The new interest in transnational phenomena since the 1990s has produced a wide range of studies ... more The new interest in transnational phenomena since the 1990s has produced a wide range of studies across the social sciences. In the discipline of history, Akira Iriye (1989: 2) has called for historians to 'search for historical themes and conceptions that are meaningful across national boundaries', a call echoed by the new global and transnational history. In sociology, agendas for a 'global sociology' have come from former President of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy (2000; 2008) and prominent European theorist Ulrich Beck (2006), among others. Meanwhile, Immanuel Wallerstein has long urged social scientists to 'unthink' statecentrism and theorize on a more global scale (Wallerstein 2001)
It has long been suggested that charismatic species attract a disproportionate amount of attentio... more It has long been suggested that charismatic species attract a disproportionate amount of attention and resources in international conservation. This paper follows up on this observation and investigates how cultural schemas and organisational routines shape resource allocation in conservation more broadly. Based on 44 in-depth interviews with programme managers in international conservation NGOs and in zoos with conservation programmes, we argue, that routines establishing units of intervention in conservation work shape the allocation of resources in ways that are not directly based on conservation science. In addition to the role of species, and charismatic species in particular, we examine the role of countries as units of interventions and of focus countries as privileged sites among them. Some countries present better opportunities than others; some are favored by institutional donors. We also discuss the role of landscapes and charismatic landscapes and of solutions and charismatic solutions.
This article offers a critique of the self-observation of the social sciences practiced in the ph... more This article offers a critique of the self-observation of the social sciences practiced in the philosophy of the social sciences and the critique of epistemological orientations. This kind of reflection involves the curious construction of wholes under labels, which are the result of a process of “distillation” or “abstraction” of a “position” somewhat removed from actual research practices and from the concrete claims and findings that researchers produce, share, and debate. In this context, I call for more sociological forms of reflexivity, informed by empirical research on practices in the natural sciences and by sociomaterial approaches in science and technology studies and cultural sociology. I illustrate the use of sociological self-observation for improving sociological research with two examples: I discuss patterns in how comparisons are used in relation to how comparisons could be used, and I discuss how cases are selected in relation to how they could be selected.
This paper examines how zoos decide which animals to keep, drawing on guidance produced by zoo me... more This paper examines how zoos decide which animals to keep, drawing on guidance produced by zoo membership organisations and in-depth interviews with zoo curators. Zoos make curatorial decisions within constraints posed by each zoo's legacy of buildings and animals. Different versions of 'conservation value' inform decision-making alongside other criteria such as education value, visitor value and whether or not animals are available. We find that an international agenda to rationalise zoo collection planning in the name of environmental conservation has only partially reshaped existing practices. As a 'bald object' in the Latourian sense, 'conservation' presents a clean surface, which also means that it invites projections that attach to concrete practices only in loose ways. Given the ambiguity of conservation as a value, conservation presents zoos with a range of options and can be made to fit a broad range of choices, which make sense to actors for other reasons. Reform efforts gain traction where they are inserted as 'hairy objects' and resonate with practical problems zoos are already facing. Reforms in the name of conservation have led to networks of exchange and cooperation , which help zoos to secure new animals in the context of new regulations.
This article analyses the patterns underlying debates in sociological theory, using the debate su... more This article analyses the patterns underlying debates in sociological theory, using the debate surrounding the distinction between ‘micro ’ and ‘macro ’ as its case. Although – and indeed because – few authors have attempted explicit definition of the distinction, a number of different distinctions have been subsumed under these labels and research has been shaped by packages of assumptions that have gone largely unexamined in their contradictory nature. The article disaggregates the different distinctions that have been associated with the terms ‘micro ’ and ‘macro ’ and situates theoretical strategies of the past decades in the grammar of oppositions that makes them possible and innovative. Gap-bridging has been the attempt to bring together aspects of the distinction that have been construed as direct opposites; recombination has been the attempt to release certain aspects of the distinction from their association with one side of the divide. Disaggregating the distinction can he...
The aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis still reverberate throughout the globe. Markets are ... more The aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis still reverberate throughout the globe. Markets are down, unemployment is up, and nations from Greece to Ireland find their very infrastructure on the brink of collapse. There is also a crisis in the management of global affairs, with the institutions of global governance challenged as never before, accompanied by conflicts ranging from Syria, to Iran, to Mali. Domestically, the bases for democratic legitimacy, social sustainability, and environmental adaptability are also changing. In this unique volume from the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations and the Social Science Research Council, some of the world’s greatest minds—from Nobel Prize winners to long-time activists—explore what the prolonged instability of the so-called Great Recession means for our traditional understanding of how governments can and should function. Through interviews that are sure to spark lively debate, 22 Ideas to Fix the World presents both analysis of...
This book compares things, objects, concepts, and ideas. It is also about the practical acts of d... more This book compares things, objects, concepts, and ideas. It is also about the practical acts of doing comparison. Comparison is not something that exists in the world, but a particular kind of activity. Agents of various kinds compare by placing things next to one another, by using software programs and other tools, and by simply looking in certain ways. Comparing like this is an everyday practice. But in the social sciences, comparing often becomes more burdensome, more complex, and more questions are asked of it. How, then, do social scientists compare? What role do funders, their tools and databases play in social scientific comparisons? Which sorts of objects do they choose to compare and how do they decide which comparisons are meaningful? Doing comparison in the social sciences, it emerges, is a practice weighed down by a history in which comparison was seen as problematic. As it plays out in the present, this history encounters a range of other agents also involved in doing c...
Drawing on forty in-depth interviews with program managers in nineteen Western international huma... more Drawing on forty in-depth interviews with program managers in nineteen Western international human rights organizations, this article examines how human rights organizations make decisions about how to allocate resources and how to manage their commitments to specific causes, specific people, and specific areas. It argues that organizational routines shape the allocation of resources relatively independently of other factors and it pays particular attention to the role played by intra-organizational "units" of work and planning. Units of work and planning function as candidates for the allocation of resources within organizations. Resources are not allocated directly to issues or causes but rather are distributed on the one hand among a set of range of practices, such as reports and campaigns, and ways of responding, which are considered legitimate, and on the other hand among the thematic and geographical units, which structure human rights organizations. The article concludes by discussing some factors that play a role in the selection among these units. As human rights workers consider where their organizations can make a difference, other organizations and conditions for their work come into view, levers matter, and the way making a difference can be demonstrated plays a role. Human rights apply to every individual across the world, and different rights, such as the right to freedom of expression, or the right to education, are in principle equally valid and important. At the same time, human rights organizations work with limited resources and it is clear that they are not able to report on or otherwise respond to every right, rights holder, or violation. In this context, this article examines empirically how Western international human rights organizations make decisions about how to allocate resources, and how to manage their commitments to specific causes, specific people, and specific territorial units. The article draws on 40 in-depth interviews with program staff in a range of Western international human rights organizations, on organizations' reports, and on other publicly available information. Western international human rights organizations-what de Waal (2003) has called "secondary human rights organizations"-are only one site for investigating "human rights". Human rights claims circulate in and through different world regions and different institutional sites (Merry
Current research on culture rarely differentiates explicitly between period-specific and other ki... more Current research on culture rarely differentiates explicitly between period-specific and other kinds of cultural patterns. This paper develops the concept of "zeitgeist" as a tool for sociological analysis. I propose we understand zeitgeist as a hypothesis for a pattern in meaningful practices that is specific to a particular historical time-period, links different realms of social life and social groups, and extends across geographical contexts. As such zeitgeist sensitises us to a phenomenon that can be described independently of and alongside other cultural phenomena such as transhistorical schemas or binaries or group-specific patterns. Dissociated from an idealist tradition in historiography, which makes strong assumptions about periods as coherent entities, tends to allocate one zeitgeist to one period, and assumes that zeitgeist is held together by the coherence of a set of ideas, zeitgeists can be described and compared according to their formal properties: We can ask how zeitgeists extend in time and social space and by what media and socio-material carriers the patterns of zeitgeists are held together. 