The culture industry produced consumers who would consume its

products and conform to the dictates and the behaviors of the existing
society. The culture industry thesis described both the production of
massified cultural products and homogenized subjectivities. Mass culture
produced dreams, hopes, fears, and longings for the Frankfurt school and
an eternal desire for consumer products. Walter Benjamin also pointed out
that (1969), the culture industry also produces rational and critical
consumers able to dissect and discriminate among cultural texts and
performances, much as sports fans learn to analyze and criticize sports
events (Ritzer). Let us take an example of a mall – You see the same brand
everywhere, the malls are homogenous too with the same set of shops.
Buying a displayed product becomes more of an aspiration. It's tempting
too. At times even it's a goal that one keeps. So, here we are sold to the
idea of an industry that designs it for that. Let us take another example of
French fries and burgers. We know it's unhealthy due to heavy oil, bread,
etc., than plain vegetables, yet we tend to buy it. In other words, we are
not buying food but we are paying for unhealthy food. So, how this
happens is through the culture industry. When everyone is eating, you
would also be tempted to eat. It's a psychological mechanism that
operates, the fear of missing out.

5.6 VIEW ON MASS CULTURE

The Frankfurt School theorists were among the first neo-Marxian

groups to examine the effects of mass culture and the rise of the consumer
society on the working classes that were to be the instrument of revolution
in the classical Marxian scenario. They also analyzed how the culture
industries and consumer society were stabilizing contemporary capitalism
and accordingly sought new political change strategies, political
transformation agencies, and models for political emancipation that could
serve as norms of social critique and goals for political struggle. This
project required rethinking Marxian theory and produced many important
contributions—as well as some problematical positions. Frankfurt school
tended, with some exceptions, to conceptualize mass culture as a
homogeneous and potent form of ideological domination. For the
Frankfurt school, mass culture and communications, therefore, stand in the
center of leisure activity, are important agents of socialization and
mediators of political happenings. Frankfurt School played an important
role in understanding the institutions of contemporary societies. Frankfurt
school viewed individual thought and action as the motors of social and
cultural progress; instead, giant organizations and institutions
overpowered individuals. The era corresponds to the staid, conformist, and
conservative world of corporate capitalism that was dominant in the
1950s, with its organization of men and women, its mass consumption,
and its mass culture (Ritzer)

71
5.7 VIEW ON TECHNOLOGY

The Frankfurt school focused intently on technology and culture,

indicating how technology became a major production force and formative
mode of social organization and control. In a 1941 article, "Some Social
Implications of Modern Technology," Herbert Marcuse argued that
technology in the contemporary era constitutes an entire "mode of
organizing and perpetuating (or changing) social relationships, a
manifestation of prevalent thought and behavior patterns, an instrument
for control and domination." In the realm of culture, technology produced
a mass culture that habituated individuals to conform to the dominant
patterns of thought and behavior and thus provided powerful social control
and domination (Ritzer). The point addressed by the Frankfurt school
could be seen very much true in today's time. We could observe the
impact of social Media on our lives. The time spent outdoor playing has
reduced due to the heavy use of mobile phones by children. This has led to
change in your habits like instant gratification demands. In a way,
technology has been using behavioral psychology to capture the young
and old ones' attention and it affects everyone immensely. It, at times,
creates a world of artificial reality. Though technology has a positive side,
too, to some extent.

5.8 VIEW ON MEDIA

Habermas noted that in the period of the democratic revolutions, a

public sphere emerged. For the first time in history, ordinary citizens
could participate in political discussions and debates and organize and
struggle against unjust authority. Habermas's account also points to the
media's increasingly important role in politics and everyday life and how
corporate interests have colonized this sphere, using the media and culture
to promote their interests.

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss Frankfurt's school view on technology?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2. Explain the Frankfurt school's view on Media.

_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

72
5.9 CRITICISM OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

When Frankfurt school had reached the United States during the
War, the members of the Frankfurt school came to believe that American
"mass culture" was also highly ideological and worked to promote the
interests of American capitalism. Controlled by giant corporations, the
culture industries were organized according to the strictures of mass
production, churning out mass-produced products that generated a highly
commercial system of culture, which, in turn, sold the values, lifestyles,
and institutions of "the American way of life." (Ritzer). For example – In
several parts of the world, a student has to take loans to complete his
degree. After that, again, loans to build a house, to buy a car. The cost of
living is expensive. It gives them the reason to run after the American
dream of having a house and luxurious life, which leads to discontent
living all their lives; the whole life looks like a chase. Let us take one
more example – the companies which sell luxurious products have high
margin earnings. As in a luxury product, the cost of the product may be
the same, but the marketing is like it is unique, limited edition, etc. People
also do not bargain with a luxury product as it looks cheap. So, the profit
here is made by the company who sells it. The buyer is just buying the
idea or feeling of it.

5.10 OBSERVATION ON THE TRANSITION IN

SOCIETY

The Frankfurt School also provides useful historical perspectives

on the transition from traditional culture and modernism in the arts to a
mass-produced media and consumer society. In his path breaking book,
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jürgen Habermas
historicized Adorno and Horkheimer's analysis of the culture industry.
Providing historical background to the triumph of the culture industry,
Habermas notes how bourgeois society in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries was distinguished by the rise of a public sphere that
stood between civil society and the state and mediated between public and
private interests. For the first time in history, individuals and groups could
shape public opinion, directly expressing their needs and interests while
influencing political practice. The bourgeois public sphere made it
possible to form a realm of public opinion that opposed state power and
the powerful interests that were coming to shape bourgeois society.
(Ritzer).

5.11 PUBLICATIONS FROM FRANKFURT SCHOOL

Some of the important work on Frankfurt School include –

● Traditional and Critical Theory, Max Horkheimer
● Dialectic of Enlightenment, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W.
Adorno
73
 ● Critique of Instrumental Reason, Max Horkheimer
● The Authoritarian Personality, Theodor W. Adorno
● Aesthetic Theory, Theodor W. Adorno
● Culture Industry Reconsidered, Theodor W. Adorno
● One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse
● The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist
Aesthetics, Herbert Marcuse
● The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter
Benjamin
● Structural Transformation and the Public Sphere, Jürgen Habermas
● Towards a Rational Society, Jürgen Habermas

5.12 PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT OF FRANKFURT

SCHOOL

Frankfurt school could be viewed from three phases–

1. First Phase – Here, they criticized positivism. They criticized the
cultural theory. They took forward the Marxist tradition. They have
blended the Freudian theory. Criticized the advance of capitalism. The
institute made major contributions in two areas relating to the
possibility of rational human subjects, i.e., individuals who could act
rationally to take charge of their society and history. The first
consisted of social phenomena previously considered in Marxism as
part of the "superstructure" or as ideology: personality, family and
authority structures (its first book publication bore the title Studies of
Authority and the Family), and the realm of aesthetics and mass
culture. Studies saw a common concern here in the ability of
capitalism to destroy the preconditions of critical, revolutionary
consciousness. This meant arriving at a sophisticated awareness of the
depth dimension in which social oppression sustains itself. It also
meant the beginning of critical theory's recognition of ideology as part
of the foundations of social structure.

2. The second phase - The second phase of Frankfurt School critical

theory focuses on two works that rank as classics of twentieth-century
thought: Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)
and Adorno's Minima Moralia (1951). The authors wrote both works
during the institute's American exile in the Nazi period. While
retaining much of the Marxian analysis, in these works, critical theory
has shifted its emphasis. The critique of capitalism has turned into a
critique of Western civilization as a whole. Indeed, the Dialectic of
Enlightenment uses the Odyssey as a paradigm for the analysis of
bourgeois consciousness. Horkheimer and Adorno already present in
these works many themes that have come to dominate the social
thought of recent years. For example, nature's domination appears
central to a Western civilization long before ecology had become a
catchphrase of the day.
74
3. Third Phase - In the third phase of the Frankfurt school, which
coincided with the post-war period, particularly from the early 1950s
to the middle 1960s. With the growth of advanced industrial society
under Cold War conditions, the critical theorists recognized that the
structure of capitalism and history had changed decisively, that the
modes of oppression operated differently, and that the industrial
"working class" no longer remained the determinate negation of
capitalism. This led to the attempt to root the debate in an absolute
method of negativity, as in Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man and
Adorno's Negative Dialectics. During this period, the Institute of
Social Research resettled in Frankfurt (although many of its associates
remained in the United States) with the task not merely of continuing
its research but of becoming a leading force in sociological education
and "democratization" of West Germany. This led to a certain
systematization of the institute's entire accumulation of empirical
research and theoretical analysis.

5.13 CRITICS OF THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

Several groups criticized the Frankfurt school like -

● Some said that the theoretical assumptions of Marx and Freud had
inherent problems, including the lack of understanding of the spiritual
element, which limited their framework of interpretation.
● Although Frankfurt theorists delivered criticisms against the theories
and practices of their days, they did not present any positive
alternatives.
● Some scholars saw the intellectual perspective of the Frankfurt school
as really a romantic, elitist critique of mass culture covered in neo-
Marxist clothing. They saw that the Frankfurt school labeled certain
forms and rejected certain forms. On the other hand, they could also be
biased towards some cultural artifacts themselves.
● Another criticism, originating from the left, was that critical theory
was a form of bourgeois idealism with no inherent relation to political
practice and is isolated from any ongoing revolutionary movement.
Check Your Progress
1. Give two criticisms of the Frankfurt school?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
2. List out two works from Frankfurt school.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

75
5.14 SUMMARY

We began this chapter by understanding what a school is and what

qualifies to be called a school. We further discussed the origin of
Frankfurt school, which was through the Institute of Social Research,
Frankfurt, in 1929. The school had to move out of Germany due to the
Second War II. The scholars associated with the school's origin are Walter
Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer. These
scholars were the Neo Marxists, i.e., they were influenced by some ideas
of Marx; however, they added some of their observations. This school had
a view on technology, culture, industry, mass culture, Media. We further
saw the different phases of this school and the criticism associated with it.

5.15 QUESTIONS

1. Explain the different phases of Frankfurt school.

2. Discuss the origin of the Frankfurt school.
3. Explain the culture industry, and it's the interaction between cultural
studies and Frankfurt school.
4. List out some of the works on Frankfurt school.

5.16 REFERENCES

 Lepsius, M. R., & Vale, M. (1983). The development of Sociology in

Germany after world war ii (1945-1968). International Journal of
Sociology, 13(3), 1-88.
 McLaughlin, N. (1999). Origin myths in the social sciences: Fromm,
the Frankfurt School and the emergence of critical theory. Canadian
Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, 109-139.
 Ritzer, G. (Ed.). (2004). Encyclopedia of social theory. Vol. 2 , Sage
publications.
 Cole, Nicki Lisa, Ph.D. (2020, August 28). The Frankfurt School of
Critical Theory. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/frankfurt-
school-3026079
 https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/frankfurt_school



76
 6
POST STRUCTURALISM AND POST
MODERN THEORIES

Unit Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Meaning of Post Structuralism
6.3 Structuralism
6.3.1 Critique of Structuralism – Derrida
6.3.2 Critique of Structuralism – Foucault
6.4 Genealogy of Power
6.5 Postmodern Theories
6.5.1 Defining and Writing Post Modern
6..5.2 Background leading to the emergence of Postmodern view
6.5.3 Postmodern and cultural identity
6.5.4 Core arguments in post-modern theories
6.6 Postmodernism and relativism
6.7 Discussion regarding existing literature
6.8 Summary
6.9 Questions
6.10 References

6.0 OBJECTIVES

● To understand the meaning and nature of Post Structuralism

● To learn about post-modern theories.
● To learn about different scholars' viewpoints on these two theories.

6.1 INTRODUCTION

In the scholarly tradition, scientists, social scientists try to explain

the social change in society. At a given point in time, one theory
dominates, rules, influences. However, after some time, the earlier theories
are rejected and new theories are built. One point to observe in the theories
is that not all aspects of a given theory can be applied to understand the
problem. Yet, some aspects of a certain theory can be applied. Theories
are like nature: some die, new ones emerge. Some aspects of the old ones
remain. Though to understand the present and past, we have to look into
77
theories. In this chapter, we will discuss two main topics:
Poststructuralism. The second one is Postmodern theories; both have
emerged in the West but have spread worldwide and helped understand
different societies.

6.2 MEANING OF POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Poststructuralism can be linked to a series of observations,

expansions, and critiques of Structuralism that originated in the mid-
1960s, mostly in France. Post-structuralism does not support a total
rejection of Structuralism's ideas and arguments; rather, poststructuralist
philosophy is best seen as a follow-up to Ferdinand de Saussure and
Claude Levi-Strauss' structuralist works. It is most commonly associated
with philosophers like Roland Barthes, Hélène Cixous, Gilles Deleuze,
Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and
Richard Rorty. However, few of these theorists use the word to describe
their work.

Poststructuralism is generally known for its critiques on

humanism, essentialism, and foundationalism. It also attempts to reject the
idea of the search for absolute meanings and law-like generalizations. It
also has a negative view of modernity. Structuralism, as shown in the
linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, the anthropology of Claude
LéviStrauss, and the early literary theory of Roland Barthes, tries to create
a theoretical tool that would become a foundation for rigorous analysis
and research in social sciences.

6.3 STRUCTURALISM

To understand post-structuralism, firstly, we need to learn about

Structuralism. Structuralism has four basic beliefs. First, it rejects the
argument that all meanings, practices, and actions can be understood and
forced by subjective consciousness. Secondly, Structuralism believes that
meanings, practices, and actions can be explained only by studying the
relations among elements in structures or systems. Third, Structuralism
views the binary opposition as the key to understanding structural
relationships among elements (e.g., signifier/signified, raw/cooked,
male/female). Finally, structuralists tend to be concerned mainly with
synchronic analysis, which is, studying the relations among elements of a
structure at the moment in time.

6.3.1 Critique of Structuralism – Derrida

Two main theorists are associated with Post Structuralism –

Derrida and Foucault. Poststructuralists generally agree with the first point
but for various reasons but they reject the others. The work of Jacques
Derrida and Michel Foucault best explains the poststructuralist critique of
Structuralism. Derrida argues that the structuralist view of language as a
78
stable system can be studied though there are certain assumptions. The
most problematic of these assumptions is what Derrida calls logocentrism,
which is a problematic assumption of most Western thought.
Logocentrism is a term that describes the tendency of Western thinkers to
privilege one term in a binary opposition over the other term, thus creating
a hierarchy that organizes thought (e.g., speech over writing, male over
female, reason over superstition). This hierarchy then appears to be a
stable and natural one with its roots in a stable language system and its
elements. Derrida tries to question these hierarchical relationships by
showing that binary oppositions that are often contradictory interpret the
binary as useless for descriptive or epistemological purposes. In addition,
the two terms of a binary opposition define themselves against each other
(which he calls supplementarity), and any hierarchy is therefore merely
arbitrary. Derrida’s project can be described as the deconstruction of
logocentrism, which involves breaking down how logocentrism operates
to break its hegemony in Western society. In short, Derrida aims for the
supposed stability of language and how structuralists build binary
oppositions. Let us take a simple example to understand this –
Structuralists view things from binary like white, black, earth, sky—
however, poststructuralists like Derrida question this aspect. The term
white is seen as the White race, and black is seen as lower in the
hierarchy. So, this invisible dimension of hierarchy is what is seen as
problematic by poststructuralists.

