Theory and Society 44(3)

Theory and Society, May 2015: Volume 44, Issue 3

Displaying the state: visual signs and colonial construction in Jordan
Jonathan Endelman

How do colonial states make themselves known to their citizens? Drawing on sociological, post-colonial, and feminist theories, this article argues that colonial authorities make the state visible to its citizens and thereby establish its territoriality. The case of Jordan is considered as a prime example for the visual means of creating state ideological power through the cult of the Hashemite monarch. The origins and logic of this practice must be traced back to the British colonial mandate over the country that operated from 1922 to 1946. When in Jordan, British officials constructed state presence through a variety of methods including building desert forts, designing ornate tribal uniforms for the military, and showing the Jordanian flag in various areas throughout the country. The present account analyzes these and other instances of the display of state power through a reappraisal of the work of Clifford Geertz. This article identifies the foundation of the state-citizen relationship especially for new states in ideological power expressed materially.

The heroic age of American avant-garde art
Paul Lopes

A major contribution of Pierre Bourdieu to the study of art was his analysis of the autonomization of modern art fields. His model of autonomy and legitimacy in modern art was based on a study of the genesis of an avant-garde in French art in the late nineteenth century. I argue that a similar autonomization of art occurred in the mid-twentieth century in the United States. I present studies in music and film to demonstrate the genesis of an American avant-garde during this period. This general process of autonomization until now has been neglected in the work of sociologists and historians on American art. My analysis shows that the genesis of principles of autonomy in the United States, unlike France, developed in what were considered the high and popular arts. These case studies reveal a failure in Bourdieu’s model to account for the role of culture industries and popular artists in the autonomization of modern art fields. I show how the American art field generated a subfield of autonomous art that included both avant-garde high art and independent popular art. This permanent subfield of avant-garde and independent art became central to future struggles over autonomy and innovation in American art.

Weber’s missing mystics: inner-worldly mystical practices and the micro potential for social change
Erika Summers-Effler & Hyunjin Deborah Kwak

Weber’s typology of religious orientations is incomplete. Much more attention has been paid to the other-worldly mysticism of monastic or contemplative withdrawal from society than the neglected category of inner-worldly mysticism. In Weber’s brief treatment, he concludes that inner-worldly mysticism results in passive acquiescence to social conditions. Alternately, we draw on examples from Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day to demonstrate not only how mysticism can be tightly linked to the social world, but how mystical practices can create meaningful social change. We argue that this change is possible because inner-worldly mysticism holds the potential to generate solidarity across traditional power and status divides. We illustrate how this potential for interaction-level change can spread horizontally; the number of small groups committed to carrying out inner-worldly mystical practices can grow until such groups spread across communities and beyond. In this way, the work of inner-worldly mystics can create meaningful change without ever vying for power on the macro political stage.

Unintended but not unanticipated consequences
Frank de Zwart

The concept “unanticipated consequences,” coined by Robert K. Merton (1936), has largely been replaced in current social science by its putative synonym, “unintended consequences.” This conflation suggests that “unintended” consequences are also “unanticipated,” effectively obscuring an interesting and real category of phenomena—consequences that are both unintended and anticipated—that warrant separate attention. The first part of this article traces the conflation of “unintended” and “unanticipated,” and explains why it occurred. The second part argues the need for a clear distinction between what is unintended and what is unanticipated, and it illustrates the failure of the present concept of “unintended consequences” to do so and the consequences that has for social and political analysis.