Iain M. Wilkinson

Health, risk and ‘social suffering’

Abstract This editorial provides a summary account of research and writing on ‘social suffering.’ Some of the ways in which this body of work might be approached within the field of health risk research are outlined. Some of the criticisms that might be directed towards the paradigm of risk on the occasions when this is used to account for lived reality of human suffering are reflected upon. In this context, further lines of inquiry into the ways in which social scientist venture to write upon, and ‘bear witness’ to, experiences of pain, misery and distress are initiated. Each of the contributions to the special issue in terms of their distinctive approaches to these concerns is introduced.

The problem of suffering as a driving force of rationalization and social change.

This article documents and analyses a reconstructed Weberian conception of the problem of suffering. In this setting a focus is brought to how the problem of suffering is constituted in the dynamic interplay between, on the one hand, the compulsion to impose rational sense and order on the world, and on the other, the necessity to find a means to satiate charismatic needs. The discussion highlights Webers account of the tendency for problems of suffering to increase in volume and scale along with the intensification and spread of modern processes of rationalization. It offers a case for the development of further sociological inquiries into the role played by experiences of the problem of suffering within the dynamics of social and cultural change.

The Problem of ‘Social Suffering’: The Challenge to Social Science

Abstract This article presents a critical review of contemporary research on ‘social suffering’. It dwells substantially upon the ways in which social researchers account for the problem of bringing the lived reality of suffering to public attention. The author considers the possibility that it is the public failure of writers to provide a sufficient account of suffering that, paradoxically, works to convey an essential part of how this takes place in human experience; namely, as a most painful denial of meaning and a terminal struggle for understanding. Such public failing, it is argued, has a positive value insofar as it has the potential to serve as a force of moral inquiry and political engagement.

Grasping the point of unfathomable complexity: the new media research and risk analysis

This paper provides a critical review of engagements between the sociology of mass media and risk research. Attention is focused upon the ways in which sociologists and experts in media/communication studies have worked to bring a more socially dynamic and culturally nuanced account of the ways in which people interpret and respond to the content of news media within the field of risk analysis. I argue that, if taken seriously, this endeavour serves more to frustrate than advance the aims and objectives of risk communication. This leads me to question the role played by sociology in the context of risk analysis and to the critical suggestion that sociological reflexivity is bound to disrupt the domain assumptions and pervading ethos of this field.

The provocation of the humanitarian social imaginary

This article reviews recent attempts to analyse the visibility that is brought to human suffering within ‘social imaginaries’ committed to humanitarian concerns. It questions the conventions of critique that operate to cast the humanitarian social imaginary as a negative development within our political culture. It is designed to encourage a more critically reflexive and historically informed approach to the work of critique. It also argues that it is possible to trace a tradition in which humanitarian campaigners operate with the aim of appropriating the critical reaction to their work as part of their political strategy. In this regard, campaigners are more concerned to provoke moral controversy than to fashion ‘winning arguments’. Here the visualization of human suffering is valued more for its potential to generate value conflicts than for the extent to which it serves as an authentic or ideologically uncontaminated representation of social reality.

Editorial introduction: The sociology of hope in contexts of health, medicine, and healthcare

We live in an era saturated with the language and imagery of hope. Patient advocacy groups, welfare groups, and organizations oriented to various humanitarian causes often make direct reference to hope in their official titles and campaign bylines: “Pink Hope,” “Giving children hope,” “Hope: Global,” “Hope: Preventing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide,” “Hope Foundation,” and “Australia HOPE International,” to name a few. Politicians of both the left and right have sought to deploy the rhetoric of hope to announce promises of economic prosperity and their commitments to provide improved social services and to deliver better futures for all. The now-famous “Hope” poster, which represented President Barak Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, serves as a powerful illustration of the symbolic power of the hope message, a message that Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, also appropriated for his 2013 “Hope, Reward, and Opportunity” election poster campaign. People’s hopes readily feature within the language of advertisements (Petersen and Seear, 2011). As Raymond Williams (1980) noted, the enticement of hope is an essential part of the “magic system,” whereby efforts are made to persuade and identify consumerism as the means to personal fulfillment and happiness. It might be argued, however, that it is in relation to matters of health, illness, and healing that hope finds its fullest expression and is most forcefully addressed as a vital concern. This is not only due to the fact that the lived disruption and distress of injury and

The paradox of hope for working age adults recovering from stroke

This article draws on data from a Stroke Association–funded longitudinal study in South East England (2003–2006) that explored the experiences and recovery of 43 stroke survivors under 60 years. Participants were invited to take part in four interviews over an 18-month period and to complete a diary for 1 week each month during this period. Here, we chart their shifting attitudes towards the process of their recovery. We bring a focus to how this transformed their views on the possible futures before them. We underline how hope was experienced as a deeply paradoxical and risk-laden notion. With energies concentrated upon the effort to live positively in the here and now, the very idea of hope for the future was met as an unwelcome distraction and in some cases even as a source of distress.

Giving in Evidence: Fundraising from Philanthropy in European Universities

This report is a continuation of the themes and ideas explored in two previous European Commission reports, ‘Giving More for Research’ (2006) and ‘Engaging Philanthropy for University Research’ (2008). It is the first report to provide data gathered from universities across the European Union regarding the efforts made, and successes achieved, in fundraising from philanthropy for research. An additional output of the research is a new database of contacts responsible for fundraising in almost 500 European universities. We find that philanthropic fundraising is not, on the whole, taken seriously in European universities. Only a very small number of institutions are raising significant sums of money from this source, and even fewer are accessing philanthropic funding to pay for research and research-related activities. Whilst this may be disappointing for those hoping that private donors can represent an important source of funding for university-based research, it may also be interpreted in a more positive light as indicative of potentially significant untapped potential. There are many different types of university, which affects their likelihood of realising philanthropic income as a result of investment in fundraising activities. Our data demonstrates that success in fundraising is related to institutional privilege (what kind of a university it is, in terms of wealth, reputation and pre-existing relationships with different types of donors), as well as to the efforts made by universities (what the university does, in terms of fundraising activities), and environmental factors (where the university is located, in terms of the geo-political context). For this reason, we suggest that the concept of ‘accumulative advantage’ should be understood as an important factor, alongside ‘efforts’ and ‘context’ which have so far featured more prominently as key levers in the policymaking literature.

Critical Theory of Society or Self-Critical Society?

Abstract This paper presents a critical comparative reading of Ulrich Beck and Herbert Marcuse. Becks thesis on ‘selfcritical society’ and the concept of ‘sub-politics’ are evaluated within the framework of Marcusian critical theory. We argue for the continued relevance of Marcuse for the project of emancipatory politics. We recognise that a focus upon the imminent and spontaneous possibilities for radical social change within the ‘sub-political’ is a useful provocation to the high abstractionism of much critical theory, but suggest that such possibilities are better captured in a Marcusian theoretical frame than they are in Becks account.

Thinking with suffering

Abstract This article provides a critical review of literature on ‘social suffering’. Analytical attention is focused upon the ways in which writers struggle to bring ‘meaning’ to this topic. All sense that there is always something in events of extreme suffering that resists conceptualisation and defies analysis. This problem of establishing a language for ‘thinking with suffering’ is explored with reference to the works of Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur and Max Weber. An agenda for sociological research is proposed which focuses on the struggle to make sense out of the phenomenon of suffering as a force of cultural innovation. In this context, it is suggested that what is most interesting here is the evidence to suggest that, when faced with the ‘brute fact’ of a world where there appears to be too much suffering, people are always moved to make this phenomenon productive for thought and action.