Book review: Syed Farid Alatas and Vineeta Sinha, Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon

No abstract available

Jeremy Corbyn, the PLP and historical visions of the Labour Party

No abstract available

Revisiting Freud as a social theorist - but which Freud?

No abstract available

Book review: Restoring the Classic in Sociology: Traditions, Texts and the Canon

No abstract available

Families and relationships e-Special issue introduction

This Families and Relationships e-Special Issue contains a selection of ten papers previously published in Sociology. In this Introduction, we first outline the broader sub-disciplinary context in which the paper contained herein can be located and explain the criteria we used to select them. The increased popularity of families and relationships as a focus of sociological study is reflected in the dominance of papers published in the 1990s and later. Our selection highlights the following developments within the field: the shift from the sociology of the family to a sociology of families; the debates surrounding late modern changes and the individualisation thesis; increased diversity regarding types of family and kinds of issue that have been researched; and continued theoretical development by extending the family practices approach and by widening the scope of study. We include reflections of how the papers in this e-Special Issue speak to developments in the discipline at large and in the field of families and relationships, as well as what the future might hold for the field

Note on recruitment as an ethical question: lessons from a project on asexuality

This short piece considers how participant recruitment can have ethical elements. With reference to a qualitative research project on asexuality we explore the challenges associated with recruiting from an emerging, and politically charged, identity group. In our attempt to broaden the representation of asexual stories we sought to recruit people who may not fully identify with the emerging term ‘asexual’ as a sexual orientation while also not equating this with a lifestyle choice of abstinence. This was attempted through crafting suitable recruitment materials via the use of the Mass Observation archive and expanded sampling criteria. Our efforts met with mixed success, on which we reflect. We conclude by suggesting how such ethical questions related to recruitment will remain ‘gaps’ in ethical regulation, calling for a greater reflexive approach from researchers about sampling criteria

Metaphysical Sociology: On the Work of John Carroll

Sara James (ed.) Metaphysical Sociology: On the Work of John Carroll Routledge: London, 2018, £115 hbk (ISBN: 9781138091788), 170 pp

A brief history of sociological alternatives

No abstract available

Morality as rebellion: towards a partial reconciliation of Bauman and Durkheim

This paper seeks to bring the sociologies on morality developed by Zygmunt Bauman and Émile Durkheim into conversation. Rather than adopting an approach which sees their perspectives as opposed, it will be suggested that while there are differences in their broad approaches there is also a hitherto uncommented upon overlap concerning the possibility of moral rebellion. For Bauman, inspired by those who were part of the resistance to the Holocaust, this is seen to reside in the pre-social moral impulse to be for the other while Durkheim links this to the role of education as a form of moral socialization. By exploring these links, we can see that both rely upon a conception of the conscience which, expressing the moral ideal lying behind our morally imperfect world, inspires actors to act morally in immoral times. The paper concludes by suggesting that this argument reflects recent claims concerning the potentially humanist elements of a sociological perspective and long-running debates on the potentially ‘oversocialized’ conception of individuals common to sociology. Therefore, this paper raises wider questions about the notion of the human resting behind sociological ideas

Jeremy Corbyn, the PLP and historical visions of the Labour Party

No abstract available