VOLUME 1 / ISSUE 2 / NOVEMBER 2010 GLOBALDIALOGUE

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VOLUME 1 / ISSUE 2 / NOVEMBER 2010

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EDITORIAL

IN THIS ISSUE

CONFERENCES

he second issue of Global Dialogue features a debatebetween two very different understandings of globalsociology. Ulrich Beck, author of Risk Society, advances

the cosmopolitan turn with a critique of methodologicalnationalism that, he claims, pervades sociology. Our frame-works, he says, simply cannot handle the global issues we con-front. On the other side, Raewyn Connell, renowned femi-nist and author of Southern Theory, considers Beck's cosmo-politan sociology as but another expression of a northern out-look. It misses the multiple voices of the south to which shecalls attention. In this issue of Global Dialogue we do hearfrom Brazil, Bangladesh, China, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia,Belarus, Poland and Germany. And if these voices, and theyare often cries, sound a common theme it is that sociologypositions itself at the cross-roads of national and global forces.We will continue this dialogue over the next four years, par-ticularly as it applies to inequality and exclusion in a globalcontext, the theme of the Yokohama Congress in 2014 forwhich, I'm pleased to report, we now have a wonderful pro-gram committee (see p.4). Once again I must thank our ded-icated team of translators and designers: August Bagà, LolaBusuttil, and Gisela Redondo in Barcelona, Jing-Mao Ho inTaipei, and Genevieve Head-Gordon in Berkeley. All contributions to Global Dialogue should be sent to the edi-tor, [email protected]

Editorial...............................................................................1The Cosmopolitan Turn.......................................................1Weaving World Sociology....................................................1History Corner.....................................................................2Foxconn: The Global Predator..............................................3Dhaka: Megacity of Despair...............................................3 E-Forum for Sociology.........................................................42014 Program Committee...................................................4Brazil: On “Lulismo”............................................................5In Memoriam: Mattei Dogan................................................6Belarus: Sociology under Threat.........................................7

Indonesia: Global Migration................................................6Kyrgyzstan: Turkic Sociology...............................................8Poland: Whither Society?.....................................................9Germany: Trans-Nationalism............................................10

KISS THE FROG: THE COSMOPOLITAN TURN IN SOCIOLOGY

n his inspiring programmatic statement “Meeting theChallenges of Global Sociology” (Global Dialogue, Vol.1,No.1), Michael Burawoy remains ambiguous as to whether

global sociology is just an additional perspective, a supplementto the conventional nation-state centred sociology. Or is it morethan that: a substitute for the mainstream, that is to say a criticalturn in sociological theory and research? The first line of argumentI call 'global sociology,' the second one 'cosmopolitan sociology'.

The collapse of aworld order is themoment for reflec-tion on the domi-nant social theoryand research, butsurprisingly this isnot the case today.Mainstream socialtheory still floatsloftily above thelowlands of epochal

by Ulrich Beck, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich

by Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney

HOW CAN WE WEAVE AWORLD SOCIOLOGY?

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lrich Beck is an imaginative and original sociologist, andwe are all in his debt for his splendid rethinking ofEuropean social dynamics in Risk Society. In the 1990s

he, like a number of colleagues, discovered 'globalization' and sogave us World Risk Society and What is Globalization? He nowoffers this as an agenda for sociologists at large, under the title of'cosmopolitan' sociology.

It is pleasing that Beck is trying to think about sociology on aworld scale. But does he have the right pattern for weaving it?Beck notes with regret that the discussion on cosmopolitanismhas been overwhelmingly Euro-American, but doesn't stop todiscuss why.

The key problem Beck diagnoses in earlier sociology is'methodological nationalism', i.e. methods and theories that

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“Let us kiss the frog and then find out if the frog turnsinto a prince, one that begins to re-map the institutionsof the cosmopolitan age.”

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GLOBAL DIALOGUE NEWSLETTER

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THE COSMOPOLITANTURN IN SOCIOLOGY(CONTINUED)

The history of ISA journals throws light on wider trends in thedevelopment of the ISA and of sociology. This account starts in1973, with the first issues of the only journal we had then, CurrentSociology, produced from outside the secretariat or UNESCO staff.Each issue consisted of extensive bibliographical essays on chosensubfields. That changed in the 1990s to more traditional articles. In1984 International Sociology was founded, with a very clear interna-tionalising mission within a conventional format. In 1999 this addeda book review section, which also strove to be international in pers-pective. It soon became a substantial separate volume, the ISReview of Books. Around the same time Current Sociology alsoadded to its range the CS Monograph volumes, concentrating onpresenting work in fields drawn from Research Committee ses-sions. Finally, in 2005 the very modern e-bulletin, with an originalmixture of types of presentation, completed the set. The recentlevels of creativity and increased participation seem striking.

Who has done the work? Gender patterns have not been quite asone might expect. Over the years the proportion of female editorhas sunk from100% in the 1970s (Margaret Archer, later our onlywoman president so far) to 67% in the 2000s, with almost entirelymale cohorts in between. Nationality also has interesting patterns.Until 1990, 100% were British; then Canada, continental Europe,Israel and Singapore came on the scene, though the British werestill strong. Most striking historically, given the numerical bases, isthe representation of the US by only one editor, Said Arjomand, andthe absence of France. The dominance of native speakers ofEnglish is evident, though that has now shifted somewhat. Thelatest appointments (with new editors from Brazil, India andAustralia - see our last issue) suggest growing levels of success infull internationalisation, though questions of language and of localresources must still affect which candidates come forward.

by Jennifer Platt, University of Sussex, Vice-President for Publications

HISTORY CORNER

transformations (climate change, financial crisis, nation-states)in a condition of universalistic superiority and instinctive cer-tainty. This universalistic social theory, whether structuralist,interactionist, Marxist, Critical or systems-theory, is now bothout of date and provincial. Out of date because it excludes a pri-ori what can be observed empirically: a fundamental transforma-tion of society and politics within Modernity (from First to SecondModernity); provincial because it mistakenly absolutizes the tra-jectory, the historical experience and future expectation ofWestern, i.e. predominantly European or North American, mod-ernization and, thereby, also fails to see its own particularity.

This is why we need not only a global sociology, but a cosmo-politan turn in social and political theory and research: How cansocial and political theory be opened up, theoretically, empirical-ly as well as methodologically and normatively, to historicallynew, entangled Modernities which threaten their own founda-tions? How can it account for the fundamental fragility andmutability of societal dynamics (of unintended side-effects,domination and power), shaped, as they are, by the globalizationof capital and risks at the beginning of the 21st century? Whattheoretical and methodological problems arise and how can theybe addressed in empirical research? So what has to be done?

First, we have to call into question one of the most powerfulconvictions about society and politics, one which binds bothsocial actors and social scientists: methodological nationalism.Methodological nationalism equates modern society with societyorganised in territorially limited nation-states. Second, we haveto ask and answer the question: how to research the global? Andthird: what does a 'Cosmopolitan Vision' imply for the SocialSciences and Humanities at the beginning of the 21st century?

1.Critique of methodological nationalism

In brief: Methodological nationalism assumes that the nation,state and society are the 'natural' social and political forms of themodern world. Where social actors subscribe to this belief I talkof a 'national outlook'; where it determines the perspective ofthe social scientific observer, I talk of 'methodological national-ism'. The distinction between the perspective of the social actorand that of the social scientist is crucial, because there is only ahistorical connection between the two, not a logical one. Thishistorical connection - between social actors and social scientists -alone gives rise to the axiomatics of methodological nationalism.Methodological nationalism is neither a superficial problem norminor error. It involves routine data collection and productionas well as the basic concepts of modern sociology and politicalscience, concepts such as society, social class, state, family,democracy, international relations etc.

