Sociologičeskie issledovaniâ

The article is analyzing fragmentation and integration waves in sociology development. The first integrative wave was in the 1920s – 1950s. It appeared in grand theories by P. Sorokin, T. Parsons, the Frankfurt school uniting heterogeneous ideas from classics in models of society as system. After the paradigm crisis of the 1960s-70s and following spread of postmodernist discourse, the second integrative wave arose in form of theories overcoming gaps between concepts of determinist structures and constructivist agency (J. Habermas, A. Giddens, P. Bourdieu) as well as in form of metatheorizing (G. Ritzer, P. Sztompka, J. Alexander). Today’s fragmentation of sociology under conditions of metaparadigm crisis and post-globalization is provoked by the rising postcolonial discourse, by attempts to stigmatize western classics and to create theoretical alternatives to the ‘global North’ domination in knowledge production as well as by conceptions opposing social reality of networks and flows to classical sociality of structures and agency. The third integrative wave is expected to come in the 2020s displacing tendencies of disintegration, discrimination, growing gaps and rising barriers. New theories are relevant as they create a coherent configuration of four types of structures: institutions, interactions, networks, and flows. Concepts of augmented social reality, augmented Modernity, and augmented data are proposed to be solutions for theoretical and methodological integration in sociology.

Formation of a new world order is one of the most important global changes of the 21st century. Its influence affects all spheres of social life, including the development of sociology in the world and in Russia. The article examines this influence on the activities of the Russian journal “Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniia” [Sociological Studies], which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in 2024. The need to clarify the mission of the journal operating in the new conditions is discussed. For this purpose, the features of the new world order, in which Russia becomes part of a new emerging global pole of power, are analysed. Special attention is paid to the impact of the formation of a new world order on international communications and the resultant changes taking place, including in the field of social science. The challenges that the new world order poses to sociologists of all countries are identified, and the potential capabilities of Russian sociologists to respond to these challenges are considered. The need for new emphases in the mission of the journal ““Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniia” is defined, reflecting the values of promoting global dialogue between sociologists from different countries.

The changing global social ontology entails an inevitable transformation of the normative model for self-description of modern society in social sciences. As diverse limits to growth are reached (capacity of global markets, demography, ecology, mass employment, etc.), the search for and legitimation of alternative social hierarchies and principles of resource distribution is actualised complicated by the stagnant humanity’s resource base and the appropriation of intellectual rents and infrastructural (technological, military, economic) advantages by an increasingly insignificant minority. These background tendencies lead to a) an inevitable transformation of dominant perceptions of what constitutes social, economic, political norms and b) an increasingly critical reception of normative self-descriptions of Western societies, which previously, due to the unconditional dominance of the West, were offered as the ideal of social organisation for all others. The alternative to the Western mainstream is increasingly centered around notions and concepts that describe a future beyond the ideologically loaded and increasingly irrelevant models of liberal democracies and self-regulated markets, which have been controversially and very limitedly realized in the historical practice of Western societies. The global debate on universal social norms is driven by a renewed socio-political and economic context that universally registers for most citizens the inequalities and injustices of the de facto oligopoly markets and elitist democracies that encompass all modern societies. The disenchantment (M. Weber) of the narrative of liberal-market democracies is confirmed by the global rise of nationalisms, protectionism, populism, the widespread contraction of the welfare state and the uprisings of various minorities, including in Western countries, revealing an increasing divergence between social theory, ideology and ontology at the base of the end of history, which turned out only to be its new, post-Western turn.

The main research problem underlying the article is the bias in the results of analysing the level of digital skills when approximating variables are used. It is noted that this strategy is common in the Russian digitalisation researchers academic community. Instead of the approximating tactic, the article uses the established methodology of calculating the level of digital literacy by Eurostat used until the year 2021. The empirical basis of the study is Rosstat data. By analysing it the author demonstrates the differentiation of the Russian regions by key components of the digital literacy level: information and communication competences, the ability to solve everyday tasks and the ability to work with software. The cluster model developed in the course of the analysis allowed to identify three groups of regions differing in these components: leaders (21 regions), middle-ranking regions (43 regions) and lagging behind (21 regions). The leading regions include the Omsk and Murmansk Regions and the city of Moscow, while the lagging regions include the Republic of North Ossetia, the Magadan and Jewish Autonomous Regions. It was revealed that the overall level of digital literacy in the regions is influenced by economic indicators: the average index of the physical volume of GRP, the average size of wages, as well as the value component – a positive assessment of the impact of digital technologies on life in particular.

