Category: Opinion

Opinion

Editor's Highlights: Seeing like a sociologist to understand postcolonialism

by Keri E. Iyall Smith Explore an emerging subfield in historical sociology, imperial-colonial studies, in Julian Go’s July 2009 article in the Political Sociology section of Sociology Compass.  Growing out of the humanities and classical sociological theories, imperial-colonial studies present sociologists with both space to make new contributions and the opportunity to refine the sociological tradition. Imperial-colonial studies sociologizes the study of empire, colonial states, and colonial legacies.  It also examines racial discourse and its connections to imperialism.  Themes in...

Opinion

the prosumer and intimate profit

by nathanjurgenson Recently, this blog has focused on the labor of the crowds. I have posted that the “prosumers of the world should unite” and have continued to write on the topic. Bmckernan expertly handled the topic when discussing “light” capitalism and more recently pj.rey convincingly demonstrated that prosumption is a structural force at play in the death of old media. This post is driven by the recent announcement that Facebook, now nearly the size of the United States, has...

Opinion

Google Map for Conference Registrants – A Global Spread!

Many thanks to all those of you who have already registered for the upcoming Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. We’ve very excited to see so many delegates from around the world and look forward to a truly global conversation during the conference. Why register? The conference website will of course be free and open to all, but registrants will receive a Virtual Delegates Pack, which will include the full conference schedule, details of the discounts available on Wiley-Blackwell publications as part...

Opinion

Creating a Market for Biodiversity Stewardship

by ESMinihan The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) has successfully negotiated a $116 million benefit sharing fund designed to facilitate biodiversity conservation efforts (see Feeding the future: agricultural biodiversity from CNN).  The species targeted for protection are not majestic wild cats or giant panda bears, but rather household staples such as potatoes, wheat, rice and maize that provide half of the worlds calorie requirements.  These efforts are an attempt to avoid potential disasters stemming...

Opinion

the culture of efficiency

by nathanjurgenson I have a number of posts on this blog regarding the user-generated web (what has come to be known as Web 2.0), usually focused on social networking sites or the changing relations of production and consumption online, leading to the rise of prosumption and the prosumer (briefly, prosumption involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one or the other). Some of these ideas are published as a chapter in the new book, The Culture of...

Opinion

Finding Environmental “Political Tender”: Expressing Forest Loss in Terms of Bank Crises and Babies in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

by ESMinihan Society is faced with a fundamental difficulty when prioritizing how, and if, to address issues related to environmental quality: determining the value of environmental “goods and services” such as biodiversity, habitat, and carbon sequestration.  Even when there is consensus amongst stakeholders that all these natural services are important, given there are no explicit markets for such goods revealing a price in common units, determining which issue should receive public attention (and funds) may depend on how the value...

Opinion

culture de-jamming

by nathan jurgenson The old point that capitalism subsumes everything -even that which is precisely meant to be anti- or non-capitalistic- has been exemplified recently by corporations jamming the culture jammers by co-opting the jammer’s strategies. Culture jamming follows the Situationist (prominently, Guy Debord) tradition of challenging the status quo, including political and corporate structures. However, even these anti-capitalistic actions have been and still are co-opted and put to work under capitalism. This is nothing new. Previous literature tackled the...

Opinion

weightless capitalism

by nathan jurgenson Google announced that its new operating system, Chrome OS, will be free of charge. Further, it is designed to operate in the “cloud,” meaning that most of its functionality will exist online, using internet applications like GMail and Google Documents instead of programs installed on a hard drive (as Windows does). The free cloud-based operating system is designed to run on smaller, lighter “netbooks” -a bright spot in the computer market in these tough economic times. I...

Opinion

The lone survivor of British fascism?

by paulabowles Since 9/11, the world’s attention has increasingly been concentrated on the threat of terrorism and the mechanisms designed to uncover and combat it. Much of the focus has been on Al Qaeda; however, a recent British case suggests that this is not the only terrorist threat faced today. On Wednesday, Neil Lewington was found guilty at the Old Bailey of terrorism and explosives offences. He was originally detained for public order offences after being drunk and abusive to...

Opinion

“Operation Ore”: "A huge miscarriage of justice"?

by paulabowles In 2001, the British police launched “Operation Ore”, hailed as a ground-breaking opportunity to catch individuals, who had paid for and accessed child pornography via the internet. With a possible 7,000 plus British suspects on the database, it is little wonder that the operation was perceived to have huge criminological and technological potential, not least in the fight against transnational pornography. However, over the last two years, criticisms have been raised, particularly in relation to the validity of...

Opinion

our digital culture of narcissism

by nathan jurgenson For many (especially youths and young adults), attempting to quit or never start Facebook is a difficult challenge. We are compelled to document ourselves and our lives online partly because services like Facebook have many benefits, such as keeping up with friends, scheduling gatherings (e.g., protests) and so on. Additionally, and to the point of this post, the digital documentation of ourselves also means that we exist. There is a common adage that if something is not...

Opinion

facebook, the transumer and liquid capitalism

by nathan jurgenson During this “great recession” capitalism might become lighter and more liquid while older and more solidified traditions wash away in the flux of unstable markets (potentially an economic “reboot,” similar to Schumpeter’s notion of capitalism as “creative destruction”). Zygmunt Bauman’s “liquidity” thesis about our late-modern world becoming more fluid seems relevant in light of the “transumer” and “virtual commodities”, both having received recent attention. The transumer (video) is, in part, one who encounters “stuff” temporarily as opposed...

Opinion

Sociologists, Epidemiologists, Survivors Recall 1918

You may be interested to learn that sociologists frequently work with epidemiologists to share their expertise in understanding human behavior and culture in an effort to reduce the spread and transmission of a whole host of infectious disease such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, or even “Swine Flu.” The recent H1N1 “Swine Flu” epidemic has drawn attention to the last major influenza pandemic which occurred in 1918 – 1920 when an estimated 20-40 million people died worldwide.  In the below articles, a...

Opinion

Look for a Guest Post by George Ritzer

Just a quick notice: Look for a Guest Post from George Ritzer on April 15th right here on the Sociology Lens blog. The post,  titled “Are Today’s Globalized Cathedrals of Consumption Tomorrow’s Global Dinosaurs?”, deals with the recent transition from hyper- to declining-consumption.  ~nathan

Opinion

Books: Globalization & Introduction to Statistics

by Bookblogger Globalization by Frank J. Lechner Written in a lively and accessible style, this book shows how globalization affects everyday experience, creates new institutions, and presents new challenges.   With many examples, Lechner describes how the process unfolds in a wide range of fields, from sports and media to law and religion. While sketching the outlines of a world society in the making, the book also demonstrates that globalization is inherently diverse and contentious. In this concise analysis of a...

Opinion

Breaking through Barriers Only to Find More

With the election of an American president committed to the expansion and endowment of the sciences, a recent New York Times article posed the question asked by many scientists: how to attract women into the sciences. However, as the article later touches on, women’s entrance into the fields of science involve much more than making a career in science appear attractive for women. Women working in scientific career’s must be “attracted” to science as young children, made to feel comfortable...