Andrew Sayer

Critical Realism and Semiosis

This paper explores the mutual implication of critical realism and semiosis (or the intersubjective production of meaning). It argues that critical realism must integrate semiosis into its account of social relations and social structuration. This goes well beyond the question of whether reasons can be causes to include more basic issues of the performativity of semiosis and the relationship between interpretation (verstehen) and causal explanation (erklA¤ren). The paper then demonstrates how critical realism can integrate semiosis into its accounts of dialectic of structure and agency through an evolutionary approach to structuration. It also demonstrates how critical semiotic analysis (including critical discourse analysis) can benefit from critical realism. In the latter respect we consider the emergence of semiotic effects and extra-semiotic effects from textual practices and give two brief illustrations of how this works from specific texts. The paper concludes with more general recommendations about the articulation of the discursive and extra-discursive aspects of social relations and its implications for critical realism.

Class, Moral Worth and Recognition.

The article advances a case for greater consideration of the moral aspects of the experience of class, and the concerns that people have regarding their class position and how others view them. First it outlines an approach to understanding lay normativity, especially morality, in which moral sentiments are viewed as evaluative judgements on how behaviour affects well-being. Drawing upon concepts from moral philosophy and examples of moral boundary drawing and shame, it argues that lay morality is weakly differentiated and assumes a universalizing character. Secondly it considers the close relations between economic distribution and recognition, arguing that it is necessary to distinguish between conditional and unconditional recognition, and internal and external goods in order to understand the struggles of the social field. Class inequalities render equality of conditional recognition impossible, because they prevent equal access to practices and goods worthy of recognition.

For a Critical Cultural Political Economy

This paper argues that, if cultural political economy is to be worthwhile, it needs to be critical of its object. In order to develop its critical understanding of contemporary society, it needs to do at least three things. Firstly, while the cultural turn has corrected and sometimes inverted economic reductionisms dismissive treatment of culture and the lifeworld, it needs to avoid reducing economic systems to the lifeworld in which they are embedded, so that the extent to which systems are responsible for economic and cultural effects-good or bad-is not obscured. Secondly, it needs to take a more critical look at the social and cultural embedding of economic activities, and at the way system mechanisms of capital accumulation and uneven development have powerful disembedding and disruptive effects. Thirdly, it needs to reconsider, rather than ignore, classical political economy, which was always cultural and is still of relevance today, even though it failed to anticipate new issues of cultural and political significance, such as the politics of identity.

Essentialism, social constructionism, and beyond

Anti-essentialism has criticised a range of targets, from cultural essentialism and biological reductionism to causal explanation and foundationalism, and concerning topics ranging from markets to ‘race’, identity and sexuality. The paper assesses these diverse lines of critique. Some social phenomena, like identities, clearly do not have essences, but it does not follow from this that other phenomena we study do not have essences or something like them. While a strong, or deterministic essentialism is always wrong and often dangerously misleading, a moderate, non-deterministic essentialism is necessary for explanation and for a social science that claims to be critical and have emancipatory potential. The concept of essence is problematic, but not for some of the epistemological and ontological reasons put forward by anti-essentialism. Strong variants of social constructionism are liable to invert rather than resolve the problems of strong essentialism, including those of its biological reductionist guises. While it may be best to avoid concepts of essences which assume that the distinguishing and generative properties of objects must coincide, we still need to distinguish classes of objects and identify causal powers which enable and constrain what those objects can do.

Moral Economy and Political Economy

With the decline of socialism in thought and practice, radical political economy has recently been at a low ebb. Yet given the persistence of economic problems and their effect on the quality of life, the need for a radical political economy has certainly not diminished. If it is to regenerate, it needs to return to basics and re-think its critical standpoints. At present, these are typically unexamined and underdeveloped, tending to be limited to matters of equality and exploitation with little notion of economic responsibilities or sense of the public good.

