Abstract

The term “charisma” is recognized as sociology's most successful export to common speech. While sociologists habitually dismiss popular uses of the word, we address its vernacularity head on as a worthy object of study and as a potential resource for conceptual development. Using machine learning, we locate “charisma” within the wider discursive field out of which it arises (and continues to arise) across four corpora; namely: Weber’s major writings; social scientific research (123,531 JSTOR articles); and social media (“X”) posts containing of “charisma” (n=77,161) and its 2023 variant, “rizz” (n=85,869). By capturing meaning structures that discursively suspend “charisma” across multiple dimensions, we discern three spectra that help to distinguish charisma’s sociological and non-sociological uses. Spectrum one differentiates perspectives which see charisma as having either a structural or individual-level range of efficacy. Spectrum two differentiates indifferent/analytical perspectives on charisma from perspectives which see it as desirable but also morally conservative. Spectrum three differentiates between relational and individualized ontologies for charisma. We find that, rather than hewing closely to the Weberian formulation, social scientific uses exist in an intermediate position vis-à-vis these three spectra. Thus, scholars participate in what they otherwise criticize as charisma’s vulgarization. The article concludes with recommendations for how to constructively interact with ‘popular charisma.’

Abstract

Informal affective bonding through which social resources are deployed, known as guanxi, is significant in social, political, and economic relationships in present-day China. Guanxi is sociologically understood as a form of social network and also as a type of social exchange. In addition, guanxi is regarded as a kind of or derived from ritual practices. Ritual aspects of guanxi are critically examined. The concept of ritual is distinguished from Confucian li, with which guanxi is often associated. Rituals held to be supportive of guanxi are examined, three distinct conceptualisations of ritual are identified, and ritual is differentiated from social practice, ceremony, and rite. Finally, emotions in guanxi ritual are briefly discussed, comparing Collins' approach with an account from the early Chinese theorist Xunzi.

The British Journal of Sociology, EarlyView.

Abstract

Cruel Optimism’ (Berlant, 2011) sustains neoliberalism by promising freedom and autonomy through adherence to and performance of competitive behaviours. As Brown (2003) observes, neoliberalism is a discourse which operates, not through repression or restriction, but through promising self-fulfilment and happiness. The role of emotion-management in poverty governance has been widely acknowledged. However, this has focused on cultivation of population-level punitive, negative emotions (such as shame, stigma, or resentment). It is widely acknowledged that welfare provision has been specifically targeted by neoliberal discourse, justifying intensifying interventions aimed at reshaping the subjectivities and aspirations of poor and marginalised individuals and households to serve the needs of deregulated markets. However, little attention has been paid to the importance of positive, hopeful emotion management in legitimising and effecting co-operation. Drawing on interviews with 54 workers in the Welsh homelessness system, I argue that workers systematically create and sustain optimism in their clients as a mechanism to enable them to survive within an increasingly hostile housing system, as part of a deliberate, if reluctant, strategy to cultivate empowered, ‘ethical’ welfare selfhood against a backdrop of citizen abandonment. A three-stage approach deployed by workers includes (1) destabilisation of expectations of state help (2) re-orientation, through cultivation of belief in neoliberal promise (3) development of maintenance strategies. Improving applicant capacity to perform neoliberal welfare citizenship was perceived as an urgent, moral and pragmatic necessity, and justified by care logics. I demonstrate how this extends not only our understanding of welfare implementation, but also shows how positive emotion-management generally, and Berlant's Cruel Optimism specifically, can be used to understand the practicalities of welfare governance.

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork data among Syrian refugee women marrying Egyptian men amid forced migration, I explore how displacement reshapes the meaning and purpose of marriage. Many such unions, often customary or polygamous, provoke comparisons to forced marriage and gender-based violence. Bypassing the reductive exploitation and static narratives, I ask: How does displacement alter refugee women's perceptions of marriage's purpose? And can marriage serve as a strategic tool for (self)resettlement? This investigation urges us to reevaluate the existing range of resettlement options and criteria, offering fresh perspectives on marital strategies post-displacement. Rather, similar marriages often stem from both affective and practical considerations, challenging colonial dichotomies (e.g., agent/victim) and reinstating the role of factors such as social capital in the trajectories of the uprooted. This study expands understanding of gendered and Othered refugee experiences, highlighting marriage's transformative role in forced displacement and resettlement. It contributes to ongoing discussions on marriage, displacement, and resettlement, urging a nuanced approach that acknowledges the complexities of refugee agency and adaptation.

