European Educational Research Journal, online first, open access
Abstract. This research investigates how international educational collaboration (IEC) as a social activity adapts to global crises: COVID-19 and the Russian’s invasion in Ukraine. We focus on Finnish higher education institutions (HEIs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that actively provide IEC activities, such as student exchange, education export and educational capacity building abroad. Drawing from the sociology of conventions (SC) and the concept of social practices, we formulate a multidimensional framework that connects regimes of justification, and social practices that emerge in crises. Considering crises as a critical test, we analyse how IEC cope with unexpected situations that require establishing new justifications of public accountability and morality, and practices that fit the crises situation. Our empirical data collected through a two-stage open-ended questionnaire in 2021 and 2022 enables us to consider the recent trends and potential future(s) of IEC. Empirically, we conclude that coping with global crises requires IEC actors to make changes in IEC practices. Analytically, we theorise that regimes of justification and social practices that emerge during crises (crisis practices) are interconnected. Thus, this study contributes to practice-oriented frame by considering accountability of practices in the unexpected circumstances, enhancing the understanding of how different organisations adapt to turbulent times.
Henrik Fürst, Filippa Millenberg & Erik Nylander (2024)
European Educational Research Journal, Online first, open access
Abstract. Drawing on convention theory and sociology of critique, this article examines how teachers at a Swedish folk high school coordinate students’ activities through tests. Through ethnographic descriptions of exercises, assignments, presentations, and exhibitions that test students’ engagement, it is shown how the teachers seek to depart from the standardized assessment procedure associated with formalized schooling. More specifically, the teachers’ tests destabilize the prevailing understanding of what art “is,” support the students to collectively explore and experiment with materials and highlight promising dimensions in their art-making. The article highlights “what is at stake” in art education and recognizes certain conventions as central in formatting, confirming, and interrogating the students’ understanding of their artistic practices. Through these tests, students face a contradiction of freedom: the freedom to find their unique voice and follow their inner calling, versus the explicit and imposed expectation to express their freedom in a certain way.
In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first
The contribution introduces and outlines how creative labor and design are being addressed in economics and sociology of conventions (in short EC/SC or convention theory). It discusses the sector of creative labor and design as a diverse field, where different conventions come into play to justify coordination and for the valorization of things and persons. These conventions overcome uncertainties about behavior both within companies and professional groups, as well as on the markets, particularly in terms of setting the price of products or services. The chapter presents research on the subject and displays different empirical and theoretical works. The first part discusses EC/SC’s conceptual approaches on devices for judging creative labor, whether more general with the orders of worth model or, more specifically, with a focus on labor markets with issues in terms of training, recruitment, and careers. The second part focuses on the role of designers in the valuation of things. Here, their special role as market professionals is emphasized, and literature in the field of intellectual property rights for creatives is discussed, in particular by distinguishing different conventions for attributing these rights according to productive configurations.
European Educational Research Journal, Online first, open access
Abstract. The transformation of higher education provision by neoliberal values has been well documented. However, recent criticisms and even attacks upon higher education indicate a new politics extending beyond neoliberalism. This article draws on the sociology of conventions to unpick the distinctions at work in these new criticisms of universities. By distinguishing between values based in the market world, industrial world and civic world, we elaborate the political basis of recent value controversies around higher education (HE), reflected in policy and rhetoric. Looking to reject aspects of the neoliberal HE model, some critics have sought to revalue higher education upon productivist values, attacking universities for failing to generate ‘use’ value for students and society. Populist actors have launched stronger criticisms, aiming to revalue higher education on nationalistic and traditional values. This has generated the devaluation of higher education in national public spheres. As higher education has expanded globally, this new politics emerges from conflicts within and between conservative and liberal elites. Trends in Hungary and Brazil indicate the successes and failures of populist attacks on universities. Trends in the United Kingdom and Australia reflect productivist revaluations of market-based HE. Elite revaluation and devaluation is producing an emerging new global politics of HE.