The article tests the hypothesis about the consolidation of self-care practices implemented by Russians during the COVID-19 pandemic in the post-pandemic period. The consensus of various social groups regarding the importance of caring for health and its priority over other values is shown based on materials from in-depth interviews with residents of three Russian megacities (N = 60). A “more attentive attitude” to one’s own health is declared to be an effect of the pandemic. But this is not reflected in real behavioral practices. It is shown based on the RLMS-HSE monitoring panel sample (Waves 27, 29 and 31), that the dynamics of self-care practices in the post-pandemic period had a multi-vector orientation. Examples of habituation, reconfiguration and death of individual self-care practices are described. The preservation of the attributes of a number of health-preserving practices in everyday life “just in case” indicates that Russians perceive the future as risky, and the recurrence of a pandemic situation as probable.

There is a noticeable interest for ontology in sociological science. At the same time, ontology itself is being interpreted ambiguously. On the one hand, there is the tradition of classical ontology represented by the names and works of Aristotle, Parmenides, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, the Frankfurt School in sociology, G. Lukács, M. Lifshitz. On the other hand, the theme of “social ontology” has emerged basing on the attitudes and stylistics of postmodernism. If in classical ontology there is an orientation towards “authentic” and “true” phenomena of social existence, distinguishing them from “things” that are deviant and do not correspond to their nature, in the postmodern version such an “essential” distinction is not made, for “all states are equivalent”, “everything is idiocratic (purely individual) facts.” In this case, the world of social things is not permeated by “categorical,” “essential,” and “typical” unity. Each “thing” is not determined by its essence, but, on the contrary, is represented by a “plurality” of its arbitrary variations, each of them might be treated as a kind of “authenticity” sui generis, “true” already by virtue of the fact of its existence. Such a positivist-postmodernist relativism nullifies the entire “culture of notions” that constitutes the cornerstone of any ontology, since the «notion» is what is used to grasp the essence of human affairs, where the authenticity of social artifacts is present and what preserves the authenticity of life situations.

The article reveals heuristic possibilities and analyzes the results of applying the conceptual apparatus of the sociology of everyday life to understanding the practices of silence. Sociological theories of everyday life are presented in the article by the concepts of social phenomenology of A. Schutz, dramaturgy and frame analysis of E. Goffman and an ethnomethodological approach, which includes both the ethnomethodology of H. Garfinkel, and conversation analysis, the founders of which are considered to be H. Sacks and E. Schegloff. Thus, the subject of the article is a wide range of concepts united by a qualitative research paradigm. This choice is justified by the high adaptability of this set of theories to the analysis of observed and «sounding» silence as a real phenomenon given us in the direct human experience. Used in everyday social life, silence is included in the processes of the everyday world thus becoming a part of the (re)production mechanism at the micro level social order.

The paper offers an analysis of emergence, shaping and functioning of so-called regional field sociology born in contemporary Russia as a result of new economic, political and social requirements. Based on a collective efforts aimed at the activities of organizations in this branch of sociology, it is shown how from disparate, not always scientifically adequate, spontaneously emerging units, significant and influential scholarly and applied formations were built up, which gradually acquired a well-founded methodological and methodological basis that allowed them to satisfy requests from socio-political and commercial structures to solve both promising, but mostly current, short-term problems. It is noted that the book under review highlights and analyzes such key components of the research and at the same time clearly expressed applied activities of these organizations, such as the ratio of quality and quantity, the characteristics of clients (customers) and the complexity of relationships with them. Also important are the thoughts of the authors of this book about the respondents, about what problems and questions arise in the process of contacting them in a wide variety of situations, how they found ways to communicate and involve people in the work of obtaining necessary information. The section that describes the inner world of people who decide to work in these sociological services also attracts attention: the forms of their recruitment, methods of training, ways of maturing and gaining professional maturity. Problematic situations such as acquiring communication skills with people and seeing how some of the results of their work are implemented in management practices are not ignored. Such a painful issue as professional burnout has not been forgotten. This work is also decorated with the presence of irony and incidents in the process of presenting a wide variety of situations in the life of sociologists, and even the use of such a technique as “beads”, where a variety of situations are presented, which, in the opinion of the editor-compiler, fit under the heading “You can’t invent it on purpose”.