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The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory

In 1985, Steve Woolgar and Dorothy Pawluch wrote an influential essay about social constructionism, warning against the pitfalls of what they referred to as "ontological gerrymandering," which is to treat certain actors’ claims as socially constructed, while at the same time making realist...

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Autor principal: Puddephatt, Antony J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8211716/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34176949
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12108-021-09493-1
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author Puddephatt, Antony J.
author_facet Puddephatt, Antony J.
author_sort Puddephatt, Antony J.
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description In 1985, Steve Woolgar and Dorothy Pawluch wrote an influential essay about social constructionism, warning against the pitfalls of what they referred to as "ontological gerrymandering," which is to treat certain actors’ claims as socially constructed, while at the same time making realist claims about social conditions. Instead of this unbalanced and asymmetric approach, the best way forward for constructionists is to treat all claims made by any and all acting parties as putative, not necessarily true or false, and to avoid making any independent claims about the actual social conditions that actors are striving to define. Since this time, social problems research, science and technology studies, and environmental sociology have encountered both epistemic and political difficulties with this strict constructionist approach to being fully agnostic about social conditions and the reality of actors’ claims. Drawing on the social pragmatism of George Herbert Mead, I consider some of the problems encountered in the strict constructionist approach, and argue that ultimately, the sociologist herself cannot escape the general problem of having to make objective claims about the empirical social world. Instead of being agnostic about all claims made, sociologists are best to fully accept the responsibility and advantages of being full blown claimsmakers themselves.
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spelling pubmed-82117162021-06-21 The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory Puddephatt, Antony J. Am Sociol Article In 1985, Steve Woolgar and Dorothy Pawluch wrote an influential essay about social constructionism, warning against the pitfalls of what they referred to as "ontological gerrymandering," which is to treat certain actors’ claims as socially constructed, while at the same time making realist claims about social conditions. Instead of this unbalanced and asymmetric approach, the best way forward for constructionists is to treat all claims made by any and all acting parties as putative, not necessarily true or false, and to avoid making any independent claims about the actual social conditions that actors are striving to define. Since this time, social problems research, science and technology studies, and environmental sociology have encountered both epistemic and political difficulties with this strict constructionist approach to being fully agnostic about social conditions and the reality of actors’ claims. Drawing on the social pragmatism of George Herbert Mead, I consider some of the problems encountered in the strict constructionist approach, and argue that ultimately, the sociologist herself cannot escape the general problem of having to make objective claims about the empirical social world. Instead of being agnostic about all claims made, sociologists are best to fully accept the responsibility and advantages of being full blown claimsmakers themselves. Springer US 2021-06-18 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8211716/ /pubmed/34176949 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12108-021-09493-1 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Article
Puddephatt, Antony J.
The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory
title The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory
title_full The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory
title_fullStr The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory
title_full_unstemmed The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory
title_short The Constructionist as Claims-Maker? A Pragmatist Intervention into Social Problems Theory
title_sort constructionist as claims-maker? a pragmatist intervention into social problems theory
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8211716/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34176949
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12108-021-09493-1
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