Reassembling the ambiguity of the sacred: A neglected inconsistency in readings of Durkheim
Journal of Classical Sociology, Nov 18, 2013
The ambiguity of the sacred combines two opposite modes, the pure and the impure, as its fundamen... more The ambiguity of the sacred combines two opposite modes, the pure and the impure, as its fundamental feature. Present in the work of Durkheim and most scholars of the sacred, as well as in actual social practice, the impure sacred is not the profane, the sphere that opposes the sacred. However, in most interpretations of Durkheim, and even in aspects of his own argument, the ambiguity of the sacred is neglected and, in several important cases, treated as if it were profane: this has negative consequences for cultural sociology and the study of culture in contemporary society. In certain cases, the impure sacred and the profane can be hard to tell apart. Yet, if the boundaries between the sacred (pure and impure) and the profane are not clearly distinguished, the overall approach to culture in terms of distinctions and boundaries loses its logical and theoretical coherence. This article elucidates the ambiguity of the sacred and reintegrates that ambiguity into cultural sociology. The model proposed here treats the impure as a transient result of violation of the sacred/profane border with no independent status of its own.
In this article, we analyze how the existence of alternative pathways to higher education, which ... more In this article, we analyze how the existence of alternative pathways to higher education, which implies different selection mechanisms, shapes social inequality in educational attainment. We focus on the Russian educational system, in which higher education can be accessed from academic and vocational tracks, but the rules of admission to higher education from these tracks are different. Access through the academic track is highly selective due to obligatory high-stakes testing, which determines secondary-school graduates' eligibility to pursue higher education. The vocational track is generally less selective with regard to student intake and provides less restrictive access to higher education. We argue that this system has nuanced implications for social inequality. On one hand, transitions from vocational education to higher education can promote greater social mobility by offering an affordable and low-risk gateway to higher education for children from less-advantaged families. On the other hand, more-advantaged families might use the vocational track to higher education if their children face a high risk of failure in the more selective academic track. We test this conjecture and provide supporting evidence using data from the longitudinal survey Trajectories in Education and Careers.
Cross-regional analysis of development of continuous education: Study results
Educational Studies, 2007
The development of regional systems of continuous education is becoming a priority of the educati... more The development of regional systems of continuous education is becoming a priority of the educational policy. This is a demand of the modernization: a functionalist principle .one education for the whole life. is being replaced by the principle of .lifelong learning. that affirms the worth of independent education activities, individualization of education trajectories, and a flexible relationship between the education system and the job market. The article presents the results of study performed by the Russian Government.s Center for Monitoring of Human Resources in Spring 2006. The aim of the study was to diagnose processes of the development of regional systems of continuous education in two pilot regions: the Voronezh region and the Chuvash Republic.
Предисловие научного редактора русского перевода классической работы Эмиля Дюркгейма «Элементарны... more Предисловие научного редактора русского перевода классической работы Эмиля Дюркгейма «Элементарные формы религиозной жизни» предваряет публикацию в «Социологическом обозрении» заключения к этой книге. Поводом для этой публикации стало предстоящее издание полного русского перевода этой работы в издательстве «Элементарные формы», запланированное на осень 2018 года. В отличие от остальных больших работ Дюркгейма, давно опубликованных на русском, до последнего времени с языка оригинала были переведены только введение и первая глава этого классического труда, вышедшего в свет более ста лет назад. При этом в современном социологическом ландшафте «Элементарные формы», безусловно, наиболее значимая работа Дюркгейма, чье влияние на магистральные направления и школы чрезвычайно высоко. Автор предисловия предполагает, что в этом недоразумении есть своя странная логика. Эта книга-не только великий ресурс для социологии, но и великая загадка. Со времени выхода в свет ее восприятие радикально менялось, и то, как ее читают сегодня, совсем не похоже на то, как ее воспринимали век или полвека назад. В своей статье автор обсуждает меняющееся влияние «Элементарных форм» на современную социологическую мысль, кратко останавливается на вопросе, в чем заключается и с чем связана непростая история восприятия «Элементарных форм» в социологии, и комментирует некоторые типы трудностей перевода этой книги. В качестве иллюстрации он показывает, что введенное Дюркгеймом не вполне конвенциональное и потому трудное для перевода понятие «пиакулярного обряда» связано с теоретической логикой его аргумента и попыткой объяснить свойство амбивалентности сакрального. Ключевые слова: Дюркгейм, сакральное, амбивалентность сакрального, ритуалы, пиакулярные обряды, перевод, история социологии, социология культуры «Элементарные формы религиозной жизни»-magnum opus классика социологии Эмиля Дюркгейма и книга, чье влияние на социологию не просто колоссально, но и продолжает расти,-по странному стечению обстоятельств до сих пор не была
