Summary
Contents
Subject index
'This is a smart and compelling book. Difficult ideas are presented in an accessible manner, with plenty of supporting illustrations…Students will enjoy the research material and other supporting material. A definite winner!'- Professor Jay Gubrium, University of Missouri This book gets to the heart of what the social sciences really know about the elusive and contradictory object of research: human reality. Drawing on a wide range of international examples and scenarios, Social Theory and Human Reality examines key sociological concepts that we use to understand human behaviour such as: norms, rules and meanings; language and discourse; ritual; and personality and identity construction. Alasuutari clearly and convincingly demonstrates: - The constant interplay between routines and reflexivity that grounds social order - how the body and our bodily experiences mediate our social reality - that language plays a multi-faceted role as it describes, reflects and constructs human reality Building on the work started by Berger and Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality, this book is a lucid and contemporary analysis of the premises shared across the social sciences, and of the kaleidoscope of 'human reality'. This important book will be welcomed by students and scholars alike in the fields of Cultural Studies, Sociology and Anthropology.
Conversations
Conversations
In the introduction it was argued that social order is based on the ‘cultural unconscious’, on routinized, taken-for-granted trains of thought and action, rather than on regulative rules or on a uniform, shared meaning structure. Because of our routines, as individual members we voluntarily contribute to sustaining the peaceful and orderly character of human societies. In any society or community, there are of course times of greater or lesser disagreements and conflicts, in which the ‘rules of the game’ are negotiated and renewed. However, even radical and abrupt changes such as revolutions really only touch the surface of the deep waters of the cultural unconscious.
To better understand how this works, how we unconsciously reproduce the social hierarchies and power structures in our daily lives, ...
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