The European Educational Research Journal, Online first, open access
Abstract. This special issue brings together current work in education research that engages with a pragmatic, yet critical theoretical tradition sprung from the French context during the 1980s. Based on a particular understanding of existence, perception, reality and the dynamics of social life, this theoretical tradition has continuously been developed over the past four decades in a variety of fields, such as law, economic studies, political sciences, education research and sociology. Despite its rich history, this approach has until recently only garnered limited attention from English-speaking research communities. Consequently, our aim is to introduce the approach to the European Education Research Journal readership and demonstrate the tradition’s richness and range of use for education research. By showing the many ways in which this perspective can be utilised in education research, we hope to inspire more scholars who publish in English-speaking contexts to engage with us and explore what insights this ‘novel’ perspective can bring to our research field. In this editorial, we briefly explain the perspective’s base assumptions and key features, discuss the potential relevance of this approach for education research, and introduce the articles of the special issue. First, however, we want to address the issue of naming.
Paul Blokker, Petra A. Honová, Yuliya Moskvina & Kristián Šrám (2024)
Partecipazione & Conflitto, 17(2), pp. 421-443. Open access
Abstract. The European Union is facing a ‘poly-crisis’. As a result, reflections on the future of Europe have intensified (one example is the Conference on the Future of Europe). In discussing visions of Europe, scholars generally pit cosmopolitanism against communitarianism, or pro-Europeanism against Euro-scepticism. Visions of Europe’s future are however more complex and irreducibly plural. The article examines the ideational landscape of the EU by, first, mapping a plurality of prominent, frequently used discourses on European integration. Second, we examine a tendency towards reproducing the status quo in dealing with the poly-crisis. Despite the rich ideational plurality, dominant forces in the EU tend not to be inclined to significantly reform the EU. The third part of the paper examines one exception, in the form of left transnational populism, which proposes a critical, but constructive, alternative understanding of integration. The analysis of this left populist composite, critical Europeanist discourse, focusses on the most developed, even if marginal, transnational left populist project, DiEM25. The article concludes by indicating both the relevance of the critical Europeanist discourse and the formidable, practical obstacles the project faces.
Extract: “We start with theoretical and methodological discussion of discourses of European integration. The paper builds on Dryzek’s discourse analysis (Dryzek and Berejikian 1993) and Boltanski and Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology (2006).” (p. 422)
In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first
Abstract. The chapter outlines the methodology of economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC or convention theory) as well as the methods and data forms used in its empirical research. It is argued that EC/SC is based on theoretical positions of neostructuralism and neopragmatism and their methodological consequences, which convention theory combines, and which are sketched, therefore. As a result, EC/SC can be regarded as a complex neopragmatist institutionalism. The explanatory methodological position of convention theory is different to classical positions (as methodological individualism and holism) and can be characterized as methodological situationalism. The important types of research designs in EC/SC are introduced: comparative analyses, historical analyses of institutional dynamics, and case studies. These research designs enable EC/SC to access the plurality of conventions as institutional logics, the incompleteness of institutions, and the contingency of institutional settings as well as the indeterminacy of institutional dynamics. A general task for EC/SC’s empirical research is the identification of situations as the units of analysis and the identification and interpretation of conventions as logics of coordination in situations. Criteria and strategies to solve this task are discussed. Because of the early analysis of data generation (as in national statistical institutes), convention theory has also developed elements for a sociology of social research and provided contributions for a self-reflexive methodology.
About the book. Corporate purpose’ has become a battleground for stakeholders’ competing desires. Some argue that corporations must simply generate profit; others suggest that we must make them create social change. Leading organization studies scholar Timothy Kuhn argues that this ‘either/or’ thinking dramatically oversimplifies matters: today’s corporations must be many things, all at once. Kuhn offers a bold new Communicative Theory of the Firm to highlight the authority that creates corporations’ identities and activities. The theory provides a roadmap for navigating that battleground of competing desires to produce more responsive corporations. Drawing on communicative and new materialist theorizing, along with three insightful case studies, this book thoroughly redefines our understandings of what corporations are ‘for’.”
