This study presents a sociological profile of Peruvian female industrialists and some narratives of their struggle for personal independence and entrepreneurial success within the context of global restructuring and local deindustrialization. The study adopts the classical definition of woman's economic independence as a result of women's participation in the world of paid labor.

The purpose of the article is to examine the nature of the quantitative investigation in the Peruvian sociology. In fact, quantitative studies show a divorce between theory and methodology, result of the insufficient development of the sociological instruments and the theoretical weakness that affe..

This book represents emerging alternative perspectives to the "constructivist" orthodoxy that currently dominates the field of science and technology studies. Various contributions from distinguished Americans and Europeans in the field, provide arguments and evidence that it is not enough simply to say that science is "socially situated." Controversial Science focuses on important political, ethical, and broadly normative considerations that have yet to be given their due, but which point to a more realistic and critical perspective on science policy.

This article is based on narrative, autobiographic interviews with domestic workers in Peru focusing on their migration and work experiences. The interviewees evoke a border discourse that divides and hierarchizes Peruvian society and stigmatizes migrants, especially migrant domestic workers. As domestic service leads to intense social interactions at this ‘border’, the interviewees are constantly forced to ‘translate’ when constructing their identity. The discourse-analytical bottom—up perspective focusing on membership categorization devices evaluates the performativity of the discourses of those considered as (...) ‘oppressed’; it analyses processes of subjection and subjectification: whereas some of the interviewees internalize the discursively attributed inferior ‘Me’, others use the constructed borders as an opportunity to develop hybrid discourse strategies that cross and even deconstruct social categorizations. By focusing on the agency of ‘border-crossers’, the article aims at scientifically ‘rethinking the social with cultural difference as a constitutive feature’. (shrink)

This study examined female sex workers’ evaluation of ethically relevant experiences of participating in an HPV4 vaccine clinical trial conducted in Lima, Peru. The Sunflower Study provided all participants with HPV testing, treatment for those testing positive, and access to the vaccine for all testing negative. Themes that emerged from content analysis of interviews with 16 former participants included the importance of respectful treatment and access to healthcare not otherwise available and concerns about privacy protections, the potential for HIV stigma, (...) and poststudy abandonment. (shrink)

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address the (...) significant disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists. (shrink)

The Study of Sociology, by English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist, Herbert Spencer, was originally published in 1873. Spencer was known for his contributions to evolutionary theory and for applying it outside of biology, to the fields of philosophy, psychology, and within sociology. In particular, this work is a survey of the foundations of sociology, by one of its founders. Within which he applies the idea of natural selection to the group survival and institutional structures.

This paper aims to make a proposal to govern the Peruvian State under the umbrella of management cybernetics, following the paths of the viable system model, proposed by Prof. Stafford Beer, enriched with other soft and hard systemic methodologies and technologies, to cover the soft and hard issues that are part of the complex Peruvian reality at different levels of recursion. For doing this, four defined perspectives were adopted to understand the complexity of Peru: the sectoral view, the (...) regions view, the river basins view and the macroregions view. Peru is seen as a system in focus, defining, for each of these four perspectives, the five systems that VSM has. The application of the VSM in each perspective serves to apply it in two modes: diagnosis and design, according to the respective perspective. Then an integrative analysis and reflection is done considering the four perspectives, to analyze the viability of the VSM approach in the governance of the Peruvian State to establish some conclusions and recommendations in relation to the proposal, appearing at the end of the paper. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Peruvian Andes ranked as a key international destination for those afflicted with one of the world’s most deadly diseases, tuberculosis. Physicians, scientists, policy makers, and patients believed that high-elevation mountain climates worldwide would help cure the disease. Historical processes driving the creation of Andean health resorts, which are understudied in the historiography, uncover an important story in the history of tuberculosis, and also reveal how global health initiatives and disease treatment (...) played out within the global South, where national forces and local environmental conditions influenced the trajectory of science and medicine. Jauja, Peru, became an internationally recognized health resort for tuberculosis treatment not only through science and medicine but also through national political integration campaigns, transportation initiatives, economic development agendas, social relations, cultural perspectives of the Andean landscape, and the impact of the physical environment. This historical case about the evolution of Jauja reveals how science and medicine are shaped by distinct spatial forces that illuminate a geography of science in the postcolonial setting, as well as the ways in which climate is culturally constructed in specific sites, by different peoples, and at distinct points in time. (shrink)

The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century. Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value."--BOOK JACKET.