Moreover, sociologists tended to generalize from 'their' partic-ular society to a claim about how 'society' in general is organ-ized. (This also holds for my own book Risk Society [1986]).American sociology, in particular, developed in this way, pre-

suming that all societies were more or less like the USA, justpoorer! It was perfectly acceptable to study that particular socie-ty and then to generalize as though all, or at least most, othersocieties (at least those that mattered!) were much the same. Thisled to debates about the general nature of order or of conflictwithin 'society' based upon the distinct US pattern. Order andconflict theories were to be 'tested' within the USA and it waspresumed that these conclusions could then be generalized to allsocieties or at least to all rich industrial societies. For decades itwas simply how sociology worked; it was a taken-for-grantedway of doing sociology. But then 'global studies' marched in.

2. How to research the global? We do not live in an age of cos-mopolitanism but in an age of cosmopolitization

We can distinguish three phases in the way the word 'globaliza-tion' has been used in the social sciences: first, denial, second,conceptual refinement and empirical research, third, 'cos-mopolitization'. The initial denial is over because the theoreticaland empirical refinement revealed a new social landscape in themaking (see, for example, Held et al., Global Transformations).Its dominant features include interconnectedness, which meansdependency and interdependency of people across the globe.Virtually the entire span of human experiences and practices isin one way or another influenced by the overwhelming intercon-nectivity of the world. (This should not be confused with worldsystem and dependency theories.) Continued on page 10

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by Jenny Chan, University of London

FOXCONN - THE GLOBALPREDATOR

aiwan-owned Foxconn Technology Group is the world'sbiggest contract electronics manufacturer, taking in over50% of global electronics manufacturing and service

industry revenue. Foxconn operates more than 40 manufactur-ing facilities and Research and Development centers in Asia,Russia, Europe, and the Americas. Its accumulated revenues forJanuary to September 2010 reached NT$1.95 trillion(US$60.82 billion), up nearly 63% on the previous year-largerthan some of the companies for which it manufacturers productssuch as Microsoft and Nokia by the rankings of the GlobalFortune 500 Companies. With the huge government expendi-ture and the rapid growth of demand for consumer electronics,China's export economy is fast recovering from the recent finan-cial crisis. But is the Chinese strategy of low-cost, suppressed-labor-rights competitiveness economically sustainable or moral-ly supportable? In the 'electronics workshop of the world,' 17 worker suicides or attempted suicides took place at Foxconn'sfactories in China at the beginning of this year. This tragedy hasled to 13 deaths and 4 injuries, all of them internal migrantworkers between 17 and 25 years old-in the prime of youth.Their loss should awaken Chinese and international society toreflect upon the costs of a development model that sacrifices dig-nity and life for economic growth and profit.

Over 85% of Foxconn's 937,000 employees in China areunmarried, young people. The post-80s and post-90s new gen-erations have higher expectations of life than their elders. Theyare better educated, long for a life attuned to the times, and forthe city where everything is happening. The higher their aspira-tions for a better future, the more obvious becomes the contrastto their harsh reality. As holders of rural household registrationstatus, young migrants share deep anxieties over employment asthey are being locked into minimum wage jobs with few bene-fits. On the bottom rung of the international commodity supplychain, Foxconn workers are deprived of decent wages and socialprotections. Employees at Foxconn and other workplaces remainmarginalized workers and second-class citizens.

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by Habibul Haque Khondker, Zayed University, ISA ExecutiveCommittee

DHAKA: MEGACITY OFDESPAIR

n 2008 more than 50 percent of the world population ofnearly seven billion became urban. This marked an importantmilestone in history. In 1800 only 3 percent, in 1900 14 per-

cent and in 1950 30 percent of the world population lived inurban centers. Asia is home to the growing urbanization with aconcentration of megacities or cities over 10 million people. By2000 of the top ten megacities 5 (Tokyo, Bombay, Shanghai,Kolkata, and Delhi ranked number 1,5,6,7, and 8 respectively)were in Asia. In fact, seven of the 10 such cities were in thedeveloping world.

As one of the top 11 megacities, Dhaka is probably the fastestgrowing in the world. Between 1990 and 2005, the populationof Dhaka swelled from 6 million to 12 million. It is projectedthat by 2025 eight of the ten megacities will be in Asia withDhaka ranked fourth following closely on the heels of Tokyo,Bombay and Delhi.

Historically, urbanization was the result of industrialization. Inthe developing world urbanization without employment-gener-ating-industrialization or even informal work is often the norm,resulting in a concentration of the poor. Of Dhaka's estimatedpopulation of 15 million, 28% are poor and live in the slums. Itis “slumization” rather than urbanization. Slums in Dhaka signal

the growth of the informal sectorof the economy. Majority of theslum-dwellers are actively engagedin the urban economy; some arerickshaw drivers, others - mostlywomen -- work as part-timedomestics for the middle classhouseholds. The recent growth ofapparel industries located inDhaka has also attracted a hugenumber of rural women who havefound employment, thereby fur-ther adding to the city population.The zoning laws of the city arerarely enforced. The urban land-

scape is a mish mash of smart residential areas woven with com-mercial districts. Urban problems are most visible on the streetwith snarled up traffic that makes Dhaka one of most anarchiccities in the world.

Bangladesh has made reasonable progress in reducing poverty.The problems of Dhaka lie in the governance of the city. Dhakais managed in part by the various ministries of the central gov-ernment as well as the mayor's office, resulting in complicatedproblems of coordination. Since the national government is runby the Awami League and the city mayor is from the rivalBangladesh Nationalist Party, it becomes a political problem.The two parties do not see eye to eye on most national issueswith sharp ideological differences between them.

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Foxconn workers.

Dhaka - The Megacity.

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THE PROGRAM COMMITTEEFOR THE 2014 CONGRESS INYOKOHAMA

The Program Committee for the 2014 Yokohama WorldCongress has been approved by the ISA ExecutiveCommittee. It was chosen with due regard to diversity byregion, by gender, by area of specialty as well as for theirscholarly distinction and expertise in the theme of theCongress: Facing an Unequal World: Challenges for GlobalSociology. I look forward to the intensive and extensive inter-national collaboration to make the Congress a great success.

Committee Chair:Raquel Sosa, National Autonomous University of Mexico,Vice-President for Program.

Ex-Officio MembersMichael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley, USA,President Margaret Abraham, Hofstra University, USA, Vice-Presidentfor Research CommitteeTina Uys, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Vice-President for National Associations

Selected MembersJ. Esteban Castro, Newcastle University, UKSari Hanafi, American University of Beirut, Lebanon,Member of the ECKoichi Hasegawa, Tohoku University, Japan, Chair of theLocal Organizing Committee for the Yokohama CongressKalpana Kannabiran, Hyderabad University, IndiaEdgardo Lander, Universidad Central de VenezuelaBoaventura de Sousa Santos, University of Coimbra,PortugalMarkus S. Schulz, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USABenjamín Tejerina, University of the Basque Country,Spain, Member of the ECGöran Therborn, Cambridge University, UKChin-Chun Yi, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, Member of the ECElena Zdravomyslova, European University, St. Petersburg,Russia, Member of the EC

Raquel Sosa Elízaga, Universidad Nacional Autónoma deMéxico, Vice-President for Program

by Vineeta Sinha, National University of Singapore, ISAExecutive Committee

TOWARDS AN 'E-FORUMFOR SOCIOLOGY'

n 2005, I became invol-ved with the ISA E-Bulletin, initiated by

the-then Vice Presidentfor the ISA PublicationsCommittee, Susan McDaniel,who invited me to applyfor the position of editor.As someone who hadsome involvement withthe editorial board of theAsian Journal of Social

Science and as a sociologist based in the Department ofSociology at the National University of Singapore, this innova-tive concept of an ISA publication appealed to me. I thoughtthis signalled an exciting moment and I wanted to be involvedin this creative initiative in the world of social science.

