Sociology

Domestic or household recycling has a crucial role to play in meeting EU targets for overall recycling rates. However, researchers have yet to agree on the characteristics of the domestic recycler and how recycling is actually carried out in the home. In this article, recycling is investigated within the context of domestic labour in an attempt to understand how it fits in with or overrides traditional divisions. This brings an important new perspective to the recycling debate and at the same time updates the domestic division of labour literature to include green activities. It is suggested that recycling contradicts prevailing trends towards decreasing time spent on household chores, but that, like domestic labour, it is initiated and largely sustained by women alone or together with a partner. In this sense, recycling follows a similar pattern to more established household chores.

There is a tension in time studies between measuring and accounting for the changing distribution of units of time across social activities, and explaining temporal experiences. By analysing in-depth interviews with 27 people, this article employs a theory of practice to explore the relationship between respondents’ ‘non-work’ practices and five dimensions of time. It hypothesizes that practices which demand a fixed location within daily schedules anchor temporal organization, around which are sequenced sets of interrelated practices. A third category of practices fills the gaps that emerge within temporal sequences.The most significant socio-demographic constraints (gender, age, life-course and education) that shaped how respondents engaged and experienced practices in relation to the five dimensions of time are then considered. It is argued that the relationship between different types of social practices, five dimensions of time and sociodemographic constraints presents a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of differential temporal experiences.

While the ‘culturalization’ of the economy has led some to welcome the ‘turn to life’ (Heelas, 2002) and anticipate the remoralization of economic activity, others argue the cultural turn is conducive only to consolidating neo-liberalism's characteristic demoralization of economic relations.The cultural industries, as a leading sector of the culturalized economy, are seen to be particularly culpable in this respect, offering the illusion of freedom, but actually eroding the ethical basis of work through tendencies for individuation and exploitation. Building on the recent renewal of interest in ‘moral economy’, this article argues that claims for the demoralization of cultural industries may be premature. Empirical evidence is presented from interviews with cultural entrepreneurs in Manchester, UK, to reveal how social and political values are biographically important and made evident in the routine context of work. The conclusion offers that individualization may provide some opportunity to re-establish (non-economic) moral and ethical values at work.

The article proposes a relational definition of poor people and poverty situations grounded in the Epistemology of the Known Subject and drawn from qualitative research data. I first examine the basic assumptions of such epistemology, which has arisen from the limitations of prior ways of knowing; that is, of what I call the epistemological paradigms of the Epistemology of the Knowing Subject.Then I discuss the features of an empirical study on extreme poverty in Buenos Aires city, as well as the data analysis and concept creation processes involved.This enables me to consider the characteristics of the relational definition of poor people and poverty situations. Finally, I explore the societal model and the type of social process underlying the usual notions of poverty, and the influence of both on social policy design.

Whilst much research into alternative and complementary medicine use indicates that these practices enable experiences of control, agency and empowerment, few theoretically informed answers have been given to why and how consultations with alternative and complementary health practitioners facilitate experiences that are felt to be ‘healing’.This article utilizes theories of recognition in order to reflect on the healing experiences of women seeking health and wellbeing through varied forms of alternative and complementary medicine. I analyse the empowering and agency-giving aspects of alternative and complementary medicines, in particular in relation to wider societal conceptualizations of the self. This article is based on qualitative interviews with both practitioners and clients of varying alternative and complementary medicines.

This article initially summarizes two dominant tropes in the sociology of identity in recent years, centred on the concepts of self-reflexivity and habitus, followed by an overview of extensive critical debate to which both have been subjected. It is claimed that the key criticisms of the extended reflexivity thesis gather around accusations of excessive voluntarism in accounting for contemporary identity, while critiques of Bourdieu's conceptualization of habitus deem it overly deterministic. In an attempt to move beyond the conceptual stalemate of two distinct approaches to identity, a number of hybridized accounts have emerged in social theory.The remainder of the article discusses a number of these accounts in relation to social change, and offers an initial consideration of their strengths and limitations. It is argued that the importance of post-reflexive choice must remain integral to any attempt at hybridization of these important terms, particularly in relation to the contemporary workings of social stratification.

Some things never made it into the 21st century. Postmodern social theory seems to be one of them. In this article we ask the all important questions: what was it and what happened to it? We argue that postmodernism existed in the plural and in many of its forms as proxy. Postmodernism was always a term of convenience for critics, and paradoxically it is they who elevated a disparate group of thinkers into a coherent intellectual project.That is not to deny the existence of either a postmodern moment or of useful theoretical legacies from this purported project. Irrespective of where the criticisms of postmodernism came from, its shared intention was the defence of perceived challenges to assured knowledge.

Because architecture provides a ‘concrete’ focus for many debates pertinent to collective identities, then the rebuilding of the Ground Zero site by architect Daniel Libeskind is hugely significant from the perspective of sociology. So-called ‘starchitects’ such as Libeskind are increasingly conscious of the complex identity discourses within which their work is situated, with competing identity claims evidenced not only in the actual form of buildings, but also in the abstract narratives architects use to situate their work in a way that avoids (symbolically) privileging one identity over another.The capacity of architects to position their buildings in this way provides the focus of this article, which argues that architects’ discourses frequently reveal many tensions between culture, politics, power, and identity.The symbolic nationalization of the architecture at the Ground Zero site has, in part, been achieved by the narrative, highly symbolic links between the buildings there and an ‘American’ collective identity.