American Journal of Cultural Sociology, May 22, 2018
Mystery plays a fundamental though not fully acknowledged role in modernity, serving as an import... more Mystery plays a fundamental though not fully acknowledged role in modernity, serving as an important means for the re-enchantment of social life. Thus, under certain conditions, seemingly unimportant events can attract enormous attention and emotional involvement. One of those cases is the Dyatlov Pass Tragedy that occurred in 1959 in the Northern Urals, where nine hikers died under mysterious and still unknown circumstances. Nowadays, a half-century later, there are thousands of lay researchers searching for the truth and constructing competing explanatory accounts. In this paper, I propose the 'trigger-narrative model,' explaining the relation between mystery, governing narratives, and forms of sacrality, and apply it to the Dyatlov case. I argue that mystery is a 'complex emotional attractor'-a symbolic mechanism shaped by the configuration of 'elementary attractors'-'strange' things, symbols, or events, challenging commonsense narratives, which eventually maintains uncertainty and emotional tension. Every pattern of perception concerning mystery can be characterized by the tie between a trigger and its corresponding narrative; this tie is based on the transgression of the narrative by a trigger event. This model allows us to understand the cultural construction of mystery, which is crucially important for explaining how deep cultural structures energize people's urges, concerns, and fascinations.
It is widely believed that higher education in Russia has become almost universal and more people... more It is widely believed that higher education in Russia has become almost universal and more people go to universities in Russia compared to most European countries. In this paper we explore this issue empirically with the Russian and European census data and the data from the Trajectories in Education and Careers (TREC), a longitudinal cohort study. According to the 2010 census, only 34% of people aged between 25 and 34 in Russia have university degrees, which is nearly the same as in most Eastern European countries and slightly fewer than in Western Europe. The TREC data show that only about 50% of 2012 ninth-grade graduates were university students in 2015. The expansion of higher education in Russia has been in line with the overall European trends. Similar to other countries, there have been changes to the gender composition of university students in Russia over the last two decades, with girls being more likely to attend university than boys. The analysis of social backgrounds of students with different educational trajectories reveals a considerable social inequality within the Russian education system. Eighty-four percent of school graduates with university-educated parents are admitted to university, as compared to only 32% of children from less-educated families. Graduation from ninth grade represents an educational fork that is crucial for inequality, as children from less socially advantaged families tend to opt for vocational education at this stage. Graduation from eleventh grade is a less important educational transition: at least 80% of high school students get admitted to university after graduating from 11th grade.
The Sacred, Profane, Pure, Impure, and Social Energization of Culture
In this chapter, I argue that the Durkheimian theory of the sacred is a crucial yet not fully rec... more In this chapter, I argue that the Durkheimian theory of the sacred is a crucial yet not fully recognized resource for cognitive sociology. It contains not only a theory of culture (which is acknowledged in contemporary sociology), but also a vision of culture-cognition relations. Thus, Durkheimian cultural sociology allows us to understand the crucial role the sacred/profane opposition plays in structuring culture, perception and thought. Based on a number of theories, I also show how another opposition—between the pure and impure modes of the sacred, allows us to explain dynamic features of the sacred and eventually provides a basic model of social change. While explicating this vision and resultant opportunities for sociological analysis I also criticize “cognition apart from culture” approaches established within cognitive sociology. I argue, thus, that culture not only participates in cognition but is an intrinsic ingredient of the human mind. Culture is not a chaotic and fragmented set of elements, as some sociologists imply to a greater or lesser degree, but a system; and as such it is an inner environment for human thought and social action. This system, however, is governed not by formal logic, as some critics of the autonomy of culture presuppose, but by concrete configurations of emotionally-charged categories, created and re-created in social interactions.