6.3.2 Critique of Structuralism – Foucault

Foucault uses the structuralist approach to Foucault's early work on

the archaeology of knowledge, 'The Order of Things' (1966). In the "death
of man," Foucault points out that Structuralism helps social science to
think about phenomena of life, language, and labor without dealing much
with the subjectivity aspect. Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge also
shows the early influence of Structuralism in his work as it represents a
search for the rules that govern. While Foucault's The Order of Things and
other archaeological works use structuralist methods, it also highlights the
limitations of structuralist thought.

6.4 GENEALOGY OF POWER

According to Foucault, the most important critique of

Structuralism is its inability to explain how systems and structures change
over time. Foucault considered himself a historian of systems of thought,
and, as a historian, he was interested in how systems and structures
change. At the same time, Structuralism limits itself to studying the
relations among elements of structures in a synchronic way. i.e., at one
moment at a given period. To ask and answer questions about historical
change, Foucault began to develop a method of inquiry known as the
genealogy of power, shown in his book Discipline and Punishes (1979).
By using a genealogical method, he provides a way to approach historical
problematizations of knowledge and governing. A genealogical method,
79
according to Foucault, studies events, but not the events of traditional
political history or the history of great men; rather, genealogy may take
the formation and articulation of a problem (e.g., how a society deals
with those who have violated its laws) as its event. Genealogy focuses
on problems to study the heterogeneous lines of descent that form
collections of practices, the multitude of problematizing discourses that
such practices generate, and the regimes of truth that these practices and
problematizing discourses instantiate. In addition, Foucault categorized
the genealogy of power as a “history of the present.” This does not,
however, suggest that the present is a necessary outcome of past historical
events. Instead, it tries to use history to understand the present and
demonstrate the happening of an event.

The genealogy of power is therefore often viewed as a form of

social criticism. Foucault’s genealogy of power notes that power and
knowledge are inseparably linked. This is known as the power/knowledge
connection. Critical to Foucault’s genealogy is the argument that power is
a source of dynamism that is productive and spreads throughout society
into many local centers. Through this lens of power, Foucault traces
how early modern European states responded to such problems of
governing as criminality, the practices of punishment and social
control that emerged as ways of dealing with criminality, and the
bodies of knowledge (e.g., penology, criminology, and other social
sciences) that emerged alongside these practices. Foucault adds that, while
power is universal, it always meets some form of resistance. While
Foucault's genealogy of power does not indict bodies of knowledge that
emerge from practices of power as false or invalid, it challenges scholars
and practitioners to consider alternative practices and discourses to
counter the established regimes of truth and practice..

Check Your Progress

1. Explain logocentrism
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Discuss the genealogy of power as discussed by Foucault

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

6.5 POSTMODERN THEORIES

Understanding Postmodern
Post-modernism In Western philosophy emerged during the late
20th-century as a movement. It tried to reject the grand theories which
80
tried to explain the world from a specific dimension or binary way or build
generalizations and universal laws. Post-modern believes in a diversity of
a given problem. For example, if you are going to study a product, why go
by the traditional questionnaire method? But there are other ways you
could understand the consumerist behavior of a given product and
understand it. Let us take another example of Art – traditionally, what is
approved by the kings, sanctioned, sponsored is seen as Art, recognized.
Now, anything can be seen as Art – like abstract paintings. Who decides
what Art is? If such questions are asked, then that is postmodern thoughts.
Postmodernism has emerged in every field of architecture. For example –
Look into the Eiffel tower. It is just a vertical structure seen as Art,
celebrated rather than earlier times just pieces of palaces, churches,
paintings were seen as Art. Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction
against the intellectual assumptions and values of the modern period in the
history of Western philosophy.

6.5.1 Defining and Writing Post Modern

Post-modern theorizing is preoccupied with the visual society, its
representations, cultural logic, and the new types of personal troubles
(AIDS, homelessness, drug addiction, family and public violence) and
public problems that define the current age. At the most abstract level, the
cultural logic of late capitalism defines the postmodern moment (Jameson
1991). But postmodernism is more than a series of economic formations.
The post-modern society is a cinematic, dramaturgical production. Film
and television have transformed American, and perhaps all other societies
touched by the camera, into video, visual cultures. Representations of the
real have become stand-ins for actual, lived experience. Three
implications follow from the dramaturgical view of contemporary life.
First, the reality is a staged, social production. Second, the reality is now
judged against its staged, cinematic-video counterpart. Third, the
metaphor of the dramaturgical society or "life as theater" has now become
an interactional reality. The theatrical aspects of the dramaturgical
metaphor have not crept into everyday life (Goffman 1959:254). They
have taken it over. Art not only mirrors life, its structures and reproduces
it. The post-modern society is dramaturgical.

Accordingly, the post-modern scene is a series of cultural

formations that impose, shape, and define contemporary human group life.
These formations are anchored in a series of institutional sites, including
the mass media, the economy and the polity, the academy, and popular
culture. In these sites, interacting individuals come in contact with
postmodernism, which, like the air we breathe, is everywhere around us:
in the omnipresent camera whenever lives and money exchange hands, in
the sprawling urban shopping malls, in the evening televised news, in soap
operas and situation comedies, in the doctor's office and the police station,
at the computer terminal. The cultural formations of postmodernism do
not have a direct, unmediated effect on the worlds of lived experience. The
meanings of post-modernism are mediated and filtered through existing

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systems of interpretation. These meanings may be incorporated into a
group's ongoing flow of experience and become part of their collective
vocabulary and memory (i.e., the New York post-modern art scene during
the 1970s and 1980s).

The post-modern here helps to sustain and enhance a group's way

of existence. On the other hand, postmodernism's numerous, contradictory
cultural interpretations may be deemed irrelevant to what members of a
group do and so disregarded (i.e., the rejection of postmodernism by
mainstream American sociologists). Other groups may adopt certain
postmodern aspects while rejecting the others (i.e., the cultural
conservatives who value nostalgia). In this scenario, the post-modern will
have a disjunctive influence, settling into one aspect of a group's way of
life without being integrated into its larger interpretative framework.

Postmodernism may disrupt and even disrupt a way of life for

others, such as when academic postmodernists challenge established
literary rules of Western civilization and suggest radical new reading lists
that convey the perspectives of racial, ethnic, and gender minorities. The
sociologist recognizes that the absolute spectator has no privileged
position when writing about this historical moment. How can the
postmodern self-write about itself when the same postmodern ideas
formed determine what it says, sees, feels, and hears? and any idea of
impartiality based on the absolute viewer's privileged position must be
discarded.

6.5.2 Background leading to the emergence of Postmodern view

There exists some background to the development of the

postmodern view. Firstly the period from World War II to the present.
These include the Vietnam War, the two Gulf Wars, the worldwide
economic recessions of the 1970s and 1980s, the rise to power of
conservative or neoliberal political regimes in Europe and America, the
failure of the Left to mount an effective attack against these regimes, the
collapse in the international labor movement, the emergence of a new,
conservative politics of health and morality centering on sexuality and the
family, totalitarian regimes in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and South
Africa, the breakdown of the Cold War and the emergence of glasnost, and
increased worldwide racism. Second, the post-modern references the
multinational forms of late capitalism that have introduced new cultural
logics and forms of communication and representation into the world's
economic and cultural systems. Thirdly, it describes a movement in the
visual arts, architecture, cinema, popular music, and social theory that
goes against the grain of classic realist and modernist formations. Fourth,
it references a form of theorizing and writing about the social anti
foundational, post-positivist, interpretive, and critical.

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6.5.3 Postmodern and cultural identity –
We now recognize the diversity of gender. Some individuals even
do not recognize themselves to any gender identity. They view themselves
as fluid. They view it as just human nature where they are evolving and
growing and trying to understand themselves, rather than the binary model
of male, female where one is trained. There are bisexual, queer identities,
pansexual, homosexual, recognized by countries or decriminalized. This
acceptance of diversity and breaking or imposing of identities is what
postmodern thoughts.

6.5.4 Core arguments in post-modern theories -

1. An objective natural reality exists, a reality whose existence and
properties are logically independent of human beings—minds, societies,
social practices, or investigative techniques. Postmodernists dismiss the
idea of simple realism. According to postmodernists, there is a conceptual
construct, an artifact of scientific practice and language.

2. The descriptive and explanatory statements of scientists and historians

can be objectively true or false. These scholars believe there is no ultimate
truth, or it cannot be found too. Things are subjective to interpretation.

3. Through the use of reason and logic and with the more specialized tools
provided by science and technology, human beings are likely to change
themselves and their societies for the better. It is reasonable to expect that
future societies will be more humane, more just, enlightened, and
prosperous than now. Postmodernists deny this Enlightenment faith in
science and technology as instruments of human progress. Indeed, many
postmodernists hold that the misguided (or unguided) pursuit of scientific
and technological knowledge led to the development of technologies for
killing on a massive scale in World War II. Some go so far as to say that
science and technology—and even reason and logic—are inherently
destructive and oppressive because they have been used by evil people,
especially during the 20th century, to destroy and oppress others.
For example – Nuclear bombs.

4. Reason and logic are universally valid—i.e., their laws are the same for,
or apply equally to, any thinker and any domain of knowledge. For
postmodernists, reason and logic are also merely conceptual constructs
and are valid only within the established intellectual traditions in which
they are used.

5. Human nature consists of faculties, aptitudes, or outlooks that are

present in human beings at birth rather than learned or instilled through
social forces. Postmodernists insist that all, or nearly all, aspects of human
psychology are completely socially determined.

6. Language, according to postmodernists, is not a "reflection of nature,"

as American pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty described the
Enlightenment concept. Language refers to and represents an external
83
world. Postmodernists claim that language is semantically self-contained,
or self-referential, as a result of the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de
Saussure: the meaning of a word is not a static thing in the world or even
an idea in mind, but rather a set of contrasts and differences with the
meanings of other words. Meanings are never totally "present" to the
speaker or hearer since they are functions of other meanings, which are
functions of other meanings, and so on. Self-reference is a feature of not
only natural languages but also more specialized "discourses" of specific
communities or traditions; these discourses are embedded in social
practices and reflect the conceptual schemes, moral and intellectual
values, and moral and intellectual values of the community or tradition in
which they are used. The inventor and major practitioner of
deconstruction, French philosopher and literary theorist Jacques Derrida
(1930–2004), is largely responsible for the post-modern understanding of
language and discourse.

7. Human beings might gain knowledge about natural reality, and this
knowledge could be justified by evidence or principles that are or can be
immediately, instinctively, or otherwise with certainty understood. The
effort, usually best represented by René Descartes's thesis cogito, ergo
sum ("I think. Therefore I am") in the 17th century, to discover a basis of
certainty on which to build the superstructure of empirical (including
scientific) knowledge is criticized by postmodernists.

8. Within a specific field of research, it is possible to build general

theories that explain many elements of the natural or social world—for
example, a general explanation of human history, such as dialectical
materialism. Furthermore, constructing such ideas should be an aim of
scientific and historical investigation, even though they will never be
entirely achievable in practice. Postmodernists ignore this idea as a silly
idea, as well as an unhealthy tendency in Enlightenment discourses to
adopt "totalizing" systems of thought (as the French philosopher
Emmanuel Lévinas put it) or grand "metanarratives" of human biological,
historical, and social development (as the French philosopher Jeanne-
Claude called them). These theories are seen as not valuable—Derrida
himself associated the theoretical tendency toward totality with
totalitarianism.

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss in a few lines your understanding of Poststructuralism.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
2. Explain two arguments associated with postmodernism
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
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6.6 POSTMODERNISM AND RELATIVISM

Postmodernists deny that there are objective aspects of reality; that

there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is
possible to know such statements (objective knowledge); that human
beings can know some things with certainty; and that there are objective,
or absolute, moral values. Discourses construct reality, knowledge, and
value; hence they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of
modern science, when considered apart from the evidential standards
internal to it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative
perspectives, including (for example) astrology and witchcraft.
Postmodernists sometimes characterize the evidential standards of science,
including the use of reason and logic, as "Enlightenment rationality."

6.7 DISCUSSION REGARDING EXISTING

LITERATURE

Part of the postmodern answer is that the prevailing discourses in

any society reflect the interests and values, broadly speaking, of dominant
or elite groups. Postmodernists disagree about the nature of this
connection. In contrast, some validate the statement of the German
philosopher and economist Karl Marx that “the ruling ideas of each age
have ever been the ideas of its ruling class,” others are more cautious.
Inspired by the historical research of the French philosopher Michel
Foucault, some postmodernists defend the comparatively distinct view that
what counts as knowledge in a given era is always influenced, in complex
and subtle ways, by considerations of power. There are others, however,
who are willing to go even further than Marx.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain your understanding of Postmodern
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Discuss the historical background associated with the emergence of

post-modernism.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

6.8 SUMMARY

We began this chapter by understanding Post Structuralism. Post

Structuralism is nothing but critique made towards Structuralism. Here the

85
main ideas discussed are that not everything can be viewed from the
binary model. For example – good or bad. It also questions the dominance
existing within languages, signs. Two thinkers who are associated with
post-structuralism are Derrida and Foucault. Derrida discusses his concept
of logocentrism as the tendency of Western thinkers to privilege one term
in a binary opposition over the other term, thus creating a hierarchy that
organizes thought (e.g., speech over writing, male over female, reason
over superstition). At the same time, Foucault uses the genealogy of
power. In the second section of this chapter, we learn about post-modern
and its emergence. Postmodernism is a movement that questions the idea
of truth, generalization, science and history. It has entered into every field
like literature, art, technology, architecture.

6.9 QUESTIONS

1. Explain the meaning of Poststructuralism and Derrida's point of view

towards it.
2. Discuss in brief the arguments made by Foucalt regarding post-
structuralism.
3. Write in brief the main arguments of postmodern theories.
4. Explain genealogy of power and critique of Structuralism by Derrida.

