SCM Core Text Sociology of Religion by Dawson Andrew

Author:Dawson, Andrew [Dawson, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd
Published: 2011-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

Non-functionalist approaches

Beyond the American functionalist tradition and its macro-structural preoccupations, the likes of Goffman, Garfinkel, Berger and Luckmann have done much to apply Durkheim and Weber’s work to the mid-range and micro-social contexts through which knowledge is produced. Augmenting Durkheim and Weber with post-classical approaches (for example George Herbert Mead and Alfred Schutz), these social theorists analyse the ways in which organizational processes and interpersonal dynamics create and sustain collective meaning structures through which individual identity is generated, moulded and transformed. Through approaches such as these, the aforementioned insights of Durkheim and Weber were fashioned as central components of a ‘sociology of knowledge’ which went some way to avoiding the structuralist extremes and deterministic excesses of both functionalist and Marxist traditions. In focusing upon the organizational and micro-social dynamics of meaning-making and identity formation, however, the ‘sociology of knowledge’ failed adequately to engage the overarching issues of power, inequality and exploitation. In so doing, the sociology of know­ledge showed how individual identity is formed through collective social processes but did not sufficiently account for why some identities (e.g. male, white, heterosexual) fare better than others (e.g. female, black, homosexual). In effect, this approach failed to address Marx’s assertion that society works to the benefit of some and the detriment of others.

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