Keith Doubt

Critical theory now

Collective/self/collective - a chapter in the PMC story, Philip Wexler Touring hyper-reality - critical theory confronts the information society, Timothy W. Luke critical theory, Gramsci and cultural studies, Raymond A. Morrow playing with the pieces - fragmentation of social theory, David Ashley the uses and abuses of French discourse theories for feminist theories, Nancy Fraser theorizing the decline of discourse or the decline of theoritical discourse, Ben Agger some historical implications of mother as TV guide, Serafina K. Bathrick from pathos to panic - American character meets the future, Lauren Langman.

Towards a Sociology of Schizophrenia: Humanistic Reflections

Schizophrenia, at one time considered by many clinicians to be a psychological response to an oppressive upbringing, is now generally accepted as a physical illness. While Keith Doubt does not quarrel with this current view, he does challenge the positivist assumptions that tend to accompany it. Throughout this fascinating survey of the literature on schizophrenia, Doubt presents a critique of societys neglect of the mentally ill and promotes a humanistic understanding of the affected person as a social being. Doubt draws on several disciplines and uses the works of such diverse writers as Vygotsky, Piaget, Deleuze, Laing, and Torrey. While he rebukes medical practitioners for ignoring the social dimensions of schizophrenia, he is equally critical of post-modernisms tendency to valorize the mentally ill. Nor does he sympathize with particular sociological approaches which, he believes, emphasize societys reactions to the illness - often at the expense of the afflicted person. Thus, a major part of Doubts project is to place the individual at the centre of sociological theorizing about schizophrenia. This thought-provoking study offers an alternative perspective on schizophrenia to scholars and professionals, as well as to those who live with the disease. Doubt offers practical recommendations, which he hopes will bring some relief to sufferers, and helpful insights to those engaged in treating or assisting people with schizophrenia.

Mead's theory of self and schizophrenia

Abstract This article develops a sociology of schizophrenia by focusing on how schizophrenia is socially defined from the viewpoint of the afflicted person. Drawing upon George Herbert Meads concepts of selfhood, reflexiveness, self-consciousness, role-taking, and communication, the meaningfulness of the schizophrenics behavior is examined with respect to self. First person accounts from Is There No Place On Earth For Me?, Welcome Silence, and Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl are used for purposes of explication.

Scapegoating and the simulation of mechanical solidarity in former Yugoslavia : ethnic cleansing and the Serbian Orthodox Church

In this paper I use the concept of scapegoating to explain the ritualized character of “ethnic cleansing” after the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. I provide an overview of the political background behind these events, introduce the role and influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and analyze the collective violence known as ethnic cleansing through the concept of scapegoating. The Serbian Orthodox Churchs use of a scapegoat paradigm to incite violence created a pseudo-sense of solidarity among the Serbian people. Although this solidarity resembles Émile Durkheims concept of mechanical solidarity, I question the stability of this solidarity insofar as it is based on the negativity of war crimes and genocide. Implications for understanding collective violence in other areas such as the Middle East and Iraq are drawn by way of conclusion.

“mother is not holding competely respect”: Making social sense of schizophrenic writing

This paper provides a phenomenological account of the writing of a young woman diagnosed with schizophrenia. The method of interpretation is to put ourselves in the place of the author drawing upon a combination of sympathy, reason, common-sense, experience, and “an intersubjective world, common to us all” (Schutz, 1945: 536). The result is the recognition of the person as also capable of putting herself in the place of others so as to understand their behavior. This “role-taking success” identifies the limits of the current sociological understanding of insanitys significance in social interaction as an instance of “role-taking failure” (Rosenberg, 1992).The very appearance of a piece of writing often permits one to recognize the presence of schizophrenia. The use of space may be quite bizarre. The varying margins betray the writers changing mood. The letter may start at the bottom or side of the paper or very close to the top ....Capital letters and all letters are employed without any apparent rules, the former even in the middle of a word. (Bleuler, 1950: 159)What we want to understand is not something hidden behind the text, but something disclosed in front of it. (Ricoeur, 1971: 557)Why do we need an art of guessing? Why do we have to “construe” the meaning? Not only — as I tried to say a few years ago — because language is metaphorical and because the double meaning of metaphorical language requires an art of deciphering which tends to unfold the several layers of meaning.... [But also] because [a text] is not a mere sequence of sentences, all on an equal footing and separately understandable. A text is a whole, a totality. (Ricoeur, 1971: 548)

A sociological hermeneutics for schizophrenic language

Abstract Drawing upon Kenneth Burkes distinction between semantic and poetic meaning in all language used by human actors, a sociological hermeneutics for understanding the social character of schizophrenic language is developed. The studys perspective is identified through a critical review of Roy Wolcott, Harry Stack Sullivan, Norman Cameron, Gregory Bateson, and Janusz Wrobels work on the language of schizophrenia. A humanistic interest in the development of more inclusive and open interactions with people suffering from schizophrenia is advocated.

