Inquiring Relational Approach: Beyond the Limits of Substantialism (original) (raw)
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It is still far too easy in organizational studies research to assume (1) that words stand for things; (2) that we put our thoughts into words; and (3) that when we enter into a new situation, we can begin straightaway to act within it to achieve our own ends. But as Todes (2001) makes clear, things are not that simple. Much of our everyday activity begins, “with the sense of an indeterminate lack of something-or-other, but nothing-in-particular” (p.177). So that initially, we need to direct our explorations, not towards “what we want, but to discover what we want to get” (p.177). In other words, we cannot immediately embark upon studying emergent processes for we first need to “get oriented,” to calibrate (Bateson, 1979) our bodies — “the setting of [our] nerves and muscles” (p.211) — to a sufficient extent to be able to relate our outgoing anticipatory activities in an intelligible way with their incoming results, in order gain a sense of what might be relevant to our study. In other words, we need to understand what is around us, not as objects, but in terms of their meanings. But to do this, a new ontological realm of inquiry would seem to be required, concerned not with acquiring new knowledge as such, but with developing our embodied sensitivities to previously unnoticed aspects of circumstances troubling us. My aim will be to outline both the nature of this new realm of inquiry, and what — if we relinquish our concern with objective facts and the patterns amongst them — we need, initially, to focus on in our studies instead.
Radical Relationism: A Proposal
Conceptualizing Relational Sociology, 2013
Different relational sociologists have different phenomena in mind when they use the word "relation." For some, relations are concrete network ties between individuals or groups, while for others relations are something more abstract, such as relative positions in a field. For some authors, relations are the elementary unit of analysis for all sociology, while for others relations are one type of emergent social structure among others. In this chapter, I present the rudiments of a radically relational sociological epistemology, based on but extrapolating beyond relational elements in the works of By "radically relational" I mean an epistemology that contains no residual dualist elements and therefore treats all social phenomena, including individuals themselves, as constituted through relations. 1 This epistemology assumes naturalism and monist materialism but adopts an agnostic stance toward realism. It also applies reflexively to itself. In keeping with this agnosticism, I present the key points of this framework as guidelines for epistemic practice rather than as statements about what it is.
Relationalism: An Overview of My Thought
Here I am presenting an overview and the evolution of my relationalist thought. For me relationalism is both a theory of reality and a method of thought. The strand of relationalism I follow may be called "ontic relationalism," for its overwhelming connection with ontology (theory of being). Ontic relationalism is founded on and an extension of my earlier notion, "critical ontology."
How is the Relationship Significance Brought About? A Critical Realist Approach
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
The markets-as-networks theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships for the focal firm -that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to the focal firm's survival and growth. We do not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the Markets-as-Networks Theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. Significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the focal firm's business relationships.
Critical realism and the strategic-relational approach
This article develops a distinctive critical realist analysis of structure and agency. It first describes Roy Bhaskar's account of critical realism; then discusses critical realism in general; next introduces Anthony Giddens's structuration theory and two particular applications of critical realism to structure and agency – those of Bhaskar and Margaret Archer; and, finally, presents a third such application based on the strategic-relational approach. The latter goes beyond conventional analyses of the duality, dualism, or dialectic of structure and agency by studying the recursive conditioning, mutual coupling, and complex co-evolution of structure and agency and, above all, by stressing the differential, spatio-temporal relationality of structure and agency. Its advantages over other approaches should emerge as we proceed. Critical Realism and Transcendental Naturalism Although 'critical realism' is a relatively recent term and the package of ideas linked with the Bhaskar 'school' is certainly distinctive and has its own logic, 2 many basic concepts and explanatory principles involved in critical realism have a longer history. A non-partisan, non-teleological genealogy has yet to be written. But Marx would figure as a major precursor both philosophically and in substantive theoretical terms; and others have independently 'discovered' several key themes articulated by Bhaskar and his associates. Moreover, while the initial revival of philosophical interest in the possibilities of critical realism in the social sciences in the last 30 years is strongly (and legitimately) associated with Bhaskar, his own work moved into a complex philosophical and methodological analysis of the dialectic as the pulse of 1 Andrew Sayer gave me valuable comments on this article; the usual disclaimers apply.
Relational sociology paradigms
Stan Rzeczy [State of Affairs], 2017
This article is an analysis of three original variants of relational sociology. Jan A. Fuhse’s conception, which is part of the tradition of social network research, situates network analyses in the context of connections between culture and symbolic forms and styles. Fuhse’s idea involves a communicative base of relations, and he perceives institutions as spheres of communication that reduce uncertainty and activate roles in the process of communication. François Dépelteau’s approach, which is inspired by Dewey’s pragmatism, recognizes transaction fields as configurations of relations forming interdependency between people. The practices of actors entering transactions within social fields are important, and this makes it possible for an impression of continuity, order, and complexity to be created. Pierpaolo Donati’s relational realism is an attempt to describe the relational dimensions of human actions, while at the same time it is a consistent “relationization” of key social categories, and is also useful in understanding after-modernity. This article emphasizes the fruitfulness of new attempts to demarcate sociological genealogies and to read the classics of relational sociology. The author discusses the creation of new puzzles for sociological theory, the necessity of analysing the ontologies of social life, the phenomena of emergency and agency, and the use of relational theory in regard to categories of the common good and social capital. He encourages multidimensional and multilevel analyses of social reality.