American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Oct 4, 2019
Cultural sociology must catch up in taking seriously recent initiatives in the sociology of cultu... more Cultural sociology must catch up in taking seriously recent initiatives in the sociology of culture and cognition, represented by the works of Omar Lizardo, John Levi Martin, Stephen Vaisey, and others. However, aiming at progress in cultural analysis, these theories are partly driven by an epistemic logic alien to cultural theorizing, making the very concept of culture redundant. To identify this anti-cultural strain within the ongoing cognitive turn in sociology, I propose an ideal-typical model-'the informational theory of communication,' which reduces culture to information. Although many cognitive scientists and sociologists of culture and cognition are aware of the limitations and counter-productivity of this model, and it might not exist in a pure form, I argue that, first, it is still clearly traceable in many of their arguments, and, second, that it can be seen as a cultural logic underlying a substantial part of their arguments. I posit that replacing this logic of explanation with the Durkheimian model of sui generis synthesis, the concept of emergence, and the idea of 'boundary conditions' not only allows us to integrate the insights of cognitive science into sociology, but also opens a way for sociology to contribute to the cognitive sciences.
How Root Metaphors Structure Meaningful Life by Means of Emotions: Theory and Empirical Illustration from the Sphere of Academic Ethics
The article is dedicated to the development of the cultural sociological theory of metaphor. Meta... more The article is dedicated to the development of the cultural sociological theory of metaphor. Metaphor has been recognized in the “strong program” of cultural sociology as a means of performance which allowed the building of cultural explanations of such events as the trauma of the Holocaust, and Obama's political success. This paper aims to contribute to these arguments by means of expanding the definition of metaphor beyond its interpretation as a certain type of proposition. This expansion is based on elements of the theories of metaphor of Paul Ricoeur, Max Black, Steven Pepper, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, and connected to the Durkheimian theory of the sacred, with a stress on the role of collective emotions. Metaphor is thus seen as one of the key cultural structures which implicitly or explicitly shapes perception, imagination, thought, and action. To illustrate the productivity of the theory, the paper examines how revealing the conflict of powerful educational metaphors allows the building of a counter-intuitive cultural explanation of the wide spread of plagiarism in university students' essays.
Biography and Form of Life. Toward a Cultural Analysis of Narrative Interviews. This paper introd... more Biography and Form of Life. Toward a Cultural Analysis of Narrative Interviews. This paper introduces the concept of form of life, socially shaped and shared meaning structures of actors situated in material contexts, as a tool for the cultural-sociological analysis of biographies and life trajectories. Following the principles of structural hermeneutics, such an analysis of life-forms treats the interview text as manifestation of a deeper holistic meaning structure, embodied in narratives, binaries and metaphors, without suppressing the contradictions and tensions inherent in every form of life. Finally, the empirical applicability of our approach is illustrated with examples from the qualitative strand of a broader longitudinal panel study as well as an in-depth case study.
Russian Longitudinal Panel Study of Educational and Occupational Trajectories: Building Culturally-Sensitive Research Framework
Longitudinal cohort studies of life trajectories are progressively gaining international renown a... more Longitudinal cohort studies of life trajectories are progressively gaining international renown as the most relevant methods for studying education, socialization, and labor market, among other related issues. The Russian Panel Study 'Trajectories in Education and Careers' is the first national-scale project of this type in contemporary Russia, and is aimed at improving the current lack of reliable high-quality data on this issue. The benefits of the longitudinal design for causal analysis are much discussed in literature and well acknowledged by scholars. Our study strives to combine the traditional benefits of quantitative analysis with the advantages of cultural-oriented interpretive analysis in sociology, anthropology, and psychology. In this paper I shed light on the aims, context, perspectives and ambitions of the study; discuss the conceptual benefits, restrictions, and implicit assumptions of the approach; observe the methodological design, and briefly review the main research questions that shaped the study.