Most social scientists and philosophers claim that sociology and philosophy are disjoint fields of inquiry. Some have wondered how to trace the precise boundary between them. Mario Bunge argues that the two fields are so entangled with one another that no demarcation is possible or, indeed, desirable. In fact, sociological research has demonstrably philosophical pre-suppositions. In turn, some findings of sociology are bound to correct or enrich the philosophical theories that deal with the world, our knowledge of it, (...) or the ways of acting upon it. While Bunge's thesis would hardly have shocked Mill, Marx, Durkheim, or Weber, it is alien to the current sociological mainstream and dominant philosophical schools. Bunge demonstrates that philosophical problematics arise in social science research. A fertile philosophy of social science unearths critical presuppositions, analyzes key concepts, refines effective research strategies, crafts coherent and realistic syntheses, and identifies important new problems. Bunge examines Marx's and Durkheim's thesis that social facts are as objective as physical facts; the so-called Thomas theorem that refutes the behaviorist thesis that social agents react to social stimuli rather than to the way we perceive them; and Merton's thesis on the ethos of basic science which shows that science and morality are intertwined. He considers selected philosophical problems raised by contemporary social studies and argues forcefully against tolerance of shabby work in academic social science and philosophy alike. (shrink)

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...

In this contribution to social theory, John Urry argues that the traditional basis of sociology - the study of society - is outmoded in an increasingly borderless world.

From gender and identity to welfare and consumerism, sociology is the study of how societies are organized and what helps them function or go wrong. Questions posed include: What is my "tribe"? Why do people commit crimes? Who decides if someone has a mental illness? What's work for? Does aid do any good? Heads Up Sociology explores these fascinating questions and more.

The sociology of science seeks to theorize the social conditioning of science. This theorizing seems to undermine the validity of scientific knowledge and lead to relativism. Bourdieu and Latour both attempt to develop a sociology of science that overcomes relativism but stipulate opposite conditions for the production of scientific truths: while Bourdieu emphasizes autonomy, Latour emphasizes associations. This is because they work with oppositional epistemological and ontological assumptions. In both theories, the notion of truth lacks an independent definition; (...) it is derived from the theorist’s position on rationalism and defined with reference to how it is produced. This interdependence creates a different problem in each case. Bourdieu’s assertion that truths produced in relatively autonomous scientific fields are “trans-historical” remains an epistemological assertion. Latour’s argument that truths are produced through associations fails to capture the different resources, distinctions and boundarie.. (shrink)

This comprehensive collection of classical sociological theory is a definitive guide to the roots of sociology from its undisciplined beginnings to its current guideposts and reference points in contemporary sociological debate. A definitive guide to the roots of sociology through a collection of key writings from the founders of the discipline Explores influential works of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Mead, Simmel, Freud, Du Bois, Adorno, Marcuse, Parsons, and Merton Editorial introductions lend historical and intellectual perspective to the substantial readings (...) Includes a new section with new readings on the immediate "pre-history" of sociological theory, including the Enlightenment and de Tocqueville Individual reading selections are updated throughout. (shrink)

The research analyzes the teledentistry service applied in health services during COVID-19, studying the quality of the teledentistry service and the level of satisfaction of patients treated with this care model. A sample of 341 patients was worked on, using the SERVQUAL model. The results showed a statistically significant relationship between quality of service in teledentistry and patient satisfaction (p<0.05), where 34.9% patients perceived low quality of service and dissatisfaction, while 33.7% were pleased with the care. We conclude that, given (...) the dental health difficulties, the population of the Peruvian central jungle is dissatisfied with the teledentistry service. (shrink)

This collection of ten original essays was first published in 1977. It engages the 'crisis in sociology' at the most fundamental level of thought and experience. Existential sociology is defined as the study and understanding of all forms of human existence. Without seeking to erect a pristine philosophical sanctuary of its own, Existential Sociology examines and criticizes the underlying philosophical assumptions of previous theories of social science, while elaborating its own approach to human understanding. The contributors are (...) concerned with constructing practical as well as theoretical truths about social life - how we feel, think and act. In contrast to most other sociologies, the emphasis is on the independence and dominance of human feelings over the evaluative and cognitive features of social actions. Students and teachers of sociology and people in related fields interested in the connection between social science and their own subjects will find Existential Sociology useful and absorbing. (shrink)