This electronic document was first conceptualised as a space forshowcasing the work, practices, ideas and voices of the diverseglobal community of sociologists, engaged in substantive, ethno-graphic, demographic, theoretical, historical and criticalresearch, and operating out of different locations. To someextent, the E-Bulletin has achieved this function since it waslaunched in July 2005. Issues published thus far have reflectedthe diversity of the global sociological community and addressedthe multi-layered and complex sociological problematic thatengage us. From its inception, the document was further intend-ed as a forum in which ISA members could not only presenttheir work but also engage in scholarly debates and discussions.Thus far this purpose has yet to be actualized.

Five years and 16 issues later, it is timely for the document andthe embedded concept to be reconfigured to reflect the vastlyaltered world in which we live today. This publication needs tobe taken forward in terms of its content, mode of presentationand greater readability through wider access and dissemination.To begin, a name change is crucial to reflect a new identity andtone of the publication; the proposed alternative which will takeeffect from 2011, is the 'ISA E-Forum for Sociology,' with theintent of offering opportunities for exchange of views and facil-itating greater interaction.

A second more fundamental change is for this publication tonow not just be 'electronic' (i.e., a non-print medium) but totruly 'go digital.' For a non-print publication in this day and age,a website, a blog or 'going live' is critical. I am optimistic thatthis will also be helpful in jumpstarting a discussion forum andallow greater immediacy and spontaneity in rendering opinionsand reflections on a range of crucial issues. A coterie of newtechnologies has redefined everyday lives in the second decade ofthe 21st century. The ways in which sociologists now 'work,'interact and think about sociological research have been restruc-tured given the pervasive digital presence in our lives.

The idea of this publication 'going digital' is both an acknowl-edgement of the interface of technology and social sciencedomains and an effort to theorise the consequences of theseintersections. The technological features will allow colleagues toshowcase sociological work that is visual and aural, in the formof films, visual images, visual essays and audio recordings ofimportant conversations. I see immense value in this move indiversifying the content of the publication, in recognizing thevaried and multifaceted forms in which sociological work isexpressed, in disseminating this work more widely and inenhancing possibilities for more sustained interaction amongstthe global community of sociologists. Conversations and nego-tiations are underway to realise these plans and I invite everyoneto come and visit the website when the 'ISA E-Forum forSociology' goes live.

Vineeta Sinha.

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assume the nation-state is the containerof social reality. It's not easy to seemethodological nationalism in StreetCorner Society, or The Polish Peasant inEurope and America, or Ideology andUtopia, but let that pass. More impor-tantly, Beck's history omits the formativefirst two generations of European-NorthAmerican sociology, from Comte andSpencer to Engels and Tönnies toDurkheim, Ward, Weber and Sumner.

Nineteenth-century sociology was alreadyglobalized. It did not take the nation-state asits point of reference, but the whole of humanhistory. It drew a great deal of its data from thecolonized world, and its concept of societal'progress' offered a way of understandingglobal imperialism - then at its height.

Imperialism and colonialism are wordsthat Beck does not utter. Like most glob-

alization theorists, he takes his distancefrom such crudities as 'world system anddependency theories'. He prefers the ideaof a boundless interconnectivity, a kindof inkblot of modernity seeping acrossthe world. An example of banal cos-mopolitanization he gives - a commonrhetorical move in texts about globaliza-tion - is being able to go to a restaurantand eat many cuisines: 'It is possible withenough money to “eat the world”.'

But let us ask a sociological questionabout Beck's example. For what socialgroups is 'eating the world' not possible?They would include the billion peoplecurrently living in absolute poverty.They would include all rural people; halfthe world's population still live outsidecities. Also those women who cannotleave home to go to a restaurant, whetherforbidden by patriarchal custom or tied

to care of the old or the young. Also thosemen and women who are too tired fromrelentless industrial labour to go skippingbetween cuisines. Also those disabled orinfected, or members of stigmatisedcastes or races, who would not be allowedinto the restaurant.

In short, this vision of second moderni-ty reflects the experience of a privilegedminority, and treats that as the new reali-ty of the world.

Globalization theory, of which Beck's'cosmopolitan' model is a development,has always worked by taking a model ofsocial analysis developed in Europe andNorth America, and projecting it onto aworld scale. These ideas derive fromintellectuals of the global North, andgrow out of Northern experience, indeedout of the experience of privileged groupsin the global North. The decline ofnation-states, reflexivity, diversity, inter-connectivity, global terrorism, 'the global

Passing on Lulismo: the new president consults the old.

WEAVING WORLD SOCIOLOGY (CONTINUED)


by Ruy Braga, University of Sao PauloON “LULISMO”

espite the unexpected competition in the runoff, DilmaRousseff's (PT - Workers Party) victory, with around a 12million vote margin, over Jose Serra (PSDB - Brazilian Social

Democracy Party) in the Oct. 31st Brazilian Presidential electionsdemonstrated the current administration's political hegemony.

Supported by a wide margin of votes in the Northeast of Brazil -one of the poorest regions of the country and the main beneficiaryof an income transfer program known as the "Bolsa família" -where she obtained the support of 67% of the electorate, DilmaRousseff is, in fact, the consolidation of a relatively new social andpolitical phenomenon in Brazilian history: "Lulismo".

In an effort to understand the existence of this novel phenom-enon, the political scientist Andre Singer has argued that a com-parison of the 2002 and 2006 presidential election polls showsthat the emergence of "Lulismo" was based on the support oflow income voters - those receiving between one and two mini-mum wages - for Lula's political program. This happened at thesame time that the former Brazilian president suffered decliningsupport from among the urban middle classes, who had votedfor him in 2002, in the wake of the "mensalão" scandal (illegalmonthly allowance paid to members of Parliament in exchangefor their support).

What exactly is this Lulismo and where did it come from? In Brazil,the 90s was a decade of corporate productive restructuring, privati-zations and the crisis of militant unionism. The productive transfor-mations and the privatizations increased unemployment, effectivelyundermining the grounds for labor organization. The old system ofFordist solidarity gave way to the casualization of employment, andthe militant trade unionism associated with this system of solidaritywent into crisis, heightening the bureaucratization of the unions.

During Lula's rule the union bureaucracy amplified this trendby taking over the federal government, but preserving theessence of the economic policies of the previous Cardoso regime.Next, the Lula administration demobilized the social move-ments through the absorbing of a significant portion of theirleaders. By integrating antagonistic social forces into the stateapparatus, and by demobilizing the subaltern classes, "Lulismo"dissolved the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s. DilmaRousseff, someone who had never run for election before,embodies the hegemony of this bureaucratic power.

Here, then, is the definition of "Lulismo": a form of hegemo-ny produced by a co-optative revolution - some call it a “passiverevolution” -- undertaken in the capitalist semi-periphery thatmanaged to demobilize the social movements through absorbingtheir leadership into state administration under the guise of theapparent realization of their historical demands. What is left ofthe movements now actively consent to the economic exploita-tion driven by the globalized system of financial accumulation.