Abstract

Older people have been overlooked in recent debates over the relationship between age, class and culture despite their prevalence and the conceptual questions they raise. Seeking to bridge mainstream class analysis with debates in social gerontology, especially via a shared turn to Pierre Bourdieu's relational sociology, this paper draws on survey data from the US to examine not only the class position of older people but their internal social and cultural differentiation. I use geometric data analysis to construct a model of the class system, locate older people within it and then explore differences among older people. I then proceed to compare the cultural symbolisations of social positions among older people to those of the larger sample. The core structures of social and cultural differentiation among older people are roughly homologous with those of the broader sample, but there are also notable differences and even inversions pointing toward the specificity – and autonomy – of ageing as a principle of difference and practice.

Abstract

Various branches of the literature suggest that exposure to the high-status appearances and lifestyles of politicians in contemporary “diploma democracies” affects the attitudes and behavior of less-educated citizens because it confronts them with their lower status in the political domain. Informed by this, we theorize that such exposure inspires docility (a lower subjective social status, weaker feelings of political entitlement) and revolt (anger, more support for aggression against government). To investigate this, we conducted an original, pre-registered, video-vignette survey experiment among a representative sample of the Dutch population. While our findings likely generalize to other liberal democracies, the Dutch context is suitable to test our theorizing because low-status and high-status appearances and lifestyles are found across the political arena, irrespective of politicians' substantive positions or use of populist rhetoric. Each less-educated respondent (n = 1390) was presented with a professionally produced video of an actor playing the part of a fictitious politician. This politician signaled either a low or a high status via his appearance and lifestyle. The potentially confounding factors of his substantive positions and populist rhetoric were randomized and controlled for. We find that exposure to the high-status politician increased less-educated citizens' support for aggression against the government. Through exploratory analyses, we assess how the responses of docility and revolt are interrelated, and how they are shaped by less-educated citizens' economic status.

Abstract

We use data from a large-scale and nationally representative survey to examine whether there is in Britain a trade-off between social diversity and social cohesion. Using six separate measures of social cohesion (generalised trust, volunteering, giving to charity, inter-ethnic friendship, and two neighbourhood cohesion scales) and four measures of social diversity (ethnic fractionalisation, religious fractionalisation, percentage Muslim, and percentage foreign-born), we show that, net of individual covariates, there is a negative association between social diversity and most measures of social cohesion. But these associations largely disappear when neighbourhood deprivation is taken into account. These results are robust to alternative definitions of neighbourhood. We also investigate the possibility that the diversity--cohesion trade-off is found in more segregated neighbourhoods. But we find very little evidence to support that claim. Overall, it is material deprivation, not diversity, that undermines social cohesion.

The British Journal of Sociology, Volume 75, Issue 4, Page 671-673, September 2024.

Abstract

In Bangladesh, the world's largest refugee settlement currently shelters approximately one million Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar to escape military persecution. Educating a significant number of young Rohingya, roughly half of whom are female, presents a significant challenge. Despite the presence of learning centres (LCs) across refugee camps, Rohingya girls may encounter specific barriers to accessing education due to exposure to various risks, such as violence, child marriage, and trauma stemming from past military oppression. This paper investigates the association between these risk factors and Rohingya girls' likelihood of attending LCs, and how this association may vary across refugee camps. Using survey data and employing three-level multilevel logistic regression models, I find that girls are less likely to attend LCs if they are at risk of encountering sexual abuse, child marriage, and psychological distress or trauma. These factors explain considerable variation in girls' LC attendance between camps and between households. In addition to providing more schooling opportunities to Rohingya children, prioritising girls' safety, protecting them from forced and child marriage, and supporting their psychological well-being require increased policy attention.