6.10 REFERENCES

 Murphy James (2004) in Ritzer, G. (Ed.). (2004). Encyclopedia of

social theory. Sage publications.
 Duignan, B. (2020, September 4). post-modernism. Encyclopedia
Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-
philosophy
 Giddens, A. (1987). Structuralism, post-structuralism. Social theory
today, 195.
 Williams, J. (2014). Understanding post-structuralism. Routledge.
 Smart, B., & Ritzer, G. (2001). Handbook of social theory.
 Howarth, D. (2013). Poststructuralism and After Structure,
subjectivity and power. Springer.
 Prawat, R. S. (1996). Constructivisms, modern and post-
modern. Educational psychologist, 31(3-4), 215-225.
 Bauman, Z., & Bauman, Z. (1993). Post-modern ethics (Vol. 34).
Oxford: Blackwell.
 Poster, M. (1995). Post-modern virtualities. Body & Society, 1(3-
4), 79-95.
 Prawat, R. S. (1996). Constructivisms, modern and post-
modern. Educational psychologist, 31(3-4), 215-225.

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 Module - III

7
THEORIES OF STRUCTURATION,
HABITUS AND PRACTICE
Unit Structure
7.0 Objective
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Structuration theory
7.3 Features of Structuration theory
7.4 Characteristics of Structuration theory
7.5 Understanding structure and agency
7.6 Gidden’s view
7.7 Criticism
7.8 Meaning of Habitus
7.9 Habitus and Choice
7.10 Habitus and Practice
7.11 Criticism
7.12 Summary
7.13 Questions
7.14 References

7.0 OBJECTIVES

● To understand the different Theories of Structuration.

● To learn about Habitus and its uses and application.

7.1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we will learn about theories of Structuration as

given by Gidden and its nature. We are also going to study Habitus, which
was developed in sociology by Bourdieu. Both these concepts can be used
to understand our society and its changing nature.

7.2 STRUCTURATION THEORY

The Structuration theory is connected with the Sociologist

Giddens. Through this theory, he tried to combine modern and classical
thinkers' ideas while developing the theory. In other words, he tried to find
a mid-way between the macro (grand theories – Functionalism, Marxism)
87
and the micro theories (E.g., Ethnomethodology E.g. Interactionism) in
Sociology. This theory was first used in Gidden’s book, Central Problems
in Social Theory (1979). He pointed out that Structuration describes an
action, i.e. “to structure” or "to do or produce the structure." According
to Giddens, actions by an individual are taken through one's past
influence. However, in every new action, he/she also reproduces his
existing structure. This continuity of the past and the reproduction of the
present structure is what he calls 'structuration.'
According to Giddens, the actor always does some activity, and
while doing the activity, he is doing Structuration, i.e., reproducing
structure. Thus, reproduction of structure is Structuration.

7.3 MAJOR FEATURES OF STRUCTURATION

THEORY:

Structuration theory can be explained through four major aspects-

(1) Human agency, i.e., agent- structure dualism, - where the social actor
is a rational actor who can make decisions.
(2) Social practice – Here, there is a link between practice and context.
(3) Reflexivity- This involves a self-consciousness on the part of the
individual and an ability to monitor the ongoing flow of social life and,
at least sometimes, take one’s understanding of this flow of social life
into account when considering appropriate action and deciding on a
course of action.
(4) Structure -These are the patterns in the social world that affect
individuals and are composed of rules, resources, and agency.

7.4 CHARACTERISTICS OF STRUCTURATION

THEORY

(1) Structures exist only in human memory.

(2) Structures exist only in practice. They are produced by agents, i.e.,
actors.
(3) Structures enable us to do actions. They also exercise control over the
actor.
(4) Structures consist of rules and resources that agents or actors draw
upon in social the production and reproduction of social life.
Structuration theory is a sociological concept that insights human
behavior based on the "duality of structure." It believes in the combination
of structure and agency effects, rather than describing human action as
controlled by powerful, stable societal structures (educational, religious, or
political institutions) or as a function of individual expression of will (i.e.,
agency). Structuration theory recognizes the interaction of meaning,
standards and values, and power and suggests a dynamic relationship
between these various aspects of society.
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Check Your Progress
1. Briefly Discuss the characteristics of Structuration theory
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
2. Briefly Discuss the features of Structuration theory
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

7.5 UNDERSTANDING STRUCTURE AND AGENCY

Since its beginning, the combination of structure and agency has

been a very important topic in sociology. Theories of structure and agency
argue that structure is supreme (objectivist view). They point out that their
socialization largely determines the behavior of individuals into that
structure, for example - gender or social class. These structures play an
important role in individuals' lives at various levels; At its top level,
society can be seen as one where there are large-scale socio economic
stratifications (such as through distinct social classes).

On a mid-range scale level, institutions and social networks (such

as religious or familial structures) form the focus of study. At the
microscale, one might consider how community or professional norms
restrain agency.

Structuralists describe the effect of structure in conflicting ways.

French social scientist Émile Durkheim emphasized the positive role of
stability and permanence. In contrast, Karl Marx described structures as
protecting the few, doing little benefits for the poor people of the society.

In contrast, supporters of agency theory (also called the subjective

view) consider that individuals possess the ability to exercise their own
free will and make their own choices. Here, social structures are viewed as
products of individual actions that are sustained or discarded rather than
incommensurable forces.

7.6 GIDDENS’S VIEW

Sociologists have questioned the polarized nature of the structure-

agency debate, highlighting the combination of these two influences on
human behavior. Giddens argues that just as an individual’s independence
is influenced by structure. Structures are maintained and adapted through
the exercise of agency. The interface at which an actor meets a structure is
termed “structuration.”

89
 Structuration theory attempts to understand human social behavior
by resolving the competing views of structure-agency and macro-micro
perspectives. This is achieved by studying the processes as the interface
between the actor and the structure. Structuration theory assumes that
social action cannot be fully explained by the structure or agency theories
alone. Instead, it recognizes that actors operate within the context of rules
produced by social structures, and only by acting in a submissive manner
are these structures reinforced. As a result, social structures have no
inherent stability outside human action because they are socially
constructed. Alternatively, through reflexivity, agents modify social
structures by acting outside the structure's constraints.

Giddens’s framework of structure differs from that in the classic

theory. He proposes three kinds of structure in a social system. The first is
signification, where meaning is coded in the practice of language and
discourse. The second is legitimation, consisting of the normative
perspectives embedded as societal norms and values. Giddens’s final
structural element is domination, concerned with how power is applied,
particularly in controlling resources..

For Giddens, structures are more specific and detailed than the system.
According to him, rules and resources are the two primary features of
market exchange, class structures, political organizations and processes,
and educational institutions. They can be further classified into different
types like -
● Procedural rules – This refers to how the practice is performed. Give
and take encounters, language rules, walking in a
crowd. Goffman (face, roles, role distance) and ethnomethodologists
analyze them.
● Moral rules – appropriate forms of enactment of social action. Laws,
what is permissible and what is not. These do not refer to ultimate
values (e.g. spiritual or sacred values) but refer to appropriate ways of
carrying out social action and interaction. Durkheim and Parsons
emphasized the importance of these – norms, mores, customs, laws.
● Material resources – allocation of resources among activities and
members of society. Means of production, commodities, income,
consumer and capital goods. The marxian analysis demonstrates the
inequalities associated with the allocation.
● Resources of authority. Formal organizations, how time and space are
organized, production and reproduction, social mobility, legitimacy,
and authority. Weber analyzed the latter issues in the context of power
and its exercise. Wright included these resources as assets in his
explanation of contradictory class locations.

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7.7 CRITICISM

Two major criticisms come out of Structuration. One group of

critics, comprising Thompson, Archer, Layder and Livesay, points out that
Giddens emphasizes the agent's actor and enabling side at the expense of
the constraining element, that is, structural frames.

Giddens does not specify how enabling or constraining structures

are. The other side of the criticism concerns the applicability of the theory
concerning empirical analyses. Gregson, Bertilsson and Thrift claim that
although structuration theory is interesting and perhaps transcends some
dualistic problems at a theoretic level, it is less fruitful in empirical
research. The abstract level of the theory weakens its fruitfulness (i).

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss the criticism associated with Structuration theory

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Discuss the different rules in the structure.

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

1.8 MEANING OF HABITUS

Habitus, the term, has been used in writings connected to Aristotle.

However, it was Bourdieu who used it in a Sociological context.. In the
book 'The Logic of Practice, 1990), Bourdieu made a critique of
structuralism from the point of view of practice and strategy where he
used the concept of Habitus.

For Bourdieu, an individual's instinctive knowledge of how to live

in and deal with that field is what he termed Habitus. Fields here refer to
the different areas like religion, law, sports, etc. Habitus can also be
described as a durable, fluid system developed in children because of their
observation and imitation. He wanted to understand how people are
forced or, as he binded by their own cultural practice. His account of how
Habitus is formed is a theory of socialization that combines the
behaviorism of the American Sociologist G.H. Mead.. (Alan Barnard).

Habitus is one of Bourdieu’s most influential concepts. It also

refers to the physical forms of cultural capital, like ingrained habits, skills,
and nature that we possess due to our life experiences. Bourdieu often
used the example of sports when talking about Habitus, and he used the
term "feel for the game." Just like a skilled baseball player "just knows"
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when to swing at a 95-miles-per-hour fastball without consciously
thinking about it, each of us have an in-built type of "feel" for the social
situations or "games" where we regularly find ourselves in. In the right
situations, our Habitus allows us to navigate social environments
successfully. For example, if you grew up in a rough, crime-ridden
neighborhood in Mumbai, you would likely have the type of skill sets,
smartness needed to successfully survive or deal with violence, know to
avoid police surveillance or harassment. However, if you were one of the
lucky few in your neighborhood to study in a college, you would probably
find that this same set of skills and habits was not useful—and maybe
even unfavorable—to your success in your new social scenario.

1.9 HABITUS AND CHOICE

Habitus also extends to our "taste" for cultural objects such as art,
food, and clothing. In one of his major works. Bourdieu links French
citizens' tastes in art to their social class positions. He argues that the
culturally ingrained Habitus shapes one's tastes. Upper-class individuals,
for example, have a taste for fine art because they have been constantly
exposed to and trained to appreciate it since a very early age. On the other
hand, working-class individuals generally do not have access to "high art"
and thus they have not cultivated the Habitus needed for appreciation of
fine art. The thing about the Habitus, Bourdieu often noted, was that it was
so ingrained that people often mistook the feel for the game as natural
instead of culturally developed. This often leads to justifying social
inequality because it is (mistakenly) believed that some people are
naturally inclined to the finer things in life while others are not

It needs to be observed that through habitus Pierre Bourdieu also

tried to overcome the binary model in social theory like micro/macro,
material/symbolic, empirical/ theoretical, objective/ subjective,
public/private, structure/ agency. Through his work, he tried to reveal the
practical logic of everyday life, understand relations of power, and
develop reflexive sociology. One must also remember that gender, class,
ethnicity, culture, education, and the historical period all shape an
individual's habitus and practice. One's everyday life is dynamic and fluid,
like a jazz musician improvising on a theme. On the other hand, Practice is
the result of the relationship between an individual's Habitus, different
forms of capital, and the field of action

Habitus can also be described as a durable, fluid system developed

in children because of their observation and imitation. He wanted to
understand how people are forced or, as he binded by their cultural
practice. His account of how the Habitus is formed is a theory of
socialization that combines the behaviourism of the American Sociologist
G.H. Mead.

For Bourdieu, habitus is a conceptual framework in which there

are varying degrees of explicitness of and competition among norms.
92
Under this framework, there are three ways that people experience the
norms of their social existence. They do so through (1) a set of materially
predisposed practices that express a belief about how the world works and
reproduce that worldview. These predisposed practices tend to produce
doxa, situations in which "the natural and social world appears as self-
evident" (Bourdieu 1994, p. 160; 1976, p. 118); this is Habitus, the
unquestioned order of things. People also experience the norms of their
social existence through (2) the contrasting situation of orthodoxy, in
which “social classifications become the object and instrument of …
struggle” and in which the arbitrariness of the current system becomes
evident, and through (3) heterodoxy—a situation of more or less equally
“competing possibilities” (1994, pp. 164–165). Bourdieu emphasizes the
“complicitous silence" of community members in the continuous
reproduction of the "collective rhythms," or Habitus, of the community
(1994, p. 182).

Habitus is the learned set of preferences or dispositions by which a person

orients to the social world. It is a system of durable, transposable,
cognitive ‘schemata or structures of perception, conception and action’
(Bourdieu, 2002: 27).

1.10 HABITUS AND PRACTICE

Habitus also takes place in an individual unconsciously. Bourdieu's

theory of Habitus showed that it is practice by which the mind adopts
certain patterns.

Practice is what humans do in their everyday lives. It is based more

on improvisation rather than always governed by rules. It is kind of inbuilt
in us and it generally functions when we are in different situations, space.
For example - When you wake up in the morning, you take a toothbrush
and start brushing your teeth. With time you may try out an electronic
toothbrush too.

Bourdieu’s emphasis on practice is not included in Marx's early

writings, though Goffman uses it in his work. As researchers, we need to
look into what people do and how they are told to do certain things
through their culture and the gaps between these things.

For him, strategies are based on an unconsciously developed

"practical logic," which develops through interactions between Habitus
and the field. This is a kind of a rational action theory, sometimes known
as "the feel for the game." In a world formed as a taken-for-granted
principle, "the way things are," a world in which definite possibilities
influence the expectations formed and held by individual value systems,
strategies develop and make practical sense. For example - When you
need something from your boss, you are always kind to him/her in good
books. So here is the strategy you are using. The importance of habit in
conditioning practice is equally significant, and it develops into Bourdieu's
93
theory through the concept of Habitus. He refers to formulating integrated
creative characteristics when he uses the term habitus.