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by Yoshimichi Sato, Tohoku University, ISA Executive CommitteeGLOBAL MIGRATION: PERSPECTIVES FROM BALI

participated in an international symposium on “Today'sTrends of Global Migration in Japan and Indonesia” in Balion October 29. This symposium was sponsored by the

Center for the Study of Social Stratification and Inequality,which I direct. It had two Japanese speakers (including me) andtwo Indonesian speakers. While the Japanese speakers talkedabout transnational migration -- immigration to Japan in partic-ular -- the Indonesian speakers reported on domestic immigra-tion to Bali. Although the migration streams were different, theyshared some common themes: the effect of globalization onmigration and the effect of migration on the host society.

It is obvious that globalization has facilitated domestic as wellas transnational migration. However, it is still unclear howdomestic policies such as screening of immigrants through visapolicies affect immigration patterns. For example, in 1990 theJapanese government opened its door to Brazilians who aredescendants of Japanese immigrants to Brazil in order to com-pensate for the shortage of semi-skilled and unskilled workers.Over the years, however, some Brazilian immigrants who had

Western Europe (1975); Pathways to Power (1988); Elites, Crisesand the Origins of Regimes (1998); and Elite Configurations at theApex of Power (2003). He is known for his work in the area ofpolitical behavior and electoral studies, specifically women's vot-ing patterns and the sociology of values (nationalism, religion,and political legitimacy). Although much of his work focussedon France, early in his career he did research on Germany, Italyand Great Britain, as well as Europe and the United States. Thishelped forge his vocation as a comparative sociologist. Heenthusiastically and skilfully developed and promoted this com-parative approach to political sociology as shown in his workHow to Compare Nations (1990). His analysis of the fragmenta-tion of disciplines, interdisciplinarity and the hybridization ofbranches of disciplines in the social sciences is also of particularnote. See Creative Marginality: Innovation at the Intersections ofSocial Sciences, 1990, (with R. Pahre).

Early in the year 2000, he created a foundation devoted exclu-sively to the social sciences. This foundation provided the ISAResearch Council with the opportunity to create the FondationMattei Dogan ISA Prize to honour distinguished sociologists inthe World Congresses, which unfortunately was terminated bythe last ISA Executive Committee in July 2010. The foundationoffers twenty-one prizes for excellence in academic research andoversees three online anthologies.

The International Sociological Association is very grateful toMattei Dogan for his leadership in RC 24 on Environment andSociety and RC 20 on Comparative Sociology, and for all hisaccomplishments in the development of our discipline and thesocial sciences in general. May he rest in peace.

been manual workers entered the middle classes, becoming, forexample, shop owners utilizing their ethnic resources or middle-level managers functioning as a liaison between Brazilian work-ers and Japanese higher-level managers. These phenomena areconsequences unintended by the Japanese government and leadto interesting research topics about the interactions among glob-alization, migration, and local institutions (or policies).

Another intriguing topic discussed at the symposium con-cerned the prestige of occupations. An Indonesian speaker talkedabout Balinese farmers who hire immigrant workers from Javainstead of relying on the labor of children. They want their chil-dren to go to college, despite farming income being higher thanother jobs. The speaker attributed this to the low prestige offarming, which then becomes a factor in determining migration.

In sum, the symposium was a successful exchange of findingson domestic and transnational migration in Japan andIndonesia, deepening our understanding of migration in the eraof globalization.

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by Arnaud Sales, Université de Montréal, Former ISA Vice-President, ResearchIN MEMORIAM: MATTEI DOGAN, 1920-2010

attei Dogan, Founder andChair (1971-1986) ofResearch Committee 24

on Environment and Society andResearch Committee 20 onComparative Sociology (1986 to2006) passed away in Paris onOctober 10, 2010. A generousman with a strong character, hewill be greatly missed by many col-leagues and friends. Born inRomania, he studied at theInstitut d'Études Politiques deParis (BA), then History and Philosophy (MA) at the Sorbonnewhere he subsequently received a Doctorat d'État ès Lettres etSciences Humaines. In 1953, he joined the Centre National dela Recherche Scientifique in Paris, capping his formal career atthe CNRS as Emeritus Research Director. He was also Professorof Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles,from 1973 to 1991, in addition to being a visiting professor atvarious universities including Tokyo, Yale and Firenze. MatteiDogan was able to transmit his dynamic enthusiasm into theacademic life of sociology and political science; he created andled various research committees as part of both the ISA and theIPSA, in addition to organizing a number of conferences andcontributing to the editorial committees of about ten journals.

He was the author of more than 200 publications, many ofwhich involved empirical research, in addition to theoretical,methodological and epistemological analysis. A large number ofhis publications focussed on political and governmental admin-istrative elites. Included among his books are Mandarins of

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Leading international brands have tremendous influence overtheir contractors. Apple for example is squeezing suppliersworldwide with little concern for the effects of its actions on thepeople who produce their products. It is estimated that Applecommands gross margins in the range of 50% on the newfourth-generation iPhone, compared to 20-40% for competitorproducts. Apple enjoyed record profits, and still Apple usedevery opportunity to secure ever lower prices from suppliers.Producers from India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh andother developing countries are pitted against China in a battle tobecome sub-tier suppliers further down the global supply chain.On factory floors, workers bear the brunt of cost cutting.

Under the direct pressure of Apple and other buyers, as of May2010-at the height of the then 13 consecutive building-jumper-suicides (dubbed the 'suicide express' by Chinese media)-Foxconn paid assembly-line workers at its 500,000-strongShenzhen factories only 900 yuan a month (US$132). Thissubsistence level wage is not enough to meet workers' needs andcompels workers to work up to 100 hours of overtime a month,

close to three times the maximum 36 hours permitted byChinese labor law.

Foxconn CEO Terry Gou publicly expressed that the suicideshad no connection to Foxconn's management methodology,wages, working or dormitory conditions but rather that person-al problems led to the suicides. Recently, media reports showFoxconn rapidly expanding everywhere across the mainland,aiming at creating a 'supply empire' of no less than 1,300,000workers by 2011. When these two pieces are brought together,inevitably it leads to concerns that such a giant enterprise wouldfail to reflect on the reasons for the tragic loss of life. During thishigh-speed growth, aside from increasing its own market com-petitiveness and the worth of stockholders' shares, what willFoxconn do for this vast number of young migrant workers?

From this May to September, SACOM and Foxconn ResearchGroup, a team of over 60 professors and students from 20 uni-versities in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, includingPeking University, Tsinghua University, National TaiwanUniversity, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, conducted aresearch at 12 of Foxconn's mainland factories in Shenzhen,Nanjing, Kunshan, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Langfang, Taiyuan,Shanghai, and Wuhai cities. We conducted a survey (1,736questionnaires) and interviews (300 cases). In addition, 14undercover researchers entered Foxconn to work as workers.Through this independent investigation, we call on Foxconn

by Elena Zdravomyslova, European University, St. Petersburg,ISA Executive Comittee

ATTENTION: AN AUTHORITARIANREGIME THREATENSSOCIOLOGY!

istorians of science have shownthat the development of sociologyis directly related to the structure

of society and its political regime.Authoritarian political regimes hinderthe development of social studies, andsociology, if it survives, becomes a trans-mission belt of repressive rule. In suchconditions independent sociologicalexamination becomes impossible, andrepression can threaten the position, andsometimes even the life, of the sociologist.

This is what we observe in the case of the famous Belarusian soci-ologist Andrei Vardomatsky, the director of the research laboratory"Novak". For more than a dozen years, virtually every month,"NOVAK" has conducted polls for Belarusian citizens.Vardomatsky is, also, one of the experts for the civic campaign "Tellthe truth!" This citizens' initiative aims to inform the Belarusiansociety of social problems: unemployment, the still tangible conse-quences of the Chernobyl disaster on public health, etc. It has evenput forward an alternative candidate for Presidency in Belarus.

