(RES2) Relational Sociology II

The word ‘radical’ has the same Latin root as ‘radish’ and refers to roots. Radical relationism ‘goes to the root’ in two ways: by reconceptualizing all fixed, fast-frozen “things” as consisting of or constituted by relational processes, and by using relational thinking to critique and challenge social structures in pursuit of radical social equality. Replacing dualisms of subject and object, society and nature, individual and collective with complex heterogeneous tangles of relations/processes, radical relationism explores openings and connections beyond Eurocentrism and anthropocentrism, and towards antiracism, feminism, trans liberation, decolonization, pluriversality, socialism, and other emancipatory projects. Papers exploring sociocultural, political, ethical, onto-epistemological, ecological, or other uses of relational thinking in radical ways are invited in a spirit of challenging and collaborative discussion. Tags: Knowledge, Networks, Theory

Organizers: Christopher Powell, Toronto Metropolitan University, Mónica Sánchez-Flores, Thompson Rivers University; Chair: Christopher Powell, Toronto Metropolitan University

Presentations

Min Zhou, University of Victoria

Influences of Sociocultural Networks on the International Trade Network: Evidence from the Exponential Random Graph Model

The international trade network is one of the most prominent manifestations of economic globalization. It reflects complex interconnection and interdependence among national economies. Thanks to its importance it has become one frontier of the scholarship on the intersection of social network analysis (SNA) and economic globalization. Despite many advances made in the application of SNA to the international trade network, empirical research on sociocultural influences on the international trade network has been scarce. The theoretical foundation of sociocultural influences on economic activities arguably originates from Coase’s (1937) transaction costs theory, but it is economic sociologists who have made systematic contributions. Granovetter (1985) introduced the idea of “embeddedness” that sees economic relations as embedded in real social networks rather than abstract idealized markets. Economic sociologists have illustrated the importance of sociocultural influences on various economic activities (Smelser and Swedberg 2005). Such theories as transaction costs and embeddedness provide a theoretical foundation for a social dimension underlying the international trade network. Nevertheless, empirical research has been scarce in actually revealing what and how sociocultural factors shape the international trade network. There are some notable exceptions (Frankel 1997, 1998; Zhou 2010, 2011). These exceptions confirm various sociocultural influences in shaping international bilateral trade, not the international trade network, though. According to these studies, sociocultural influences on bilateral trade have been on the rise over time. Countries are increasingly attracted to socioculturally similar countries when conducting international trade. As a result, international trade displays a tendency towards regionalization along sociocultural lines. Nevertheless, when this scarce existing empirical literature examines sociocultural influences on international trade, it predominantly employs the gravity model borrowed from international economics, instead of SNA. There are major limitations of this approach. The gravity model explains bilateral trade flows but cannot account for the overall structure and formation of the international trade network. In other words, the gravity model remains at the dyadic level, rather than the network level. It treats bilateral trade as independent from each other and thus ignores interdependence of bilateral trade in the international trade network. Bilateral trade is not simply a business of the two countries involved, but is also under systemic influences from the overall international trade network. The SNA is more effective in taking into account systemic influences than the gravity model. Consequently, there is a notable gap in the scholarship on the international trade network. This study is a first attempt to fill this gap and foreground sociocultural factors when applying SNA to international trade. It employs SNA tools to examine various sociocultural influences on the structure and formation of the international trade network. Specifically, we use the Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) to investigate influences from five major international sociocultural networks (the common language network, the common religion network, the historical colonial network, the regional trade agreement (RTA) network, and the common currency network) on the international trade network. We distinguish two types of such influences, the embeddedness effect and the positional effect. They represent two distinct mechanisms through which international sociocultural networks affect international trade. The embeddedness effect focuses on the direct influence of sociocultural connections, whereas the positional effect captures the indirect influence from a country’s position (centrality) in international sociocultural networks. The ERGM modeling of international trade data in 2010 generates interesting findings. First, connections in the common language, common religion, and RTA networks all significantly promote the formation of trade relations, whereas connections in the historical colonial and common currency networks show no effect. Second, positions in different sociocultural networks display differing effects on the international trade network. While a more central position in the RTA network promotes a country’s trade relations with others overall, more central positions in the common language, common religion, and especially common currency networks may actually depress the formation of trade relations with other countries in general. A more central position in the historical colonial network shows no significant effect. We further discuss the explanations and implications of these findings.