Extract: “Orders of worth in entrepreneurship Prior to the work […] on shifts in the ‘spirit’ of capitalism, French sociologist Luc Boltanski and economist Laurent Thévenot puzzled over why logics of practice differ so dramatically across situational and institutional divides. In On Justification: Economies of Worth (1991/ 2006), they traced six distinct orders (or economies) of worth: inspired, domestic, fame, civic, market, and industrial, each of which include contrasting criteria for evaluations of quality with respect to objects, practices, persons, conceptions of the common good, and forms of reason. (Thévenot et al [2000] later added a ‘green’ economic order that addressed the valuing of nature as a social good and mode of reasoning; these are depicted in Table 6.1.) Boltanski and Thévenot acknowledge that these ‘worlds’ do not mark distinct social spheres, but instead cut across social life, affecting all practices and persons (see Thévenot, 2001). For instance, a decision about a firm’s potential promotional partner might assess the partner’s notoriety (fame), passion (inspired), or reliability (domestic). It might also assess the cost of the partnership (market) or the specialized knowledge to be gained from the collaboration (industrial). Multiple evaluative principles shape practice, and those that become explicit post hoc justifications for action provide insight into the claims to legitimacy made on behalf of the firm (Patriotta et al, 2011). The conceptual connections with the CTF’s vision of firms as authority machines is perhaps obvious. Boltanski and Thévenot’s work comprises a theory of value, and the promises of value written into the authoritative text necessarily reference some guiding logic(s) for such promises to have purchase; their work thus provides a vocabulary for understanding those logics. And the case is the same for claims to property, the other branch of the authoritative text: legal assertions of property rights might refer to a civic world, declarations of hierarchical role responsibility could draw upon an industrial order, and avowals of environmental responsibility would likely connect with both a market and a green world. Orders of worth, in other words, provide the ground from which promises of value and claims to property – the fundaments of authority – are built, asserting an everpresent ontological multiplicity into the conversation. Table 6.1 overviews the multiple elements of their scheme. It’s important to recognize that, while the columns and rows make it appear that this is a scheme comprised of mutually exclusive categorizations, Boltanski and Thévenot make it clear that any single statement or action (or, I’d add, firm) is likely to be the product of several intersecting justificatory resources at once.” (p. 147)
Abstract. What are historical elite institutions, and how is it to be a part of them in an allegedly egalitarian culture? In contrast to earlier studies of elites in Norway, this book takes a qualitative approach and focus on cultural aspects and everyday experiences that are a part of historical elite institutions. The two empirical institutions are elite high schools and literary criticism, being historical elite institutions because they have cultural connotations of “eliteness” tied to them. The study finds different ways in which actors manoeuvre how they are a part of the historical elite institutions, for example it does not entail an interest in elite culture or striving to achieve an elite position on a personal level. More accurately, both students and critics struggle with these cultural aspects and instead connect themselves to a broader tradition of egalitarianism in Norway. In that regard the book argues that egalitarian traditions are not a veil to hide elite membership, but that perceptions of what elite is in Norway are strongly coloured by the egalitarian tradition.”