On May 18, 2010 the research lab and apartment of Dr.Vardomatsky were searched. On June 1, 2010 the Belarusian sociol-

ogist, for no apparent reason and without explanation, was detainedat the border when he was returning to Minsk from Lithuania.According to most commentators, and Dr.Vardomatsky himself, thearrest and search was a form of political intimidation, connected tohis professional activity and cooperation with the independent media.These actions of the authorities are taken in the context of the on-going election campaign. Presidential elections are expected inDecember. Note that the current President of Belarus, AlexanderLukashenko, has managed to be reelected three times since 1994 and,according to the country's constitution, he can run for President foran unlimited number of times. Authorities are taking measures tointimidate the independent media, civic initiatives and social scien-tists collaborating with the opposition. This has become traditionalpractice just before elections - it happened in 2001 and 2004.

Searches conducted by law enforcement have been widely coveredin the independent media, but the state media are silent about theserepressive actions. Belarusian authorities are most wary of profession-al public opinion research, especially during election campaigns.That's why elements of the 2010 Presidential campaign are threaten-ing action against independent sociologists and their organizations.

The international sociological community expresses concern overthe harassment of Andrei Vardomatsky by the authorities, andraises its voice in defense of the rights of its profession and itsscholars. Repression and intimidation against independent socialscience are signs of the vulnerability and fragility of an authoritar-ian regime. As sociology is increasingly becoming a science with-out borders, research data become available outside the countrieswhere they are collected. Belarus, without an independent sociol-ogy, becomes a pariah society, in effect preserving Soviet-style atti-tudes towards our profession. A tamed sociology has no value, andit mirrors a tamed society, that is one where there is no freedomof speech and pluralism of opinion.

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FOXCONN - THE GLOBALPREDATOR(CONTINUED)

Continued on page 9

Andrei Vardomatsky.

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by Tina Uys, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, ISA Vice-President for National Associations

GLOBALIZATION ANDTHE TURKIC WORLD

t was with great excitement (and some trepidation) that Iembarked on a 29-hour journey from South Africa to attendthe Third World Congress of Turkic Sociologists held in

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 21-24 September. Not only had there beenreports in the newspapers about ethnic violence between theUzbeks and Kyrgyz in the South of Kyrgyzstan, and bride kid-nappings, but I also did not have a visa - just a letter from theorganizers that my visa was waiting for me at ManasInternational Airport. However, it was plain sailing from themoment I arrived at the airport, with the organizers makingevery effort to ensure the successful participation of all delegatesin the congress. I never felt unsafe during my visit and enjoyedevery moment of it.

The congress was hosted by the Center for Turkic CivilizationStudies at Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University. The GeneralSecretaries of the Organizing Committee were Prof Dr IlhanSahin, the Dean of Sociology at the university, and Prof DrKusein Isaev, the President of the Kyrgyz SociologicalAssociation. This association is one of the ISA's youngest collec-tive members, and one of only four of the 55 ISA collectivemembers coming from this region. The others are the AzerbaijanSociological Association, the Kazakhstan SociologicalAssociation and the Turkish Social Science Association. The fol-lowing countries were represented at the congress: Kyrgyzstan,Kazakhstan, Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Tajikistan,Tatarstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The speeches at the formal opening were followed by a concertof beautiful traditional dances and an enthralling rendition of asection from the heroic epic 'Manas', which consists of a collec-tion of Kyrgyz myths, legends and fairy tales related to the hero-ic character of Manas. During the opening session I was giventhe opportunity to encourage the approximately 200 partici-pants to become involved in the ISA, and I also providedbrochures with information about ISA activities for collection atthe registration desk.

The main theme of the congress was “Globalization and theTurkic World”, and about 200 papers were presented during 40split sessions over the three days. The debates were very livelyand it is clear that Sociology is standing strong in the region. Ialso appreciated the efforts made to ensure the involvement ofyoung sociologists as they are the future of our discipline.

The main barrier to full participation by individual membersfrom this region in the ISA is of course language difficulties.The main languages of the congress were Turkish and Russian,while some delegates spoke Kazakh or Kyrgyz. The two officiallanguages of Kyrgyzstan are Russian (which everyone but thosein the most remote locations apparently understands) andKyrgyz (recently introduced as an official language).Unfortunately none of the four languages that I understand were

of much value in that environment and I had to rely heavily onmy excellent interpreter, Meerim Kinalieva, to be able to com-municate. Her assistance was invaluable.

Following an invitation from Prof Galina Gorborukova fromthe American University of Central Asia (http://www.auca.kg/),fellow Executive Committee member Prof Nikita Pokrovsky andI had an opportunity to talk to AUCA's final-year sociology stu-dents about their research projects. I was very impressed by thestudents' enthusiasm (and their command of English) whichbodes well for the future of sociology in Kyrgyzstan.

A further highlight was an invitation by Professor Kusein Isaevto Nikita and me to attend a celebration at a family member'shouse. It gave us an opportunity to experience Kyrgyz hospital-ity and to gain some insight into family life in Kyrgyzstan. It wasan honour to be allowed to share in his family's joyful festivitiesand to witness the strong family bonds.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the Center for TurkicCivilization Studies at the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas Universitywho hosted the congress for inviting me to take part in thisimportant event. In particular I would like to thank my hosts,Professor Isaev and Professor Sahin, as well as my interpreter,Meerim Kinalieva, for their efforts to make my stay so enjoyable.I look forward to seeing a closer relationship develop betweenthe ISA and the Turkic sociologists and their organizations. Ameeting between the top management of Kyrgyz-Turkish ManasUniversity and delegates from various countries clearly demon-strated their desire to explore various forms of cooperation.

I

Sociologists hiking in the hills of Kyrgyzstan.

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n September 2010 Polish sociologistsheld their fourteenth national congress,organized by the Polish Sociological

Association (Polskie Towarzystwo Socjologiczne- PTS) and the Jagiellonian University.This event proved to be a great successwith the attendance of more than 1200sociologists from Poland and abroad.Key, too, was the fact that over one thirdof all participants were students. Thecongress program consisted of three ple-nary sessions, four symposia, and 85working groups, a number of ad hocgroups, and several poster sessions. Itsopening lecture was given by Claus Offe,while the closing one was by MichaelBurawoy, who also met with young soci-ologists to discuss the role of sociologyand sociologists in the contemporary worldand in the ISA

The title of this congress reflected thetraditions of sociology and sociologists inPoland, and especially the traditions of

their most important professional organ-ization. It demonstrated the strongengagement of Polish sociologists in crit-ical debates regarding burning socialissues, as well as their equally strong the-oretical interests.

The PTS is the primary association forsociologists in Poland. In its presentform, it has enjoyed a continuous exis-tence since 1956, but its history can actu-ally be traced back to 1927 when FlorianZnaniecki established the first suchorganization under the name of thePolish Sociological Institute. In 1931, atthe first national congress of sociologistsin Poznań, this evolved into a profession-al organization under the name of the Polish Sociological Association(Polskie Towarzystwo Socjologiczne) cre-ated upon Znaniecki's initiative. Thisassociation was one of the first of its typein the whole of Europe.