7.11 CRITICISM

Critics point out that Habitus is an overly deterministic concept

limiting individual agency, innovation, and change. According to Habitus,
Socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals are socialized into
dispositions that destine them to think and act in ways that recreate the
conditions of their disadvantage: structures produce dispositions, which
produce practices, which reproduce structures. However, this aspect has
been criticized by many. Critiques are also related concerns: that the
dispositions of Habitus are set early in life and largely unaltered by
subsequent experiences; that Habitus operates largely 'behind the back' of
the individual, leaving little room for conscious, rational behavior; and
that, as a consequence of its immutable and pre-reflective nature, Habitus
leaves little purchase for individuality, innovation, and social mobility.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain in a few lines Habitus as Practice
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Who used Habitus in Sociology?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

7.12 SUMMARY

In the first section of the chapter, we learned about the

Structuration theory given by Giddens. He discussed this theory in his
book Central Problems in Social Theory (1979). Through this theory, he
tried to find a midway between the modern theories in sociology and the
classical theories. Giddens argues that just as an individual’s independence
is influenced by structure. Structures are maintained and adapted through
the exercise of agency. The interface at which an actor meets a structure is
termed “structuration.” The second topic of the unit is that of Habitus.
Habitus, the term, has been used in writings connected to Aristotle.
However, it was Bourdieu who used it in a Sociological context.. In the
book 'The Logic of Practice, 1990), Bourdieu made a critique of
structuralism from the point of view of practice and strategy where he
used the concept of Habitus. For Bourdieu, an individual's instinctive
knowledge of how to live in and deal with that field is what he termed
Habitus. This Habitus is affected by one's location, background, and
cultural capital. One's past also influences this Habitus.
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7.13 QUESTIONS

1. Explain in brief Gidden’s view on Structuration Theory.

2. Explain Habitus and Practice.
3. Write a note on Habitus as discussed by Bourdieu

7.14 REFERENCES

● http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/319m606.html
 https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/sociology-
essay/structuration-theory-meaning-and-majorfeatures/39914 #:~:text=
The%20theory% 20of % 20 structuration % 20is, constrain %20
and%20enable% 20human% 20action
 Gibbs, B. J. (2017, August 21). Structuration theory. Encyclopedia
Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/structuration-theory
 Sapiro, Gisèle. (2015). Habitus: History of a Concept. International
Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. 10.1016/B978-0-
08-097086-8.03085-3.
1
 Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2021, July 28). Pierre
Bourdieu. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-Bourdieu
 http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/habitus
 Elaine M. Power (1999) An Introduction to Pierre Bourdieu's Key
Theoretical Concepts, Journal for the Study of Food and
Society, 3:1, 48-52, DOI: 10.s2752/152897999786690753
 Barnard, A., & Spencer, J. (2009). The Routledge encyclopedia of
social and cultural anthropology. Routledge.
 "Habitus ." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
Retrieved September 22, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-
sciences-magazines/habitus
 Ritzer, G. (Ed.). (2004). Encyclopedia of social theory. Sage
publications.
 Edgerton, J. D., & Roberts, L. W. (2014). Cultural capital or Habitus?
Bourdieu and beyond in the explanation of enduring educational
inequality. Theory and Research in Education, 12(2), 193-220.
 Sapiro, Gisèle. (2015). Habitus: History of a Concept. International
Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. 10.1016/B978-0-
08-097086-8.03085-3.


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 8
THEORIES OF NETWORKS, RISKS AND
LIQUIDITY

Unit Structure
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Meaning of Networks
8.3 Use of Networks to learn about Diseases/Virus
8.4 Theories of Network
8.4.1 Two-step flow model of communication
8.4.2 Theory of Weak ties
8.4.3 Diffusion of Innovation Theory
8.4.4 Actor-network theory
8.5 Liquidity and Risk
8.5.1 Liquidity
8.5.2 Zygmunt on Liquidity
8.5.3 Risks
8.5.4 Traditional ways to handle risk
8.5.5 Sociological understanding of risk
8.5.6 Modernity and Risk
8.6 Summary
8.7 Questions
8.8 References

8.0 OBJECTIVES

● To learn about networks and the different theories associated with

them.
● To understand the concepts of risk and liquidity .

8.1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we will look into topics like Network Theories of

Network and Risks and Liquidity. Studying this topic becomes important
to understand the current scenario of both society and the economic
system.

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8.2 MEANING OF NETWORKS

The Cambridge dictionary defines a Network as 'a large system

consisting of many similar parts connected to allow movement or
communication between or along with the parts, or between the parts and
a control centre'. The network approach originated initially in the field of
mathematical graph theory. In social sciences and psychology, networks
has been used to understand human social organization. In other words,
the Networks term is generally used in computers; here, we will
understand it from the context of human beings. We use networks in
everyday life. For example – It is easy to get a job when someone
recommends you when you are applying in an organization, or a friend of
yours informs you that there is a vacancy in an organization and you could
apply for it. In a competitive world where the population is constantly
growing, which brings more and less demand in the labor market,
networking becomes important.

Network models have been used to describe how ideas, opinions,

information, and innovations spread through human societies. Such
models provide a means to learn how information spreads (Valente 1995;
Rogers 1995).

Network theory provides a quantitative framework that can be used

to learn the social structure at the individual level and the large scale
population. These novel quantitative variables provide a new tool in
answering important questions in behavioral ecology, especially
concerning the evolution of the social organization and its impact on the
social structure on evolutionary processes. For example, network measures
can be used to compare social networks of different species or
populations, making full use of the comparative approach.

8.3 USE OF NETWORKS TO LEARN ABOUT

DISEASES/ VIRUSES -

In principle, the network's approach can go beyond identifying

structural patterns and is also used to learn about processes within animal
populations such as disease transmission and information transfer. Finally,
understanding the pattern of interactions in the network (i.e., who is
connected to whom) helps us know the evolution of behavioral strategies.
The social structure in a social network might explain why an individual
might be more susceptible to an infectious disease. It would also help us
know why the population might be vulnerable to the rapid transmission of
disease. Depending upon the connections and networks, the fitness/
disease of an individual could develop. Network theory can be used to
understand diseases related to sexuality. Sexual networks and questions
regarding who mates, how often and with whom have been addressed in
the sexually transmitted diseases. Traditional models did not consider the
differences between individuals (e.g., differences in the number of social
97
connections. However, with diseases, contagious viruses, this approach
has been taken seriously.

8.4 THEORIES OF NETWORK

8.4.1 Two-step flow model of communication -

This theory of communication points out that interpersonal

interaction has a stronger effect on shaping public opinion than mass
media outlets. The two-step flow model was given in 1948 by Paul
Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet, in the book The People's
Choice, after research into voters' decision-making processes during the
1940 U.S. presidential election. It claims that the mass media content first
reaches "opinion leaders," active media users who collect, interpret, and
diffuse the meaning of media messages to less-active media consumers.
According to the authors, opinion leaders pick up information from the
media, which gets passed on to less-active public members.

8.4.2 Theory of Weak ties

Weak tie theory points out that acquaintances are likely to be more
influential than close friends, especially social networks. Weak tie theory
began from Nick Granovetter's 1973 article "The Strength of Weak Ties,"
which spread information through social networks. During those days,
social networking used to take place in the physical world. He further
classifies interpersonal ties as strong, weak, or absent.

A strong tie- is someone within a close circle of family and friends.

Strong ties are essential for the real community. Still, they are typically
groups with a great deal of similarity and, as such, less likely than more
tenuous connections to carry new information and perspectives to their
groups. Because networks of strong ties are self-limiting, they can lead to
what is sometimes called a filter bubble: A restriction of news,
information and ideas that results from things like search personalization
and maintaining connections mostly within homogenous groups of people.
The limitation can stem from confirmation bias, which is the human
tendency to seek out sources of information that support our current
perspectives and beliefs.

Weak tie - Social media influencers are prime examples of weak ties.
Influencers today have large groups of followers, and their impact is also
distributed among the networks of those followers. On the other hand, a
larger social network, including numerous weak ties, is likely to challenge
that tendency and support critical thinking.

Absent ties are connections (people) that might be expected to exist but
don't participate frequently.

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8.4.3 Diffusion of Innovation Theory
E.M. Rogers developed the diffusion of Innovation (DOI) Theory
in 1962. It originated in communication to explain how an idea or product
gains momentum and diffuses (or spreads) through a specific population
or social system over time. This diffusion is that people adopt a new idea,
behavior, or product as part of a social system. Adoption refers to doing
something new than his old behavior (i.e., purchasing or using a new
product, acquiring and performing a new behavior, etc.). The key to
adoption is to perceive the idea, behavior, or product as new or innovative.
It is through this that diffusion is possible. For example – Instagram Reels
– A new song immediately becomes popular, and a large group follows it
until the novelty persists. Adopting a new idea, behavior, or product does
not happen once in a social system; rather, it is a process whereby some
people are more apt to adopt the innovation.

Researchers point out that people who adopt an innovation early

have different characteristics than people who adopt an innovation later.
When promoting innovation to a target population, it is important to
understand its characteristics to help or hinder its adoption. There are five
established adopter categories. While most of the general population
tends to fall in the middle categories, it is still necessary to understand the
target population's characteristics. When promoting an innovation, there
are different strategies used to appeal to the different adopter categories.

1. Innovators - These are people who want to be the first to try the
innovation. They are venturesome and interested in new ideas. These
people are very willing to take risks and are often the first to develop
new ideas.

2. Early Adopters - These are people who represent opinion leaders.

They enjoy leadership roles and embrace change opportunities. They
are already aware of the need to change and hence are very
comfortable adopting new ideas. Strategies to appeal to this population
include how-to manuals and information sheets on implementation.
They do not need the information to convince them to change. For
example – Reviewers of products on YouTube with opening packing
videos.

3. Early Majority - These people are rarely leaders, but they adopt new
ideas before the average person. These individuals generally need to
see evidence that the innovation works before they are willing to adopt
it. Strategies to appeal to this population include success stories and
evidence of the innovation's effectiveness.

4. Late Majority - These people are skeptical of change and will only
adopt an innovation after the majority has tried it. Strategies to appeal
to this population include information on how many other people have
tried the innovation and have adopted it successfully.

99
5. Laggards - These people are bound by tradition and very
conservative. They are very skeptical of change and are the hardest
group to bring on board. Strategies to appeal to this population include
statistics, fear appeals, and pressure from other adopter groups.

8.4.4 Actor-network theory

Actor-network theory (ANT) is an approach used to understand the
new materialism behavior with the advent of technology. It was developed
in the social studies of science and technology, which began in the second
half of the 20th century. ANT has increasingly been used in other areas of
social inquiry too. ANT is a sociological theory developed by Bruno
Latour, Michel Callon and John Law. It is distinguished from
other network theories because an actor-network contains not merely
people but objects and organizations. These are collectively referred to
as actors or sometimes as actants (non-human). It looks into how material
plays an important role in carrying out culture across different societies.
The actor-network theory looks into the interaction and how both play an
important role. For example, Mobile now can be said to play an important
role; in the future, electric cars will play an important role in
transportation. In this theory, the non-human is also seen as an actor,
which makes this theory different from others. It is a socio-technical
relationship based on Actor-Network theory. Here the treatment of non-
human is seen as equal.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain the use of networks in tracing diseases?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
2. Explain in brief the main points of diffusion of innovation theory.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

8.5 LIQUIDITY AND RISK

8.5.1 .Liquidity

Dictionary meaning of Liquidity is the ability or the ease with

which assets could be converted into cash. Let us try to understand this
through the example of the oil crisis during the pandemic. During the
pandemic, lockdowns were implemented. As a result, the supply was more
and the consumption was less. The storage capacity of the oil had been
filled, and the consumption had reduced. The oil prices suddenly fell,
which impacted all the other markets too. When the market has impacted,
the individuals depending on it for employment face the risk of

100
unemployment. The fear continues till the problem is resolved or that of a
solution is found out. With the Multinational companies nature where the
headquarter is in a different country and that of the operation, marketing

8.5.2 Zygmunt on Liquidity

The sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman coined the
concept of liquid modernity as a metaphor to describe the condition of
constant mobility and change he sees in relationships, identities, and
global economics within contemporary society. In the 1980s and 1990s,
Bauman was also known as a key theorist of postmodernity. While many
theorists of the postmodern condition argued that it signified a radical
break with modern society, Bauman contended that modernity had always
been characterized by an ambivalent, "dual" nature. On the one hand,
Bauman saw modern society as largely characterized by a need for
order—a need to domesticate, categorize, and rationalize the world to be
controllable, predictable, and understandable. It is this ordering,
rationalizing tendency that Max Weber saw as the characteristic force of
modernization. But, on the other hand, modernity was also always
characterized by radical change, by a constant overthrowing of tradition
and traditional forms of economy, culture, and relationship—"all that is
solid melts into air," as Marx characterized this aspect of modern society.
For Bauman, postmodernity results from modernity's failure to rationalize
the world and amplify its capacity for constant change. In later years,
Bauman felt that the term "postmodern" was problematic and started using
liquid modernity to better describe the condition of constant mobility and
the change he sees in relationships, identities, and global economics within
contemporary society. Instead of referring to modernity and
postmodernity, Bauman writes of a transition from solid modernity to a
more liquid form of social life.

For Bauman, the consequences of this move to a liquid modernity

can most easily be seen in contemporary approaches to self-identity.
According to Bauman, constructing a durable identity that coheres over
time and space in liquid modernity becomes increasingly impossible. We
have moved from a period where we understood ourselves as "pilgrims"
searching for a deeper meaning to act as "tourists" searching for multiple
but fleeting social experiences.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain Zygmunt's view on Liquidity.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
2. Explain in brief traditional ways of handling risk.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

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8.5.3 Risk

8.5.4 Traditional ways to handle risk -

Traditionally risk management has been practiced by women for a
long time. This is through the gold that we wear or the cattle which are
grown in households. Whenever there is an emergency like medical or
sudden need for money, the first thing that is sold out is the cattle at home;
this could be that of goats, cow, hens, or any other animal grown at home.
These are sold at the local market and the money gained through that is
being used for the household.

Apart from the cattle, gold also acts as an important investment

instrument to prevent future risks. Generally, women have bangles around
their hands which are made of gold. If not bangles, then at the least, the
mangal sutra is made of gold. These bangles, earrings, or even the mangal
sutra are kept in the local jewelry shop during an emergency. The money
is received as a loan or sold, and the financial crisis at home is handled.
Gold is celebrated in a country like ours, even with festivals like Akshaya
Trithiya or even the Goddess Lakshmi worship during Diwali. They help
us handle the crisis in our daily lives.

We make savings through various government schemes like the

National Savings Scheme, post office schemes, or even fixed deposits.
There are even schemes, especially for single girl children. All this is to
create the habit of investment. At present, even health insurance is taken to
reduce the future risk in terms of finance. An individual pays a certain
amount of premium, and then during any health-related crisis like surgery.

8.5.5 Sociology Understanding of Risk

In Sociology, Risk and uncertainty can be interpreted as
systematically linked to each other because there are different ways how
risk can be managed. Furthermore, risk can be understood as rational
calculation or uncertain business, too. Risks are at the same time both real
and socially constructed. Risks and uncertainties have to be managed case
by case. When ignorance or uncertainty exists, there are no general
rationalities available to make reasonable decisions. For example - The
crisis during the pandemic was an uncertain time, the future was
unpredictable and several changes took place in the society, like migrants
going back to their villages.

