A Road Map for Applying Relational Sociology
Aytul Kasapoglu .
2019
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal
Relational sociology is based on the French and the German who first came to mind. It is important to note that Bourdieu and Elias are an introduction to relational sociology, although in the last 30 years different opinions or voices have been heard from America and Europe. For this purpose, following the process-based sociology of Bourdieu and Elias, Kivinen and Piiroinen (2013) were given to emphasize epistemology rather than ontology and to make it clear from metaphysical consideration. On
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... he other hand, the work of White and his colleagues (2013) was handled in detail to represent relational sociological studies in the United States. As a result, the theoretical foundations of relational sociology under the metaphorical titles of three from Europe and one from America were tried to be explained in detail. In the conclusion part, relational sociology was made clear with some tables. 449 discussing intellectual opposition such as positivism and interpretivist sociology. The most important thing that emerges in this fruitful talk and argument is the formation of a network of relationships to understand dynamic social processes rather than a single or original theory. Because until the 1990s, the dominant positivist understanding in network analysis was neglecting the interpretation and construction of meaning as it was far from the concept of cultural richness because of the heavy influence of the mathematical direction. On the other hand, The American Sociological Association's (ASA), the formerly marginalized cultural section, is also beginning to expand and in the mid-2000s, "cultural sociology" studiesthis area, which often overlaps with subfields such as political sociology, comparative historical studies, social movements and collective behaviour-becomes the most sophisticated field of study. The relation-network analyses of important sociologists such as Bearman (1993) , Mohr(1994) and Erikson(1996) that pioneer the understanding of cultural and historical processes draw attention . For relational sociology, "New School for Social Research" in New York and C. Tilly and then M. Emirbayer sociologists were the first to come to mind. Because in the 1980s the university administration employed famous thinkers such as C. Tilly and E. Hobsbawm, allowing intensive discussions between critical theorists, structuralists and post-structuralists to create new approaches. Indeed, in this productive environment, C. Tilly came to a synthesis called "relational realism" by observing his current views on identity, narrative and discourse. M. Emirbayer, who later became an assistant professor to the New School in 1991 and was interested in the interpretivist sociological tradition while working at Harvard University theManifesto of Relational Sociology is written by him in 1997. A more systematic and theoretical (especially ontologically accented) relational sociology literature than the previous ones has become popular in the USA and Europe in recent years, with the claim that it is a new paradigm and the practice examples. For example, Emirbayer (1997), White (1998; 2013) and Mohr (2005; Powell and Depelteau (2013) Depelteau and Powell (2013) also draw attention in Canada; sociologists such as Tsekeris (2010), Kivinen and Piiroinen (2012), Kaspersen (2011) and Fuhse (2013) have begun to be mentioned in Europe. In Turkey, efforts to promote this trend and translation-based debates have started (Göker ve Çeğin, 2012; ÇeğinveEsgin, 2015). On the other hand, while the presence of competing views rather than a single relational theory undermines the claim of being a new paradigm, the risk of drowning in sociology, philosophical debates, has increased in parallel with the ontological orientation of the subject being treated more heavily. Here is, it should be especially mentioned that this article is written with more scientific preferences by being tried to stay at epistemology level to prevent the intervention of philosophy to sociology with the ontological arguments. Consciously the focus of this manuscript is on epistemological and therefore methodological concernes of relational sociology. For this reason it was shown that there were relational sociological studies from Europe (P. Bourdieu, N. Elias and O. Kivinen& T. Piroinen) and USA (H. White and et al.) and the results are summarized in tables. In fact, it should be underlined that the core staff of the discussion group that can be called a team were my students and the discussions took almost two years in the form of workshops in and out of my doctorate courses in the Department of Sociology of Faculty of Letters at Ankara University. Moreover, the only reason why our modest workshops, which can not be compared with the environment of the 1990s in America, are shared with readers by giving fruitful results; in Turkey, to show that the "epistemic communities" can be established when it is needed. Risk and trust are like the two sides of the same money, and it is necessary to control it to get rid of ambiguity as H.White (2013) points out. We have probably taken a risk to see how much we can grasp the theretical discussions of relational sociology, but our colleagues and related readers will decide whether or not it is worth it. PREVAILING WINDS FROM EUROPE 1 : P.BOURDIEU AND RELATIONAL SOCIOLOGY Bourdieu, as a sociologist, although he has a lot of followers, has not escaped the target of criticism. When Bourdieu is assessed in relation to relational sociology in this subsection , it should be particularly noted that John Mohr's (2013) criticism is followed. Thus, shown how the criticized aspects of Bourdieu were surmounted. John Mohr is a professor of sociology at Santa Barbara University in the USA / California. Mohr, examines systems of institutional discourse and articulation of these dualities in a relational sociological way. It should be remembered that opposition to dualities and articulations is the main distinguishing feature of relationalism. One of Bourdieu's still-important views today is that sociologists must adopt a relational approach rather than a substantialist approach. According to Bourdieu (1998) , the essencialist approach focuses on "things" rather than relationships. It also tends to reify social order and come to the core of social phenomena. Apart from all these, it is positivism oriented when doing social research. Because of this, Bourdieu rejects essentialism and prefers relational analysis because it carries these features. This means seeing the examined subject contextually as a part of the whole. For him, the meaning of the subject / object is not determined by its essence, its distinctive features and qualities. Instead, meaning is derived from the "field", practices or activities that are embedded within the subjects / objects (Bourdieu,1998). According to Mohr (2013:102), Bourdieu's relational analysis