Abstract

It is well evidenced that South Africa is characterised by extreme socioeconomic inequality, which is strongly racialised. We offer an original sociological perspective, which departs from established perspectives considering the dynamics of vulnerability and poverty to focus on the structuring of classed and racialised privilege. We map how stocks of economic, cultural, and social capital intersect to generate systematic and structural inequalities in the country and consider how far these are associated with fundamental racial divides. To achieve this, we utilise rich, nationally representative data from the National Income Dynamics Study and employ Multiple Correspondence Analysis to construct a model of South African ‘social space’. Our findings underscore how entrenched racial divisions remain within South Africa, with White people being overwhelmingly located in the most privileged positions. However, our cluster analysis also indicates that forms of middle-class privilege percolate beyond a core of the 8% of the population that is white. We emphasise how age divisions are associated with social capital accumulation. Our cluster analysis reveals that trust levels increase with economic and cultural capital levels within younger age groups and could therefore come to intensify social and racial divisions.

Abstract

Research about the commercial sex industry rarely examines the women who are the clients purchasing sexual services. Examining how this challenges gender stereotypes through the undoing gender framework reveals how gender norms can be reshaped through contextual changes. Based on 3 years of ethnographic data from a high-end bar in Tianjin, interviews with 27 female clients and 47 MSWs paint a complex picture of how some women adopted ungendered strategies regarding sexuality. As women take control of their own sexual behavior, they free themselves of some traditional societal expectations about their identity. Primarily motivated by pleasure and control, purchasing sex becomes a means for women to experience empowerment and self-confidence by breaking with traditional gender norms and expectations. Undoing gender involves expanding gendered repertoires, with women finding empowerment in adopting a masculine model of sexuality. However, social stigma and personal efficacy indicate that gender deconstruction is a gradual process. The research contributes to understanding complex gender dynamics and sexual behaviors within commercial sex transactions, shedding light on societal norms and individual agency.

Abstract

How are romantic relationships across class maintained under broader conditions of class inequality? This article draws on in-depth interviews with 38 people who have partnered across class in Australia. It examines the emotional and interpersonal labour required to preserve such relationships within a highly differentiated class structure that is widely obscured in public and political life. We find, first, that for people in committed cross-class relationships where this difference was openly acknowledged, class difference was acutely felt and described in highly emotional, imprecise terms. Second, this heightened awareness of class difference stimulated elevated levels of class friction and class dissonance within these relationships. We detail these experiences, as they were narrated to us, before examining certain interviewees' efforts to understand and resolve these complexities. We highlight the collaborative work undertaken by one couple in particular to navigate feelings of class discomfort and class dissonance. Third, by focussing on the emotional terrain of intimate cross-class negotiations, we stress moments which have the potential to disrupt assumptions about class hierarchies and modes of moral distinction that take place within these relationships. Proceeding to tentatively valorise different forms of value-making and recognition within cross-class relationships, we also pay attention to the role of class in enabling this very capacity for adaptation.

Abstract

We present the first comprehensive set of estimates of variation in intergenerational social mobility across regions of Great Britain using data from the UK Labour Force Survey. Unlike the Social Mobility Index produced by the Social Mobility Commission, we focus directly on variation in measures of intergenerational social class mobility between the regions in which individuals were brought up. We define regions using the NUTS classification and we consider three levels, from 11 large NUTS1 regions, to 168 NUTS3 regions, across England, Wales, and Scotland. We investigate whether it is possible to form an index of social mobility from these measures and we address a neglected question: how much does the region in which someone was raised matter in comparison with the social class in which they were raised?

Abstract

A variety of theories have been proposed to explain why states pass legislation to regulate professional groups, and why, more recently, they have acted to curtail professional privileges. While these theories have drawn attention to the importance of power dynamics and public protection, among other factors, the role of political interests has been downplayed. This article builds on ecological theory to argue that, with some modifications, the theory illuminates the centrality of state-profession relations and politics to regulatory change. The theory is applied to a case study of regulatory change in British Columbia, Canada impacting resources-sector professions, with particular attention to the controversies and political considerations that shaped reform. The case study suggests that when the political and professions ecologies are overlapping and symbiotic, as they were in BC, a challenge in the political ecology can implicate professions, prompting a solution that brings change within both ecologies.