Risk is widespread. In the last decades, the concept of risk has

spread out in several domains. The original focus was on technical and
environmental risks now; it has widened to areas as health and
physical/mental illness, crime, regulation, social inequality, the media,
public and social policy, lifestyle, globalization, and global risk, as well as
the management of everyday life and intimate relationships. Since the
diversity of risk domains is neither covered by technical or psychological
approaches, research on wider societal perspectives on risk and
uncertainty is needed.
102
 Several scholars have used the terms connected to risks like risk
perception, risk communication and sociology of catastrophes like
(Douglas, Tulloch/Lupton), risk society and reflexive modernization
(Beck, Giddens), governmentality (Foucault, Ewald), systems theory
(Luhmann, Japp) and edgework (Lyng).

8.5.6 Modernity and Risk

According to Giddens (1990; 1991), one of the major
consequences of modernization has been a tremendous intensification of
real and perceived risk. Indeed, Giddens (1999) and sociologists such as
Ulrich Beck (1992; 1999) have described modern society as a risk society
or risk culture. Giddens and Beck mean by this term that risk has become
a central organizing principle guiding both individual and institutional
behavior in contemporary society. Granting that hazards and danger have
always been a factor in human existence, risk society theorists such as
Giddens and Beck maintain that a heightened awareness or consciousness
of risk and sustained effort to manage or contain risk are defining features
of modernity.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain your observations on how people build networks in daily to day
lives.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. What are your views on the theory of the two-step flow model of
communication?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

8.6 SUMMARY

We began the chapter by learning about Networks. Network

models have been used to describe how ideas, opinions, information, and
innovations spread through human societies. Such models provide a means
to learn how information spreads. Network models have been used to
understand the spread of diseases/ viruses. We also looked into the
different theories of Networks like the Two step flow model of
communication, the theory of weak ties, which discusses three types of
ties, i.e., strong, weak and absent, diffusion of innovation theory, and
actor-network theory. The second section focussed on explaining
Liquidity, where we observed Zygmunt's view on Liquidity and Risk from
the traditional approach and through sociological thinkers' viewpoints.

103
8.7 QUESTIONS

1. Explain the meaning of network and two theories related to it.

2. Explain in brief the risk and traditional and sociological
understanding of it.
3. Write a note on Liquidity.

8.8 REFERENCES

 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/network
 Valente TW. Network models of the diffusion of innovations. Creskill,
NJ: Hampton; 1995.
 Rogers EM. Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press; 1995.
 Krause, J., Croft, D. P., & James, R. (2007). Social network theory in
the behavioural sciences: potential applications. Behavioral ecology
and sociobiology, 62(1), 15–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-
0445-8
 Postelnicu, M. (2016, November 28). Two-step flow model of
communication. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.
com/ topic/two-step-flow-model-of-communication
 https://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-
modules/sb/behavioralchangetheories/behavioralchangetheories4.html
 Kamp, A. Actor–Network Theory. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of
Education. Retrieved 6 Oct. 2021, from
https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0
001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-526.
 Actor-network theory. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 6 Oct. 2021, from
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.2011080309534
9105.
 https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/actor-network-theory/495
 Alicia Mattiazzi, Martín Vila-Petroff; Is Bauman’s “liquid modernity”
influencing the way we are doing science?. J Gen Physiol 3 May 2021; 153
(5): e202012803. doi: https://doi.org/10.1085/jgp.202012803
 http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/liquid-modernity



104
 Module - IV

9
POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE,
STANDPOINT THEORY AND BEYOND.

Unit Structure
9.0 Objectives
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Colonization
9.3 Meaning of Post colonialism
9.4 History of Post colonialism
9.5 Enlightenment and Postcolonial writing
9.6 Writers in Postcolonial critique
9.7 Postcolonialism critique of modernity
9.8 Postcolonialism critique of archaeology
9.9 Criticism on Postcolonial Concept
9.10 Standpoint Theory
9.11 Origin of Standpoint theory
9.12 Feminist Standpoint theory
9.13 Indigenous Standpoint theory
9.14 Summary
9.15 Questions
9.16 References

9.0 OBJECTIVES

● To learn about postcolonial critique.

● To understand standpoint theory.
● To learn beyond standpoint theory like feminist standpoint and
indigenous standpoint theory.

9.1 INTRODUCTION

Some events influence every era in history in society. Several

events have taken place that have impacted society like Colonization,
French Revolution, Wars, Religious influence, Industrial revolution,
Development of Science and Technology, Rapid Urbanization,
Computers. Now we are nearing the era of Artificial Intelligence and
Robotics and even 5G. Out of all these events, colonization impacted
105
nearly every society to some extent. Either through language, i.e.,
Dominance of English, or education, health or marginalization through
trade or being controlled as colonies. In this chapter, we will learn about
two topics: that of Postcolonial critique and the second is that of
standpoint theory. Let us begin by understanding colonialization.

9.2 COLONIZATION

Colonization is a systematic process where certain countries,

groups left their homeland and slowly, systematically encroached upon
other countries and imposed their policies upon the other. Generally, it is a
group from France, Portuguese, Britain - often; it is associated with a
White race. They began this journey by trying to build trade relations with
the host country. In other words, people who have crossed a sea with
saltwater to reach another land than their own. Given this background, let
us now look in-depth into understanding what Post colonialism is.

9.3 MEANING OF POST COLONIALISM –

Post colonialism is the historical period that focuses upon

representing the aftermath of Western Colonialism, imperialism. It also
includes criticism of the colonialism period. Postcolonial writings began in
the 1990s. Today it is a separate field of literature too. Postcolonial
theorists and historians have been concerned with documenting the
consequences of modernity on philosophical, cultural, and historical
perspectives. Post colonialism is nothing but a general field of intellectual
inquiry. Post colonialism combines several disciplines like literary theory,
cultural studies, philosophy, geography, economics, history and politics.
One of the most important features of the history of imperialism has been
the emergence of states either from the territories and politics or from the
dissolution of empires or by making the combination of both. Hence, Post
colonialism has to be seen from the perspective of the emergence of
political thought too. Post colonialism, at times, has also been used to
refer to the struggles of indigenous peoples in different parts of the world
in the early 21st century. Post colonialism focused on criticizing colonial
writings.

The first phase of postcolonial criticism was written by Aimé

Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak. More recently, a
new generation of academics has provided fresh assessments of the
interaction of class, race and gender in cultural production. Scholars Aijaz
Ahmad, Bell hooks, Homi Bhabha, Abdul Jan Mohamed, and David
Lloyd, are also represented by scholars. Topics covered include negritude,
national culture, orientalism, subalternity, ambivalence, hybridity, white
settler societies, gender and Colonialism, culturalism, commonwealth
literature, and minority discourse.

106
9.4 HISTORY OF POST COLONIALISM

The postcolonial theory emerged in the US and UK among

academicians in the 1980s. It was a part of a larger wave of new and
politicized fields of humanistic inquiry, especially with feminism and
critical race theory. Postcolonial theory came due to the anticolonial
thought from South Asia and Africa in the first half of the 20th century. It
is an outcome of several social movements. Over the past thirty years, this
discipline has been reimagining politics and ethics from underneath
imperial power. It is an effort to write about those who continue to suffer
colonization effects. The post-colonial theory has been discovering and
theorizing new forms of human injustice, from environmentalism to
human rights. Postcolonial theory has influenced the way we read texts,
the way we understand national and transnational histories. Despite
frequent critiques from outside the field, the postcolonial theory remains
one of the key forms of critical humanistic interrogation in both academics
and the world.

9.5 ENLIGHTENMENT AND POSTCOLONIAL

WRITING -

One of the important themes in Postcolonial writing was criticizing

the Enlightenment tradition. Some scholars saw certain aspects of
Enlightenment thought as Eurocentric and thus deeply problematic when
applied in non-European contexts or presented as offering genuinely
neutral principles of political association or justice. Yet, Enlightenment
continues to play an important role in policies to address global inequality.
Postcolonialist theories believe that the dominant and important European
process of modernity has multiple modernities, rather than just one.

9.6 WRITERS IN POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE -

The first phase of postcolonial criticism was written by

AiméCésaire, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak. Later, a
new generation of academics has based their work on interaction with
class, race and gender in cultural production. Some scholars are Aijaz
Ahmad, Bell hooks, Homi Bhabha, Abdul Jan Mohamed, and David
Lloyd. The topics they covered included negritude, national culture,
orientalism, subalternity, ambivalence, hybridity, white settler societies,
gender and Colonialism, culturalism, commonwealth literature, and
minority discourse.

The Postcolonial theorists viewed the orientalism writings as

problematic as they wrote the Asian cultures from their scale. They used
words like primitive, archaic to describe cultures other than their own. On
the other hand, while writing their history, they use the terms advanced,
civilized. Some Indian historians associated with Subaltern Studies used

107
Marxist perspective to explain the Indian peasant's struggle. For example –
Ranjit Guha, A. R. Desai.

Foucault discussed the complex relationship between knowledge

and power. He described it through the example of asylum in his book. He
wrote about how deviant people are treated as a threat in society and
boycotted and segregated. In a way, he questioned the Western rule and
the knowledge itself and the producers of knowledge.

Fanon, a psychoanalyst, and philosopher had made a provocative

analysis of the relation between colonized and colonizer in The Wretched
of the Earth (1961) as well as in his Black Skin, White Masks (1952).
Fanon remains perhaps best known for his explosive justification of
violence in The Wretched of the Earth (highlighted by Jean-Paul Sartre's
preface to that work), where it is cast as the appropriate response to the
violence perpetrated by Colonialism and as the mediation through which
had been colonized. Colonization and identity has been discussed in his
writings.

9.7 POSTCOLONIALISM CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY

Colonialism focused on making a singular history of the world that

is more than simply "a collection of the particular stories of different
communities. It is through text, encyclopedia, education, media theories
like evolutionary theory. The postcolonial thinkers' task is to rethink
modernity in the context of this new data and develop paradigms that have
their own history as a consequence of colonization. The challenge is
perhaps greater to sociology than to history, a challenge to reconstruct the
conceptual architecture of the discipline and its foundational
understanding of modernity.

9.8 POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE OF ARCHAEOLOGY –

There exists a hierarchical relationship between the postcolonial

critique and the field of archaeology, a discipline that developed
historically in combination with European Colonialism and imperialism.
Hence, scholars representing indigenous and minority communities and
impoverished countries suggest strategies to rewrite its colonial heritage's
archaeological theory and practice and create an equally sensitive
discipline. The research is to identify current trends and chart future
directions in postcolonial archaeological research. These work contain
multiple voices and case study approaches and have consciously aimed to
recognize the utility of comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to
understanding the past.[iii]

108
Check Your Progress
1. Discuss the meaning of Post colonialism.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Discuss Post colonialist critique of Archaeology.

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

9.9 CRITICISM ON POSTCOLONIAL CONCEPT

There are several important questions we need to ask. Is
Colonialism really over? The idea of a post can apply. Can we use the
term postcolonial? Still, Shakespeare is taught in colleges, scholars,
scientists, opinions; texts are still taken seriously. Still, in a country like
India, English is taught in school, internet users are highest in English.
The Postcolonial writers said that the native language has to be used.
However, we still speak English to a large extent.
Postcolonial writers are being criticized as they also studied and
located themselves in a binary view - central self and decentralized. There
is otherness and other, thereby defining and delimiting themselves in Baba
or Said's work. It's kind of a victim stand and structuralism stand.
Colonizer and Colonized as an opposition. There could be certain good
relations and benefits not in all parts, but the colonized has benefited in
some parts. However, the percentage of discrimination could be higher
too.
One more argument or question we can ask is whether the real
problem is that of Colonialism or if all over the world, we are in the
process of Globalization.
One more criticism is the bias of writing about women in the
Postcolonial period. Mainly the Postcolonial writers studied in the West
and were men. So, there could be still a loophole in the claim of
postcolonial representation.

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss the criticism of Post colonialism.
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2. Explain your understanding of Post colonialism
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9.10 STANDPOINT THEORY

Standpoint theory, in simple words, means a framework from

which we analyze a particular event, phenomenon, act. It is a viewpoint
which we have an understanding based on our social location. The social
location could be gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. For example - A
migrant during covid-19. He had to walk towards his village, manage his
expenses, take risks, and handle the uncertainty. So, his standpoint about
Covid would be entirely different from someone who had enough savings,
owned a house, etc.

So, here the migrant would give a better picture of the real world,
the experience of the crisis. They have a critical reflection. Standpoint
theory points out that those oppressed and marginalized could give an
informed view of the world. They would be able to see the status quo and
write about it, as they are living through the status quo. Studying
Standpoint theory is important as it gives the marginalized groups a
platform for them, allowing them to challenge the status quo. The status
quo which is often filled with views of dominant white male who are
having a position on the basis of their privilege.

9.11 ORIGINS OF STANDPOINT THEORY

The roots of standpoint theory could be found in the works of

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who explored the various viewpoints of
slaves and masters in 1807. He used it to explain the master-slave
connection, he believed, is about people's belonging positions and how the
organizations influence people to earn authority. Karl Mannheim, one of
the founders of sociology of knowledge, also proposed work on the
relationship between social Standpoints and Knowledge, i.e., worldview,
which is sometimes disregarded. The topic has long been debated in the
field of sociology of knowledge and the Frankfurt School's debate with
Critical Theory. However, standpoint theory has also become more
popular with that of feminists.

9.12 FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY -

Feminist Standpoint Theory is a feminist theoretical paradigm that

claims knowledge is derived from one's social position. This viewpoint
disputes the objectivity of traditional science and claims that research and

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theory have overlooked and suppressed women and feminist perspectives.
This notion arose from Marx's argument that people from oppressed
groups have special access to knowledge that those from privileged groups
do not. In the 1970s, feminist writers were encouraged by Marx's insight
to investigate how gender disparities affect knowledge creation. Their
research looks into the nature and sources of knowledge, emphasizing that
knowledge is universal.

Sandra Harding, an American feminist theorist, invented the term

Standpoint theory to define epistemologies that place a high value on
women's understanding. She claimed that those at the top of social
hierarchies are prone to losing sight of actual human relationships and the
true nature of social reality, causing them to overlook vital concerns about
the social and natural world in their academic pursuits. People at the
bottom of social hierarchies, on the other hand, have a distinct perspective
that is a better beginning place for studies. Even though such persons are
frequently overlooked, their marginalized status allows them to outline
key research issues more easily and explain social and natural concerns.

Dorothy Smith is a sociologist from Canada. Smith argues in her

1989 book The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology
that sociology has disregarded and objectified women, making them the
"Other." Smith said, for example, that because women have traditionally
been the carers in society, males have been able to devote their efforts to
think about abstract concepts that are deemed more significant. As a
result, women's activities are rendered invisible and viewed as "natural"
rather than part of human culture and history. From a female standpoint,
sociologists can raise specific questions about why women are assigned to
certain activities and the consequences for social institutions such as
education, the family, government, and the economy.

