Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2014 13:30 - 15:00
PAPER SESSION 5
Discrimination Imbedded in Social Theory
Dores, A.
(Instituto Universitário de Lisboa)
The hyper specialization of the social sciences over the last decades was accompanied by a lack of interest in
violence by social theory.
In publishing his book on violence, Wieviorka manifested his belief in the necessity of coming out of social theory to
understand the different meanings of violence. Collins presented a strict definition of violence and analyzed it at the
level of micro-sociology, leaving the macro-sociological study for a later work.
Neither of the authors explains why violence is relegated to the fringes of social theory. Nor do they explain how the
study of violence may come to occupy a focal place adequate to its central importance for life in society.
Sociology's reaction to the civilizational crisis should not be limited to a specialized look at forgotten themes turned
taboo. Sociology should prepare its own transformation, in pace with the times. The sociology should recognize
violence as a manifestation of the tendencies which transformed matter into life, and society as a common form of the
organization of that matter.
Reemtsma's definition, violence is the 'reduction to the body', not only produces a better analytical outcome of
empirical cases, and a clearer separation from moralism, but also permits us to see how social theory has been
complacent toward the social discriminations implicit in the common sense. The separation of people from the natural
world has a parallel in social exclusion: the construction of human beings separated from their humanity.
Explaining Violence: Sociology, Embodiment and the Challenges of the New Scientism
Ray, L.
(University of Kent)
Sociology has been slow, compared with disciplines like social anthropology and psychology, to directly address
violence in society. Classical theory imagined pacified societies where violence occurred at the margins or externally
in wars and collective conflicts. Sociologists have begun to give violence more attention raising some critical
questions. McSorely notes Clausewitz’s famous comment that war is a continuation of political commerce – ‘a carrying
out of the same by other means’, but violence has no ‘other means’ – it is always bodily injuring. Bodily experience is
central to the phenomenology of violence yet despite the focus on embodiment and affect in sociology over the past
20 years or so, the body as agent and victim of violence has rarely received central attention. Simon Williams asked
‘where is the body in medical sociology?’ and this question can be asked of the sociology of violence too. At the same
time, the social sciences face a renewed challenge from another ‘embodied’ perspective– from disciplines like
neuroscience, medical genetics and neurocriminology, which aim displace the ‘standard social science’ model of
human behaviour especially in relation to violence. In some ways this challenge is not difficult to counter along the
lines of well-known critiques of scientism and reductionism. However, the challenge also poses questions about the
intersection of materiality, social action and humanness that sociology needs to engage with critically but also
creatively.
Mapping Sexually Exploited Children in Dundee, Scotland
Na, J. N.
(Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre)
This Comic-Relief funded research project aims to understand the nature and prevalence of child sexual exploitation
by looking into social service provisions for sexually exploited young people in a local setting, Dundee, Scotland. This
project is believed to be the first piece of research being conducted on child sexual exploitation in a local setting in
Scotland. The chief objective is to assess the gaps in service provision and to further enhance service to young
people who are sexually exploited and are at risk of sexual exploitation in Dundee. This research gathers from existing
data from the police, public sector and third sector, and conducts interviews and focus groups with service providers
as well as young people who are affected by sexual exploitation. Drawing up on qualitative as well as quantitative
data, it hopes to produce the knowledge and information on the current situation of child sexual exploitation in
Dundee, as well as to propose a toolkit on an operational level.
BSA Annual Conference 2015 186
Glasgow Caledonian University