Although the postmodern turn has profound implications for the social sciences, its reception in sociology has been mixed. In this article I briefly review these encounters and suggest an embrace of a “strategic postmodernism.” Such an approach explicitly integrates both the institutional basis of discursive understandings of the self and the empirical project of knowledge construction within the context of change and transformation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AggerB.1991. “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological Relevance.”Annual Review of Sociology17:105–31.
2.
AlcoffLinda. 1988. “Cultural Feminism vs. Poststructuralism.”Signs: A Journal of Women and Culture13:405–36.
3.
AlexanderJeffery. 1992. “General Theory in the Positivist Mode: The ‘Epistemological Dilemma’ and the Search for the Present. Pp. 322–68 in Postmodernism and Social Theory: The Debate over General Theory, edited by SeidmanS.WagnerD.G.Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
4.
BaumanZigmunt. 1988. “Is There a Postmodern Sociology?”Theory, Culture amd Society5:217–38.
5.
BaumanZigmunt. 1992. Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge.
6.
BeharRuthGordonDeborah eds. 1995. Women Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
BhabhaHomi. 1983. “The Other Question.”Screen24 (6):18–36.
9.
BhabhaHomi. 1985. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.”October34:71–80.
10.
ButlerJudith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
11.
ButlerJudith. 1991. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Pp. 13–31 in Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, edited by FussD.New York: Routledge.
12.
ButlerJudith. 1993a. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.”New York: Routledge.
13.
ButlerJudith. 1993b. “Critically Queer.”GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies1:17–32.
14.
CharmazKathy. 1995. “Between Positivism and Postmodernism: Implications for Methods.”Studies in Symbolic Interaction17:43–72.
15.
CloughPatricia Ticineto. 1994. “Feminist Thought: Desire, Power and Academic Discourse.”Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
16.
ConnellRobert W.1995. “Democracies of Pleasure.” Pp. 384–397 in Social Postmodernism, edited by NicholsonL.SeidmanS.Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
17.
ConnorSteven. 1996. Postmodernist culture: An introduction to the theories of the contemporary. Maiden, MA: Blackwell.
18.
de LauretisTeresa. 1989. “The Essence of the Triangle, or, Taking the Risk of Essentialism Seriously: Feminist Theory in Italy, the US, and Britain.”Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies1:3–37.
19.
DenzinNorman K.1996. “Sociology at the End of the Century.”Sociological Quarterly47:743–52.
20.
DenzinNorman K.1997. Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
21.
DouglasMary. 1986. “The Social Preconditions of Radical Scepticism.” Pp. 68–87 in Power, Action and Belief, edited by LawJ.London: Routledge.
22.
DunnRobert. 1998. Identity Crises: A Social Critique of Postmodernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
23.
EllisCarolynBochnerArthur P. eds. 1997. Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira/Sage.
24.
FayBrain. 1975. Social Theory and Political Practice. New York: Holmes and Meier.
25.
FeatherstoneMike. 1988. “In Pursuit of the Postmodern: An Introduction.”Theory, Culture and Society5:195–215.
26.
FeatherstoneMike. 1989. “Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture.” Pp. 147–72 in Social Structure and Culture, edited by HaferkampH.New York: de Gruyter.
27.
FeatherstoneMike. 1991. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage.
28.
FonowMary MargaretCookJudith A. eds. 1991. Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
29.
FoucaultMichel. 1978. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Peregrine.
30.
FraserNancy. 1992. “The Uses and Abuses of French Feminism.” Pp. 177–94 in Revaluing French Feminism, edited by FraserN.BartkyS.L.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
31.
GeertzClifford. 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
32.
GiddensAnthony ed. 1974. Positivism and Sociology. New York: Heinemann.
33.
GriffithsVivienne. 1984. “Feminist Research and the Use of Drama.”Women's Studies International Forum7 (6):511–19.
HennessyRosemary. 1995. “Queer Visibility in Commodity Culture.” In Social Postmodernism, edited by NicholsonL.SeidmanS.Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
36.
JamesonFrederic. 1991. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
37.
KellnerDouglas. 1988. “Postmodernism as Social Theory: Some Challenges and Problems.”Theory, Culture and Society5:239–69.
38.
LaclauE.1990. New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.
39.
LacqueurThomas. 1990. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
40.
LashScottUrryJohn. 1994. Economies of Signs and Space. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
41.
LatherPatti. 1991. Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern. New York: Routledge.
42.
LatherPatti. 1997. “Postbook: Working the Ruins of Feminist Ethnography.” Paper presented at the conference on Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s), Oregon State University, August 28–30.
43.
LatherPattiSmithiesChris. 1997. Troubling the Angels: Women Living with HIV/AIDS. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
44.
LemertCharles. 1995. Sociology after the Crisis. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
45.
LemertCharles. 1997. Postmodernism Is Not What You Think. Maiden, MA: Blackwell.
46.
LincolnYvonna S.1995. “The Sixth Moment: Emerging Problems in Qualitative and Interpretive Inquiry.”Qualitative Inquiry1:275–89.
47.
LyotardJean-François. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
48.
MarcusGeorge E.FisherMichael M.J.1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
49.
McLennanGregor. 1995. “After Postmodernism—Back to Sociological Theory.”Sociology29 (1):117–32.
50.
McNayLois. 1992. Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the SelfBoston: Northeastern University Press.
51.
MitchellRichard G.Jr.CharmazKathy. 1995. “Telling Tales, Writing Stories.”Journal of Contemporary Ethnography25:144–66.
52.
MooreHenrietta L.1994. A Passion for Difference: Essays in Anthropology and Gender. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
53.
MouffeChantal. 1995. “Feminism, Citizenship and Radical Democratic Politics.” Pp. 315–31 in Social Postmodernism, edited by NicholsonL.SeidmanS.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54.
MouzelisNicos. 1991. Back to Sociological Theory. London: Macmillan.
55.
NicholsonLinda J. ed. 1990. Feminism / Postmodernism. New York: Routledge.
56.
NicholsonLinda J. ed. 1995. “Interpreting Gender.” Pp. 39–67 in Social Postmodernism, edited by NicholsonL.SeidmanS.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
57.
NicholsonLindaSeidmanSteven eds. 1995. Social Postmodernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
58.
ProbynElspeth. 1993. Sexing the Self: Gendered Positions in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.
59.
PrusRobert. 1996. Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research. Albany: State University of New York Press.
60.
RadwayJanice. 1988. “Reception Study: Ethnography and the Problems of Dispersed Audiences and Nomadic Subjects.”Cultural Studies2 (3):359–67.
61.
ReinharzShulamit ed. 1992. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press.
62.
RichardsonLaurel. 1991. “Postmodern Social Theory.”Sociological Theory9:173–79.
