University of Victoria

Relational Sociology: From Project to Paradigm (Applied)

Networks, fields, figurations, discursive formations: these and other relational ideas have gained widespread currency in contemporary sociology, and a distinct relational sociology has been on the rise over the past decade and a half. But for this relational turn to lead to a fully-‐ fledged paradigm shift, fundamental questions must be addressed. Just what are relations, anyway? How do we observe and measure them? How does relational sociology extend or revise the achievements of more established sociologies? Just how deep a shift in our understanding of the sociological enterprise does a relational and reflexive framework entail? To develop a more comprehensive relational sociology, we solicit papers on principles, concepts, methods, advantages and limits of relational sociology. Included papers may address such topics as self-‐reflexivity, transactions, agency, interdependency, relational methodologies, and relational social structures or mechanisms or processes, interdisciplinary connections, and the implications of relational thinking for critical theory, amongst other possibilities.

Chair: Christopher Powell, University of Manitoba

Session Organizer: Francois Depelteau, Laurentian University, fdepelteau@laurentian.ca ; Christopher Powell, University of Manitoba, chris.powell@ad.umanitoba.ca ; Tatiana Savoia Landini, Federal University of Sao Paulo, tatalan@uol.com.br

Knowledge Mobilization Networks: A Mobilization-Network Approach for the Social Network Analysis of Science Research and Innovation

Joanne Gaudet, University of Ottawa, jgaud041@uottawa.ca

The main goal in this paper is to propose a theoretical conceptualization of social network analysis (SNA) for the study of knowledge mobilization in science research and innovation. At its core this conceptualization rethinks relations in knowledge mobilization and how they can be measured beyond academia and the use of bibliometrics. I advance the concept of ‘mobilization-network’ to capture temporally dynamic knowledge mobilization flows. The starting point is a model for knowledge impact in science research and innovation. The proposed SNA mobilization-network theoretical approach is inspired by actor-network-theory (Latour, 2005). Networks explored through the mobilization-network approach consist of individual human actors and organisations associating with other individual humans and organisations through knowledge mobilization actors (i.e., laboratories, publications, research projects, presentations, media events, patents, and new business ventures). In conclusion, the proposed conceptualization can contribute to further understanding of the relations in SNA and what this means for knowledge mobilization research within and beyond academia.

Thursday June 6, 2013 08:45 AM - 10:15 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160

Thinking through Scenes: "Scene" as Sensitizing Concept in Social Research

Benjamin Woo, Simon Fraser University, bmw3@sfu.ca , Jamie Rennie, OISE / University of Toronto, jamie.rennie@gmail.com

In ordinary language, “scene” draws diverse figures and practices into a perceived unity, albeit a loosely bounded and internally differentiated one. Introduced to popular-music studies in an influential paper by Will Straw, the “scene perspective” disrupted the dominant paradigm of musicians and songs. Instead, scene thinking sketches the whole field of social relations where music circulates. It is a thoroughly relational mode of analysis.

Straw subsequently expanded the concept’s use to a variety of cultural practices, and we push this even further: first, critiquing the ascendant paradigm of “network talk”; second, arguing for scene’s superior ability to conceptualize social relations; and, third, introducing two “flavours” of scene thinking, one Bourdieusian and one Foucauldian. They are explored through two case studies—a nerd-culture scene and media literacy scene, respectively—where scene functions as a “sensitizing concept.”

Scene is, thus, a tool for empirical analysis, and scene thinking can be applied to institutions, processes, and practices in any domain of social life. It outlines objects of analysis and traces their movements in space and over time, making it easier to identify key relationships of interest.

Thursday June 6, 2013 08:45 AM - 10:15 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160

Relationships of Charisma

Paul Joosse, University of Alberta, jjoosse@ualberta.ca

Recent studies have elucidated the social constructivist tendencies in Weber’s writings on charisma, but none have developed a general model to explain how leaders achieve the social recognition of an extraordinary or charismatic status through small interactional steps over time. I will maintain that the group that Weber called the “charismatic aristocracy” is defined and selected not primarily on account of its “show business” activity that is fundamentally comported to the world external to the interactional charismatic core. Rather, the charismatic aristocracy is a “select group of adherents who are united by discipleship and loyalty and chosen according to personal charismatic qualification” (1922: 1119). A relational understanding of charisma requires interpreting “personal charismatic qualification” to mean not that members of this select group, like their leader, evince a proclivity for becoming a focal point of charismatic devotion in their own right, but rather that they display excellence in their ability to comport themselves as charismatic followers. This understanding points to the most prescient need of incipient charismatics: it is essential that the leader may look to a trusted few who, with very few conditions, can be relied upon to look back assuringly with what appears to be uncompromised faith.

Thursday June 6, 2013 08:45 AM - 10:15 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-160