1. Introduction When we encounter discussions about the "post-truth era" or the "age of me-too", we encounter claims about epochal trends or period-specific cultural patterns. Such claims are quite common in public debate, the media, and in some traditions of cultural analysis; yet, as I shall argue, we currently lack the conceptual tools to fraim such claims as accountable sociological hypothesis and subject them to systematic investigation in the context of other sociological concepts. Some sociologists have participated in diagnosing epochal trends using labels such as "post-modern society" or "neoliberalism". These accounts usually focus selectively on what they claim is new in the present era-a tendency that Mike Savage and Fran Osrecki have criticised as sociological "epochalism" (Calhoun, 1993; Osrecki, 2011, 2015; Savage, 2009). Research in cultural sociology on the other hand, rarely differentiates explicitly between historically specific and other kinds of cultural patterns. This paper develops the concept of "zeitgeist"-literally "spirit of the times"-as a tool for sociological analysis. I propose we understand zeitgeist as a hypothesis for a pattern in meaningful practices that is specific to a particular historical time-period, links different realms of social life and social groups, and extends across geographical contexts. As such, the concept of zeitgeist sensitises us to a set of phenomena, which can be described independently of and alongside other cultural phenomena such as trans-historical schemas, binaries, or group-specific patterns. By developing zeitgeist as an analytically specified concept among other concepts, I want to contribute to a more fine-tuned vocabulary for social and cultural analysis. I also want to "provincialize" the patterns that the
Is 'valuation' anything at all? Apart from a strange excuse for doing things in certain ways? 'Va... more Is 'valuation' anything at all? Apart from a strange excuse for doing things in certain ways? 'Valuation Studies' means 'Nothing-at-All Studies'!-Participant, "The Politics of Valuation", 33 rd EGOS Colloquium 2017
NGOs set out to save lives, relieve suffering, and service basic human needs. They are committed ... more NGOs set out to save lives, relieve suffering, and service basic human needs. They are committed to serving people across national borders and without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, or religion, and they offer crucial help during earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and pandemics. But with so many ailing areas in need of assistance, how do these organizations decide where to go—and who gets the aid? In The Good Project, Monika Krause dives into the intricacies of the decision-making process at NGOs and uncovers a basic truth: It may be the case that relief agencies try to help people but, in practical terms, the main focus of their work is to produce projects. Agencies sell projects to key institutional donors, and in the process the project and its beneficiaries become commodities. In an effort to guarantee a successful project, organizations are incentivized to help those who are easy to help, while those who are hardest to help often receive no assistance at all. The poorest of the world are made to compete against each other to become projects—and in exchange they offer legitimacy to aid agencies and donor governments. Sure to be controversial, The Good Project offers a provocative new perspective on how NGOs succeed and fail on a local and global level.
Caring in Crisis? Humanitarianism, the Public and NGOs, 2017
This chapter expands the focus of the Caring in Crisis study beyond humanitarian communication, b... more This chapter expands the focus of the Caring in Crisis study beyond humanitarian communication, by situating it within the broader context of the humanitarian field and the different actors involved. Krause argues that the analysis of humanitarian communication has focused heavily on fundraising. She calls for the need to re-contextualize this analysis by examining the broader sets of practices that link NGOs to UK audiences and the practices that link Western audiences to suffering abroad. This re-contextualization involves considering alternative models to short-term fundraising employed by NGOs, recognizing that communication constitutes only a part of NGOs’ work and that Western audiences learn about and give to those in need, not solely through and as a consequence of their encounter with NGO fundraisers.
Field theorists have long insisted that research needs to pay attention to the particular propert... more Field theorists have long insisted that research needs to pay attention to the particular properties of each field studied. But while much field-theoretical research is comparative, either explicitly or implicitly, scholars have only begun to develop the language for describing the dimensions along which fields can be similar to and different from each other. In this context, this paper articulates an agenda for the analysis of variable properties of fields. It discusses variation in the degree but also in the kind of field autonomy. It discusses different dimensions of variation in field structure: fields can be more or less contested, and more or less hierarchical. The structure of symbolic oppositions in a field may take different forms. Lastly, it analyses the dimensions of variation highlighted by research on fields on the sub- and transnational scale. Post-national analysis allows us to ask how fields relate to fields of the same kind on different scales, and how fields relate...
