Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“In the fields of technology or medicine, backwardness, dilettantism and obscurantism meet with the contempt they deserve; in the field of sociology, they invariably claim to embody freedom of scientific inquiry. Those for whom theory is merely an intellectual pastime easily move from one revelation to another or, what is more common, content themselves with a hash made of bits and pieces of all revelations. Immeasurably more exa cting, disciplined, and stable is he for whom theory is a guide of action. The drawing-room skeptic may with impunity make fun of medicine. The surgeon, however, cannot function in an atmosphere of scientific hesitation." —L.T. Mentioning the person behind the quote above might provoke prejudice more than thinking.

Do not allow public issues as they are officially formulated, or troubles as they are privately felt, to determine the problems that you take up for study. Above all, do not give up your moral and political autonomy by accepting in somebody else’s terms the illiberal practicality of the bureaucratic ethos or the liberal practicality of the moral scatter. Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues – and in terms of the problems of history making. Know that the human meaning of public issues must be revealed by relating them to personal troubles – and to the problems of the individual life. Know that the problems of social science, when adequately formulated, must include both troubles and issues, both biography and history, and the range of their intricate relations. Within that range the life of the individual and the making of societies occur; and within that range the sociological imagination has its chance...

Class was the key for Erik Olin Wright

The local and the globa l Göran Therborn employs a very interesting approach. I recommend the following articles: - Class in the 21st Century (2012) - New Masses (2014) - Age of Progress? (2016) - Dynamics of Inequality (2017) Note: you may not find free access to all of the articles unless you have a subscription.

The Birth of History and the Past of the Third World

Back to university Verso student reading list

"Take a step or two further back in the production process, and the picture gets bleaker still. To function at all, the smartphone—like all electronic devices—requires raw materials that have been wrested from the Earth by ruthlessly extractive industries. The cobalt in its lithium-ion batteries was mined by hand in the Congo, often by children; the tin in the soldered seams that bind it together most likely comes from the Indonesian island of Bangka, where the water table is irreparably fouled, 70 percent of the coral reefs have been destroyed by mine runoff, and on average one miner a week is killed on the job. The damage caused by the processes of extraction fans out across most of a hemisphere, mutilating lives, human communities and natural ecosystems beyond ready numbering. And so the polluted streams, stillborn children and diagnoses of cancer, too, become part of the way in which the smartphone has transformed everyday life, at least for some of us. Though these facts ...

Arab Studies Journal

Power, violence, dominantion A decade after his death, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu still stands tall