In this article, we address an existing lacuna in the sociology of the senses, by employing sociological phenomenology to illuminate the under-researched sense of temperature, as lived by a social group for whom water temperature is particularly salient: competitive pool swimmers. The research contributes to a developing ‘sensory sociology’ that highlights the importance of the socio-cultural framing of the senses and ‘sensory work’, but where there remains a dearth of sociological exploration into senses extending beyond the ‘classic five’ (...) sensorium. Drawing on data from a three-year ethnographic study of competitive swimmers in the UK, our analysis explores the rich sensuousities of swimming, and highlights the role of temperature as fundamentally affecting the affordances offered by the aquatic environment. The article contributes original theoretical perspectives to the sociology of the senses and of sport in addressing the ways in which social actors in the aquatic environment interact, both intersubjectively and intercorporeally, as thermal beings. (shrink)

An action plan for a globally equitable sociology.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book is intended for scholars and students of sociology, social science methodology, business, economics, and social researchers.

This book expands the sociological canon by introducing non-Western and female voices, and subjects the existing canon itself to critique. Including chapters on both the 'founding fathers' of sociology and neglected thinkers it highlights the biases of Eurocentrism and androcentrism, while also offering much-needed correctives to them. The authors challenge a dominant account of the development of sociological theory which would have us believe that it was only Western European and later North American white males in the nineteenth and (...) early twentieth century who thought in a creative and systematic manner about the origins and nature of the emerging modernity of their time. This integrated and contextualised account seeks to restructure the ways in which we theorise the emergence of the classical sociological canon. This book's global scope fills a significant lacuna and provides a unique teaching resource to students of classical sociological theory. (shrink)

As scientific objects, mummies were born of Europe’s encounter with two “ancient” bodily knowledges. The first is well known: the embalmed Egyptian dead who were ground into a materia medica named mumia and later were collected as “mummies” themselves. Yet mummies owe their global possibility—of ancient sciences of embalming and environmental manipulation apprehensible worldwide—to the sixteenth-century Spanish encounter with the Incas’ preserved dead, the yllapa. This article argues that their confiscation and display desecrated their sacred affect, but their recategorization as (...) “embalmed” bodies allowed Indigenous Peruvian writers to argue for the Incas’ lost medical sophistication. European scholars then used that sophistication to establish “mummies” as a comparative category. The original yllapas decayed, blurring both Inca sovereignty and the colonial Latin American sciences that anatomized it, but their imagined resurrection in the preserved bodies of other “ancient Peruvians” turned the “Inca mummy” into a highly collectible scientific object, embodying a newly national past of ancient learning and anti-imperial indictment. (shrink)

Discusses the importance and development of analytical sociology, emphasizing the centrality of mechanisms in explaining social life.

Concept and theory formation in the social sciences, by A. Schutz.--Is it a science? by S. Morgenbesser.--Knowledge and interest, by J. Habermas.--Sociological explanation, by T. Burns.--Methodological individualism reconsidered, by S. Lukes.--The problem of rationality in the social world, by A. Schutz.--Concepts and society, by E. Gellner.--Symbols in Ndembu ritual, by V. Turner.--Telstar and the Aborigines or La pensée sauvage, by E. Leach.--Groote Eylandt totemism and Le totémisme aujourd'hui, by P. Worsley.--Bibliography (p. 225-228).

In this article, I criticize environmental sociology’s conventional diagnosis of its methodological situation and overly narrow definition of its field. I argue for a greater engagement with the natural science base and consideration of anthropological approaches. I start with conceptual analysis, identifying the human-environment relationship as a pro-active two-way interaction. I then present an outline of global environmental dynamics, highlighting the unequal size of human activities on geosphere and biosphere scale, and the role of the biosphere as manager of (...) the geosphere, this as context for the human population problem. Three types of environmental problems are next identified: urban-industrial, rural-agrarian, and high hazard exposure. These are seen as forming a continuum, with anthropogenic and natural factors synergizing at the centre. I comment on their geographic distribution, noting Europe’s limited and specific environmental experience. Lastly I attempt an overview without biological metaphors of the humanenvironment relationship through time, commenting on its inherent imbalances and how these might be diagnosed. I conclude that sociology’s bias to modernity and the West renders it inadequate to the global environmental question. A wider and deeper spacio-temporal consideration is needed, with the whole continuum of environmental problems considered. For this, environmental sociology should seek a synthesis with cultural anthropology centring on the anthropological concept of culture, an approach, I argue, that is accessible through the sociology of Max Weber. (shrink)