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, Jun 29, 2010
Meaningful life is emotionally marked off. That's the general point that Johansen (IPBS: Integrat... more Meaningful life is emotionally marked off. That's the general point that Johansen (IPBS: Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science 44, 2010) makes which is of great importance. Fictional abstractions use to make the point even more salient. As an example I've examined Borges' famous fiction story. Along with the examples of Johansen it provides an informative case of exploring symbolic mechanisms which bind meaning with emotions. This particular mode of analysis draws forth poetry and literature in general to be treated as a "meaningful life laboratory". Ways of explanation of emotional effect the art exercises on people, which had been disclosed within this laboratory, however, constitute a significant distinction in terms that I have designated as "referential" and "substantive". The former appeals to something that has already been charged with emotional power, whereas the latter comes to effect by means of special symbolic mechanisms creating the emotional experience within the situation. Johansen, who tends to explain emotions exerted by the art without leaving the semiotic perspective, is drawn towards the "referential" type of explanation. Based upon discussions in theory of metaphor and Robert Witkin's sociological theory of arts it is demonstrated an insufficient of "referential" explanation. To overcome a monopoly of "referential" explanation of emotional engagement, in particular, in literature, means to break away from the way of reasoning, stating endless references to "something else", presupposing the existence of something already significant and therefore sharing its effects.
Cross-regional analysis of development of continuous education: Study results
The development of regional systems of continuous education is becoming a priority of the educati... more The development of regional systems of continuous education is becoming a priority of the educational policy. This is a demand of the modernization: a functionalist principle .one education for the whole life. is being replaced by the principle of .lifelong learning. that affirms the worth of independent education activities, individualization of education trajectories, and a flexible relationship between the education system and the job market. The article presents the results of study performed by the Russian Government.s Center for Monitoring of Human Resources in Spring 2006. The aim of the study was to diagnose processes of the development of regional systems of continuous education in two pilot regions: the Voronezh region and the Chuvash Republic.
How Root Metaphors Structure Meaningful Life by Means of Emotions: Theory and Empirical Illustration from the Sphere of Academic Ethics
The article is dedicated to the development of the cultural sociological theory of metaphor. Meta... more The article is dedicated to the development of the cultural sociological theory of metaphor. Metaphor has been recognized in the “strong program” of cultural sociology as a means of performance which allowed the building of cultural explanations of such events as the trauma of the Holocaust, and Obama's political success. This paper aims to contribute to these arguments by means of expanding the definition of metaphor beyond its interpretation as a certain type of proposition. This expansion is based on elements of the theories of metaphor of Paul Ricoeur, Max Black, Steven Pepper, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, and connected to the Durkheimian theory of the sacred, with a stress on the role of collective emotions. Metaphor is thus seen as one of the key cultural structures which implicitly or explicitly shapes perception, imagination, thought, and action. To illustrate the productivity of the theory, the paper examines how revealing the conflict of powerful educational metaphors allows the building of a counter-intuitive cultural explanation of the wide spread of plagiarism in university students' essays.
«Элементарные формы»: великая книга и великая тайна
Предисловие научного редактора русского перевода классической работы Эмиля Дюркгейма «Элементарны... more Предисловие научного редактора русского перевода классической работы Эмиля Дюркгейма «Элементарные формы религиозной жизни» предваряет публикацию в «Социологическом обозрении» заключения к этой книге. Поводом для этой публикации стало предстоящее издание полного русского перевода этой работы в издательстве «Элементарные формы», запланированное на осень 2018 года. В отличие от остальных больших работ Дюркгейма, давно опубликованных на русском, до последнего времени с языка оригинала были переведены только введение и первая глава этого классического труда, вышедшего в свет более ста лет назад. При этом в современном социологическом ландшафте «Элементарные формы», безусловно, наиболее значимая работа Дюркгейма, чье влияние на магистральные направления и школы чрезвычайно высоко. Автор предисловия предполагает, что в этом недоразумении есть своя странная логика. Эта книга - не только великий ресурс для социологии, но и великая загадка. Со времени выхода в свет ее восприятие радикально м...
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