Contemporary Social Theory

“We Grew Here, You Flew Here”: The Politics of National Identity in the Cronulla Riots

by Benjamin Moffitt

Honours thesis, University of Wollongong, 2008. Awarded the 2008 University Medal.

What were the Cronulla riots, why did they occur, and what can they tell us about the operation of national identity?... more What were the Cronulla riots, why did they occur, and what can they tell us about the operation of national identity? Examining media accounts of the 2005 Cronulla riots through the theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau’s political theory, this thesis aims to understand how we negotiate the border between ‘Australian’ and ‘un-Australian’, and how this delineation is vital to the creation of national identity. It traces the emergence of the overdetermined Middle Eastern/Muslim Other in Australian society, investigates why those who rioted at Cronulla and those who supported them imagined themselves as marginalised, and ultimately concludes that national identity, as a totalised hegemonic logic, is impossible.

Castoriadis at the Limits of Autonomy? Ecological Worldhood and the Hermeneutic of Modernity

by Suzi Adams

Draft only (Forthcoming in the European Journal of Social Theory)

This paper critically engages with Castoriadis’s elucidation of autonomy. It does so by taking into account the... more This paper critically engages with Castoriadis’s elucidation of autonomy. It does so by taking into account the implications of Castoriadis’s enduring interest in the ecological devastation of the natural world, on the one hand, and the changing configuration of his philosophical anthropology, on the other, especially in regards to his reconsideration of the creativity of nature in the 1980s and the reconfiguration of the nomos and physis problematic. It contextualizes these movements in his thought within a broader hermeneutic of modernity that, following Johann Arnason, emphasizes the cultural currents of both Romanticism and the Enlightenment as constitutive of modernity as a field of tensions. In an extension of Arnason’s elaboration, however, the present paper argues that a latent opening towards an ecological worldhood is implicit to Castoriadis’s hermeneutic of modernity that, conversely, also finds Castoriadis at the limits of autonomy. 


Keywords: Cornelius Castoriadis * Johann Arnason * autonomy * ecological worldhood* hermeneutic of modernity* physis and nomos * philosophical anthropology

Towards an Archaeological-–Realist Foucauldian Analytics of Government

by Jon Frauley

British Journal of Criminology, 47(4), 2007, 617-633

Studies of government that build upon the work of French thinker Michel Foucault have become very influential for... more Studies of government that build upon the work of French thinker Michel Foucault have become very influential for criminological and sociological research and theorizing. However, because Foucault's archaeological texts—those prior to 1975—have, in large part, been neglected, many currents within his work that can be used to reformulate, strengthen and extend the analytic of government for the production of criminological knowledge have been left unexplored. This paper attends to the conception of indirect rule elaborated on in Foucault's archaeological texts and to how the ontological position elaborated there is sympathetic to realist metatheory. The paper advances a post-empiricist and realist informed analytic of government that holds government to be a stratified process concerning more than the empirically apprehendable outcomes of management techniques, forms of social action and expertise, indirect mechanisms of rule, socio-political objectives, and the proximity of authorities from regulatory objects. In retrieving the neglected archaeological Foucault and illustrating the realist currents within his work, the paper provides some ‘theoretical preconditions’ and ‘metatheoretical coherence’ for future investigations of the institutions, practices, processes and objects of social ordering and rule that criminologists and sociologists routinely engage with.

Situation Critical: For a Critical, Reflexive, Realist, Emancipatory Social Science

by Jon Frauley

with Ronjon Paul Datta and Frank Pearce. Journal of Critical Realism, 9(2), June 2010, 227-247

This paper articulates the commitments, contours and justifications for a pluralist but non-eclectic critical,... more This paper articulates the commitments, contours and justifications for a pluralist but non-eclectic critical, realist, reflexive social science with emancipatory aims. In it, we stress that social science can and should be used to guide the conceptualization of desirable and viable forms of social organization and their conditions of realization. In this regard, we advocate explanatory theorizing as an ethical duty of social scientists and as a moral good in itself as well as being an inherent epistemological component of scientific practice. This entails that we take seriously the research strategies apposite to our disciplinary, intertextual and interdiscursive locations to make a serious theoretical case and practical case for the kind of social science here advocated. In our view, such a social science must acknowledge the path-breaking work of Roy Bhaskar, but must also recognize that the arguments deployed in texts as a resource in intellectual work can never be treated as the axiomatic grounds for further thought, but must be interrogated thoroughly and in each case what is to be retained must be defensible. No position has a monopoly of relevant insights and the development of science often involves syntheses. Syntheses must not be syncretic but reflexively interrogated to assess epistemological, ontological and conceptual coherence to avoid eclecticism. Development in critical realist philosophy will, we believe, continue to confront and offer plausible resolutions to a range of battles within and pertinent to philosophy and social-scientific metatheory. However, realists must recognize the continuing importance and discursive effects of a variety of critical and realist work in being able to defend, sustain and develop rigorous social-scientific research with emancipatory
commitments.

Migrazioni, sicurezza, confini nella teoria sociale contemporanea

by Giuseppe Campesi

The paper is currently under revision for the journal "Studi sulla Questione Criminale" (2012).

Review of Crime as Structured Social Action by James W Messerschmidt

by Carl L Bankston

Michel Foucault. Le istituzioni giuridiche tra produzione del sapere e sistemi di potere

by Giuseppe Campesi

Published in: Campesi Giuseppe, Pupolizio Ivan, Riva Nicola (eds.), Diritto e teoria sociale. Introduzione al pensiero socio-giuridico contemporaneo, Carocci, Roma, 2009, pp. 93-129

L’«individuo pericoloso». Saperi criminologici e sistema penale nell’opera di Michel Foucault

by Giuseppe Campesi

Published in “Materiali per una Storia della Cultura Giuridica”, XXXVIII, 1, 2008, pp. 121-142.

