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The struggle over globalisation insocial studies: cosmopolitanism vs.
methodological nationalism
Markus Ojaladoctoral candidate
Department of Social ResearchUniversity of Helsinki
Power & DifferenceTampere, 27–29 August, 2012
Arguments
• critique of metholodogical nationalism is closely connected to the rise of the globalisation paradigm in social studies
• critique of MN can be viewed as politicisation of research
• Ulrich Beck’s formulation of the critique of MN based on a binary opposition between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ research
• the focus on ‘nationalism’ of research is ideologically problematic in itself
Globalisation and the critique of methodologicala nationalism
•Globalisation as an academic construction reshapes the research imagination:
- eradication of distance, ”glocal” phenomena- boundary-crossing forms of social (inter)action- transnational structures and agents in politics- ”deterritorialisation” of culture
•Globalisation politicises the status of the (nation-)state>> critique of methodological nationalism
Critique of methodological nationalism (Beck)
• ”society = nation-state”; ”the world consists of societies”
• a guiding premise, manifest in material and interpretation
• based on the shared history of sociology and the nation-state: the nation, state and society naturalised as reserach units
• prevents from understanding transnational phenomena and activity
Methodological nationalism vs. methodological cosmopolitanism (Beck)
The nationalistic view
• society subject to the state• the national vs. the international• the particular generalised as the
universal, or inter-societal comparison
• cultural homogenisation, or incommensurability of cultures
The cosmopolitan view
• the nation-state a creation of social forces
• phenomena simultaneously “within” and “without”
• the particular as part of the global (including the national) context
• global pluralism, “multiple modernities”
• struggle for the interpretation of society
• metodological nationalism is ’true’, but is cosmopolitanism any better?
• cosmopolitanism as a normative outline for research: cosmopolitan ideals vs. the negative implications of metodological nationalism
• nationalism not the only research ideology
• all globalisation research is not cosmopolitan
Politicising research