Unfortunately, during the Stalinist peri-od in post-World War II Poland, sociolo-gy was declared a “bourgeois” science in1951. All sociology departments andinstitutes at universities were closed.Once it had been readmitted to academ-ic life in Poland as of 1956, a group ofsociologists at the Universities of Warsawand Łódż (centering on StanisławOssowski) set up a sociology sectionwithin the Polish PhilosophicalAssociation, which became a member of

the International Sociological Associationof which Ossowski had already been afounding member since 1949. The fol-lowing year, this “section” transformeditself into the Polish SociologicalAssociation with Ossowski elected as itsfirst president. During communist rule,although academic life was highly formal-ized and subject to ideological control andpolitical pressure, the PTS remained fullyautonomous of government intervention,rendering itself an attractive venue forunrestricted, critical debate.

Among its past presidents are thealready-mentioned Stanisław Ossowski(1957-1963) and Nina Assodobraj(1964-1968), followed by WładysławMarkiewicz (1968-1972), Jerzy Szacki(1972-1976), Stefan Nowak (1976-1983), Janusz Ziółkowski (1983-1989),Antonina Kłoskowska (1989-1994),Antoni Sułek (1994-1998), AndrzejKojder (1998-2002), Włodzimierz

Opening Plenary of the Polish Sociological Society,Krakow.

directly to face and resolve its systemic labor problems. No onehas the authority to advance economically and accumulatewealth at the cost of another person's life.

On September 22 the Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday, we visit-ed 17-year-old Tian Yu-one of the Foxconn survivors. OnMarch 17, this carefree girl who once loved laughing and flow-ers jumped off the fourth floor of the Shenzhen LonghuaFactory worker dormitory. Compared to the other jumpers, shewas lucky; she lived. Yet in some ways she is unlucky, becauseher young body is still paralyzed even after many surgeries, andshe will spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

To prevent workers from responding to unjust treatment withsuicides, we urge Foxconn and its high-profile customers toimprove working conditions. We encourage credible NGOs andscholars to offer participatory training in workers' rights at the

workplace level. Workers should exercise their rights to demo-cratic union organization and collective bargaining. At the timeof writing, Foxconn suppressed the peaceful sit-in strike at the7,800-worker Tamilnadu factory in southern India. FoxconnIndia management refused to negotiate with the union represen-tatives to raise wages-currently a regular Indian worker with anexperience of four years earns only Rs4,800 (US$106) a month.On October 9, local police arrested hundreds of strikingFoxconn workers and jailed them in the Vellore Central Prison.

ActNow! (1) Please support the LabourStart campaign titledIndia: Over 500 Workers Jailed in Dispute with Foxconn. (2)Add your name to the students and scholars signature campaigntitled Create Humane Labor Standards at Foxconn and End'Stealth Manufacturing' in Information Technology! Pleaseemail Debby Chan or Jenny Chan at SACOM. Thank you!

by Grażyna Skapska, Jagiellonian Univer-sity, Kraków

WHAT'S HAPPENING TOSOCIETY? THELONG VIEWFROM POLAND

I

FOXCONN - THE GLOBALPREDATOR(CONTINUED)


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he German Sociological Society(DGS) recently celebrated its hun-dredth anniversary with a

Centennial Jubilee Congress inFrankfurt/Main (October 11-15, 2010).The organizers chose the theme“Transnational Makings of Societies”(http//dgs2010.de/English)

While a century ago the nation state hadbeen a new actor and framed what wasthe subject of research - national societies -for the scientific discipline-in-the-making called Sociology, today, the taskis to map out a new scene of the social:the transnational space. What is its rele-vance, how can it be conceptualized,measured and researched; and - a ques-tion that seemed immensely provocativeto a vast part of congress participants -will the transnational replace the nationalas research focus? Maybe it is just 'natu-ral' that a national scientific organizationfeels strongly challenged by a conceptthat is querying its field of research andreference.

The notion of transnationalism as pre-sented in Frankfurt/Main appeared like abuzzword. It had been easily integratedin nearly all the panels' titles, but it wasnot always the subject of concern in thepresentations. Sometimes 'transnational'was used rather broadly and without spe-cificity, and could have been easily substi-tuted by 'international'.

How has sociology in Germany changedover a century? Surely, a male bias is stillshowing. In 100 years the DGS has hadonly one female president. Yet genderproportions among academics are muchmore balanced these days. But doestransnationality show in the list of spea-kers? The tradition of having 'guestcountries' was followed at this Congressby featuring renowned speakers fromFrance and the US, the two other “greatnations” of Sociology.

In multicultural Frankfurt/Main, with afortunately large number of local stu-dents participating, the face of Germansociology appeared very white. Whitedominance even prevailed in one of the - for us - most welcome, progressivepanels on postcolonial-feminist perspec-tives on transnational relations. Yet evenhere the concepts used seemed to remainrather superficial, and not fulfilling thenormative promise associated with post-colonial-feminist perspectives, that is tolink epistemological and social criticismso as to challenge hegemonic systems oftruth, highlighting the way these systemsof truth are based on exclusion, homoge-nization and alterity.

In the face of ongoing debates inGermany on “integration” and Islam,and in the face of stigmatizing peoplewho are perceived as migrants, as cultu-rally different and therefore inferior, we

were disappointed by the final discussionon “Cultural Globalization: New Formsof Transnational Religious Societies”.While the panel certainly representedthree renowned sociologists (Peter L.Berger, Hansfried Kellner and ThomasLuckmann), an analysis of the present aswell as perspectives on the (trans?)natio-nal future were missing .

In contrast, the congress's supportingprogram nicely connected contemporarysocial questions with current develop-ments in theatre and music. However,the scheduling was rather tough on thecongress participants. Lacking anybreaks, the organizers seemed to believethat dedicated scientists live on knowled-ge and air alone.

Acknowledging the importance of areflection on the past, especially on theoccasion of a centennial jubilee, we hopethat old and new concepts will be furtherchallenged in the future, in particular theconcept of the 'national'. The congressrevealed impressively that a discussion ofthe relevance of the 'national' as a key unitof sociological analysis has yet to happen.

GDN 10


by Petra Rostock and Linda Supik, Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main

QUESTIONING TRANS-NATIONALISMAT THE CENTENNIAL OF THE GERMAN SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIETY

T

Hansfried Kellner, Thomas Luckmann, and Peter Bergerin deep discussion. Photograph by David Schommer.

THE COSMOPOLITANTURN IN SOCIOLOGY(CONTINUED)

The third phase uncovers the core unseen, unwanted conse-quence of this global interconnectivity: really existing cos-mopolitization - the end of the 'global other'. The global otheris here in our midst. This is precisely the point: to clearly distin-guish between philosophical cosmopolitanism and social scientificcosmopolitization.

Cosmopolitanism in Immanuel Kant's philosophical sensemeans something active, a task, a conscious and voluntarychoice, clearly the affair of an elite, a top-down perspective. Buttoday in reality a 'banal', 'coercive' and 'impure' cosmopolitiza-tion unfolds unwanted, unseen -- powerful and confrontational

beneath the surface, or behind the façade of persisting nationalspaces, jurisdictions and labels. It extends from the top of thesociety down to everyday life in families, work situations andindividual biographies - even as national flags continue to beraised and even as national attitudes, identities and conscious-ness are strongly being reaffirmed. Banal cosmopolitization is,for example, seen in the huge array of foodstuff and cuisines rou-tinely available in most towns and cities across the world. It ispossible with enough money to 'eat the world'. What othershave viewed as a 'postmodern eclecticism' I see not against themodern but as rather a new reflexivity about what modernity is.Thus, cuisines, global risk, art and global cultural conflicts (forexample, about the Danish Mohammed cartoons), are assem-bled, compared, juxtaposed, and reassembled out of diversecomponents from multiple countries around the world. So thenew volcanic landscapes of 'societies' and their radicalized social


11

inequalities have to be re-mapped on themacro level as well as on the micro level,and projected horizontally through com-munication, interaction, work, economy,and, indeed, all such social and politicalpractices.