Objective empiricism—the concept that science can be objective

through rigorous methodology—is also questioned by standpoint theorists.
Harding, for example, claimed that, despite their claims of neutrality,
scientists had ignored their own androcentric and sexist research methods
and results and that understanding the viewpoint of knowledge producers
makes people more aware of the power inherent in positions of scientific
authority. According to standpoint theorists, starting from the perspective
of women or other oppressed people increases the likelihood of
acknowledging the relevance of standpoint and producing embodied, self-
critical, and coherent knowledge.

In her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness,

and the Politics of Empowerment (1990), American sociologist Patricia
Hill Collins advocated a kind of viewpoint theory that highlighted the
perspective of African American women. Collins maintained that the
matrix of oppression—an interwoven system of racial, gender, and class
oppression and privilege—has provided African American women with a
unique perspective on their excluded situation. She demonstrated how
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economic exploitation of African American women's labor, political
denial of their rights, and controlling cultural images that created harmful
stereotypes oppressed them. She suggested that African American women
can contribute something unique to feminist scholarship. As a result,
Collins has advocated for a more inclusive scholarship that opposes
information that dehumanizes and objectifies persons.

9.13 INDIGENOUS STANDPOINT THEORY (IST)

Indigenous knowledge fuels multi-billion dollar genetics supply

industries, ranging from food and pharmaceuticals in developed countries
to chemical products, energy, and other manufacturers. (United Nations
Development Programme's (UNDP) Civil Society Organizations and
Participation Programme (CSOPP), 1995, p. 9)

Indigenous Standpoint Theory has struggled to gain widespread

acceptance in academic areas, particularly in the Humanities. An
Indigenous methodological approach to research is a procedure in which
research is conducted for the benefit of the researcher rather than for the
non-indigenous researcher's academic institution. The community being
studied retains and values the knowledge gained. This is viewed as an
Indigenous protocol that might encourage Indigenous higher-degree
research students to participate in the documentation of Indigenous
knowledge within an Indigenous acceptability framework that is also
academically rigorous. This enables Indigenous researchers to speak from
their cultural standpoint, assist in cultural maintenance and present their
own epistemological 'truth' to produce a more inclusive and therefore
more complex form of knowledge. Martin Nakata is associated with the
Indigenous standpoint theory.

IST is widely used in New Zealand, Africa, Tanzania Australia to

study the indigenous people.
Few important key principles on which Standpoint theory is based are -
1. It aims at the promotion of human rights and social justice.
2. It focuses on raising the voices of indigenous people.
3. It tries to address the issues that are valuable and important for the
community.
4. It focuses on empathizing and acknowledging the political, social,
and historical contexts of a given society.
5. It works on building a healthy cultural interface, bond.
6. It tries to understand the role and position of the researcher in the
research and that of the participants.

In the Article Indigenism and Australian Social Work, the author

gives the cyclical diagram whereby the points they discuss are that of

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understanding the aboriginal way of being (ontology) then aboriginal ways
of knowing (epistemology, Decolonizing methodology, practicing
Culturally safe methods, etc.

Examples of Indigenous research are studying the Jarawa

community of Andaman by a Ph.D. student from JNU. He stayed with
them for several years, recorded their language, understood them from
pictures of body parts, birds, animals, and sign languages. He wrote about
the grammar of the Jarawa language. The scholar writes how once the
parents of the crying child had gone hunting and he saw the crying child
and picked up, and that gave him acceptance into the community This
shows that indigenous research is not just about techniques and bookish
knowledge but being humble in the fieldwork. This Ph.D. is the first one
in the Jarawa language in India.

Another example is that Dr. VaseemIqbal whose parents had died.

However, he used the funds he got from the Tsunami to complete his
education. He earned a doctorate on 'Sea Water Intrusion Along East and
West Coasts of South Andaman Islands.' The communitarian aspect can be
seen when he was awarded, on the radio, it was announced in Andaman
about him. People even asked if he would not be coming back to the
village to treat the people. As people didn't understand the difference
between doctorate and doctor. This is a classic example of Indigenous
research. He is the first person from Andaman who resides there and
studied about his community. This is also an example of Indigenous
standpoint theory or literature.

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss the origin of standpoint theory.

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Discuss the principles of Indigenous standpoint theory.

____________________________________________________________
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9.14 SUMMARY

We began the chapter by understanding Postcolonialism, which is

the study of society, literature before the colonizers and after the
colonizers. We also observed the different fields where Postcolonialism
has impacted, like Archaeology. In the second section of the chapter, the

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focus was upon standpoint theory. This theory gives importance to the
social location of the actors. Lastly, we learned about indigenous
standpoint theory, which focuses on bringing authenticity to research and
those the research is conducted.

9.15 QUESTIONS

1. Explain Indigenous theory

2. Explain in brief the postcolonialism meaning and its criticism
3. Explain Feminist standpoint theory

9.16 REFERENCES
 https://www.britannica.com/topic/postcolonialism
 Orientalism is associated with Edward Said; he points out that the
Orientalism, Western scholarly discipline of the 18th and 19th
centuries that studied the languages, literatures, religions,
philosophies, histories, art, and laws histories, art, and laws of Asian
societies specially the Arabs and ancient ones. However, it was filled
with stereotypes and distorted portrayal.
 Postcolonial Theory (2019)..Obo in Literary and Critical Theory.
DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0069
 Gurminder K. Bhambra, Historical Sociology, Modernity, and
Postcolonial Critique, The American Historical Review, Volume
116, Issue 3, June 2011, Pages 653–662,
https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.116.3.653
 Lydon, Jane and Uzma Z. Rizvi, "Handbook of Postcolonial
Archaeology" (Abingdon: Routledge, 31 Oct 2010 ), accessed 30
Sep 2021, Routledge Handbooks Online.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UarXGSuyyrw&ab_channel=
YaleCoursesProfessor Paul Fry, Yale University lecture
 Borland, E. (2020). Standpoint theory. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/standpoint-theory
 https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1206&co
ntext=philosophy_theses (Standpoint theory)
 Nakata, M. (2002).Indigenous knowledge and the cultural
interface. Disrupting preconceptions: Postcolonialism and
education, 19-38.
 Foley, D. (2006). Indigenous Standpoint Theory.International
Journal of the Humanities, 3(8).
 Iddy, H. (2020). Indigenous Standpoint Theory: Ethical principles
and practices for studying Sukuma people in Tanzania. The

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 Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 1-8.
doi:10.1017/jie.2020.1
 Fejo-King, C. (2014). Indigenism and Australian social work. In C.
Noble, H. Strauss, & B. Littlechild (Eds.), Global social work:
Crossing borders, blurring boundaries (pp. 55–68). Sydney
University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1fxm2q.8
 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/student-
finishes-phd-on-jarawa-language/articleshow/16374934.cms
 https://scroll.in/magazine/833423/meet-the-first-tribal-person-
from-the-andaman-and-nicobar-islands-to-complete-a-phd



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 10
FEMINIST CRITIQUE
Unit Structure

10.0 Objectives
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Feminism
10.3 Waves of Feminism
10.4 Intersectionality and feminism
10.5 Feminism in India
10.6 Feminist critique of Social Structure
10.7 Indian feminists
10.8 Importance of learning about feminist critique
10.9Understanding Feminist Critique
10.10 Feminist Research
10.11 Feminist critique of museum
10.12 Feminist critique of archaeology
10.13 Critique of education.
10.14 Biology
10.15 Feminist critique of the literature.
10.16 Digitalization and Marginalization
10.17 Summary
10.18 Questions
10.19 References

10.0 OBJECTIVES:

● To learn more about feminism and its different waves.

● To understand feminist critique from different disciplines and areas.
● To know about the pioneers in recent times on feminism from India.

10.1 INTRODUCTION

To understand the feminist critique, we have first widen our

knowledge on the concept of feminism further. So, here we are going to
discuss feminism and also different waves of feminism. After that, we
would look into the feminist critique in detail.

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10.2 FEMINISM

Feminism attempts to comprehend women's social situation,

explain their secondary role in history, and provide a foundation for
reform and development. Feminists think that men and women are in a
fundamental power struggle. This fight is potentially revolutionary since it
revolves around class and race too. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft claimed that women should have the same
legal rights as men because of their equal humanity, moral value,
rationality, and independence. It was wrong for women to be defined
solely by their gender, with educational, legal, economic, and political
rights restricted to them. There would be a change in the relationship if
equality was achieved.

10.3 Waves of feminism

Let us now look into understanding the different waves of

feminism.

There have been several ways of feminism. Diverse kinds of

intervention described the first wave of feminism in the United States, and
they have continued to inspire succeeding feminist groups. The first wave
of feminism in the United States was initially intertwined with other
reform movements, such as abolition and temperance, and heavily
engaged working-class women.

It was, however, backed by Black women abolitionists like Maria

Stewart (1803–1879), Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), and Frances E. W.
Harper (1825–1911), who fought for women's rights. Women's rights
suffered a significant backlash during World War I and World War II, as
the focus shifted to calls for national unity and patriotism. Women's
radical otherness, or rather, the cognitive and social process of "othering"
women as the second sex in patriarchal cultures, was presented by writers
like Woolf and Beauvoir.

Marxist feminism shared a fundamental conviction of inequality

and opportunity for men and women. Still, the latter focused on working-
class women and their participation in class struggle and socialist
movements. Socialist feminists such as Rosa Luxemburg and, in
particular, Alexandra Kollontai and Emma Goldman paved the way for
second-wave feminism, fighting for women's rights to abortion, divorce,
and nonlegislative partnerships—as well as against sexism in bourgeois
society and within socialist movements—both politically and in their
personal lives.

"Second-wave feminism" refers to the radical feminism of the late

1960s and early 1970s women's liberation movement. We begin our
discussion of second-wave feminism with the earliest harbinger of a new
Three Waves of feminism and the most widely known event in the United
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States: the Miss America Pageant protests of 1968 and 1969. (Freeman,
1975). Radical second-wave feminists employed performance (e.g.,
underground or guerrilla theatre) to draw attention to what was now
referred to as "women's oppression,"

The Redstockings, the New York Radical Feminists, and other

significant feminist groups participated in the 1969 protest to demonstrate
how women in pageant competitions were paraded like cattle, highlighting
the underlying assumption that how women look is more important than
what they do, what they think, or even whether they think at all (Freeman,
1975). It was a flawlessly planned press conference. A small group of
women purchased pageant tickets. It was pasted in a banner that said
"WOMEN'S LIBERATION," chanting "Freedom for Women" and "No
More Miss America," thereby exposing the public to an early second-wave
feminist objective (Freeman, 1969).

Feminists staged several types of theatrical activism while

marching down the Atlantic City boardwalk and close to the event itself,
including crowning a sheep Miss America and throwing "oppressive"
gender artifacts like bras, girdles, false eyelashes, high heels, and makeup
into a trash can in front of reporters (Freeman, 1975).

The desire to build a feminist theory and politics that honors

conflicting experiences and deconstructs categorical thinking motivates
third-wave feminists. The desire to build a feminist theory and politics that
honors conflicting experiences and deconstructs categorical thinking
motivates third-wave feminists.

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss feminism in few lines?

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2. Discuss your understanding of the different waves of feminism?

____________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________

10.4 INTERSECTIONALITY AND FEMINISM

The oxford dictionary meaning of the word Intersectionality is

“The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class,
and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as
creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or
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disadvantage.".This word was first used in women's rights by Kimberlé
Williams Crenshaw in 1989 to show how the problem is not the same for
all women. For example – A Dalit woman would face problems of caste
discrimination, class discrimination. However, a woman from a tribe
would face different layers of marginalization. Bringing out the
intersectional aspect in literature is very important.

https://iwda.org.au/3-ways-to-be-an-intersectional-feminist-ally/

The above art shows women in different forms. There is black

woman, thin, healthy women with the scarf, and women who are
differently-abled. Conclusion to this is what Intersectionality is, where
different forms are accepted and the versions of inequality are different.

10.5 FEMINISM IN INDIA

Anagol shows that the development of feminist consciousness in

India from the late nineteenth century to the coming of Gandhi was not
one of uninterrupted unilinear progression. Her study of women's
perspectives and participation in the Age of Consent Bill debates
demonstrates how the rebellion of wives and their assertion in the colonial
courts had resulted in men to reform rather than the current
historiographical accounts, which claims that it was a response purely to
threats posed by 'colonial masculinity.' She adds that the growth of the
women's press, their writings and participation in the wider vernacular
press highlights the relationship between symbolic or 'hidden' resistance
and open assertion by women.

10.6 FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

In colonial Maharashtra, women tried to express themselves and to

society through biographies, autobiographies, articles in newspapers,
journals. At times they even wrote books, trying to discuss women's issues
that arose from the patriarchal system of society at the time. These
writings criticized social customs and blind faith in religion about women.
Writings were theoretical and visionary and stood out, creating a baseline
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for feminist historiography. One such work is that of Tarabai Shinde
called Stri Purush Tulana. As there is a chapter on Tarabai Shinde hence
not much details are discussed over here.

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss Intersectionality.
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____________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________

2.Discuss feminist critique of social structure?

____________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________
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10.7 INDIAN FEMINISTS

Let us now look into a few present-day Indian feminists women

who have created an impact on thousands of people.

● Vandana Shiva - is an eco-rights activist who founded Navdanya, a

national movement to conserve the diversity and integrity of living
resources, particularly native seeds, after her battle against genetically
modified seeds and for the conservation of native seeds. Navdanya has
established one hundred twenty-two community seed banks. Farmers
have also been taught about seed sovereignty, food sovereignty, and
sustainable agriculture through the organization.

● Indira Jaising - Indira Jaising, a lawyer and human rights activist, has
been named "formidable," particularly while recalling her work to
develop the Domestic Violence Act (2005). Indira is also the Lawyer's
Collective's founder, which works to get justice for marginalized
groups. Indira was the first woman to be appointed to the Bombay
High Court as a senior counsel. Indira has taken on environmental
concerns such as coastal conservation and others and women's issues
and human rights. She headed committees in Punjab to examine
extrajudicial executions, police brutality, and disappearances in North
India in the 1970s and 1980s. She has battled some of the country's
most high-profile cases. She has also battled for compensation for
victims of the Bhopal gas catastrophe in 1984 and the Gujarat riots in
2002.

● Vrinda Grover is a human rights lawyer and activist. She has worked
on several high-profile cases, including the rape-torture case of
SoniSori, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the 1987 Hashimpura police
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 killings, the 2004 IshratJahan case, and the 2008 anti-Christian riots in
Kandhamal. She has also taken on issues concerning domestic
violence and minorities. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013,
the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offenses Act of 2012, and the
Prevention of Torture Bill of 2010 were all drafted with Vrinda's input.
She opposes the two-finger test and criticizes the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act, the death penalty, and other issues.

