The paper explores some peculiarities of the development geoculture of the postsocialist societies in transition on the basis of the results of empirical reserach conducted in Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria in 2003, 2007 and 2012. It focuses on the social attitudes of different social groups, and especially those of student population, on the current interethnic relations, Eurointegration modernization challenges and processes, the trends leading to dependent subdevelopment and retraditionalization. The results point to three tendencies intersecting in the given regional geospace: a) the tendency towards isolationism and retradiotionalism / retribalization, i.e. towards regression and return to premodern communities; b) the tendency towards dependent modernization and subdevelopment, and c) the tendency towards opening to the challanges of modernization and processes of European integrations. Our analysis shows that the third tendency is the most productive / the optimal one in drawing up contemporary development strategy / development policy. It is tightly intertwined with modern production forces, globalization processes, progressive reform tendencies and the culture of peace, and should therefore be insisted on in social processes directed by social agents. This is a result of the fact that the future of the Balkans does not lie in the focus on the past, in divisions and clashes, but in opening new development and civilizational perspectives for new generations, in the culture of peace and democratic cooperation and integration of this region.
Contemporary sociology is at a fateful crossroads. The paper points to some aspects of its crisis as a science and vocation, the forms of its cognitive pathology and the erosion of positive identity in the universe of sciences and the modern professional division of labour. Indicating the causes and consequences of this crisis, the author concludes that it cannot be overcome only by technical improvement of the methodology of empirical research, but requires profound efforts of the new generation of sociologists, and new answers. Otherwise, Peter Berger's pessimistic predictions about the obsolescence and bankruptcy of sociologists and sociologists might come true. The conclusions we reached in our problematization of this issue can be summarized as follows: 1) the need to redefine contemporary sociology in the spirit of globalization of its subject as a multicomplex science of the laws of structure and dynamics of the global world system and the theoretical-empirical study of phenomena and processes at all levels of social organization. macro, meso, micro) from the perspective of the methodological principle of dialectical concrete totality; 2) building a new theoretical synthesis in the form of a multidisciplinary integrated paradigm; 3) opening sociology through multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research towards new challenging fields of the future that has begun; 4) redefining its vocation identity in the Mils-Bourdieu key as a martial discipline, radical-critical, reflexive-engaged, emancipatory and actionist sociology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.