Advancing Sociology through a Focus on Dynamic Relations

Kasper, Debbie

doi:10.1057/9781137342652_5

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Considering the RRDM as part of a temporal process -seeing time as substance, as a structuring mechanism itself rather than a linear process -therefore addresses the problem of linearity and non-reflexivity which I have argued, characterise the key theoretical perspectives of this phenomenon in environmental gerontology. It also goes some way towards addressing the fundamental criticism advanced by Kasper (2013) that relational sociology still needs to provide a convincing conceptualisation of these relations as dynamic processes. My suggestion is that this gap stems from the need to conceptualise social relations as integral to, and transformed through temporal processes.…”

Section: Critical Reflections: Later Life Residential Relocation Decimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…How then to account for them through the lens of a relational ontology? Kasper (2013) again gives some perspective on this in her model of dynamic relations when she identifies the built environment as one element of the biophysical context in which, she posits, all social life necessarily occurs (2013, 81). The built environment (for example, someone's home) could therefore perhaps be conceptualised as she proposes, as part of the "interrelated contexts of biophysical conditions, figurations and habitus" which together contribute to generating different and ever changing "lifestyles".…”

Section: Critical Reflections: Later Life Residential Relocation Decimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Relational Sociology: Contributions to Understanding Residential Relocation Decisions in Later Life

Hillcoat‐Nallétamby

2018

The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology

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The increasingly globalised emphasis on casting individuals as consumers, empowered with choice and decision-making strategies enabling them to exercise individual agency in diverse markets has been reflected in policy discourse and service provision targeted at older people; hence they are portrayed as independent agents, free to choose and select products, services and lifestyles as informed consumers, notably when it comes to their health and social care preferences. This emphasis finds its routes in neo-liberal thinking which gives primacy to individual, voluntaristic, rational choices embedded within decision-making predicated on intentional, consequential action. Whilst this is a welcome move from the long-standing, dichotomous social representation of older people as either "dependent-disempowered"/"independent-empowered" social agents, it nonetheless overlooks the possibility of a more nuanced construction of their social action as the product of temporal, transactional processes evolving with others through complex figurations of interdependent relationships. This chapter aims to demonstrate the relevance of relational sociology as an ontological orientation with the potential to provide renewed understanding of the social phenomenon of later life residential relocation decision-making as a transactional processes. Viewed through a relational lens, the concepts of temporality, transactional process and interdependencies will provide a framework for making sense of older people's experiences of the residential relocation process, as depicted through their own narratives. It is hoped that this work will enhance theory in the field of gerontology, where scholars have tended to focus on theorizing later life social phenomena through the lens of macro-level structural determinism and its constraining influence on individual agency, or the micro-level focus of humanistic approaches. The field of gerontology has therefore yet to adopt, in any depth, the ontological insights provided by relational sociology.

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Section: Critical Reflections: Later Life Residential Relocation Decimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Critical Reflections: Later Life Residential Relocation Decimentioning

confidence: 99%

Relational Sociology: Contributions to Understanding Residential Relocation Decisions in Later Life

Hillcoat‐Nallétamby

2018

The Palgrave Handbook of Relational Sociology

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The ‘Mesopotamian trap’: from the ‘first’ international to dynamic multiplicity

Powel

2024

Int. Theory

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Building on studies of historical non-Westphalian world orders, this article challenges desires to identify a ‘first’ international. The question ‘when was the first international?’ is fundamental to defining disciplinary boundaries and the ontologies that shape them. Such quests are substantialist rather than relational, limiting our understanding of the relations and diversity of agents involved in world ordering. Existing approaches to the ‘first’ international are caught in a ‘Mesopotamian trap’: a combination of social evolution conceptual models grounded in colonial epistemologies, analytical presentism, and the surviving propaganda of ancient urban rulers. This article proposes ‘dynamic multiplicity’ as a new framework to account for the diversity, complexity, dynamism, and relationality of world orders in past and present. Dynamic multiplicity emphasizes: a quantitative and qualitative multiplicity of actors; never-ending and always unfolding relations; the instability and permeability of social actors; the diachronic nature of social action; hierarchical and heterarchical power relations; the multi-scalar spatiality of the social; and sustained and critical interdisciplinarity. It applies dynamic multiplicity to the case of Sumer and ancient West Asia, a so-called ‘first’ international, to reveal a diversity of durable relational actors and contradict assumptions that international relations necessarily lead to world orders of homogenous unit-types.

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Advancing Sociology through a Focus on Dynamic Relations

Cited by 2 publications

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Relational Sociology: Contributions to Understanding Residential Relocation Decisions in Later Life

Relational Sociology: Contributions to Understanding Residential Relocation Decisions in Later Life

The ‘Mesopotamian trap’: from the ‘first’ international to dynamic multiplicity

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