As Chang Kyung-Sup has written, likeclimate change, most of the main impe-tuses for social and economic transfor-mations in the new century do not differ-entially or exclusively apply to certainlimited groups of nations. Consider thefollowing: global free trade and financial-ization, corporate deterritorialization andtransnationalized production, globalizedlabor use, competition and class con-flicts, globalized policy consulting andformulation (coerced by the IMF, etc.),internet communication and cyberspace,globally orchestrated bioscientific manip-ulation of life forms (gradually including

human bodies), global risks of all kinds(financial crisis, terrorism, AIDS, swineflu, SARS), transnational demographicrealignments (the migration of labor,spouses, and children), cosmopolitizedarts and entertainments, and, last but notleast, globally financed and managedregional wars. There are no permanentsystematic hierarchies, sequences orselectivities by which different groups ofnations - whether at different levels ofdevelopment, in different regions or ofdifferent ethnicities and religions - areexposed to these new civilizational forcesin mutually exclusive ways. Desired ornot, they are every nation's and everyperson's concern because they are struc-turally enmeshed with the new civiliza-tional process which I call 'reflexive cos-mopolitization'; and the civilizationalcondition thereby shared across the globeis a 'reflexive' or 'second' modernity.

The recent world history seems to dic-tate that surviving, let alone benefiting

from, these new civilizational forcesrequire every nation to actively internal-ize them and one another. The sociologi-cal implication is simple: the global otheris in our midst! Isolationist efforts -whether spoken in terms of trade protec-tionism, religious fundamentalism,national fundamentalism, media andinternet control or whatever else - arereadily subjected to international moralcondemnations (and, to some extent,ineffective). In fact, accepting or refusingthese forces remains beyond willful polit-ical or social choices because they areglobally reflexive - that is, compulsivelyoccurring through the 'cosmopolitanimperative: cooperate or fail!'

3. A 'cosmopolitan vision' for thesocial sciences

It is a paradox that the very lively debateson cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitiza-tion are overwhelmingly Euro-American.They are about globalization, and aboutrisks, rights, and responsibilities in aninterconnected world, but they reflectdisproportionately views from the old'core' of the modern world system (andWestern-educated elites from formerlycolonial outposts). This is the source of atleast four biases.

First, though an effort is made to includeconsideration of poor, developing, oremerging economies cosmopolitan theo-ries reflect the perspective of the rich.

Second, though an effort is made to bemulticultural, cosmopolitan theories arerooted in the West. Third, cosmopolitantheories try to escape cultural bias byimagining an escape from culture into arealm of the universal (as though thosewho travel aren't still shaped by their pre-vious cultural contexts and as though suchglobal circuits themselves don't providenew cultural contexts). Fourth, as CraigCalhoun has written, despite attention tosocial problems, because cosmopolitantheories are rooted in the (declining) coreof the modern world system, they tend toimagine the world as more systematicallyand uniformly interconnected than it is.Those biases are exactly what cosmopoli-tan sociology has to overcome.

Let me end by summarizing in seven the-ses what the cosmopolitan turn entails:

1. An earlier phase of modernity wasorganized primarily in terms of nation-states, which sought to manage many ofthe risks people faced, although marketsand other phenomena did cross stateboundaries.

2. Modern social and political theorygrew with the dominance of nation-statesand internalized the nation-state as thetacit model for the ideal-as-society -influenced by the actual power of nation-states but also by the widespread aspira-tion to organize the world on the basis ofnation-states.

3. An earlier philosophical cosmopoli-tanism developed in this context, callingon people ethically to transcend narrownationalist views, as though the sociolog-ical conditions of their lives did not real-ly matter.

4. Consider global free trade and finan-cialization, corporate deterritorializationand transnationalized production, glob-alized labour use, internet communica-tion, globally orchestrated bioscientificmanipulation of life forms and, last butnot least, globally financed and managedregional wars. Recent world historyseems to dictate that surviving, let alonebenefiting from, these new civilizational


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IN REALITY A 'BANAL','COERCIVE' AND 'IMPURE'

COSMOPOLITIZATIONUNFOLDS UNWANTED,

UNSEEN...

“

”

THE COSMOPOLITAN TURN IN SOCIOLOGY(CONTINUED)


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other here in our midst' - can we not hearthe Northern narrative in these concepts?

I am writing this comment in Australia,where I live as the great-granddaughter ofBritish colonists. 'The global other' hasbeen 'here in our midst', from anAboriginal point of view, for two hundredyears. The British began the conquest ofthe territories they later called Australia in1788, about the time Immanuel Kant wasdreaming of perpetual peace and cosmo-politan law in Königsberg. The GlobalOther brought fire and sword to the terri-tories later called Latin America more thantwo hundred years before that. And theGlobal Other completed the conquest andexploitation of Africa, an extraordinarilyviolent process in regions like the Congo,one hundred years later.

In Beck's analysis, however, the social his-tory of most of the world is not relevant,because 'there are no permanent systematichierarchies' in Second Modernity. Everyoneis structurally enmeshed in reflexive cos-mopolitanization, evidently on much thesame terms and in the same degree, aroundthe globe. If only it were true!

The way to break out of the frame ofEurocentric thought is, surely, to studynon-Eurocentric frames of thought. Andthis is the real problem in contemporarysociological thought, a problem that goesfar beyond Beck's case: the leading prac-titioners do not study the social thought ofthe majority world.

In their British Journal of Sociology paperBeck and Grande list 'the dominant theo-

ries in contemporary sociology' - Bourdieu,Coleman, Foucault, Giddens, Goffman,Habermas, Luhmann, Meyer, Parsons, andeven Beck - and note it is a problem whenideas from one society are implicitlyapplied to society in general. Correct.What they don't say is that Bourdieu,Coleman etc. come not from any random'society', they come specifically from theglobal metropole, and that is why their the-ories are dominant. There is a systematicglobal hierarchy, and here is its trace. Wedon't find in Beck's footnotes, nor in thereading lists of most sociological theorycourses, Nandy, Hountondji, GarcíaCanclini, dos Santos, Quijano, Das, elSadaawi, Montecino, Shariati, or evenSpivak. These are collectively as brilliantand insightful a group of social thinkers asthe first ten - but lack the solid institu-tional centrality delivered by US andEuropean origin, and are mostly writingabout the periphery.

We need a sense of the global sociologyof knowledge. The best account of thiscomes from the Beninese philosopherPaulin Hountondji and his colleagues.Colonialism installed a global division oflabour in science, which has continued inthe postcolonial era. The peripheryserved mainly as a mine of data, and themoment of theory was located in themetropole. After the production of theo-ry, knowledge is re-exported to theperiphery as applied science, or as a pack-aged version of science for students tostudy. Hountondji describes the charac-teristic stance of intellectuals in theperiphery as one of 'extroversion', i.e.being oriented to an external source ofauthority. One reads texts from themetropole, learns methods from themetropole, travels to the metropole foradvanced training, tries to publish in

metropolitan journals and join 'invisiblecolleges' centred in the metropole. Canreaders see any resemblance to sociology?

For the social sciences, some of the mostpowerful alternatives to metropolitanthought are those that arose not beforecolonialism, but in response to colonial-ism and its evolution. This chapter in thehistory of social thought concerns figureslike Jamal ud-Din al-Afghani, SunYatsen, Sol Plaaje, and a later generationsuch as Frantz Fanon and Ali Shariati.These are familiar figures in political his-tory, but are not on our lists of 'classicaltheorists' - where perhaps they ought tobe, as they began the critical analysis ofmassive social transformations.

