Studying Local Solidarity
Laurens Buijs, PhD Candidate
Solidarity in the 21st Century
AIAS & AISSR
University of Amsterdam
www.solidariteit.info
Solidarity in the 21th Century - Qualitative
Study - Laurens Buijs
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Contents
General Project
1. What is the research project Solidarity in the 21st
Century?
Qualitative Study
2. What is relational sociology?
3. How do I conceptualize and operationalize local
solidarity in relational terms?
4. What are my research design and field strategies?
5. What is my research question?
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1. Research Project
Solidarity in the 21st Century
• Effects of societal changes (such as migration and
ageing) on both informal and formal forms of
solidarity.
• What kind of motives, conditions and circumstances
are beneficial for the sustainment of solidarity
between different groups in society?
• Interdisciplinary approach: qualitative case-studies,
statistical data analysis, economic experiments,
media analysis.
• www.solidariteit.info
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2. Relational Sociology
The social as dynamic assembly
• Challenging the dominant ‘substantialist’
epistemology
• From static substances to relational processes
• Theoretical: Tarde, Elias, Emirbayer, Latour
• Empirical: Science & Technology Studies (STS)
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2. Relational Sociology
The social as dynamic assembly
Static views
Dynamic views
Society is a bounded collective
Society is a collective in the
process of expanding
The social is a trail of
associations between
heterogeneous elements; a
movement during a process of
assembly
All units derive their meaning,
significance and identity from
the (changing) roles they play
in transaction
The social constitutes of
distinguishable substances as
fundamental units of analysis
(things, beings, essences)
All units that make up the
social act under their own
power
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2. Relational Sociology
The social as dynamic assembly
• How to apply relational sociology to a study
on local solidarity? Challenging three
substantialist assumptions:
a) From heterogeneity to social distance
b) From motives to expressions
c) From spatial units to matters of concern
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3. Local Solidarity
a) Heterogeneity > Social distance
• Putnam’s social capital: ‘hunkering down’ in
heterogeneous neighborhoods
Dienst Onderzoek & Statistiek, gemeente Amsterdam (2009)
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3. Local Solidarity
a) Heterogeneity > Social distance
• Culturalization in a
national network
(Uitermark 2010). The
dynamic production
of social distance:
consonance,
resonance, and
dissonance between
logics
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3. Local Solidarity
a) Heterogeneity > Social distance
• Workings of inclusion and exclusion as
dynamic: networks form around certain
matters with actors who align themselves
according to their interests through similar
claims, statements, publications, positions,
debates, myths, issues, etc. In this production
of knowledge, logics (or discourses) form
• Dynamic concepts: consonance, resonance,
dissonance, networks, logics, social distance
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3. Local Solidarity
b) Motives > Expressions
• Homo economicus or homo empathicus?
• Actors are not “made to fit” into groups;
concepts like ‘heterogeneity’ and ‘motives’
assume a static view in group formation
• “Relating to one group or another is an ongoing process made up of uncertain, fragile,
controversial, and ever-shifting ties” (Latour
2005: 28)
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3. Local Solidarity
b) Motives > Expressions
• How to study group formation?
– Spokespersons
– Anti-groups
– Definitions
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3. Local Solidarity
b) Motives > Expressions
• Solidarity and the need to be social not as
‘motive’, but as human configuration that can
have a range of cultural expressions (through
mechanisms such as reciprocity).
• Dynamic concepts: consonance, resonance,
dissonance, networks, logics, social distance,
spokespersons, anti-groups, expressions
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3. Local Solidarity
c) Space > Matters of concern
• Units of analysis generally selected in research on
solidarity reveals substantialist perspective:
static, bounded units of analysis
• Matters of concern: objects of controversies
around which actors in different positions align
themselves, forming a network
• Controversies as overflows: unforeseen effects,
challenges established policy, institutional
framework, knowledge and group delineations
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3. Local Solidarity
c) Space > Matters of concern
• Multiculturalism as overflow
• Dynamic concepts: consonance, resonance,
dissonance, networks, logics, social distance,
spokespersons, anti-groups, expressions, matters of
concern, overflows
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4. Research Design & Field Strategies
The selection of neighborhoods
• Starting point: increase of (relative) power of
culturalization on the national level
(Uitermark 2010)
• Culturalization as hostile towards interethnic
solidarity, but how do people relate to that on
the local level?
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4. Research Design & Field Strategies
The selection of neighborhoods
• Neighborhoods as mere ‘finding spots’;
empirical focus on matters of concern
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4. Research Design & Field Strategies
Research methods
• Interviews
• Ethnographic research
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5. Research Question
• What explains the dynamics between logics
on the local level (formed around matters of
concern) and the increasingly powerful
culturalization logic on the national level, and
how are these dynamics related to the
production of social distance?
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l.j.buijs@uva.nl
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