● VijiPenkoottu is a Kerala-based human right and women's rights

activist. Her involvement in the Kozhikode ‘Right to Sit' struggle.
Basic human rights, such as the right to sit or use the restroom during
working hours, were denied to women working in the stores and malls
of Midhayitheru, SM Street. Viji founded Penkoottu, an all-trade
women's union, to fight for the fundamental rights of saleswomen in
Kozhikode and other regions of Kerala, where similar atrocities
against working women are common. After an eight-year fight, the
Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendments) Act,
2018, allowed women to work flexible hours and have a space to sit.

● Kamla Bhasin is a social scientist who works as a development

feminist, author, poet, and activist. She has worked on gender equality,
education, poverty reduction, human rights, and peace in South Asia
since 1970. In 1979, she began working with the Food and
Agricultural Organization's Freedom from Hunger Campaign in New
Delhi, where she campaigned to empower underprivileged people in
rural and urban areas. She's written extensively about patriarchy and
gender issues. Her published publications are Laughing Matters,
Exploring Masculinity, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's
Partition, What Is Patriarchy?, and Feminism and its Relevance in
South Asia.

● Gail Omvedt - Omvedt, though, was born in Minneapolis in the United

States. She stayed in India and wrote about India too. She first came to
India to research her doctoral thesis on the 'Non-Brahman Movement
in Western India', which men like Mahatma JyotibaPhule inspired.

Her primary areas of interest were on the writings and philosophies of

Jyotiba Phule and Dr. Ambedkar. She brought them to wide public
consciousness, especially in the 1970s when social activism rose. In
many ways, she was the voice of the Dalit community at a time when
their struggle had not yet received public validation.

Her work was almost all-encompassing, covering caste, class, gender,

economics, tribal issues and socio-agricultural matters, especially rural
women. Her notable works are - Among them were the following:
Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement
in Western India; Ambedkar: Towards and Enlightened India;
JyotiraoPhule and the Ideology of Social Revolution in India; Dalit
and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit
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 Movement in Colonial India; Understanding Caste: From Buddha to
Ambedkar and Beyond; We Will Smash This Prison: Indian Women in
Struggle; Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anti caste
Intellectuals; and Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and
Caste. We Will Smash This Prison was a powerful recollection of her
involvement, along with IndutaiPatankar, the veteran communist
leader, and her mother-in-law, in the movement for women's rights in
India.

Gail Omvedt and her husband, Bharat Patankar, founded the Shramik
Mukti Dal in 1980 and other activists to organize farmers and
peasants. The socio-political organization incorporated communist
thought along with the liberating principles proposed by JyotibaPhule
and Dr. Ambedkar. Thus, they dealt with several key issues like water
rights, caste oppression, the rights of those affected by infrastructure
projects, etc.

She was even at the forefront of public protests, padayatra, rallies, and
conferences addressing people in Marathi. Gail Omvedt passed away
recently.

10.8 IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING A FEMINIST

CRITIQUE

Documenting will help the other generation to know the past and
take further steps in the direction of growth.. It would further help you to
sensitize and learn about the facets of oppression that anyone would be
passively going through in their lives. This chapter may even help you to
reflect on self and analyze one's conditions of existence.

10.9 UNDERSTANDING FEMINIST CRITIQUE

Ann Oakley defined gender where she notes, "Sex" refers to the
biological division into male and female; "gender" to the parallel and
socially unequal division into femininity and masculinity (see Sex,
Gender, and Society, 1972). Feminists point out that gender training
differs in different parts of the world, and gender is a construction of
society. Strossen (1993) notes that the radical message of feminism is not
the recognition of equality or just a measure of equalization or fairness,
but it is part of a larger struggle for social change.

Ann Oakley's book titled, The Sociology of Housework is an

important work that brings out several aspects of the private sphere, i.e.,
home. In this book, she discusses the SAHM – Stay-at-home mothers who
contribute immensely to the household. She, in a waypoints out the gender
inequity in the housework. Feminist critique is an important method for
examining prior knowledge for androcentric and ethnocentric bias in all

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aspects of knowledge development, from theoretical underpinnings
through the steps of the research process.

10.10 FEMINIST RESEARCH

It needs to be observed that feminist critique is often portrayed as

an important method for examining prior knowledge for androcentric and
ethnocentric bias in all aspects of knowledge development. In the
theoretical underpinnings and even throughout the different steps of the
research process Despite the proliferation of research on women since
1970, the male bias remains prevalent in the scientific community. The
problem in research operates twofold: not being a participant (subject) in
the research and being a researcher just because the person is a female.

10.11 FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF MUSEUM

Thousands of diverse museums, including art galleries and heritage

sites, exist around the world today. They draw millions of people,
audiences who come to view the exhibitions and artifacts and, equally
importantly, learn from them about the world and themselves. This makes
museums active public educators who imagine, visualize, represent, and
story the past and the present to create knowledge. Problematically, the
visuals and narratives used to inform visitors are never neutral. Feminist
cultural and adult education studies have shown that all too frequently,
they include epistemologies of mastery that reify the histories and deeds of
'great men.' Despite pressures from feminist scholars and professionals,
normative public museums.

10.12 FEMINIST CRITICISM OF ARCHAEOLOGY

The archaeology of gender and feminist archaeology critique is the

representations of gender, sex, and sexuality. It challenges traditional
constructions of archaeological knowledge and the role of archaeology in
present-day society. It also uses the material culture from the past. This is
done to understand gender and sexuality and how they were constructed,
maintained, changed, negotiated, and resisted through social relations,
roles, and ideologies. In addition, feminist archaeology is concerned with
contemporary practice (fieldwork, analysis, and workplace issues),
pedagogy, cultural heritage management, the past presentation, and
working with local communities.

10.13 CRITIQUE OF EDUCATION-

Schools have become cultural sites of the reproduction of

masculinities and gender roles. At times even the policymakers or the
management of the school are involved in this process. It is through the
uniform which is given to the girls. The textbooks and narratives which
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are taught to the children. All these contribute in the construction of the
persona of the child and their self-esteem. Suppose schools have strict
policies like where the children are not supposed to interact with the
opposite gender. In that case, they will have problems in adulthood
interacting and communicating with the other gender.

10.14 BIOLOGY

Women have been marginalized based on biology. Biology is seen

not merely as a privileged oppressor of women but as a co-victim of
masculinist social assumptions. When gender biases are controlled, the
fertility rate improves.

10.15 FEMINIST CRITIQUE IN LITERATURE

Literature reflects and shapes prejudices and other cultural

preconceptions, according to feminist literary criticism. As a result,
feminist literary criticism explores how works of literature represent or
subvert patriarchal views, often in the same work. The following are some
of the most common feminist literary critique techniques:

● Identifying with female characters: Critics question writers' male-

centered perspectives by scrutinizing how female characters are
defined. Women in literature have historically been portrayed as
objects from a male perspective, according to feminist literary critique.

● Reevaluating literature and the context in which it is read: By

reviewing classic literature, a critic might ask if society has
appreciated male authors and their literary works more than female
authors because males have been valued more than females.

The ultimate goal of feminist criticism in literature, according to

Tuttle, is to "develop and uncover a female tradition of writing," "to
analyze women writers and their writings from a female perspective," "to
rediscover old texts," "to interpret the symbolism of women's writing so
that it will not be lost or ignored by the male point of view," "to resist
sexism in literature and to increase awareness of sexism in literature.
(Lisa Tuttle: 1986, 184)

10.16 DIGITALIZATION AND MARGINALIZATION OF

WOMAN

Technology has questioned the binary relations of males and

females. Technology as a non-human agency has brought several changes
in human lives. Gurumurthy, et.al (2016) points out that the development
of girl child and protection for women schemes have been marginalized
further due to digitalization. The Union budget of 2015-2016 revealed that

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the budget for Women and child had been reduced by 1/3 compared to the
previous years. It is also observed that fundings for schemes like the
national rural employment guarantee scheme have been reduced. Even
though such schemes directly help the poor women. The focus is on
digitization rather than ground-level development. However, new
strategies like Direct benefit transfers have been started. Support for
health, education, food security, and childcare is replaced with more
"efficient" cash transfers based on the technological restructuring of
governance. The only structural solution to the ills of poor governance is
that of the introduction of technology. Evidence on the ground shows,
contrary to the hope that technology will reduce the layers of
intermediaries, it has instead increased the number of intermediaries
involved in payments, often with complex processes that make the
payment process more opaque than in a purely bureaucratic
mechanism. The privatization of social security has gendered impacts.
Existing studies reveal that the assumption of an automatic link between
cash transfers and women's empowerment can be misleading. In many
instances, cash transfers may reinforce traditional gender roles and also
leave intra-household gender inequalities untouched..

Check Your Progress

1. Discuss the impact of digitization on women?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Explain in brief feminist critique of the museum?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

10.17 SUMMARY

This chapter observed the feminist critique on different fields like

digitalization, education, museum, public space, intersectionality aspect,
social structure, and research. We also learned about few Indian feminists,
the social structure how it operates. The objective of this chapter was to
open up a space for debate and discussion and help one understand the
complexities associated with this topic.

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10.18 QUESTIONS

1. Discuss feminism in India with some Indian feminists.

2. Explain feminist critique on fields like Archealology, literature, and
education.
3. Explain in brief feminism and its different waves.

10.19 REFERENCES

 Harrison, Kevin & Boyd, Tony.(2018). Feminism.

10.7765/9781526137951.00019.
 https://www.lexico.com/definition/intersectionality
 Anagol, P. (2017). The emergence of feminism in India, 1850-
1920.Routledge.
 Rajan, S. (2020).FEMINIST HISTORIOGRAPHY WITH
SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PANDITA RAMABAI AND
TARABAI SHINDE.
 https://yourstory.com/herstory/2019/12/indian-women-activists-
change/amp
 https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/gail-omvedt-voice-of-
dalits-passes-away/article36095633.ece
 Gouma-Peterson, T., & Mathews, P. (1987).The feminist critique
of art history. The Art Bulletin, 69(3), 326-357.
 Strossen, N. (1993). A Feminist Critique of" The" Feminist
Critique of Pornography. Virginia Law Review, 1099-1190.
 Oakley, A. (2018). The sociology of housework.Policy Press.
 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7508705/
 DeMarco R, Campbell J, Wuest J. Feminist critique: searching for
meaning in research. ANS AdvNurs Sci. 1993 Dec;16(2):26-38.
doi: 10.1097/00012272-199312000-00004. PMID: 7508705.
 Duffy, M. E. (1985). A critique of research: A feminist
perspective. Health Care for Women International, 6(5-6), 341-
352.
 Sanford, K. (2020). Feminist Critique and the Museum: Educating
for a Critical Consciousness. Netherlands: Brill Sense.
 Engelstad, E. (2001). Gender, feminism, and sexuality in
archaeological studies.International Encyclopedia of the Social
&Behavioral Sciences, Pergamon, Pages 6002-6006
 Skelton, C., & Francis, B. (Eds.). (2005). Feminist Critique of
Education: Fifteen Years of Gender Development. Routledge.

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 Beldecos, A., Bailey, S., Gilbert, S., Hicks, K., Kenschaft, L.,
Niemczyk, N., . . . Wedel, A. (1988). The Importance of Feminist
Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology.Hypatia, 3(1), 61-76.
doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1988.tb00056.x
 https://www.thoughtco.com/feminist-literary-criticism-3528960
 Tuttle, Lisa. Encyclopedia of Feminism. [M]Harlow: Longman,
1986.
 Gurumurthy, A., Chami, N., & Thomas, S. (2016). Unpacking
Digital India: A feminist commentary on policy agendas in the
digital moment. Journal of Information Policy, 6(1), 371-402.



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 11
SOCIOLOGY FROM BELOW: DALIT
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Unit Structure
11.0 Objectives
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Major trends of social transformation
11.3 Context:
11.4 Perspective from below and the other perspectives
11.5 The need for a perspective from below
11.6 Problems with this advocacy
11.7 The Book-view and the Field-view
11.8 Conclusion
11.9 Questions
11.10 References

11.0 OBJECTIVES:

● To understand the historical factors leading to emergence of

perspective from below.
● To examine the major trends of transformation in Indian society.
● To differentiate between the perspective from below with other
prevalent perspectives.

11.1 INTRODUCTION:

Indian society is the product of a long and complex historical

process. The seven major events that contributed to the formation of this
process are the Aryan advent, the emergence of the Indian 'protest'
religions—Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, the entry of non-Indic
religions into the sub-continent as immigrant religions, the Muslim
conquests, western colonialism, the anti-colonial freedom struggle and the
partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 on the eve of the British exit
(Oommen:1998). The product of this long process is a four-in-one society.
Like all societies, Indian society too is stratified based on age, gender,
rural-urban differences and class, but unlike many of them, Indian society
is marked by considerable cultural heterogeneity. However, what is unique
to India is the all-pervasive caste hierarchy, legitimised through the Hindu
doctrine of karma and reincarnation.

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11.2 MAJOR TRENDS OF SOCIAL
TRANSFORMATION:

The complex structure of Indian Society is based on four major

trends of social transformation are in evidence (Oommen: 1998)

1. Trend from cumulative to dispersed dominance.

First, a transitional trend from cumulative to dispersed dominance.
If status, wealth and power were earlier concentrated in the hands of the
twice-born caste Hindus—Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya—accounting
for a mere 15 to 20 percent of the population, now there is an incipient
trend towards dispersal of political power to the Other Backward Classes
(OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) due to adult
franchise.

In addition to the dispersal of political power there is also a limited

dispersal of wealth among the above categories, heralding the birth of a
middle class among them. The policy of protective discrimination as in
reserving seats in educational institutions and government service are
primarily responsible for the emergence of a bourgeoisie among the SCs
and STs. The Kulaks among the OBCs are a product of agrarian reforms,
which abolished absentee landlords and transferred land to the tenants and
sharecroppers drawn from among them, and the Green Revolution, which
provided subsidized inputs and assured minimum prices for agricultural
products to owner cultivators.

However the changes in power and wealth are not matched by a

change in status Inter-dining, intermarriage and social inter-action
between the twice-born and the SCs are still rare, particularly in rural
areas. This results in status incongruence, that is their upward mobility in
wealth and power is not matched by mobility in status.

2. The gradual movement from hierarchy to equality:

The second major trend in social transformation manifests in the
gradual movement from hierarchy to equality, resulting in the decline of
traditional collectivism and the emergence of individualism. With the
emergence of individualism, the salience of traditional collectivities
manifested through joint family, jati, village, etc., are relegated to the
background. While there is no neat and tidy displacement of collectivism
by individualism, the birth of the Indian individual is clearly in evidence.