Abstract

Social and spatial mobility have been subject to substantial recent sociological and policy debate. Complementing other recent work, in this paper we explore these patterns in relation to higher education. Making use of high-quality data from the higher education statistics agency (HESA), we ran a set of multilevel models to test whether the local authority areas where young people grow up influence social and spatial mobility into a higher professional or managerial job on graduation. We found entry to these patterns reflect pre-existing geographies of wealth and income, with more affluent rural and suburban areas in South-East England having higher levels of entry to these occupations. Graduates clustered from major cities tended to be spatially immobile and those from peripheral areas further away from these cities show a higher density of long-distance moves following graduation. We also explored the intersection between social and spatial mobility for graduates with the economic geography of Britain, showing that access to high-class occupations is not necessarily associated with long-distance moves across most British districts. Our evidence further suggests that the ‘London effect’, where working-class students have higher school attainment than their peers elsewhere, may not continue through to graduate employment.

Abstract

This study investigates structural inequalities in educational enjoyment in a contemporary cohort of United Kingdom (UK) primary school children. Foundational studies in the sociology of education consistently indicate that the enjoyment of education is stratified by social class, gender, and ethnicity. Analysing data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, which is a major cohort study that tracks children born at the start of the 21st century, we examine children's enjoyment of both school and individual academic subject areas. The overarching message is that at age 11 most children enjoy their education. The detailed empirical analyses indicate that educational enjoyment is stratified by gender, and there are small differences between ethnic groups. However, there is no convincing evidence of a social class gradient. These results challenge orthodox sociological views on the relationship between structural inequalities and educational enjoyment, and therefore question the existing theoretical understanding of the wider role of enjoyment in education.

Abstract

Guanxi research would benefit from an empirical description of holistic guanxi network structures and consideration of sociologically meaningful antecedents such as one's cultural value endorsement. This study, inspired by the relational sociology and drawing on the reported trustworthiness of a rich array of referees in one's guanxi network collected from the Traditional Culture and Cognitive Pattern Survey, identifies two types of guanxi network structures in contemporary China: one is featured by the binary distinction between family and non-family referees, and the other displays a fourfold classification scheme, respectively concerning parents, nuclear family members (children and spouse), other relatives and close friends, and acquaintances. Furthermore, traditional culture endorsement is positively correlated with the likelihood of being subject to the binary classification scheme, while some counter social forces, such as the establishment of quasi-kinship relationships, encourage one to lean toward the more fine-grained fourfold guanxi network partitioning.

Abstract

In the UK's stratified HE system the question of who is able to access the most selective and prestigious universities is fraught with issues of fairness. This paper explores how decision-makers in Oxford's undergraduate admissions process construct norms of fairness and how such norms inform their reflexive considerations and actions around admissions decisions. Framing such norms as multiple institutional habituses, the paper considers how decision-makers compromise and negotiate between institutional habituses in tension. Further, it presents an augmented conception of institutional habitus – the relational institutional habitus – which offers a conceptual tool to make sense of the existence of multiple contested institutional norms and their partial and fragile reconciliation in institutional action.

Abstract

People living with cognitive impairments face new forms of disablement in the context of transport digitalisation, an issue recently catalysed by controversies regarding rail ticket office closures. Transport can dramatically impact the lives of people diagnosed with dementia, who often find their mobility suddenly and dramatically impaired. Unfortunately, sociological analysis of cognitive disability has traditionally been undermined by under-theorisation. One solution can be found in classic bioethical work on hypercognitivism—the veneration of cognitive acuity—and its disabling consequences. A hypercognitive approach can nurture an attentiveness to the specificities of digital disablement. Here, disability does not emerge from digitalisation inherently, but is instead intensified by the implementation of digitalisation in line with value commitments. A more robust sociology of cognitive disability could better represent the interests of people with cognitive impairments and resist the new forms of disability that current digitalisation risks spreading.