Extract: “3.4 Repertoire theory Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot’s theoretical framework from On Justification is one of the strands, along with Michele Lamont’s sociology of symbolic boundaries, in the new cultural sociology, and can be called a repertoire theory (Larsen, 2013). In On Justification, Boltanski and Thevenot aim to theorise critical moments in debates, epreuves, or tests, where actors mobilise arguments, values, and things in order to respond. Further, they aim to turn a historical account of such responses into a theoretical framework, in order to understand how actors make sense of their critical competencies. The result of this theorising is a framework of different orders of worth that actors draw on to appeal to the common good, thereby legitimising their arguments. The orders of worth then become different repertoires.” (p. 54)
Responsible Professor: Eeva Luhtakallio Pre-examiners Senior Scientist: Luca Pattaroni Docent: Tapio Nykänen Opponent: Laura Centemeri Custos: Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen
Abstract.Social media has changed the way people come together to try to make a change, be it in institutional politics or their living environment. In Finland, this new form of civic action has challenged especially the tradition of registered associations. This ethnographic dissertation offers a snapshot of networked civic action in the social media era, investigating civic groups’ cultures and their public performances on the one hand and the negotiations between the movements’ and local public authorities on the use of urban space on the other. The research cases are the Kallio movement the Kallio Block Party organized by the movement, and the asylum seekers’ protest camp Right to Live, in which I have focused on the role of its Finnish supporters. The data was gathered in 2017–2019 mainly by ethnographic participant observation and interviews to activists as well as to the City officials and the police. The dataset is complemented by a survey to Kallio Block Party attendees and other data sources such as newspaper articles. In my analyses, I have used pragmatic sociology, more specifically justification theory and sociology of engagements, and the concept of scene style, which I have applied to the analysis of the movements’ performances. I have also paid attention to embodiment, materiality, and affects, which I perceive as essential elements in the movements’ public performances. Especially compared to the Finnish political tradition of associations, which emphasizes collectivity, what surfaced in the analysis of my research cases was individualism, for instance in the forms of short-term commitment to the movements as well as an emphasis on individual creativity and, especially in the case of Kallio movement, of individual freedom. Kallio movement wanted to stress that its members were free to do whatever they wanted, as long as they followed the movement’s principles, and that they didn’t have to commit to the movement. On the other hand, the supporters of the Right to Live protest were extremely committed to the protest, but many of them only for a short time – some of the supporters continued with asylum activism after the protest while some did not. Therefore, one of the most important contributions of this work is related to discussions on individualism especially in the field of civic action. With increasing individualism, there have been concerns in Finnish discussions concerning the dismantling of the associational tradition and international discussions concerning for instance ”DIY urbanism” about the subsequent pursuit of individual interests or lack of ideologies or politics. I argue, first, that increasing individualism does not necessarily mean increasing selfishness, but a new kind of articulation of individualism and collectivism. Second, contrary to the literature, I argue that individualism in civic action does not automatically mean a lack of political aspirations, but that it may change how we understand ”ideologies” or ”political”. The two civic groups in this research differed in how they perceived what is usually considered “politics” or “political”, as institutional politics. Right to Live pursued a change specifically in institutional (asylum) politics, whereas the Kallio movement shied away from ideas about political representation and institutional politics in an ideological manner. Instead, the Kallio movement tried to mediate its values through its actions, which can be characterized as prefigurative politics. In prefigurative politics, the means of action are as important as the goals, and the underlying idea is to produce alternative futures through one’s actions. In addition, even though Right to Live primarily advocated a change in institutional politics, its prefigurative dimension was also crucial to the protest, namely creating relationships between asylum seekers and citizens and altering the asylum seekers’ stigmatized media image into a positive one. Thus, my research also takes part in discussions concerning immigrant solidarity movements that have emphasized the importance of the (political) significance of social relations between immigrants and citizens. I argue that, depending on the situation at hand, these relations had political meanings of varying scales in Right to Live. In the protest, the asylum seekers were considered to be the primary protesters and the role of the Finns was to support the protest, in multiple ways. During the public protest, it was necessary for the maintenance of the protest that it