3. The simultaneous demands for equality and the assertion of

collective identity:
The third important trend in social transformation in India is the
simultaneous demands for equality and the assertion of collective identity.
The Indian Constitution unambiguously assured equality and
concomitantly, social justice to all individuals, irrespective of caste, creed
or class.

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 At any rate, the stigma associated with their identity prompted
them to abandon it and plumb for assimilation, as the process of
sanskritization implied. But gradually it dawned on them that individual
equality per se would not emancipate them and they needed to re-invent
dignity in their collective identity .Expressions such as Dalits and Adivasis
in the place of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes clearly point to this
trend.

4. The movement from a plural society to pluralism:

The fourth transition is the movement from a plural society to
pluralism (Oommen: 1997) A plural society is one in which different
social and cultural segments uneasily co-exist, inter-acting in the
economic context, but prohibiting legitimate transfusion of blood (inter-
marriages) or transmission of culture. This arrangement prevailed within
the Hindu society through the operation of the jajmani system for
centuries. Latterly, the twice-born castes interact with the OBCs and SCs
both in the political and economic contexts, but have very limited
interaction in the socio-cultural contexts.

The four trends of change that have been listed, namely the
movement from cumulative to dispersed dominance; from hierarchy to
equality and the consequent birth of individualism; the simultaneous
demand for equality and identity and the gradual transition from a plural
society to pluralism (the dignified co-existence of different socio-cultural
segments as equals in the polity) have tremendous methodological
implications for the study of Indian society.

Check your progress:

1. Elaborate on major trends of transformation in Indian society

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

11.3 CONTEXT:

The view from below is an old and persisting issue in social

science, particularly in sociology and social anthropology. But
concomitant to the emergence of the traditionally oppressed and
stigmatized collectivities as partially emancipated and empowered ones,
their conventional silence is being replaced by audible new voices. In turn,
the need for their representation in the process of knowledge production is
grudgingly being recognized.

If earlier, those who occupied the bottom of society were invisible

due to the cognitive blackout perpetuated by upper caste, middle class,
urban, male researchers, today, they are in full view and demand their

130
legitimate share of representation in the production and representation of
knowledge.

All societies have their bottoms. Thus, the bottoms of societies

which are homogenous and merely stratified are occupied by women,
youth and the proletariat. These categories have questioned the knowledge
produced by their counterparts—men, adults and the bourgeoisie. Over a
period of time, the specific role of each of these disadvantaged categories
has come to be recognized in the production of knowledge.

In culturally heterogeneous societies, if the segments are unequal,

small or economically weak or culturally 'back-ward’ or all of these, the
tendency is to ignore them in the representations of reality. There are
numerous instances when these ignored or marginalised communities
demand to be represented in the process of knowledge production. A
familiar example in India is the neglect of the numerous less developed
linguistic communities.

In plural societies, the unrepresented bottom categories are

invariably viewed as outsiders to the society, as in the case of followers of
the non-Indic religions in India. Voices of protest from them have
gradually led to the provision of space for their experience in the context
of knowledge production.

The bottom layer in hierarchical societies is constituted by the

cumulatively deprived sections of society. Unlike women, youth,
proletariat, culturally backward or alien segments, which are deprived in
one of the contexts, the cumulatively deprived are subjected to multiple
deprivations. They are found only in hierarchical societies. The ex-
untouchables of India afford an ideal example of this category of bottom.

11.4 PERSPECTIVE FROM BELOW AND THE OTHER

PERSPECTIVES:

It is also necessary to indicate what the perspective from below is

not. First, the view from below should not be confused, for the study of
other cultures, the conventional avocation of anthropologists.

11.4.1 Anthropological Method:

The specificity of anthropological 'method' is the distinction
between the etic and emic approaches both of which entailed the technique
of participant observation, which is often mystified (Oommen:1969). But
the demystification of participant observation was bound to happen when
anthropologists started investigating their own societies. The point of
interest for the present is that in hierarchical societies, anthropologists
drawn from the upper castes were invariably reluctant to 'participate' at the
bottom rung of the society, given the norms and values associated with the
practice of untouchability. Should an effort to participate in the life-world

131
of the untouchables be made by a savarna anthropologist, it will be
disapproved, not only by this own jati peers, but also by the untouchables
themselves given the grip of the, doctrine of karma and reincarnation on
them.

Even the distinction between the etic and emic approaches

remained problematic. The etic approach identified and studied social
reality independently of the natives' cultural judgments. The emic view, in
contrast, is an insider's view.

11.4.2 Subalternist perspective:

Second, the perspective from below should not be confused for the
much-heralded subalternist perspective Subalternists focussed their
attention on the circles of elite politics and have emphasised the
insurrectionary activities and potential of the subaltern classes (artisans,
poor peasants and landless labourers, which are essentially economic
categories), who, according to them, possessed self-conscious and
coherent conceptions of resistance that were directed against rich peasants,
urban traders/merchants or the colonial revenue administrators.
Subalternists claim to have unfolded the incapacity of nationalist
historiography to incorporate the voices of the weak into the project of
history writing (Guha and Spivak (eds.), 1988, in Oommen 2001).

11.4.3 Proletarian, feminist or generational perspective:

Third, the view from below is different from the prole-tarian,
feminist or generational perspective. Class in the sense of social
gradations exist in all societies and there are no immutable boundaries
between classes. Both embourgeoisement and proletarianisation are
perennial possibilities. Indeed, declassing has been advocated and
successfully attempted by many investigators There was a time, say in the
1960s, when the widespread belief prevailed that the youth alone had the
capacity to cognise truth; those above 30 were adjudged to be incapable of
perceiving truth (Feuer, 1969).

The extremists among feminists seem to take the view that only
women can understand and analyse issues concerning women. The
corollary of this is that only men can understand their problems.

11.4.4 Economic and political perspective:

Fourth, in plural societies, the segments, even when they are
equals, remain cultural strangers. That is, even as they interact in the
economic and political contexts which result in interdependence,
culturally, they are insulated. Following Simmels’ (1950) notion, one can
even accept the advantages of doing research among strangers. The point
is very that the perspective from below is the specific need of hierarchical
societies such as that of India, wherein the society is so tightly
compartmentalised that one segment cannot penetrate into the other.

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 Having said the above, we need to add a caveat here. If one were to
take a position that there is a possibility of an outsider ever investigating a
segment of society to which he does not belong, then each segment will
have to produce its own set of researchers. This will leave some segments
uninvestigated forever. For example, who will study children, individuals,
imbeciles or insane people? At any rate, there is an advantage for those
segments which can be studied by its own representatives and by outsiders
also.

Check your progress:

1. Examine the contrast between the perspective from below with other
prevalent perspectives in society
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

11.5 THE NEED FOR A PERSPECTIVE FROM BELOW:

The need for a perspective from below is inextricably interlinked

with the hierarchical nature of societies such as those of India. All the
available evidence suggests that Indian sociologists and social
anthropologists, predominantly drawn from the twice born caste Hindus,
at least until recently, have largely neglected the social realities of the
lowly placed and oppressed-the OBCs and SCs.

In All lndia Sociological Conference held in 1955 D.P. Mukherji

insisted that it was not enough that an Indian sociologist be a sociologist,
but that he be an Indian first. And how do sociologists acquire indianness?
By situating himself in Indian lore, both high and low But, “unless
sociological training in India is grounded in Sanskrit, or any such language
in which the traditions have been embodied as symbols, social research in
India will be a pale imitation of what others are doing" (Mukherji, in
Saksena, 1961). Although Mukherji wanted sociologists to be familiar
with Indian lore, both high and low, he thought that our traditions were
embodied in Sanskrit.

11.6 PROBLEMS WITH THIS ADVOCACY:

First, only the twice-born caste Hindus were allowed any access to
Sanskrit, in which the traditional texts of knowledge were written. By
insisting that Sanskrit be the route through for Indian sociologists to
cultivate originality, Mukherji was narrowing the recruitment base of
Indian sociologists.

Second, by the time education became a constitutional possibility,

Sanskrit ceased to be alive language.

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Third, the reference to 'such other languages' may be an allusion to Pali
and Tamil, but does it include Persian, too? If indeed all the four
languages—Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil and Persian—are under reference, one
cannot talk of tradition in the singular, for indeed, there is a multiplicity of
traditions in India.

Fourth, even if one takes such an accommodative view, still all the
traditions under reference are Great Traditions. And, the traditions of the
vast majority of the people of India are Little Traditions, confined to folk
regions. No sociologist can afford to neglect this rich variety of traditions
if he wishes to be called authentic.

Fifth, it is difficult to comprehend why training in sociology grounded in

Sanskrit and/or other such languages can inform sociology of originality.
According to Mukherji's prescription, an overwhelming majority of Indian
sociologists are pale imitators. On the other hand, those handful of
Sanskrit-knowing sociologists hardly demonstrated any originality; they
invariably indulged in exegetical jinalyses. In turn, this blurs the
distinction between Indology and sociology.

Mukherji, in Indian Sociology and Tradition, said: "All our Shastras are
sociological." There is an interesting link between the need to anchor a
sociologist's training in knowledge of Sanskrit and the observation that the
Shastras are sociological because the latter are in Sanskrit. But, a few
uncomfortable facts may be noted here.

First, the observation stands for Hindus. But Indian sociology cannot be
equated with Hindu sociology for the simple reason that one out of every
eight Indians is a non-Hindu.

Second, Hindu sociology necessarily implies Muslim sociology, Buddhist

sociology and the like, the very antithesis of sociology as a humanistic and
encapsulating enterprise.

Third, our does not stand even for all Hindus, the majority of the Hindu
population (the OBCs and SCs) have no role in the making of these
Shastras and they are treated as congenital interiors by twice-born Hindus
In fact, the panchamas, those of the fifth order (the untouchables) are not
even accounted for in the 'Chaturvarna' theory which deals with the Hindu
doctrine of creation.

Not only that, the Shastras also assign a marginal position to the
women of even the twice-born Varnas. To put it pithily, the Shastras
privilege upper-caste males and treat the vast majority of Hindus as
inferiors. Can they be sociological? Sociology cannot ignore the
experiences of any segment in society, much less treat them as inferior.
The mission of sociology is all embracing and ought to be humanistic.

134
 While the Shastras are theological, they cannot be socio-logical.
To anchor Indian sociology to the Hindu Shastras is to undermine
sociology's secular and humane foundations. Finally, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar,
in his debates with M.K. Gandhi in the 1930s, insisted that only if the
Puranas and Shastras and all scriptures that supported caste (i.e. inequality
and injustice), were disowned, could he call himself a Hindu. As is well
known, the challenge was not admissible to caste Hindus and Ambedkar
embraced Buddhism in 1956.

Check your progress:

1. Discuss the need of perspective from below and problems associated
with it
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

11.7 THE BOOK-VIEW AND THE FIELD-VIEW:

Indeed the 'book-view' of sociology in India was excessively in

favour of projecting the view from above. To counter this, the field-view
would have been greatly helpful if executed with care. But that was not to
be. Almost all field studies in sociology and social anthropology until
recently were under-taken from the perspective of twice-born middle class
Hindus. For example, there is hardly any study of a village, a much
celebrated theme in Indian sociology, which views the village reality from
the perspective of a Cheri, Maharwada or Chamar MohalIa. And, in field
studies as in texts those below the pollution line are designated as
Chandals, Mlecchas, exterior castes, untouchables etc., if they are referred
to at all. Even designations such as Scheduled Castes preferred by the state
and Harijan coined by Narasinh Mehta and propagated by M.K. Gandhi
are not acceptable to them. That is, the very labelling of these categories
has been debilitating and stigmatising. The compelling need for a view
from below will have to be situated in this context.

But it is important to note here that the bottom layer of Indian

society itself is no more uniform and homogenous. The upwardly mobile,
urban educated Dalit elite are qualitatively different from the cumulatively
dominated rural illiterate, economically stagnant Dalits. The urban Dalit
elite should not be allowed to endanger the cause and interests of the
cumulatively oppressed rural Dalits. That is, the perspective from below is
the epistemological privilege of the cumulatively oppressed. Those who
are incorporated into the establishment often get disembedded from their
roots. It is a time to indicate the theoretical foundation of the approach
designated as the 'perspective from below'.

There has been a cognitive black-out in Indian social science, at

least until recently, as far as knowledge regarding the life-world
experiences of Dalit-bahujans is concerned. The fact that the lifestyles of
135
upper castes and Dalit-bahujans vary dramatically in terms of food habits,
worship patterns or gender relations is tacitly acknowledged. But instead
of squarely recognising these variations and explaining why they exist, the
dominant tendency in Indian sociology has been to suggest that the Dalit-
bahujans are abandoning their way of life in favour of the lifestyle of caste
Hindus. This is what sanskritisation is all about. In this perspective, not
only are the norms and values of caste Hindus privileged, but they are also
christened as norm setters and value givers for society as a whole.
Conversely, the norms and values of Dalit-bahujans are knocked out,
ignored, stigmatised and de-legitimised. Indeed, the field-view has made
Indian sociology more authentic as compared with the book-view, but its
authenticity has been largely partial. To correct this imbalance, we need
the perspective from below.

11.8 CONCLUSION:

Finally, it is necessary to recognise that knowledge has two uses:

oppression and perpetuation of hegemony and institutionalisation of
equality and justice. The view from above sometimes directly and almost
always indirectly aids and abets oppression and hegemonisation. The view
from below can and should provide the much-needed antidote to this,
facilitating the institutionalisation of equality and social justice. This is the
rationale and justification for the perspective from below, which can
contribute to the nurturing of a robust civil society.

11.9 QUESTIONS:

Q.1 Elaborate on the need and problems associated with the perspective
from below.
Q.2 Critically examine the complex historical process of Indian society
and the major trends of transformation.
Q.3 Delineate how the perspective from below is different from other
perspectives of society.

11.10 REFERENCES:

● Dahiwale, S.M (ed)(2004): Indian Society: Non Brahmanical

perspective, Rawat Publications.
● Feur Lewis, S. (1969) The Conflict of Generations, London,
Heinemen.
● Mukherji, D.P (1961) ‘Indian Sociology and Tradition’ in R. N.
Saxena (ed), Sociology, Social Research and Social Problems in India:
Bombay, Asia Publishing House.

136
● OOMMEN, T.K. (1969), Data Collection Techniques-The Case of
Sociology and Social Anthropology, Ecomomic and Political weekly,
Vol. 4, Issue No. 19, 10 May, 1969.
● …………..(1997);Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity: Reconciling
Competing Identities (Sociology & Cultural Studies), Polity Press:
Cambridge.
● ………….. (2001) “Understanding Indian Society” The Relevance of
the Perspective from Below, Occasional Paper series 4, Pune
University Press.

❖❖❖❖

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