The Global Sociology Blog

A while back, Brooke Harrington, over at Economic Sociology, posted on how the best products do not always prevail on markets, using as example the Qwerty keyboard. It is a familiar story that, according to Harrington, economics is ill-equipped to explain, as opposed to economic sociology: “But these cases also showcase the value that economic [...]

In an interview with Le Monde, sociologist Louis Chauvel – author of the great Les Classes Moyennes à La Dérive – describes how the middle and lower classes will be affected by the austerity programs that the European governments are about to implement. For Chauvel, a great deal rests on the middle classes, so their [...]

Ok, one last post on the sociological aspects of football as the end of the World Cup nears. First, much has been made of Americans’ lack of interest in football. Of course, there is the idiotic conservative argument that football is boring, not enough goals are scored (Americans enjoy quantity over quality, as usual, in [...]

The toxic combination of local caste-based authority + patriarchy + socially-constructed but essentialized traditions = honor killings: “The phenomenon of honor killings is most prevalent in some northern states, especially Haryana, where village caste councils, or khap panchayats, often operate as an extralegal morals police force, issuing edicts against couples who marry outside their caste [...]

So this unsurprising new came out today, and it is not a new trend either: inequalities are growing. Put in another way: And this is not just the case for the United States, take the case of France: There is no big mystery here. These increasing inequalities are the product of deliberate policies that shifted [...]

Their new album is out but let’s have an oldie but goldie: And a new one, Fire with Fire (although I think rhyming “fire” with “desire” should no longer be allowed):

So, I am working my way through this great March – June 2010 of Globalizations, special issue on globalization and crisis and there are two articles, one by François Houtart and the other by Susan George that get me annoyed. Both of them are, I think, correct in their diagnosis. For instance, for Houtart, a [...]

It is an interesting (and depressing) report but it is always annoying to have a “thank goodness white people are the only well-intended and honest people ready to save these poor African children” segment. That being said, it is still worth watching as a form of resource extraction from the Global South to the Global [...]

This is where it is useful to recall Leslie Sklair’s notion that the transnational capitalist class has a political component, not just a corporate one. It ensures that global governance works the way the TCC wants it, at least that is Jean Gadrey’s point on his blog. As Gadrey bluntly states, for the very rich, [...]

Is anyone really surprised that investors, including the ubiquitous Goldman Sachs used basic food staples to turn into derivatives, irrespective of what it would mean for real people in countries of the Global South? Step 1: take a basic (but not perfect) human activity “For over a century, farmers in wealthy countries have been able [...]

Via my Twitter stream, I discovered this older post by Sam Sladner (who proves that there is life outside of academia for social scientists, no really) offering some advice rooted in sociology on how to detect bullshit from so-called, self-appointed social media experts (although I think this works for other kinds of behavior “experts” as [...]

Via The Far Left Side, The Incomparable Webcomic:

Ankie Hoogvelt (2010), Globalisation, Crisis and the Political Economy of the International Monetary (Dis)Order, Globalizations, March – June 2010, Nos. 1-2, pp.51-66. In this article, Hoogvelt argues that the deep cause of the financial crisis of 2008 has to do with globalized financialization spurred by technological innovation that made possible instantaneous trade and financial transactions. [...]

Via Roger Ebert, this amazing series of photos. The quantitative and qualitative differences are obvious as well as the contrast between staple foods, grown and cooked versus processed and packaged.

From the New York Times (via Mireya Marquez): This graph accompanies a full article on the globalization of migration: “The United Nations estimates that there are 214 million migrants across the globe, an increase of about 37 percent in two decades. Their ranks grew by 41 percent in Europe and 80 percent in North America. [...]