Radical Political Economy: A Critique

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Questions of Method: Abstract Theory, Counterfactuals and Critical Standpoints. 3. Division of Labour and Economic Power: A Reconceptualisation. 4. Markets and Other Modes of Coordination. 5. Markets: Key Theoretical Debates and Evaluations. 6. Ownership and Control. 7. Non-Capitalist Economic Systems Compared. 8. The Critique Applied: Explanations of Uneven Development. 9. Implications. Conclusion.

The ‘New’ Regional Geography and Problems of Narrative

The growth of interest in a ‘new’ or reconstructed regional geography is discussed and some of the methodological issues which it raises are examined. The movement originated in radical geography and involves an ‘empirical turn’ towards works of geohistorical synthesis. Scales of interest range from the global down to the microsociological, with locality studies being prominent. The methodological issues include the problem of the role of theory where explanations tend to be contextual in character, and the need for integrating ethnographic and political economic accounts. Although there are echoes of the old idiographic–nomothetic polarity in the controversy over the ‘empirical turn’, this traditional way of interpreting the debate is shown to have been undermined by realist philosophy. Yet problems remain in a different form, most importantly, concerning narrative. Two key aspects of narrative are discussed: first, the general problem of the construction of texts and their understanding, especially where they involve the kind of ambitious attempts at geohistorical synthesis which the new regional geography implies; second, there is the more specific problem of the advantages and disadvantages of narrative as opposed to analysis. The paper concludes with some speculations on the kinds of text required by a new, critical regional geography.

(De)commodification, Consumer Culture, and Moral Economy

In this paper I attempt to develop understanding of commodification and consumption by relating ideas from the moral philosophy of Adam Smith and Alasdair MacIntyre to recent research on consumer culture by Pierre Bourdieu and Daniel Miller. I focus on how commodification affects how people value things, practices, themselves, and others. It is argued that, although traditional critiques of consumer culture have often been both elitist and weakly supported empirically, some of their normative distinctions can be used to illuminate more positive aspects of consumption. In particular, the distinction between internal and external goods enables us to appreciate that much consumption is not primarily a form of status seeking but a means to the development of skills, achievements, commitments, and relationships which have value regardless of whether they bring participants external rewards. Although Bourdieus analysis of inequalities and the struggles of the social field misses this distinction, use of it helps to illuminate how the struggles are for internal goods as well as for status and power. Finally, by reference to recent work by Miller on altruistic shopping, I question the common related criticism of consumer culture as individualistic, and conclude.

Behind the locality debate: deconstructing geography's dualisms

The debate about locality studies has provided a focus for wider concerns about method and the relationship of theory and empirical research in urban and regional studies. Discussion of these issues has been plagued by conceptual confusion. Where realist philosophy has been invoked in the debate it has frequently been misunderstood. The problems derive from unexamined and inconsistent usages of a series of dualisms or binary oppositions: viz, contextualising versus nomological (law-seeking) approaches, abstract and concrete, necessity and contingency, theory and empirics, and generality and specificity. When the various uses of these terms are examined it is found that the assumed contrasts either break down or involve more complex relationships than is commonly realised. The main purpose of the paper is to deconstruct the dualisms and expose some of the confusions they generate by reference to the locality debate. A subsidiary theme concerns the way in which different conceptions of generality, specificity, and interdependence form ‘metaphysics’ which tend, unnoticed, to dominate whole research programmes. As different metaphysics may be appropriate for different objects of study it is important to demonstrate their differences and respective limitations.

Who’s Afraid of Critical Social Science?:

The article offers an assessment of rationales for critical social science (CSS), noting that over the last three decades these have become increasingly cautious and timid, so that, for example, critique is reduced to uncovering hidden presuppositions and deepening reflexivity. First, the article outlines a simple conception of CSS based on the standpoint of the reduction of illusion, distinguishes this from scepticism and partisanship, and notes the importance of the denaturalization of social forms, Second, it assesses the critical standpoint of freedom. Third, the article argues that a stronger standpoint of the critique of avoidable suffering is needed and already implicit in limited form in existing CSS. Fourth, the article explores and counters some of the key reasons for the retreat of critique, and concludes.