Title: The development of sociology in New Zealand within the contemporary political economy: Where to now?
Abstract: The reflections on the development of New Zealand sociology presented here stem from Paul Spoonley's think-piece (this issue), exposure to conferences, experience of co-editing the association's journal over the last eight years, and particularly from editing a two-issue set of articles on the history of sociology in New Zealand (Crothers, 2014; 2016). I provide a sketch of how sociology might fit within the political economy of knowledge capitalism, and then within this framework analyse the demands on sociology, followed by consideration of the supply, including alternative ways of meeting the demands. As a polemic, points are not much elaborated and full referencing not provided.The Political Economy of Social KnowledgeTo understand the demands placed on sociology, and our ability to produce sociological knowledge, requires a broad analysis of where our particular stock of social knowledge fits within the wider framework of such knowledge structures, and the consequences of this for the stances we might take.Contemporary societies world-wide are resolutely capitalist with considerable activity and control exerted through a network of somewhat ungrounded Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) and related corporate entities within massive global flows of finance and trade, coordinated to some extent by state apparatuses which both support and but also control their subject populations. Such an analysis needs to be developed in more detail in various directions, including specificities for particular types of society and particular societies. The following extension endeavours to very briefly add sociology to this sort of political economy portrait.Modern (late capitalist) societies are run in large part by experts and those interests controlling the experts. The incessant advance of, and rampant widespread distribution, of technology requires a large cadre of (broadly) 'engineers', but other realms of our societies are also occupied by 'social engineers' who develop and run both collective (e.g. policy analysts, social marketeers) and personalised (e.g. counselling) programmes that operate society very largely behind the backs of its members. The Welfare state apparatus is suffuse with quasi-sociologists and quasi-professions. Almost all this elite are employees of the pertinent agencies and under recent budget constraints have received recent doses of 'work discipline'. However, they tend to be well rewarded, luxuriating in privileges (e.g. overseas travel to conferences). Professional elites are seen by many as arrogant and disdainfully superior. This situation has generated resentment since these luxuries are in part at least taxpayer-funded and are available to few, albeit the recipients have worked hard to get their positions and continue to work hard in them, and even that there is strong competition to be admitted. This in turn spurs discontent amongst those (at least for social engineers) with whom they work alongside cheek-by-jowl (e.g. welfare clients). And this, then, has led to broad reactions (one theme of which is a rejection of the power and distance of elites) including Brexit, the Trump 'triumph', and the rise of right wing anti-immigrant parties in Europe and elsewhere.The work of studying the population which such analysts do, or more particularly the way we do it, can also earn distrust. Ironically, it is possible that the flow of information about people's concerns to elites is more sophisticated than it ever has been (cf. Igo, 2008), but its shrouded nature and silent power has generated concern. The focus group and survey participants whose processed views are so avidly taken up by elites are socially constructed as passive articulators of personal views and reports of behaviour within a context shaped (manipulated?) by researchers, and this can be resented. In particular, the politics of political feedback mechanisms is not open and even budgets covering the relevant costs are hard to obtain, and when costs do emerge can lead to fire-storms of protest. …
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot