1 More Details on the Promises of Relational Sociology
Relational sociology offers at least three promises. The first is based on the hypothesis that we can improve our understanding of social life by studying relations between interactants . This statement may sound trivial to sociologists acquainted with so-called ‘micro-sociologies’, numerous anthropologists, historians, socio-psychologists and many others. However, the same statement is almost a heresy for colleagues proposing ‘macro’ sociological explanations where broad and external social entities determine the individuals. Beyond this old dispute, the main point is that relational sociology reminds us that when we talk about ‘societies’, ‘social structures’ , ‘cultures’ or ‘social things’; when we establish correlations between independent and dependent ‘variables’ such as poverty and deviancy; when we insist on the importance of power and social inequalities ; or when we try to fix a social problem or help an oppressed group; whatever we study and however we do it, the mode of production of social phenomena is based on relations between interactants .
Besides showing that relational thinking has always been with us in sociology, the following statements freely inspired by G. Simmel , M. Weber, H. Becker and B. Latour illustrate the kind of worldviews coming from a relational approach: ‘A society is the general term for the totality of specific interactions’; ‘ social inequalities refer to practices of social closure where some people prevent other people access to resources’; ‘deviancy derives from labelling processes where some actors declare other actors as deviants through processes such as complaints, investigations and trials’; ‘the social world of art is made by relations between artists, producers, critiques, music instruments, an audience, projectors, microphones, etc.’; ‘sociology is the study of associations’. Again, relational sociologists pay attention to the specific relations from which societies, social inequalities , deviancy and so forth emerge, are transformed or disappear. Our theories, concepts and methods should allow us to see these processual interactions in-the-making. Of course, there are important disagreements among relational sociologists on the ‘causal powers’ of social patterns once they have emerged. Some think they have causal powers on individuals; others do not. Some of us focus primarily on social regularities (for example, see E. Erikson and J. Fuhse in this handbook); others include any kind of social processes without making priorities. However, and overall, pretty much all agree that whatever happens comes from social relations between interactants . ‘The world is relational and processual’ is more than a slogan. This mode of perception is the foundation for relational hypotheses, concepts, methods and observations because, once more, we think this is how multiple ‘social fields’ , ‘interactional fields’ , ‘networks ’, ‘figurations’ , ‘social systems’ or ‘social worlds’ are produced, transformed and destroyed.
Implicitly or explicitly, relational sociologists assume that these kinds of relational worldviews and analyses can improve our control over human social life. They can help us to deal with specific social problems. This is the second promise of relational sociology: becoming more conscious that whatever happens in our social life comes from our interactions , while presuming that this relational consciousness can improve our social life. In this logic, we increase our consciousness that even if social inequalities are prevalent in this world and even if social patterns exist, none of us fully control social processes or are simply determined by existing social patterns . Since social phenomena are the products of multiple interdependent people and their interactions , we all contribute to produce, change or destroy social patterns we call ‘institutions’ , ‘social structures’ , ‘social systems’ or ‘societies’; but unless the social field is composed by very few interactants (such as couples or conversations), we cannot change or destroy social phenomena alone; we cannot just self-act on social phenomena composed by multiple interactants (such as a large corporation or an empire) by creating or destroying them. The use of our ‘agency’ is also a relational affair. That is why more or less similar concepts such as ‘relations’, ‘associations’, ‘assemblages’, ‘networks’ , ‘figurations’ , ‘interactions’ or ‘trans-actions’ are central to this sociological approach. Obviously, adjustments and refinements would be useful at the conceptual level since these notions come from different pre-existing theories or approaches; and significant issues must be worked out at different levels, including the methodological one. Nevertheless, the use of these roughly compatible principles and concepts reveals the overall nature of the relational turn in sociology.
A sociological approach is not fueled by pure and platonic ideas one ‘free spirit’ could find or imagine outside the reality. Knowledge is made by interactions between multiple co-producers. In other words, relational sociology is a distinct sub-field within a larger field called ‘sociology’. It is a loose intellectual movement happening through a constellation of other similar movements we call ‘schools’, ‘traditions’, ‘paradigms’ , ‘approaches’ or ‘theories’. Like other similar groups, the relational movement is co-produced by specialists who aim to reform sociology. In effect, social movements are also cognitive spaces where new worldviews, values, ideas, and so on are created and diffused (Eyerman and Jamison 1991). This leads us to the third promise of relational sociology: this is a new space of ‘scientific’ deliberations and creativity where, broadly speaking, we are invited to discuss, re-evaluate and reformulate our basic views of the social universe; and where, sociologically speaking, the basic principles, ideas and practices of the discipline are discussed, reaffirmed, challenged, reformulated … As we can see by reading many chapters of this handbook, it means that we go back to the foundations of sociology through the reinterpretation and new critiques of the works of founders such as G. Simmel , K. Marx , G.H. Mead , M. Weber , M. Mauss , E. Durkheim and G. Tarde ; we re-read and integrate philosophers such as A.N. Whitehead , M. Foucault and G. Deleuze; we (should) carefully look at the works of relational colleagues from other disciplines (some will be identified below in this chapter); and, within this relational spirit, we work on and with the ideas of contemporary sociologists such as N. Luhmann , N. Elias , R. Bashkar , P. Bourdieu , H. White , B. Latour and C. Tilly . Existing concepts such as the notion of ‘agency’ have been re-defined in relational ways (Emirbayer and Mishe 1998; Burkitt 2016 and in this handbook). Approaches or theories such as network analysis (Erikson 2013 and in this handbook), P....