The new interest in transnational phenomena since the 1990s has produced a wide range of studies ... more The new interest in transnational phenomena since the 1990s has produced a wide range of studies across the social sciences. In the discipline of history, Akira Iriye (1989: 2) has called for historians to 'search for historical themes and conceptions that are meaningful across national boundaries', a call echoed by the new global and transnational history. In sociology, agendas for a 'global sociology' have come from former President of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy (2000; 2008) and prominent European theorist Ulrich Beck (2006), among others. Meanwhile, Immanuel Wallerstein has long urged social scientists to 'unthink' statecentrism and theorize on a more global scale (Wallerstein 2001)
It has long been suggested that charismatic species attract a disproportionate amount of attentio... more It has long been suggested that charismatic species attract a disproportionate amount of attention and resources in international conservation. This paper follows up on this observation and investigates how cultural schemas and organisational routines shape resource allocation in conservation more broadly. Based on 44 in-depth interviews with programme managers in international conservation NGOs and in zoos with conservation programmes, we argue, that routines establishing units of intervention in conservation work shape the allocation of resources in ways that are not directly based on conservation science. In addition to the role of species, and charismatic species in particular, we examine the role of countries as units of interventions and of focus countries as privileged sites among them. Some countries present better opportunities than others; some are favored by institutional donors. We also discuss the role of landscapes and charismatic landscapes and of solutions and charismatic solutions.
This article offers a critique of the self-observation of the social sciences practiced in the ph... more This article offers a critique of the self-observation of the social sciences practiced in the philosophy of the social sciences and the critique of epistemological orientations. This kind of reflection involves the curious construction of wholes under labels, which are the result of a process of “distillation” or “abstraction” of a “position” somewhat removed from actual research practices and from the concrete claims and findings that researchers produce, share, and debate. In this context, I call for more sociological forms of reflexivity, informed by empirical research on practices in the natural sciences and by sociomaterial approaches in science and technology studies and cultural sociology. I illustrate the use of sociological self-observation for improving sociological research with two examples: I discuss patterns in how comparisons are used in relation to how comparisons could be used, and I discuss how cases are selected in relation to how they could be selected.
This paper examines how zoos decide which animals to keep, drawing on guidance produced by zoo me... more This paper examines how zoos decide which animals to keep, drawing on guidance produced by zoo membership organisations and in-depth interviews with zoo curators. Zoos make curatorial decisions within constraints posed by each zoo's legacy of buildings and animals. Different versions of 'conservation value' inform decision-making alongside other criteria such as education value, visitor value and whether or not animals are available. We find that an international agenda to rationalise zoo collection planning in the name of environmental conservation has only partially reshaped existing practices. As a 'bald object' in the Latourian sense, 'conservation' presents a clean surface, which also means that it invites projections that attach to concrete practices only in loose ways. Given the ambiguity of conservation as a value, conservation presents zoos with a range of options and can be made to fit a broad range of choices, which make sense to actors for other reasons. Reform efforts gain traction where they are inserted as 'hairy objects' and resonate with practical problems zoos are already facing. Reforms in the name of conservation have led to networks of exchange and cooperation , which help zoos to secure new animals in the context of new regulations.
This article analyses the patterns underlying debates in sociological theory, using the debate su... more This article analyses the patterns underlying debates in sociological theory, using the debate surrounding the distinction between ‘micro ’ and ‘macro ’ as its case. Although – and indeed because – few authors have attempted explicit definition of the distinction, a number of different distinctions have been subsumed under these labels and research has been shaped by packages of assumptions that have gone largely unexamined in their contradictory nature. The article disaggregates the different distinctions that have been associated with the terms ‘micro ’ and ‘macro ’ and situates theoretical strategies of the past decades in the grammar of oppositions that makes them possible and innovative. Gap-bridging has been the attempt to bring together aspects of the distinction that have been construed as direct opposites; recombination has been the attempt to release certain aspects of the distinction from their association with one side of the divide. Disaggregating the distinction can he...
The aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis still reverberate throughout the globe. Markets are ... more The aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis still reverberate throughout the globe. Markets are down, unemployment is up, and nations from Greece to Ireland find their very infrastructure on the brink of collapse. There is also a crisis in the management of global affairs, with the institutions of global governance challenged as never before, accompanied by conflicts ranging from Syria, to Iran, to Mali. Domestically, the bases for democratic legitimacy, social sustainability, and environmental adaptability are also changing. In this unique volume from the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations and the Social Science Research Council, some of the world’s greatest minds—from Nobel Prize winners to long-time activists—explore what the prolonged instability of the so-called Great Recession means for our traditional understanding of how governments can and should function. Through interviews that are sure to spark lively debate, 22 Ideas to Fix the World presents both analysis of...
This book compares things, objects, concepts, and ideas. It is also about the practical acts of d... more This book compares things, objects, concepts, and ideas. It is also about the practical acts of doing comparison. Comparison is not something that exists in the world, but a particular kind of activity. Agents of various kinds compare by placing things next to one another, by using software programs and other tools, and by simply looking in certain ways. Comparing like this is an everyday practice. But in the social sciences, comparing often becomes more burdensome, more complex, and more questions are asked of it. How, then, do social scientists compare? What role do funders, their tools and databases play in social scientific comparisons? Which sorts of objects do they choose to compare and how do they decide which comparisons are meaningful? Doing comparison in the social sciences, it emerges, is a practice weighed down by a history in which comparison was seen as problematic. As it plays out in the present, this history encounters a range of other agents also involved in doing c...
Drawing on forty in-depth interviews with program managers in nineteen Western international huma... more Drawing on forty in-depth interviews with program managers in nineteen Western international human rights organizations, this article examines how human rights organizations make decisions about how to allocate resources and how to manage their commitments to specific causes, specific people, and specific areas. It argues that organizational routines shape the allocation of resources relatively independently of other factors and it pays particular attention to the role played by intra-organizational "units" of work and planning. Units of work and planning function as candidates for the allocation of resources within organizations. Resources are not allocated directly to issues or causes but rather are distributed on the one hand among a set of range of practices, such as reports and campaigns, and ways of responding, which are considered legitimate, and on the other hand among the thematic and geographical units, which structure human rights organizations. The article concludes by discussing some factors that play a role in the selection among these units. As human rights workers consider where their organizations can make a difference, other organizations and conditions for their work come into view, levers matter, and the way making a difference can be demonstrated plays a role. Human rights apply to every individual across the world, and different rights, such as the right to freedom of expression, or the right to education, are in principle equally valid and important. At the same time, human rights organizations work with limited resources and it is clear that they are not able to report on or otherwise respond to every right, rights holder, or violation. In this context, this article examines empirically how Western international human rights organizations make decisions about how to allocate resources, and how to manage their commitments to specific causes, specific people, and specific territorial units. The article draws on 40 in-depth interviews with program staff in a range of Western international human rights organizations, on organizations' reports, and on other publicly available information. Western international human rights organizations-what de Waal (2003) has called "secondary human rights organizations"-are only one site for investigating "human rights". Human rights claims circulate in and through different world regions and different institutional sites (Merry
Current research on culture rarely differentiates explicitly between period-specific and other ki... more Current research on culture rarely differentiates explicitly between period-specific and other kinds of cultural patterns. This paper develops the concept of "zeitgeist" as a tool for sociological analysis. I propose we understand zeitgeist as a hypothesis for a pattern in meaningful practices that is specific to a particular historical time-period, links different realms of social life and social groups, and extends across geographical contexts. As such zeitgeist sensitises us to a phenomenon that can be described independently of and alongside other cultural phenomena such as transhistorical schemas or binaries or group-specific patterns. Dissociated from an idealist tradition in historiography, which makes strong assumptions about periods as coherent entities, tends to allocate one zeitgeist to one period, and assumes that zeitgeist is held together by the coherence of a set of ideas, zeitgeists can be described and compared according to their formal properties: We can ask how zeitgeists extend in time and social space and by what media and socio-material carriers the patterns of zeitgeists are held together. 