Norma, normatività, normalizzazione. Un itinerario teorico tra Canguilhem e Foucault

by Giuseppe Campesi

Published in: “Sociologia del Diritto”, XXXV, 2, 2008, pp. 5-30

This essay aims at exploring the theoretical implications for the foucauldian research project of some key concepts... more This essay aims at exploring the theoretical implications for the foucauldian research project of some key concepts developed by Georges Canguilhem. Namely the concept of «norms», «normativity», and «normalization». I believe these concepts crucial for understanding the development of the genealogical project on which Michel Foucault embarked during the Seventies, and particularly for obtaining a deeper understanding of the idea of disciplinary power as part of the broader biopolitical project. This preliminary conceptual exploration between Canguilhem and Foucault, will also provide some useful theoretical tools to better understand the position of the legal phenomenon within the foucauldian genealogy of modern power. 

Rischio e sicurezza nella società globale. A proposito dell’ultimo libro di Ulrich Beck

by Giuseppe Campesi

Published in: “Studi sulla Questione Criminale”, IV, 2, 2009, pp. 107-118.

In his recent book Weltrisikogesellschaft Ulrich Beck addresses some of the critics moved to his influent risk society... more In his recent book Weltrisikogesellschaft Ulrich Beck addresses some of the critics moved to his influent risk society theory since 1986. In doing this he ends up with refining, and enriching his theory by considering the huge debate it has stimulated during last two decades. In these paper I discuss these revisions of the risk society theory, reconsidering them on the light of other influent sociologies of risk.

Stato diritto e mercato nella società globale. A proposito della sociologia della globalizzazione di Saskia Sassen

by Giuseppe Campesi

Published: in: “Sociologia del Diritto”, XXXVII, 2, 2010, pp. 177-193.

A distanza di un anno l’uno dall’altro sono stati resi disponibili al lettore italiano gli ultimi lavori di Saskia... more A distanza di un anno l’uno dall’altro sono stati resi disponibili al lettore italiano gli ultimi lavori di Saskia Sassen: "Una sociologia della globalizzazione" (2008) e "Territorio, autorità, diritti" (2009). Il presente contributo intende ricostruire criticamente il percorso di ricerca seguito dalla sociologa olandese e, in particolare, il suo apporto teorico al vasto dibattito in corso nelle scienze politico-sociali sull’impatto che i processi di globalizzazione hanno avuto sulle strutture giuridico-politiche moderne. Diversamente dalla letteratura dominate, Saskia Sassen propone di considerare il ruolo dello Stato quale referente fondamentale per la produzione delle condizioni politicoistituzionali che rendono possibile la globalizzazione. A tal fine enuclea la categoria teorica di de-nazionalizzazione, utilizzata per descrivere l’avviarsi di un processo di ridefinizione della topologia politico-giuridica moderna in cui lo Stato non svolge il ruolo della pura vittima sacrificale.

Morphogenetic Approaches to Religion: Understanding Religion from the Perspective of Margaret Archer

by Caroline Hoel

Nature and Society

by Byron Kaldis

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415548250/

Social capital as process: The meanings and problems of a theoretical metaphor

by Carl L Bankston

Philosophical Strategies: Althusser and Spinoza

by Peter D. Thomas

“Philosophical Strategies: Althusser and Spinoza”, Historical Materialism 10.3, Brill, Leiden, 2002.

Self-Interpretation, Agency, and the Objects of Anthropology

by Webb Keane

Intégrer la cohésion sociale et les diversités issues de la migration

by Federico Oliveri

published in F. Kemajou e D. Stokkink (eds), La diversité dans tous ses états, Les Cahiers de la Solidarité, Brussels, pp. 23-29.

¨Let´s bury a few liberals!¨ (A Lacanian Gesture)

by Alex Betancourt

Judging by recent reflections from cultural theorists, political scientists, historians and philosophers, it seems... more Judging by recent reflections from cultural theorists, political scientists, historians and philosophers, it seems Francis Fukuyama had it his way: we are indeed at the end of history. I have, of course, to give you the immediate caveat. Fukuyama seems to have 'won' academically (a Pyrrhic victory for sure), to the extent that most of contemporary political discourse has given up any meaningful critique of contemporary political liberalism and its historical conception. And a meaningful critique entails much more than any remedial assessment of the current state of affairs either through the politics of tolerance, multiculturalism, or respect for different cultures, ethnic rights, gay rights, feminist struggles etc. Academics and media pundits depart from the Fukuyamian assumption about which liberalism is the end of history, and in a self-deluding understanding of themselves as leftists immediately move to give a fierce defense of multicultural tolerance based on a plea for the welfare state. However, seldom does one encounter meaningful demands that effectively go beyond this pseudo-leftist reformist agenda, to put it in an old-fashioned Marxist parlance. This is indeed a bleak picture. However, it gets worse...

Anarchism: some theoretical foundations

by Alan Carter

Abstract:

The article considers two different, yet related, theoretical approaches that could be employed... more Abstract:

The article considers two different, yet related, theoretical approaches that could be employed to ground the anarchist critique of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice, and thus of the state in general: the State-Primacy Theory and the Quadruplex Theory. The State-Primacy Theory appears to be consistent with several of Bakunin's claims about the state. However, the Quadruplex Theory might, in fact, turn out to be no less consistent with Bakunin's claims than the State-Primacy Theory. In addition, the Quadruplex Theory seems no less capable of supporting the anarchist critique of Marxism-Leninism than is the State-Primacy Theory. The article concludes by considering two possible refinements that might be made to the Quadrupex Theory.

"Per Marx", nonostante Marx

by Cristian Lo Iacono

Draft.