There is a growing movement in sociol-ogy to change the reading lists - to recov-er, value and link the many perspectivesin social thought that arise from the col-onized and postcolonial world. Threepublications of 2010 mark this moment,called respectively Facing an UnequalWorld: Challenges for a Global Sociology;The ISA Handbook of Diverse SociologicalTraditions; and Decolonizing EuropeanSociology. In these texts, with others fromthe periphery published in recent years,there is a wealth of ideas and materials forweaving a truly world sociology.

WEAVING WORLDSOCIOLOGY(CONTINUED)

ON “LULISMO”(CONTINUED)

For their part, a considerable portion of the Brazilian lower class-es also consent but in a more passive way. They are entangled in anetwork of dependence on governmental public policies such asthe “Bolsa Familia”, the expansion of the federal university systemwith support for affirmative action, the push towards "decasual-ization" of the labor market, the policy of increasing the mini-mum wage beyond inflation, the resumption of investment ininfrastructure and, more recently, the encouragement of massconsumption through payroll loans.

Tired of being politically innovative and of defending them-

selves economically, the Brazilian subaltern classes catch theirbreath and, relying on redistribution of income permitted byeconomic growth, they continue their support of Lulismo andits new representative, Dilma Rousseff.

However, it is worth remembering the 10 million null andblank votes, as well as the 20 million votes obtained by MarinaSilva (PV - Green Party) in the first round, and the million voteswon by the extreme left. These dissenting voices point to dissat-isfaction with the narrow limits set by the current bipartisanpolitical game (PT-PSDB) that dominates the country. Even thecelebrations of Dilma's victory were timid and bureaucratic. Itremains to be seen how "Lulismo" will respond, now withoutLula, to these cracks in the edifice.

ISA Vice-Presidents weaving world sociology on ooVoo,the latest in e-comunication.

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Wesołowski (2002-2005), and PiotrGliński (2005-present). Currently PTSboasts approximately 1200 members. Itshonorary members have included JamesS. Coleman, the late Shmuel Eisenstadt,Theodore Abel, Stanisław Andreski,Zbigniew Pełczyński, Jerzy Zubrzycki,Melvin Kohn, Jiri Musil, RichardGrathoff, Jan Sedlacek, Feliks Gross, andVladimir Yadov. The PTS publishes theEnglish-language quarterly, the PolishSociological Review.

There have always been close personaland intellectual links between the PTSand the ISA. Indeed, some members ofthe PTS became officers of the ISA: JanSzczepański in 1970-1974, and PiotrSztompka in 2006-2010 served asPresident, and Magdalena Sokołowskawas Vice President in 1990-1994.

By 2010 the PTS had held thirteen con-gresses. Their title themes and debatedtopics have illustrated the altering socialreality, and the equally changing issues ofpublic concern in a country that - at leastsince 1945 - has been subjected to “nat-ural” experiments. For better or worse,life in Poland has comprised an extant“laboratory” for sociologists (insidePoland and out); here one has been ableto study most of the influential ideas and

forces which have shaped social, politi-cal, and also economic processes in the20th and early 21st centuries. The regu-larly held congresses have contributedsignificantly to the development ofsociology as a scholarly discipline, andto independent public debate inPoland. At the end of the 1970s whenthis debate took its most critical turn,the term “oral sociology” was coinedsince the most crucial and intellectuallyimportant ideas could only be spokenand discussed, but not published.

In the initial years of the political thawafter 1956 the PTS congresses reflectedthe intellectual visions and ambitions ofPolish sociologists. This is clear from thetitles: Changes in Polish Society under theInfluence of Industrialization and the NewSystem (1965), Sociological Theory andResearch vis-à-vis Societal Practice (1969),The Development of Polish Society andSociology (1977), or Polish SociologyFacing the Country's Problems (1981).

Not surprisingly, the congresses organ-ized after 1989, were devoted to the post-communist transformation and its possi-ble outcomes, both theoretical and prac-tical. Congress themes included suchtopics as Fundamental Change and ItsChallenges: Theories of Social ChangeFaced with the Challenges of the Present(1990), or People and Institutions: The

Development of Social Order (1994). Themost recent congresses, including the 14th

Congress organized in Kraków this year,have dwelt on processes of differentiationas well as the anxieties and uncertaintiesfound in both society and sociology.Thus, the title of the congress held in2006 was What Associates Us, WhatDifferentiates Us, and the most recent onedealt with What's Happening to Society?

During the 14th Congress of Polish soci-ologists, these anxieties and uncertaintieswere clearly aired in the opening lectureby Claus Offe, entitled What, if anything,do we mean by social and political“progress” today? The topics of the subse-quent plenary sessions and symposia,working sessions, and ad hoc groupsdeveloped this discussion. However, theplenary sessions and symposia werefuture-oriented, too. Indeed, many of theleading panels were devoted to “readingthe future” based on an analysis of con-temporary phenomena.

The 14th Congress of Polish sociologistsconcluded with a panel discussion onSociology and society in a globalizing worldled by Piotr Sztompka, and then a speciallecture by Michael Burawoy on publicsociology. The closing discussions morethan realized the program committee'sintentions to project a sociology that wasfuture-oriented and publicly-engaged.

POLAND (CONTINUED)

forces requires every nation to activelyinternalize them and one another. This iswhat I call '(Reflexive) Cosmopolitization';and the civilizational condition sharedacross the globe is called 'Reflexive' or'Second' Modernity'

5. I do not see the nation-state as disap-pearing. I see it as only one of manyactors in a global power game. The focusneeds to be on that global power gameand not on the nation-state.

6. Such a shift in focus requires therestructuring of the social sciences notonly conceptually, theoretically, andmethodologically but also in the veryorganization of research. All their funda-mental concepts - especially the nation-state - need to be re-examined. Many are

'zombie concepts' that continue to liveon even though the world that they relat-ed to at one time no longer exists.

7. Cosmopolitan sociology not onlyinvolves a fundamental reorganization ofthe social sciences, and a dramatic shift infocus - from methodological nationalismto methodological cosmopolitanism - butit must also be critical in its orientation.One critical focus must be on the increas-ing inequality in the world. The focus onthe nation-state has led to a shameful sub-ordination of 'objective' and 'value-free'sociology to the imperatives of the nation-state which blinds even empirical sociolo-gy to the fundamental transnational trans-formations of domination and inequality.

There are risks as well as opportunitiesin the cosmopolitan turn, but for now letus kiss the frog and then find out if thefrog turns into a prince - one that beginsto re-map the scapes, flows, new lines ofconflict, actors and institutions of thecosmopolitan age. After all, kissing does-

Dhaka has survived for the past 400years over which time it has seen rise anddecline, opulence and poverty. The citywas made a provincial capital in the lateseventeenth century by the Mogul rulers.During the British rule the city declinedas Kolkata rose, but since 1971it has beenthe capital of Bangladesh, growing againalbeit in an unplanned manner. Under acapable and democratic city government,Dhaka may regain its past glory trans-forming itself from a megacity of despairinto a thriving megapolis.

n't hurt anybody, does it?

For the debate on cosmopolitan sociologysee Ulrich Beck/Edgar Grande (eds): Varietiesof Second Modernity: Extra European andEuropean Experiences and Perspectives,British Journal of Sociology 61(3), 2010;and Soziale Welt 61 (3/4), 2010.

THE COSMOPOLI-TAN TURN INSOCIOLOGY(CONTINUED)

DHAKA (CONTINUED)

Documents

VOLUME 1 / ISSUE 2 / NOVEMBER 2010 GLOBALDIALOGUE