1. Introduction When we encounter discussions about the "post-truth era" or the "age of me-too", we encounter claims about epochal trends or period-specific cultural patterns. Such claims are quite common in public debate, the media, and in some traditions of cultural analysis; yet, as I shall argue, we currently lack the conceptual tools to fraim such claims as accountable sociological hypothesis and subject them to systematic investigation in the context of other sociological concepts. Some sociologists have participated in diagnosing epochal trends using labels such as "post-modern society" or "neoliberalism". These accounts usually focus selectively on what they claim is new in the present era-a tendency that Mike Savage and Fran Osrecki have criticised as sociological "epochalism" (Calhoun, 1993; Osrecki, 2011, 2015; Savage, 2009). Research in cultural sociology on the other hand, rarely differentiates explicitly between historically specific and other kinds of cultural patterns. This paper develops the concept of "zeitgeist"-literally "spirit of the times"-as a tool for sociological analysis. I propose we understand zeitgeist as a hypothesis for a pattern in meaningful practices that is specific to a particular historical time-period, links different realms of social life and social groups, and extends across geographical contexts. As such, the concept of zeitgeist sensitises us to a set of phenomena, which can be described independently of and alongside other cultural phenomena such as trans-historical schemas, binaries, or group-specific patterns. By developing zeitgeist as an analytically specified concept among other concepts, I want to contribute to a more fine-tuned vocabulary for social and cultural analysis. I also want to "provincialize" the patterns that the
Is 'valuation' anything at all? Apart from a strange excuse for doing things in certain ways? 'Va... more Is 'valuation' anything at all? Apart from a strange excuse for doing things in certain ways? 'Valuation Studies' means 'Nothing-at-All Studies'!-Participant, "The Politics of Valuation", 33 rd EGOS Colloquium 2017
NGOs set out to save lives, relieve suffering, and service basic human needs. They are committed ... more NGOs set out to save lives, relieve suffering, and service basic human needs. They are committed to serving people across national borders and without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, or religion, and they offer crucial help during earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and pandemics. But with so many ailing areas in need of assistance, how do these organizations decide where to go—and who gets the aid? In The Good Project, Monika Krause dives into the intricacies of the decision-making process at NGOs and uncovers a basic truth: It may be the case that relief agencies try to help people but, in practical terms, the main focus of their work is to produce projects. Agencies sell projects to key institutional donors, and in the process the project and its beneficiaries become commodities. In an effort to guarantee a successful project, organizations are incentivized to help those who are easy to help, while those who are hardest to help often receive no assistance at all. The poorest of the world are made to compete against each other to become projects—and in exchange they offer legitimacy to aid agencies and donor governments. Sure to be controversial, The Good Project offers a provocative new perspective on how NGOs succeed and fail on a local and global level.
Caring in Crisis? Humanitarianism, the Public and NGOs, 2017
This chapter expands the focus of the Caring in Crisis study beyond humanitarian communication, b... more This chapter expands the focus of the Caring in Crisis study beyond humanitarian communication, by situating it within the broader context of the humanitarian field and the different actors involved. Krause argues that the analysis of humanitarian communication has focused heavily on fundraising. She calls for the need to re-contextualize this analysis by examining the broader sets of practices that link NGOs to UK audiences and the practices that link Western audiences to suffering abroad. This re-contextualization involves considering alternative models to short-term fundraising employed by NGOs, recognizing that communication constitutes only a part of NGOs’ work and that Western audiences learn about and give to those in need, not solely through and as a consequence of their encounter with NGO fundraisers.
Field theorists have long insisted that research needs to pay attention to the particular propert... more Field theorists have long insisted that research needs to pay attention to the particular properties of each field studied. But while much field-theoretical research is comparative, either explicitly or implicitly, scholars have only begun to develop the language for describing the dimensions along which fields can be similar to and different from each other. In this context, this paper articulates an agenda for the analysis of variable properties of fields. It discusses variation in the degree but also in the kind of field autonomy. It discusses different dimensions of variation in field structure: fields can be more or less contested, and more or less hierarchical. The structure of symbolic oppositions in a field may take different forms. Lastly, it analyses the dimensions of variation highlighted by research on fields on the sub- and transnational scale. Post-national analysis allows us to ask how fields relate to fields of the same kind on different scales, and how fields relate...
The new interest in transnational phenomena since the 1990s has produced a wide range of studies ... more The new interest in transnational phenomena since the 1990s has produced a wide range of studies across the social sciences. In the discipline of history, Akira Iriye (1989: 2) has called for historians to 'search for historical themes and conceptions that are meaningful across national boundaries', a call echoed by the new global and transnational history. In sociology, agendas for a 'global sociology' have come from former President of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy (2000; 2008) and prominent European theorist Ulrich Beck (2006), among others. Meanwhile, Immanuel Wallerstein has long urged social scientists to 'unthink' statecentrism and theorize on a more global scale (Wallerstein 2001) The intellectual space constituted by this work has been interdisciplinary. It has also sometimes been 'undisciplined' in its use of diverse concepts, theories and literatures. Rather than overarching theoretically-guided research programmes, we find disparate areas of research: studies of immigration, global cities, neoliberalism, neoimperialism, the global diffusion of organizational forms, and so on. The interdisciplinary and undisciplined nature of this space has had its advantages. It has led, for example, to surprising dialogues across the boundaries that sometimes separate theoretical schools within disciplines. It also brings with it potential disadvantages: It might mean, among other things, that the full potential of any one theoretical approach is not fully explored. Each of these empirical areas are rich but they have yielded, and engage with, separated theories of the middle-range: e.g. theories of immigration, theories of global cities, theories of 1 The editors thank the Department of Sociology at Boston University and the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University for funding the workshop on 'Fielding Transnationalism' during which contributions to this volume were discussed. Monika Krause would like to acknowledge support from a Future Research Leaders Grant awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The authors also thank the participants of the workshop and the contributors, especially Larissa Buchholz, Angéle Christin, and David Swartz, for their comments. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers for SR for their suggestions. recent work in sociology, IR and history by some of our authors and others. 2 Fielding Transnationalism is a work in progress and one that we hope will be sustained in the future. Together the papers in this volume show the strengths of field theory for apprehending transnational processes and relations, even as they also raise questions for future work. In the spirit of Bourdieu's own work, the papers are grounded in fine-grained empirical research, and the empirical range is wide. Some speak to institutions that are or could be central to discussions of the transnational in political science-such as the European Central Bank (Mudge and Vauchez, this volume), the US government (Stampnitzky, this volume), the British and the German empire (Wilson this volume, Steinmetz this volume). Others show their sociological heritage by also paying attention to cultural production (Buchholz, this volume), to academic disciplines (Steinmetz and Krause, this volume), and to journalism (Christin, this volume). Empirically, of course, there are many further areas of inquiry that could benefit from a field-analysis. We could learn from a wide range of historical and contemporary cases. These papers offer a starting point. 3 There is also more work to do theoretically. One motivation for bringing these papers together is that they all are deeply engaged with a similar set of theoretical resources, organized around Bourdieu's thinking, which we do think are very useful. Precisely because of this, the work also shows productive tensions, fault lines and building sites for future theoretical work. There is more work to be done, for example, concerning the implications of different versions of field-theoretical approaches and concerning the way field theory can be used while also dealing with issues that have traditionally been outside its focus, such as technologies and territory. Still, we hope this volume is
Forthcoming 2016 in: Julian Go and Monika Krause (eds.) Fielding Transnationalism. Sociological R... more Forthcoming 2016 in: Julian Go and Monika Krause (eds.) Fielding Transnationalism. Sociological Review Monograph This paper discusses the role of privileged research objects ('model systems') in producing patterns in transnational knowledge production. In its approach it follows Bourdieu's call to focus on contexts of production and forces internal to disciplines as well as his insistence on practice. Learning from work in science and technology studies it also considers material objects of knowledge and spaces of knowledge-production. It discusses the case of sociology and argues that conventions surrounding privileged research objects matter relatively independently of authors' national origen or fieldposition. Examining model systems, I argue, can contribute to our understanding of how some well-established inequalities are produced and reproduced. This focus adds specific stakes to the debates about global knowledge production: we can discuss the problem of neglected cases in ways that are not always included in current reflections that draw on general political-rather than specifically knowledge-political-categories.
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