{"id":562,"date":"2013-11-01T05:34:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T05:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=562"},"modified":"2014-08-13T21:38:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T21:38:37","slug":"readers-responders-and-interpreters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/readers-responders-and-interpreters\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers, Responders and Interpreters"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction<\/em> Anthony Elliott takes the reader for an expansive overview.\u00a0 Someone may liken it to a plane ride from the vantage point of an open-air cockpit.\u00a0 Another may feel as if they have been on a thrill ride where you only have a limited view of what is ahead. In this book just about the time you feel like you understand it, the direction changes and you have to re-orient.\u00a0 It is both fascinating and frustrating.\u00a0 Exactly the kind of ride you want to go on again because of the you realize this matters.<\/p>\n

Social theorists are not only readers of society; they are responders and interpreters.\u00a0 In some ways the theories are a product of their time.\u00a0\u00a0 For instance Fromm, Adorno and Marcuse were all associated with the Frankfurt School around the time of World War II. Their observations of society focused on understanding the effects of domination.\u00a0 They sought to understand and critically respond to the means of political power to assert itself upon society.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 We are invited to consider the implications of domination not only from a political realm, but also from the standpoint of consumerism.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial systems are regularize patterns of interaction, such systems are in turn structured by rules and resources.\u00a0 Institutions are understood by Giddens as involving different modalities in and through which structuration occurs.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Chapter Five takes us into \u201cTheories of Structuration.\u201d\u00a0 While focusing on routines and what they tell us about how we operate in our lives, where we have choice.\u00a0 Our choices may appear to be independent, but the flipside is also inherent, our routines affect the organization of whole societies.\u00a0\u00a0 One may say it is our routines that connect us in society.\u00a0 Routines shape us.\u00a0 Just think about how hard it is to change morning habits, even when we do not want to or pausing to consider how personal habits are shaped by our technologies.<\/p>\n

The social theory of Structuration presented by Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu hit home for me in the reminder of Ruby Payne\u2019s work on generational poverty.[3]<\/a> From the perspective of classroom education Payne undertakes the task of unmasking the effects of generational poverty upon children.\u00a0 She presents a framework for understanding poverty and equips educators and social service providers to understand, work with, and develop educational and communication strategies.\u00a0 While her work recognizes specific patterns existing in generational poverty (which is different from situational poverty) she also highlights that patterns have exceptions.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 This is also true for contemporary social theory.\u00a0 At times it seems the different theorists want their specific theories to be all encompassing.\u00a0 When they are not, the exceptions themselves seem to present a challenge.\u00a0 What has been fascinating to me related to Payne\u2019s work is her recognition and identification that there are hidden rules among the poor, the middle class and the upper class. Within the realm of class, society has and does operate with hidden rules that inform your ability to access resources, connect with others, or even keep others away.\u00a0 In a sense these hidden rules are social practices that shape social activities (what we do), yet because of this do individuals contain the possibility of acting otherwise?[5]<\/a> \u00a0Here we begin to recognize the power to regulate and shape individual actions.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Language and culture are two focus areas for social theory.\u00a0 This engages theorists are with the bare life, those without a place (home), the oppressed, repressed, including those without any seeming power capital.\u00a0 Social theory is intent on looking at the structural forces and the destructive and painful global realities.[7]<\/a> \u00a0Reflexivity is crucial because, as Anthony Giddens asserts, \u201cHow people think about, monitor and reflect on what they do is crucial to how society constitutes itself.\u201d[8]<\/a> \u00a0Yet there is a certain wariness that developed as I continued dutifully through this very fine book.\u00a0 Networks for all their promise of shared communication still possess the capacity for those with the technological knowledge to make the decisions and in essence reproduce those with knowledge and those without.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Examining culture and language, the influence of politics and changing economies is not easy.\u00a0 Both possibilities for good and the reality of misuse are ever present.\u00a0 Risk seemingly confronts trust.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is through reflexivity that the Church can find a bridge to engage with social theory, instead of ignoring or dismissing it.\u00a0 Could social theory provide the means for the Church to engage its prophetic voice?\u00a0 Or is it left to the theorists to be the discerners of our time and age?\u00a0 If reflexivity provides an opportunity to think about and consider our lives, how we monitor self in what we do, our social connections and happenings, will the opportunity for personal reflection draw us toward community? Anthony Elliott writes near the end of the book that fresh challenges for social theory are on the horizon concerning \u201chuman creation, imagination, and \u2018being-with\u2019 others.\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Perhaps this is the continuing frontier for the Church and for theology.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Anthony Elliott, Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction.<\/em> (Abington, Oxon, U.K.: Routledge, 2009), p. 19.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> Ibid., p.128. Anthony Giddens, his social theory of structuration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/a> Ruby Payne, aha!Process, http:\/\/www.ahaprocess.com\/<\/a>.\u00a0 Accessed 10\/31\/13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4] Ruby Payne, Philip DeVol & Terie Dreussl Smith, Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities. <\/em>(Highlands, TX: aha!Process, Inc., 2001),\u00a0 p.13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]\u00a0 Elliott, p. 125.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[6] Ibid., p. 145.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[7] Ibid., p. 342.\u00a0 \u201cBare Life\u201d refer to p. 3, p. 347.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[8] Ibid., 132<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[9] Elliott, p. 279.\u00a0 \u201cTo speak, therefore, of a network society is to speak of high-speed infrastructures of communications and mobilities, of nodes clustered in specific cities or regions for the advanced processing of information and production and of professional elites that make decisions and reproduce the culture of advanced network societies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[10]<\/a> \u00a0Ibid., p. 350.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction Anthony Elliott takes the reader for an expansive overview.\u00a0 Someone may liken it to a plane ride from the vantage point of an open-air cockpit.\u00a0 Another may feel as if they have been on a thrill ride where you only have a limited view of what is ahead. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,196],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-elliot","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1896,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/1896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}