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Non-presenting author: Gang Wu, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Leo HENRY, University of Toronto

The nation in the field: The latent structuring effect of Nationality in Estonia

In the era of nation-states, the dominant culture of the state is defined in national terms. In most states, for instance, knowledge of the state language is required to obtain their citizenship and rights. Nationality is the identity that emerges from this nationalist relationship between state, culture and people – citizenship being one of the ways in which the state sanctions this connection. But the attention given to nationality focus either on identification and meaning or take it as a shared individual characteristic explicative for patterns of behavior. The former misses the role of nationality on social structures, the latter essentializes nationality and misses its inner diversity of experience and intersectional effect. This speaks to the general issue of the relationship between identity and culture, and the ways in which we can recognize the role of identity onto people’s dispositions – and how dispositions affect identity – while capturing the diversity this relationship. This paper delves into the intricate web of national dispositions within the context of Estonia, shedding light on the multifaceted interplay of culture, identity, and social structure. Drawing upon Bourdieus field theory, the study explores the positioning of national dispositions within the Estonian field, encompassing values, perceptions, and tastes. This research does not only aim to discover how national identity affects social disposition through their relational organization, but also what are national disposition in Estonia but also how they can intersect with other form of belongingness such as gender, class, or age. Estonia, with its complex history marked by the presence of two competing nations, offers a unique setting for this analysis. To achieve this, I employ Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) to explore various fields, including politics, family values, economic morality, and democratic beliefs, while considering variables like national identity, citizenship, gender, and age and interviews to determine how this hierarchization affects people’s trajectory. I show that there is an Estonian capital structuring the Estonian field that act in interaction with other system of domination, and that people’s disposition and position are affected by their accumulation of such national capital. Through interviews I collected, I explore how Estonian capital affected individual everyday life, but also the issues and unequal access to it. All in all, I show how in the era of the nation-state the legitimate culture of the state is not only the one of an Elite, but of a national elite, and that in Estonia, Russians especially, must conform to an Estonian habitus to get privileged positions. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of nationality in cultural stratification, but also of the relationship between identity and culture. It proposes a framework to analyze nationality that goes beyond the opposition between national identity as an identification and an ideology, and nationality as an essential human characteristic explaining people’s behavior, while capturing embedded relation of domination

Victor Jimenez Rivera, Tallinn University

Decolonizing Knowledge Production: A Critical Look at Knowledge Production in the Europeanization Narrative in European Integration

The European integration process has been based on a hegemonic narrative developed around an unequal understanding of European norms and values. This has resulted in the unequal development of the European institutional project and its orientation toward benefitting the interests of its Western European core, channeled through the EU and its institutions, and of peripheral societies’ political and economic elites. This paper explores the use of Europeanization, as a hegemonic narrative, to legitimize neocolonial relations between the EUs core and its periphery, with the Western Balkan candidate states as a case study. This case has been selected due to the salience in their societies and political processes of twin deeply interconnected processes (European integration and state capture). The study aims to contribute to the study of these normatively contradictory processes within the framework of wicked problems, laying the foundation for a future governance approach aimed at overcoming the entrenched colonial relations scrutinized here. Applying the ontological framework of relational sociology, the paper reflects on the unequal nature of power relations in European integration through the role of knowledge production. Understanding the hegemonic and neocolonial nature of the Europeanization narrative, the paper aims to problematize it and decolonize knowledge production on Western Balkan societies. This perspective is tied with a discourse-historical approach to situate the relations under analysis in their colonial context, one of enduring exploitation and essentializing of peripheral societies by their neighboring hegemon. The paper argues that in promoting the hegemonic narrative of Europeanization, core and local elites can deepen and entrench the subordination and alienation of non-elite actors in peripheral societies. The paper starts with an exploration of the role of othering and hegemonic narratives in International Relations, particularly as it relates to the underlying power relations they often serve to legitimize. Hegemonic narratives will be shown to construe the status quo in a relationship as corresponding to materially dominant actors’ understanding of their relations with underprivileged, particularly subaltern, actors as inherently natural, desirable, and mutually beneficial. The development of these narratives to legitimize the status quo and monopolize knowledge creation in its favor is further explored as knowledge production on Western Balkan societies and their integration with European institutions is shown to be discursively embraced as a mutually beneficial process, framing dominant actors as models to be followed. This, the paper argues, serves the twin purpose of enabling Western European elites to negate the impact of colonialism on their states’ own economic growth, as well as presenting neoliberal norms as a taken-for-granted development model to be fostered, thus deepening the inequalities in the relationship.

Christopher Powell, Toronto Metropolitan University

Critical Materialist Irrealism and 21st Century Socialism

In this paper I define irrealism, not as an ontological claim, but as a gesture of conscientiously abstaining from ontological claims. Practicing irrealism means stepping back from the game of ontology. This allows us to observe how others play the game, and to negotiate amongst alternative ontologies without requiring a new meta-ontological consensus. Defined this way, irrealism is something we already practice some of the time. Irrealism can help us reformulate radical socialism. The Eurocentric development of the modern world-system has involved cultural imperialism and genocidal settler colonialism, driving a catastrophic reduction of human ethnodiversity and steering humanity towards monoculturalism. Classical socialism has been anticolonial but still modernist, predicated on ontological consensus and therefore lacking intrinsic theoretical resources for protecting ethnodiversity. This paper examines the ways in which irrealism is consistent with historical materialism, how it is already being used effectively by socialists, and how its use could be extended to articulate a pluriversal socialist futurity.