received local support, and for the public image of the protest it mattered that the supporters were recognized as Finnish citizens and that the protest was called ” Right to Live family”. The visible presence of Finnish citizens and the emphasis on the familiar- like nature of the protest showed that asylum seekers were just like ”us” and that it was possible to create relationships across citizenship statuses. However, after the protest, with increasing pressure from forced return flights of those asylum seekers with a negative decision to asylum application, it was more important to help them with their asylum applications than to merely reminisce about the “Right to Live family”. Therefore, in some situations the creation of social relations between citizens and non-citizens does not suffice to be considered as a political act if. In other words, whether an act is political or not is always context specific. The public performances of both the Right to Live and Kallio movements were central in their prefigurative politics. It is noteworthy that both of these performances emphasized peacefulness and avoided conflicts as well as conventional ideologies such as anticapitalism. To the Kallio movement, this neutrality was (paradoxically) ideological whereas to Right to Live, it was more a necessity since asylum seekers were in a vulnerable position in several ways. However, it is reasonable to ask whether there are in civic groups characteristics that have been considered typical of the post-political era, such as avoiding explicit political ideologies. Two very different pictures can be drawn out of the relationship between the activists in the two civic groups and local public officials, and the control of the use of urban space. On the one hand, there was the explicitly political Right to Live protest by racialized non-citizens that the police actively controlled and that was eventually evicted, questionably, based on safety reasons. On the other hand, there was the Kallio Block Party, organized mainly by white citizens, that looked like a non-political event and that had gained the public officials’ and the police’s trust and that had the freedom to act rather freely. One of the arguments in this research regarding the use of urban space is therefore that trust, or the lack thereof, was a relevant factor in the relationship between the activists and the public officials. Another reason to why the City of Helsinki was favorable to Kallio Block Party was that the event was perceived to enhance Helsinki’s reputation. This dissertation therefore also takes part in discussions concerning the use of urban space, emblematic to practicing democracy, arguing that while the action by white Finns that enhances the markets has gained more freedom, the action by those who are racialized on the one hand, or that politicizes the urban space on the other, is likely to face security measures by the police.
Introduction: “S’inscrivant dans plusieurs décennies de recherche sur la propriété intellectuelle et en particulier sur les brevets d’invention, l’ouvrage de Christian Bessy offre une perspective à la fois synthétique et renouvelée des dynamiques de l’appropriation en matière de travail créatif. Il faut saluer l’approche interdisciplinaire mise en œuvre de manière toujours pertinente, parfois brillante, par l’auteur, qui, autour du socle théorique constitué par l’économie des conventions, s’appuie sur toutes les ressources de l’économie, du droit, de la sociologie et de l’histoire pour déployer son argumentation. L’objectif principal du livre est de mettre au jour les ressorts de « l’inflation » (15) des droits de propriété intellectuelle (DPI) et ses conséquences, notamment celle, paradoxale à première vue, de l’expropriation croissante des travailleurs intellectuels – par le droit.”
In Manon Domingues Dos Santos, François Legendre & Florent Sari (eds.), L’universalisation de la protection sociale. XLIIIes Journées de l’Association d’Économie Sociale, Meylan: Éditions Campus Ouvert, pp. 253-270
Résumé. Le texte porte sur la quantification des difficultés de recrutement en adoptant une approche critique dans la lignée des travaux d’Alain Desrosières ou de Robert Salais. Il propose, d’abord, de décrire la quantification du marché du travail en termes de dynamique d’appariement résumée par une courbe de Beveridge. Les notions qu’elle induit, les tensions, les offres d’emploi, les embauches et les emplois vacants ne permettent pas de définir de manière stabilisée les difficultés de recrutement. Des enquêtes de la statistique publique qui traitent explicitement des difficultés lors des recrutements dans leur questionnaire. Malgré l’absence d’une convention partagée sur ce que sont les difficultés de recrutement, les indicateurs chiffrés produits par ces enquêtes sont utilisés pour guider les politiques de l’emploi.
Abstract. This paper examines the quantification of recruitment difficulties, adopting a critical approach in line with the work of Alain Desrosières and Robert Salais. It begins by describing the quantification of the labor market in terms of the matching dynamics summarized by a Beveridge curve. The concepts it induces – tensions, job offers, hirings and vacancies – do not provide a stable definition of recruitment difficulties. The second section presents official statistics surveys that explicitly address recruitment difficulties in their questionnaires. Despite the absence of a shared convention on what recruitment difficulties are, the quantitative indicators produced by these surveys are used to guide employment policies.
