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This chapter focuses historically on the philosophical theory of quasi-religious worldviews in conflict by analyzing a 17th-century Dutch Golden Age painting. The painting reflects the effects of iconoclasm—destruction of images—in formerly Catholic churches by Dutch Calvinists, as well as providing an example of citizens—Protestants and Catholics—who live in different worlds, that is, who see things differently and have different values. There is an analogy here with Latour’s sense that there are two worlds in the climate-change debate, making it difficult for us to have a common understanding of a scientific issue. Finally, the chapter revisits a unique 19th-century critique of Enlightenment claims to have risen above religious belief. Dutch Calvinist thinkers identified a religion among the supporters of the French Revolution, not in the sense of a deistic religion, but a set of faith-like commitments—perhaps a “quasi-religion” or ideology.
This article focuses on the fundamental role that emotion memories play in constructing autobiographical narrations. It suggests that the analysis of emotion memories can provide a deep insight into a variety of processes and fields of individual and social life (). Based on the analysis of emotion memories in life-story interviews, this article will show the deep-rooted interrelatedness between the self and its social environment with emotion memories as an influential element. This article aims to show that strong emotional experiences mould the interviewees’ narrations because they penetrate and shape the remembered past and anticipated future by enhancing, suppressing and hence shaping past and future experiences. If turned into emotion memories, these experiences allow the channelling, taming and/or evoking of emotions. This practice relates different memories and life-story moments with each other and puts them into a new context. This article claims that emotion memories have therefore a crucial structuring effect for autobiographical narrations and are therefore also a valuable element of analysis of interviews. We claim that emotion memories become visible and therefore analysable as emotional expressions or emotives, as emotion performances intentionally performed or accidentally caused (; ).
In this article, I propose the articulation between emotions and senses from relational sociology in three levels of analysis: experience, practice and sensory networks. I will address the relationship between emotions and senses, considering theoretical, methodological and empirical dimensions. I outline the theoretical framework that distinguishes the sociology of the senses from other disciplines within the field of sensory studies. I will state theoretical problems that allow us to see the convergences and possible exchanges between the sociology of emotions and the sociology of the senses: (1) The type of actor of reference. (2) A particular image of the self. (3) The relationship between the self and reflexivity. (4) The type of relationship between senses and emotions. Finally, I will delve into three analytical levels to study the relationship between emotions and senses: experience, practice and sensory networks. At this point, I will highlight some main categories, methodological strategies (a sensory workshop) and research findings I have conducted on urban sensory experiences in my context, Mexico City.
This article addresses a lacuna in the literature on the ‘emotional turn’ in journalism by examining how emotions shape journalists’ career trajectories. In-depth interviews conducted at two points in time reveal that love leads journalists to accept precarious work. Over the years, cynicism developed. Cynicism shaped careers in two ways: some moved into public relations and expressed emotions of relief. Others left media organisations to work as freelance journalists, expressing emotions of wanderlust and love. We address the ambivalence of love as an emotion. It leads journalists to accept precarious work that prevents investigative journalism. However, love of journalism has led others to pursue careers outside of media organisations that offer more freedom of expression, which is crucial for democracy.
Intersectionality is a concept that has received little attention in scholarship on consumption, despite its significant relevance. Marie Plessz and Stefan Wahlen organised a roundtable held at the European Sociological Association (ESA) Consumption research network (RN5) interim meeting, 2 September 2022, in Oslo. This is a summarised and edited transcript of this roundtable discussion. As such, it advances the conceptual lens of intersectionality applied to (food) consumption studies and critically assesses possible future avenues of research that build on existing approaches. It first discusses the role of social and political positions that might be considered intersectionally, to then outline central characteristics as well as empirical strategies when investigating food. This transcript also showcases a possible novel format that is welcomed in the journal Consumption and Society.
This article examines young people’s attitudes towards parental involvement in paid work and their association with two channels of intergenerational transmission – parents’ employment arrangements and gender ideologies – the relative importance of these channels and if young people’s gender moderates the association. The data came from a German two-wave panel study of 609 adolescents (aged 15–21) surveyed in 2018 and their mothers in 2013–15. Analyses show that young people’s preferred weekly working hours for mothers were positively related to their parents’ employment arrangements and gender ideologies four years earlier. In contrast, the more progressive their mother’s gender ideology was, the fewer working hours young people preferred for fathers. The two transmission channels were nearly equally important and their impact did not differ between female and male adolescents. Our findings suggest that the intergenerational transmission of gender roles might be one of multiple factors contributing to stalling trends in gender equality.
This article presents our Family Stories model identifying self-reported change behaviours and environments by families developed from our two-phase research in an inner-city area in the south of England. The research focused on parents whose families had experienced complex issues affecting the behaviour, wellbeing, learning and/or safety of children, and who had received social care support from services that had broadly adopted a trauma-informed approach. We identified parents’ self-reported change behaviours and environments, in the context of the high rate of families relapsing and returning for multiple episodes of support. We also identify key challenges to securing long-term positive change, including the barriers to nurturing a strong and successful parenting identity, in which parents are more able to sustain positive change. Our model identifies four enablers, evident in the self-reported change behaviours narrated by our participants: community, allyship, strategy and mastery.
In this article, we discuss epistemic injustice in the International Child Development Programme (ICDP), a universalised parenting support programme in Norway that is mandatory for all newly arrived refugees. We show that despite the programme’s good intentions, it constitutes a form of epistemic injustice because it enforces a state-endorsed epistemology that proffers the ‘right’ way of parenting. Using data collected during ICDP training for a group of newly arrived refugee parents from Syria, we explore how the ideals embedded in the programme influence the interactions and epistemic exchanges between participants and mentors. This study contributes to discussions on parenting support for marginalised groups by revealing the functioning of epistemic injustice as new inhabitants in a welfare state are targeted by a social support programme aimed at enhancing their parenting skills.
In this article, I investigate the social organising of a process leading up to a Somali single parent I call Maryam receiving a letter from the Norwegian child protection services (CPS). Using institutional ethnography, I show how Maryam’s experience is shaped by generalised, objectified understandings that transcend the relations she has at specific points in time; by what Dorothy Smith labels ruling relations. Based on Maryam’s story about the process leading up to the letter from the CPS, but also on documents connected to her case and other interviews with her, I show how she is constructed as a mother lacking knowledge and needing help, and how she is constructed as a suspicious mother when she declines this help – and the role of generalising, objectifying understandings in this process.
Presently and historically, working-class mothers have been positioned as problematic. Their children’s low attainment is blamed on perceived deficiencies in their parenting. Tied to this, the concept of the ‘word gap’ has been used to demonstrate a language deficit, which it is claimed leads to working-class children starting school behind their middle-class peers. These concepts are central tenets to the BBC’s Tiny Happy People website which was analysed to ascertain current ‘good’ mothering discourses. This critical discourse analysis considers the authorship of the website and the BBC’s status as commissioning editor, alongside its key concept: addressing the word gap. Tiny Happy People’s target audience are parents from lower socioeconomic groups. Together with the content of the website, this framing will be used to consider Tiny Happy People’s approach to the perceived problem and how that may affect working-class mothers.
