Fox, N. orcid.org/0000-0003-2037-2664 and Alldred, P. (2018) Social structures, power and resistance in monist sociology: (New) materialist insights. Journal of Sociology, 54 (3). pp. 315-330. ISSN 1440-7833
Abstract
Though mainstream sociological theory has been founded within dualisms such as structure/agency, nature/culture, and mind/matter, a thread within sociology dating back to Spencer and Tarde (Karakayali, 2015) favoured a monist ontology that cut across such dualistic categories. This thread has been reinvigorated by recent developments in social theory, including the new materialisms, posthumanism and affect theories. Here we assess what a monist or ‘flat’ ontology means for sociological understanding of key concepts such as structures and systems, power and resistance. We examine two monistic sociologies: Bruno Latour’s ‘sociology of associations’ and DeLanda’s ontology of assemblages. Understandings of social processes in terms of structures, systems or mechanisms are replaced with a focus upon the micropolitics of events and interactions. Power is a flux of forces or ‘affects’ fully immanent within events, while resistance is similarly an affective flow in events producing micropolitical effects contrary to power or control.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | monism; new materialism; ontology; posthumanism; power; resistance; social structure |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Aug 2017 10:52 |
Last Modified: | 26 Sep 2018 09:07 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783317730615 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1440783317730615 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:120309 |