What is Sociology? presents in concise and provocative form the major ideas of a seminal thinker whose work--spanning more than four decades--is only now gaining the recognition here it has long had in Germany and France. Unlike other post-war sociologists, Norbert Elias has always held the concept of historical development among his central concerns; his dynamic theories of the evolution of modern man have remedied the historical and epistemological shortcomings of structualism and ethno-methodology. What is Sociology? refines the (...) arguments that were first found in Elias' massive work on the civilizing process, in which he formulated his major assertions about the interdependence of the making of modern man and modern society. It is Elias' contention that changes in personality structure--embodied in phenomena ranging from table manners and hygiene habits to rites of punishment and courtly love--inevitably reflect and mould patterns of control generated by new political and social instututions. Elias' rejection of a dichotomy between individual and society, and his use of psychoanalysis, political theory, and social history, help restore a fullness of resource to sociology. (shrink)

Sociological Theory in the Classical Era is an innovative text/reader for courses in classical theory. It introduces students to important original works by sociology's key classical theorists, and also provides a thorough framework for understanding these challenging readings. For each theorist, the editors supply a biographical sketch, discuss intellectual influences and core ideas, and offer contemporary applications of those ideas. In addition to the seven major theorists covered, the book also connects their work to "Significant Others"--writers and thinkers who (...) may have derived much of their own perspectives from Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Gilman, Simmel, Du Bois, and Mead. (shrink)

What is phenomenological sociology? Why is it significant? This innovative and thought-provoking book argues that phenomenology was the most significant, wide-ranging and influential philosophy to emerge in the twentieth century. The social character of phenomenology is explored in its relation to the concern in twentieth century sociology with questions of modern experience. Phenomenology and sociology come together as 'ethnographies of the present'. As such, they break free of the self-imposed limitations of each to establish a new, critical (...) understanding of contemporary life. By reading phenomenology sociologically and sociology phenomenologically, this book reconstructs a phenomenological sociology of modern experience. Erudite and assured, this book opens up a series of new questions for contemporary social theory that theorists and students of theory can ill-afford to ignore. The text contains a treasure trove of insights and propositions that will stimulate debate and research in both sociology and philosophy. (shrink)

By confining itself to Western male founders alone, conventional sociology has managed to exclude the female half of Western Society as well as non-European societies and social scientists. This book moves beyond the Eurocentric male character of sociology to claim the objectivity that social science is required to exhibit.

In this article, the basic sociological approaches to theorizing human emotions are reviewed. In broad strokes, theorizing can be grouped into several schools of thought: evolutionary, symbolic interactionist, symbolic interactionist with psychoanalytic elements, interaction ritual, power and status, stratification, and exchange. All of these approaches to theorizing emotions have generated useful insights into the dynamics of emotions. There remain, however, unresolved issues in sociological approaches to emotions, including: the nature of emotions, the degree to which emotions are hard-wired neurological or (...) socially constructed, the relevance of analyzing the biology and evolution of emotions, the relationship between cognition and emotions, the number of distinctive emotional states produced by humans, and the relationship between emotions and rationality. (shrink)

This chapter provides a historical reconstruction of how Alfred Schutz’s American writings were critically engaged by the feminist sociologists Dorothy E. Smith and Patricia Hill Collins. Schutz’s articulation of a phenomenological sociology in relation to, among others, the sociology of Talcott Parsons and the philosophies of science of Ernest Nagel and Carl G. Hempel proved fruitful to Smith in the development of her feminist standpoint theory in her 1987 The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Collins (...) likewise draws on Schutz’s writing in the development of her own standpoint theory in her 1986 paper “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought,” but in a way that addresses some of her own concerns with Smith’s feminist sociology. As I hope to show with the recovery of this underappreciated history, the critical insights of Smith and Collins with regard to the possible uses and limits of phenomenology for feminist theorizing, are still valuable today. (shrink)

Currently, much of sociology lacks an accurate understanding of what it means to be human. Hence, as a discipline, it often finds itself erroneously searching for probabilistic social laws based on inadequate philosophical anthropologies derived from the natural sciences. This article proffers a solution by re-acknowledging an overlooked axis of ‘human nature’. By conceiving of human beings as fundamentally moral, believing creatures, I argue that more adequate explanations of social life require a hermeneutical, historical and moralistic reading. Employing this (...) alternative approach to sociological analysis, I unearth the moral groundwork under-girding the debate between Easterners and Westerners over the question of whether the Hindu caste system is exploitative. Having done so, I conclude that only a more in-depth acknowledgment and articulation of the moral sources from which we draw our beliefs can propel debaters of both Eastern and Western philosophical dispositions towards resolution. (shrink)