Garfinkel before ethnomethodology

A short story titled “‘Color Trouble’” by Harold Garfinkel was published inOpportunity in 1940,The Best Short Stories 1941, andPrimer for White Folks in 1945. Garfinkel wrote this short story before World War II while a research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill under Howard W. Odum, the founder ofSocial Forces “‘Color Trouble’” narrates poignantly the racial victimization of a young black woman traveling on a public bus through the State of Virginia. The short story provides sociologists with a different medium through which to examine the seminal interests of ethnomethodology’s founder. In a literary form, the short story depicts such ethnomethodological concepts as the breaching experiment, the “et cetera clause,” “ad hocing,” and the status degradation ceremony. Garfinkel’s “‘Color Trouble’” also suggests the way in which ethnomethodology overlaps with, as well as diverges from, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective.

Investigating Srebrenica: institutions, facts, responsibilities

mining the negotiations that might have yielded a diplomatic solution. Disturbing are the public statements in a parliamentary hearing of, for example, John Gilbert, who, at the time, was the head of intelligence at the British Ministry of Defense. He reports that at Rambouillet terms and conditions were presented to Milošević that were predictably not acceptable and that this was quite deliberate. (Testimony of Lord John Gilbert before the UK House of Commons Defence Committee, 20 June 2000, paragraph 1086). However, the reader will appreciate the book for what it is – a engaging narrative about a complex mix of diplomacy, media engagement and force. Although the drama of the military intervention and the intrigues of catching international attention are the stuff that often catches a reader’s attention, it, nevertheless, is the author’s scholarship and compelling account of the slow, persistent, often frustrating and rather unglamorous process of diplomacy and negotiation that make a lasting impression on the reader. There is no overlooking of the vital role played by diplomats and negotiators, often underappreciated, but thoroughly professional and undeterred by temporary setbacks. Among the lessons to be drawn from the Kosovo experience Phillips mentions: “It is more efficient to prevent conflicts before they occur than to get involved later, when the costs of intervention are far greater.” True – but easier said than done.

Balkan As Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation

in the phenomenon of lay leadership, only one of the parishes studied was located in the North East. There is ethnic diversity, however, with three Mexican American, two African American, and one Native American parish; an even urban/rural mix highlights that the priest shortage is not confined to underpopulated or rural areas. Wallace conducted a four-day, mini-ethnography in each of the parishes visited: attending the parish’s liturgical services, committee meetings, and informal social activities, as well as conducting lengthy personal interviews separately with the married “pastor” and his wife, the visiting priest required to celebrate Sunday Mass, and the appointing bishop. She also conducted focus group interviews with the pastor’s children and with a cross section of parishioners. Her book provides a detailed account of the overlapping worlds inhabited by these various players in an emergent everyday church life, and an unusually frank perspective on their feelings about the changes they are creating and living through. Wallace provides a rich sociological mosaic of social roles, especially of the negotiation of new roles on an uncharted stage. Foremost among these, of course, is that of being a married parish leader in a church in which this role has long been performed by celibate priests. Most of the lay leaders Wallace interviewed were middle aged and had prior occupational histories that had some affinity to church work (e.g., teaching, administration) while not fully anticipating the multiple duties expected of parish leaders. And while all of the lay leaders were highly committed to the church, some spoke of their ambivalence in regard to their unequal status relative to priests, while simultaneously being excited by the possibilities their new role opened up for them personally, the parish community they served, and for the church as a whole. The lay leaders’ wives have to negotiate parishioner expectations that variously require them to be both visible and invisible, expectations that are further constrained by the wives’ own work lives and family commitments and, frequently, by the lack of boundaries between home and parish space. The children meanwhile, especially if they are young teenagers, have to deal with the scrutiny of being “the pastor’s kid” and having the rectory as their home, what one wife and mother compared to “living in a glass house” (p 116). Most parishioners are very welcoming of the changes that this new form of leadership has effectively introduced to their parishes—the “family atmosphere,” community inclusiveness, and collaborative leadership. Yet, there are some hints of regret that lay leaders lack full sacramental authority (e.g., to celebrate Mass, anoint the sick, or hear confessions), a tension also occasionally visible in the relationship between lay leaders and their visiting priest. For all the instances of tension that emerge in these pages, Wallace’s engaging narrative also shows the strong semblance of normality, and of smoothness and order that characterizes the social reality that these new interpenetrating roles produce. Wallace invokes Berger and Luckmann, and she succeeds throughout the book in providing an accessible, vivid, and interesting exposition of the social construction of a new reality in the church. Change happens, even in such a tradition-bound institution as the Catholic Church, and as the research here shows, it can reinvigorate local parish life, the institutional grassroots. This book, along with Wallace’s earlier book on women parish leaders, offers a compelling vision that the Catholic Church can be a more egalitarian and participatory church without unduly shattering assumptions about what it means to be Catholic. They Call Him Pastor has relevance for many readers beyond religion and cultural production, including students interested in gender, institutions, the sociology of work and occupations, and family and intimate relationships.

Dworkin's moral hermeneutics and sociological theory

Abstract As a leading contemporary legal theorist, Ronald Dworkin has been consequential and provocative with respect to the development of jurisprudence. This study selectively applies the general principles of Dworkins work first to Max Webers argument for the use of ideal types in the theory construction of social inquiry and then to Talcott Parsonss critique of utilitarianism as a viable theory of social action. The aim is to invigorate, from the vantage point of an interdisciplinary perspective, our understanding of the moral origins of sociological theory.