In order to delimit the realm of social phenomena, sociologists refer implicitly or explicitly to a distinction between living human beings and other entities, that is, sociologists equate the social world with the world of living humans. This consensus has been questioned by only a few authors, such as Luckmann, and some scholars of science studies. According to these approaches, it would be ethnocentric to treat as self-evident the premise that only living human beings can be social actors. The methodological consequence of such critique is a radical deanthropologization of sociological research. It must be considered an open question whether or not only living human can be social actors. The paper starts with a discussion of the methodological problems posed by such an analysis of the borders of the social world, and presents the results of an empirical analysis of these borders in the fields of intensive care and neurological rehabilitation. Within these fields it must be determined whether a body is a living human body or a symbol using human body. The analysis of these elementary border phenomena challenges basic sociological concepts. The relevant contemporary sociological theories refer to a dyadic constellation as the systematic starting point of their concept of sociality. The complex relationship between at least two entities is understood as the basis of the development of a novel order that functions as a mediating structure between the involved parties. Based upon empirical data, I argue that it is necessary to change this foundational assumption. Not the dyad but the triad must be understood as the foundational constellation. This implies a new understanding of the third actor, which is distinct from the concepts developed by Simmel and Berger and Luckmann.
Body and gender difference are two closely related subjects within feminist discourse. The body -that is, our everyday understanding of it as well as how it is seen by biomedical research and within a broad base of feminist theory -is considered the ultimate point of reference for a distinction of gender that precedes social forms and practices. When ethnomethodologists and deconstructivists break down the assumption that sex difference is not socially determined, this inevitably leads to the view that bodies differ in gender as a result of social practices.' This also raises the question whether or not the material conditions of the body are to be comprehended entirely as a socially created reality.In this article, I take up this hypothesis by attempting a seemingly paradoxical experiment. On the one hand, I regard it as untenable to assume a natural gendered body; on the other hand, it seems to me just as imperative to recognize an inherent logic of the body and the sensory reference of bodies to their environment. Based on this, my thesis is as follows: gender difference must be fundamentally understood as a social form, the local realization of which is broken down by the inherent logic of that which is physical or sensory. In order to develop this line of reasoning, I proceed in two steps. We must first determine how gender difference can be viewed as a variable social form that regulates the distinction between genders. In this way, the gender form of distinction also becomes a condition for the distinction between bodies, insofar as they are experienced and treated as gender-defined bodies. Consequently, gender-different bodies exist only within the framework of historically variable forms of gender distinction. Since the form of distinction only exists when it occurs locally, however, it becomes possible, if not imperative, to examine the events of distinction in terms of its physical and sensory constitution. InThe European Journal of Women's Studies
Theories of face-to-face interaction employ a concept of spatial presence and view communication via digital technologies as an inferior version of interaction, often with pathological implications. Current studies of mediatized communication challenge this notion with empirical evidence of “telepresence”, suggesting that users of such technologies experience their interactions as immediate. We argue that the phenomenological concepts of the lived body and mediated immediacy (Helmuth Plessner) combined with the concept of embodied space (Hermann Schmitz) can help overcome the pathologizing of digital communication in social theory and enable descriptions which are truer to the experience of using said technology. From this perspective it appears as an ethnocentric premise to restrict interaction to human actors being present in local space. This restricted understanding of interaction does not allow for an appropriate empirical analysis of the emerging structures of digital communication.
ZusammenfassungIn diesem Beitrag schlage ich eine Beobachtungsperspektive vor, die es ermöglicht, Gewalt als Konstituens des Sozialen, also als Vergesellschaftungsmodus zu beobachten. Hierfür werden drei Richtungen der neueren soziologischen Gewaltdiskussion zusammengeführt, die bislang ohne Bezug aufeinander nebeneinanderher laufen. Dazu gehören zum einen die Thematisierung von Gewalt als unmittelbare leibliche Interaktion, als moralische Handlung sowie die Diskussion um die Bedeutung des Dritten für Gewalt. Zugleich verbinde ich die Diskussion um Gewalt mit der Frage nach den Grenzen des Sozialen. Dabei verfolge ich die These, dass Gewalt i. S. von „vermittelter Unmittelbarkeit“ (Plessner) zu begreifen ist – nämlich als drittenvermitteltes symbolisch-institutionelles leibliches Agieren. Durch Gewalt stellen die Beteiligten die Gültigkeit normativer Erwartungen in einer generalisierten Weise füreinander dar. Damit stellen sie zugleich die Grenzen der Sozialwelt dar, denn der Gewaltakt beinhaltet notwendigerweise, dass der Adressat der gewalttätigen Handlung eine soziale Person ist; nur eine solche kann normative Erwartungen verletzen bzw. deren Gültigkeit darstellen. Wenn man Gewalt im Sinne vermittelter Unmittelbarkeit analysiert, führt dies auf die Analyse von Verfahrensordnungen der Gewalt. Denn diese vermitteln je unmittelbare Gewalthandlungen.
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