The Global Sociology Blog

Then comes the not-really-rhetorical question… "If firms have become so mobile as to make national regulation powerless, why are the Bad Samaritan rich countries so keen on making developing countries sign up to all those international agreements that restrict their ability to regulate foreign investment? Following the market logic, so loved by the neo-liberal orthodoxy, [...]

More relevant than ever! What should we storm now? A corporate giant? Pharmaceutical companies?

Well, someone had to do it and create a blog with THE title… and it’s full of good stuff too! For instance, The Sociological Imagination via kwout So, update your blogroll / RSS / bookmarks / Zotero library.

And decide that pain is good for us… BBC NEWS | Health | Pain in childbirth ‘a good thing’ via kwout

Workers at a bankrupt French factory say they will blow it up | World news | guardian.co.uk via kwout Compare and contrast: Hey look, the NYT is fellating Goldman Sachs again « Peter Levin’s Rethinking Markets via kwout Just sayin’

[Edited thanks to Baptiste Coulmont: I corrected Peugny's affiliation and added a video available here and more stuff on Peugny available here.] Anyone who has studied sociology in France is familiar with the concept of déclassement, usually through an early reading of Pierre Bourdieu’s classical article "Classement, Déclassement, Reclassement" from the Actes de la Recherche [...]

One of the difficulties tackling issues of patriarchy is that it’s everywhere, embedded in all social institutions, pervading every aspect of culture, omnipresent at the macro and micro level of the social structure and interactive dynamics. As such, it seems so "natural" that it is taken for granted and calling it out is seen as [...]

I don’t blog enough about sociology of culture. Fortunately, others do it better than I could and bringing up topics I had not thought of: The Economy as a Cultural Scandal « Sociology Lens via kwout Now, I need to explore Mark Jacobs‘s concept of "no-fault society" as applied to public scandals (the concept originates [...]

It is not an unheard-of pattern: North African countries have something we need, so, we will invest and go take it. Note how no representative from these countries was interviewed for this article, only Westerners. €400bn energy plan to harness African sun – Europe, World – The Independent via kwout Environmentally, this seems to make [...]

Un sociologue irano-américain arrêté à Téhéran – Spécial Iran – Information NouvelObs.com via kwout And the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran press release on this: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran – Update: Kian Tajbakhsh, Prominent Intellectual, Arrested via kwout

If you want a perfect illustration of what objectification means, then take a look at this story about presidents (Obama and Sarkozy) allegedly checking out a young G8 delegate from Brazil. The allegations are based on photos and videos (find them yourself!) and the international press is abuzz with speculations: Photo catches wandering eyes of [...]

Although the recommendation comes from LP‘s Master Mark Bahnisch… behold The Shtick! Here is a sample: The Shtick: Revisiting Goffman’s Interaction Order (Just For Fun!) via kwout

The most important blog post I have read in a VERY long time by the always amazing Stirling Newberry. It is worth every minute you will spend reading it and every braincell you will spend on it: Three Polar Politics In Post-Petroleum America | Corrente via kwout Do yourself a MAJOR favor and read the [...]

Courtesy of Ha-Joon Chang, from his book, Bad Samaritans: "I have a six-year-old son. His name is Jin-Gyu. He lives off me, yet he is quite capable of making a living. I pay for his lodging, food, education and health care. But millions of children of his age already have jobs. Daniel Defoe, in the [...]

On the one hand, it is reassuring to see the state of women farmers in Africa get some attention: IRIN Africa | East Africa Great Lakes Horn of Africa North Africa Southern Africa West Africa | Angola Burkina Faso Burundi Benin Botswana DRC Central African Republic Congo Cote d’Ivoire Cameroon Comoros Cape Verde Djibouti Eritrea [...]