Abstract. Emergent genres can serve as diagnoses of society, particularly dystopias which exaggerate yet articulate problematic elements within modernity. Herein the focus is on ‘dystopian games’, particularly The Hunger Games and Squid Game, part of a wider genre emerging in contemporary culture wherein dystopia is not just totalitarian, oppressive or ideological, but also requires its protagonists to participate in contests and trials which transform them. Arguably, the global success of these texts reflects the cultural resonance of their diagnosis of the contemporary world as itself the ‘scene of a trial’ in Boltanski’s phrase. Following Stark on the sociology of tests, dystopian games can be related to the proliferation of intense competition in education and the labour market, relentless trials and evaluations at work and the contests for attention and popularity on social media. Building a dialogue between social theory and dystopian literature inspired by Foucault’s work on ‘truth-telling’ and ‘transformations’, what emerges is a vision of ubiquitous transformations created by compulsory participation in trials and tests, less emancipatory or self-actualizing than a nightmare.
Information Research an International Electronic Journal, 29(1). Open access, pp. 121-146.
Introduction: In spite of the prominence of the notion of participatory archives, there is no consensus of what participation entails in archival contexts and a lack of theory to explain the mechanisms underpinning the diversity of views.
Method: Norwegian and Swedish archivists were surveyed as a part of the international ALMPUB research project for their views on user participation and how these views relate to their understanding of the role and the raison d’être of archives and archival institutions. The survey findings were used as a basis for theory development.
Analysis: The data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis and descriptive statistics. The results of the factor analysis theorised as subject positions relating to views pertaining to archival participation and the societal role of archival institutions.
Results: The analysis shows that the professionals’ perceptions of the rationale and impact of participation and the societal role of archives and archival institutions forms clusters were interpreted as relating to regimes of participation.
Conclusions: Drawing on the theorising of Boltanski and Thévenot, the alignments of the perceptions to archives’ raisons d’être and archival participation are explained in terms of four regimes of participation: 1) participation as an intrinsically valuable activity; 2) participation as a complement to professional work in the records continuum; 3) professional work as an auxiliary activity to participation of experts; and 4) participation as a means of producing additional value for archival institutions, i.e., arrangements of framing the justification and value of participation in, with and for archival institutions. It is, however, possible to imagine additional regimes that correspond with the social worlds of Boltanski and Thévenot not represented by them, including the inspired (participation as a source of inspiration) and domestic worlds (domiciliary participation), and the world by project (participatory project). The study suggests that inquiring into the justifications and regimes of worth attached to participation helps to refute simplistic assumptions of what participation entails and recognise the variety of participatory engagements and their diverging implications for different types of archival institutions and their diverse stakeholders.
Résumé. Pour analyser la situation de la sociologie, on peut distinguer, à partir du cas français, les attaques externes et les disputes internes à la discipline, en cherchant à comprendre comment celles-ci se combinent. Le rôle d’instance critique de la sociologie peut se comprendre selon quatre modalités d’expression, distribuées d’une part entre critique artiste et critique sociale, d’autre part entre réformisme et contestation. Or ce rôle critique de la sociologie tend, par ailleurs, vers deux modèles de fonctionnement, celui de l’innovation scientifique et celui des avant-gardes artistiques. Lorsque la fonction critique de la sociologie se conjugue avec le modèle d’avant-garde et que crise interne et attaque interne s’articulent l’une avec l’autre, l’intensité du sentiment d’une mise en danger de la discipline est maximale.
Abstract. To analyze the situation of sociology, we can distinguish, drawing on the French case, the external onslaughts and the internal disputes in the discipline by endeavouring to comprehend how these are articulated. The critical role of sociology can be understood according to four modes of expression, operating on the one hand between artistic critique and social critique, on the other hand between reformism and contestation. However, this critical role of sociology tends towards two models of operation, that of scientific innovation and that of the artistic avant-gardes. When the critical function of sociology conflates with the avant-garde model and when internal crisis and internal attack articulate with each other, the intensity of the feeling of endangerment of the discipline reaches its acme.