Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

You may remember that in December I reviewed a talk given by Les Back at a conference I went to. Well last Thursday (22nd March 2007) I went to Goldsmith’s College in London to interview Les Back about some of the themes he raised in that talk. Les Back is best known for his work on ethnicity, racism and ethnic identities in the UK, but he was talking to me about his new book The Art of Listening which will be published this July and about the role of sociology in today’s rapidly changing society.

The interview covers issues around the media, politics, social change and challenges to sociology and can be listened to by clicking on the buttons below.

Introduction

Les talks about his new book, The Art of Listening

Les talks about how sociology can relate to our moral system

Big brother

The art of listening

The role of theory, the role of history, and individuals and structures

Dark times

To read an extract from the book just follow this link: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-11-15-back-en.html

Here is an image of the cover of The Art of Listening - look closely at the photo! If you want to pre-order a copy of Les’ new book you can of course do so - just click on the link below:

The Art of Listening

An interesting article from Michael Portillo in today’s issue of The Times.  It’s a comment article and is therefore about the author’s views rather than a factual account.  Portillo is essentially arguing that religion and politics (or rather faith and politics) don’t mix and raises some controversial and interesting points in the process.  Unfortunately he seems to see faith and fanatacism as one and the same which rather spoils his argument.

If God is talking to you, too, Mr Cameron – don’t listen-TimesOnline

The Economist’s bumper Christmas edition is always a good source of interesting articles.

Pushtunwali | Honour among them | Economist.com

This article looks at the Pushtun tribe in Afghanistan and their unique culture, the article quotes Churchill saying that “Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices … is incomprehensible to a logical mind”.

The article is actually slightly more analytical than this, looking at the ways in which a set of values and norms comes together to create a unique culture, where obligation to murder and gain revenge are balanced by obligations to hospitality and to give refuge to those seek it.

The reasons for Pushtunwali’s long survival are examined and include the remoteness of Pushtun populations as well as the meritocractic structure of social hierarchies, with status gained rather than inherited. The article also outlines the ways in which Pushtuns are negotiating their own cultural structures in relation to Islamic cultural and religious structures and pressures in Afghanistan and also in relation to the presence of US forces.

Much of the Pushtun culture is inherently repulsive to those of us from Westernised cultures because of the clash with the values that we take for granted as “right”.   At the same time it serves as a reminder that values, rather than being absolutes are culturally relative, shifting from social group to social group and shaping the behaviour of individuals.

For those of you studying the Sociology of Religion, the following article from (yet again!) the Economist is worth reading.  Looking in particular at the rise of the pentecostal churches in South America and Africa as well as the pentecostal movement more generally, there is also a brief section considering the viewpoints of Marx, Weber and Durkheim on religion and how these viewpoints relate to pentecostalism.
Pentecostals | Christianity reborn | Economist.com

This is a bit of fun - a video on YouTube with someone singing about being Jewish at Christmas. It’s lighthearted but it still makes you think about our cultural assumptions that everyone celebrates Christmas and also the ways in which the creation of a consumption culture has to some extent hidden the Christian religious roots of Christmas.

I eat Chinese food at Christmas

If you’re a teacher doing anything around ethnicity or religion with your students you may want to use this as a discussion starter.