Tom Inglis

Empowerment and Emancipation

The concepts of empowerment and emancipation have gained common currency in recent years, not just within adult education but also in organizational management and industrial training. The notion of enabling people to take control of their own lives and to free themselves from the structures which dominate and constrain them is attractive. But in the debate about people becoming empowered and freeing themselves from power, there has been an absence of a discussion about the nature of power. This paper attempts to clarify the nature of power and the distinction between individuals being empowered within an existing social system and struggling for freedom by changing the system. In particular, it challenges the notion of freedom and emancipation being attained through personal transformation.

Catholic Identity in Contemporary Ireland: Belief and Belonging to Tradition1

Holy Catholic Ireland is changing rapidly. Irish Catholics no longer have the same devotion to the Church that their parents had. While institutional affiliation and levels of belief remain high, there has been a decline in practice, particularly in the number going to Mass. This article analyses recent changes in Catholic belief and practice, compares them with trends among other European Catholics, and links them to findings from a qualitative study of Contemporary Irish Identities. The changes in Irish Catholic religiosity can be associated with an ongoing detachment from the institutional church. An orthodox adherence to institutional rules and regulations appears to be giving way to a collective identification with a religious heritage. What was once defined as á la carte Catholicism seems to be giving way to a smorgasbord approach in which Catholics not only pick and choose which institutional rules, beliefs, and practices they prefer, but increasingly mix these with ingredients from other religious traditions. These findings suggest a new typology of Irish Catholics.

Origins and legacies of Irish prudery: Sexuality and social control in modern Ireland

The history of Irish sexuality remains a relatively hidden, secretive area. In recent years some light has been cast into the abyss (Inglis b; McAvoy ; McLoughlin ; Meany ; Walshe ; O’Carroll and Collins ). Most of the recent grand histories, however, have avoided dealing with sex and sexuality directly and have focused instead on such issues as censorship, the multifaceted role of the Catholic church, fertility control, and, more recently, the sex-abuse scandals involving the Catholic church.1 It is as if the old Catholic-church strategy of not referring directly to sex and sexuality—for fear that it might offend or undermine the innocent—still guides what historians research and write about.

The Media and the Catholic Church in Ireland: Reporting Clerical Child Sex Abuse

Insufficient attention has been paid to the relationship between the Church and the media. Using Ireland as a laboratory for study, we argue that the rise of the media as a public watchdog and social conscience of Irish society can be linked to the secularisation of Catholic Ireland, both at a macro-level in terms of the decline in the institutional power of the Church and at a micro-level in terms of the decline in institutional participation and trust. This article describes and analyses how the media in Ireland have become a major influence in shaping public opinion about religion: the Catholic Church is no longer able to limit and control the media as it once did. This transformation is most evident in reports of Clerical Child Sex Abuse (CCSA). Further analysis highlights a sharp decline in institutional religiosity during the 1990s, when reports of CCSA were commonplace. A less dramatic decline in spirituality suggests a shift towards more personal, privatised forms of religiosity.

Foucault, Bourdieu and the Field of Irish Sexuality

Sociological analysis of Irish sexuality has been notable for its absence. This paper examines the contribution which Foucaults theory of sexuality as a discourse of truth and apparatus of power makes toward elucidating key issues in the history and contemporary field of Irish sexuality. Although Foucault provides good insights into the constitution of a hermeneutics of the self within different ethical regimes, his analysis of sexuality is inadequate when it comes to explaining how sexuality operates in everyday life and the individual struggle to attain power and position in social life. In this respect, the paper turns to the work of Bourdieu and examines the field of Irish sexuality in relation to his concepts of habitus, practice and capital.

The double bind : Women, honour and sexuality in contemporary Ireland

Irish women are caught in contradictory sexual discourses which create a cultural double bind. The legacy of Catholic Church teaching, in which the sexual honour of women revolves around their innocence and subservience, still lingers. This is gradually being replaced by media messages and images which portray women as sexually equal and independent. However, the media also portray sexually independent women as a threat to sexual moral order. The double bind reproduces double standards. The cultural contradictions in the way women are portrayed are revealed in an analysis of the reporting of events surrounding a court case involving the sexual assault of a woman. This analysis is put within the context of media reporting of other cases of sexually transgressive women.

Sociological Forensics: Illuminating the Whole from the Particular

A central task in sociology is to make links between the micro world of events in everyday life and wider social structures and long-term processes of change. This is particularly evident in studying the impact of globalization on local cultural life. I argue that case studies are a good method for making connections between the micro and the macro. I use an example of a study of globalization I conducted in a village in Ireland. However, I also argue that within each case study there will be clues, episodes or events which, when analysed with the appropriate theories and concepts, will illuminate the micro and macro connections. This is what I mean by sociological forensics. I justify this approach by grounding it in sociological theory and pointing out how versions of it have been used in some classical case studies.

Local and National Belonging in A Globalised World

The question of place is becoming more important in an increasingly globalised, cosmopolitan world. Has the global flow of culture and the movement of people around the world meant a decline in the importance of place as a form of identity? Have local, regional and national identities lost their significance for people? The article begins to explore these key issues. In particular it looks at Ireland which, from the 1990s, moved from being relatively insular and homogeneous to becoming one of the most globalised societies. The authors use a mixed method approach. First they examine data from the International Social Survey Project (ISSP) to see if there is any evidence of a decline in identity with place, how this varies between rural and urban dwellers, and levels of age and education. They then use findings from a qualitative study to examine the complex ways in which people talk about and identify with place, where they were brought up, where they live now and being Irish. The findings show that level of identity with place is still strong in Ireland and in some cases is increasing. The authors argue that increased identification with the local is an equal and opposite reaction to globalisation.

The Global and the Local: Mapping Changes in Irish Childhood

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Webs of meaning: Theories and evidence from contemporary Ireland

Meaning is basic to social life. Without it we are, as Bourdieu put it, like fish out water. And yet, within mainstream sociology, meaning is taken for granted. There are two questions. Is it important to try and get at meaning? And, if yes, how do we do so? In this article, I argue that we have progressed much theoretically from the debate that took place between Schutz and Parsons back in the 1960s. It is as if meaning and structures are opposite sides of the same coin but we either look at one side or the other: we cannot address them simultaneously. However, I argue that to do good sociology, it is necessary to try to marry what is going on in the actor with the way in which the actor is constituted within social structures. Given that we can only develop an approximate understanding of any actor and that we can only develop an approximate understanding of social structures, any attempt to link the two is necessarily tentative but, nevertheless, worthwhile.