is important for three reasons. These are: a) Contributing to the development of the "structuralist" style of interpretation, b) to emphasize the interpretive nature of institutional life, c) provide a strong framework for the analysis of institutional dualities. It is the effort to overcome individual-society dualities. For this purpose, he tries to establish a connection with cultural forms of social positions by adding cultural analysis. But according to Mohr, Bourdieu's theory is always more successful than he does in practice. Mohr (2013) focuses on how Bourdieu has made relational theory work for this purpose. The impression he gets from here is ironic. Because although his method is important enough to be taken as an example from certain directions, he rarely uses it. Mohr (2013:102) actually makes very important evaluations. In his view, it is clear that Bourdieu has analyzed data that he has failed to relationally look at, which he expects from other social scientists, and which he collects with more deterministic straight line logic. In other words, Bourdieu itself is determined by the linear / straight line style. For this reason, the linear analysis, also called "dimensionality", may be a better indication of social and cultural processes than Bourdieu's relational theoretical view. Mohr (2013:102) therefore underscores the importance of topological thinking, saying that instead of Bourdieu, it is necessary to turn to institutionalists or new social network theorists. Mohr (2013) thus believes that the concept of "field" is better understood. To go beyond the Bourdieu's "cultural field" theory and to study the field theory itself we have to ask following questions : "What is the field really?", "How a field works ", "How can we examine and measure fields in space." For 451 this purpose, Mohr examines the thoughts of Kurt Lewin, a German-born psychologist, who worked on field theory many, many years ago. Moving from the connections between contemporary thinkers and Lewin, he suggests a model of how to map the cultural field topologically with relational logic. In recent years it has been observed that interest in Bourdieu and his basic concepts such as field, capital types and habitus has increased considerably. Numerous people share Bourdieu's belief in making both relational-based social science and field theory. His ideas and approaches are therefore being moved into many different and new research areas (Breiger, 2000; Calhoune et al., 1993). Bourdieu's relational understanding is based on French structuralism, while rejecting analyzes in substancist style. As he wrote in his autobiography, he is influenced by the structuralism of Levi Strauss from the earliest days and by the view that Ferdinans Saussure's language is completely relational (Caws, 1988) . He recognizes that the signifier and the signified relation, which is the basis for semiotic studies such as Saussure, is also arbitrary. Structuralism, as Caws (1988) points out, is not ansubstantialist in the realities of social sciences and human beings, but rather a relationalist view. In this context, the most fundamental characteristic of structuralism is that it is also a critical "method" for determining and investigating relations sets or structures. Bourdieu is influenced both by Cassierre (1910; 1953) at a young age and by Sauussure's terms, learns that similarities and differences emerge in the relational system and that the meaning is arbitrary (cited in Mohr,2013:103-104). These structural roots in early Bourdieu's have led other consequences . For example, Bourdieu tried to interpret the cultural meaning by "hermeneutic" whatever the topic studied. According to Bourdieu, all institutions should be studied in the same way as language. These features show that social science practice, which he embraces, is structuralist theory. Structuralism actually has the characteristics of formal methods and is in harmony with them. In fact, Bourdieu's social awareness of collecting quantitative data is greater. However, according to Mohr (2013:104), his bringing together his self-reflexive theoretical stance and empirical data accumulation further increases the demands and applications to him. According to Mohr (2013:104), Bourdieu treats cultural forms as objects of empirical analysis in his relational sociology conception. As a result, the structural and relational legacies that he possesses have intertwined in Bourdieu, leading him to develop his own approach to the study of institutional life meaningfully within social and cultural fields. On the other hand, it is important to note that it is not possible to say that Bourdieu's work is fully structural. Because the work of sutractialistslike Levi-Strauss, Lacan, and Barthes is very different. In addition, structuralists have greatly criticized post-structuralists such as Derrida.Post structuralistshave used the "deconstruction" method to show how the meanings of sacred texts can be altered. Bourdieu,has remained uninterested to the post-structuralist winds in the social sciences and attempted to develop his own method. Bourdieu (1977) began to construct his theory when conducting field studies in Algeria, and the "Theory of Practice" emerged as a theoretical approach to the study of the culture. Bourdieu's approach to this work quite well describes the need to confront the duality between agency and institution and to struggle to overcome this difficulty. He is aware that this struggle is the core of human life and is important for social sciences. Theory of practice, on the other hand, is also very important for empirical social science because it provides the basis for the structuralist defending the fixed meaning of texts. The fact that the meanings are derived 453 succeeds in education, the future class position will also be high. In other words, culture here is producing social structure. However, according to Bourdieu, the social class also produces culture in the same way. Because social classes have different cultural habitus and have cultural capital that affect institutional success. Mohr (2013:107) examines how Bourdieu's research practice is and how he collects data. For example, his most important work, "Distinction" is on. In this study, Bourdieu examined the relationships between social classes and judgments of taste in France through diagrams. In this study, Bourdieu used survey data from the field to explain the relationship between social classes and cultural tastes. Bourdieu (1984) notes that it is not easy to construct these diagrams. Because it is necessary to avoid being one-sided and biased and to show the network of all relations. To overcome these difficulties, it is clear that Bourdieu looks at the "correspondency" between the social structure and the social space, taking advantage of the semiotician Ferdinand Sauussure. This approach is to take the "social space" and the "capital" together, in which the symbolic features are loaded (Bourdieu, 1984:96).
doi:10.14738/assrj.61.5977
fatcat:4jy6xi7verbhrlto5kvghoeqky