Papers by Jean-pierre Reed
Theory and Society
In the original publication of this paper, table 2 was inadvertently published with missing infor... more In the original publication of this paper, table 2 was inadvertently published with missing information. Please find below the details that should have been placed in table 2, below the heading "Connections to hope":
Routledge eBooks, Mar 30, 2022
Gramsci linked the concept of passive revolution—a revolution without revolution—to the state tra... more Gramsci linked the concept of passive revolution—a revolution without revolution—to the state transition outlined in Marx’s Preface to the Critique of Political Economy. In the past fifteen years some researchers have used the concept to examine cases of social movements in various regions of the world. Recently, progressive governments in Latin America – in particular the pink tide -- have been examined as cases of passive revolution, specifically, as cases of transformism and Caesarism , two variations of passive revolution. While we agree that a Gramscian framework is appropriate and that a systematic study of the region’s unique context is overdue, we aim to challenge this perspective. We proposed, instead, that the current pink tide in Latin America shows signs of a counter-hegemonic challenge we conceptualized, building on Gramsci (1971, 1987), Glucksmann (1979, 2198) and Callinicos (2010), as anti-passive revolution. In this framework, anti-passive revolutions are the “pos...
Routledge eBooks, Mar 30, 2022
Comparative Sociology, 2017
Is Marxism antithetical to religion? Both academic and laypeople typically respond to this questi... more Is Marxism antithetical to religion? Both academic and laypeople typically respond to this question with an unqualified 'yes'! As evidence of this "truism", they assert that Marx stated that 'religion is the opium of the people'. In Criticism of Earth, Roland Boer, a Marxist literary and religion scholar, aptly demonstrates how this stereotypical portrayal does not fully capture the complex relationship Marxism has to religion. Is Marxism antagonistic to religion? In content, yes, but not in form. The writings of Marx and Engels are too often suffused with 'theological allusions, references, undercurrents, protests and arguments' to be discounted as entirely anti-theological (xiii). While the intellectual context at the time that Marx and Engels developed as thinkers has much to do with this propensity in their writing-for historical reasons theology was central to the development of economic and political thought as well as the very nature of public and philosophical debate in mid-nineteenth century Germany-Boer claims that it is important to recognise that theology functioned as a crucible for the development of the historical materialist perspective that Marxism represents and for Marxism's critique of religion itself. How might this be the case? Let us briefly consider a couple of examples from Boer's text as illustrations of these assertions. The German Ideology and the Communist Manifesto, for example, betray 'the presence of theological forms of thinking' (p. 141). These canonical works, for one, are predicated on the inversion narrative, the idea, as conveyed in Ludwig Feuerbach's critique of religion, that a god is a projection of unfulfilled human ambitions. That is, human beings create their own god. As a belief system, however, religion denies the centrality of human beings for it elevates their god-projection. From a Feuerbachan perspective, religion, as such, is the cause of human alienation. When Marx appropriates Feuerbach's reasoning, 'he goes on to argue that religion is not the cause of alienation (an idealist comparative sociology 16 (2017) 581-583 Marxism. Its exploration of the roots of this relationship is a significant epistemological contribution. Any religion and Marxist scholar worth their salt should read it.
Comparative Sociology, 2017
Critical Sociology, 2014
The study of culture, emotions, and stories has assumed a central place in the sociology of socia... more The study of culture, emotions, and stories has assumed a central place in the sociology of social movements and contentious politics. This shift to the subjective (‘away’ from the organizational or structural) had its initial start in the USA with the framing perspective (Snow et al., 1986) and the culture-as-toolkit approach to political action (Swidler, 1986). These initial approaches opened the door to more substantive explorations on the subjective, in particular the role of culture, in the 1990s and 2000s. Following (or building on) continental theoretical developments on new social movements (e.g. Castells, 1983; Habermas, 1987; Melucci, 1989; Touraine, 1988) discipline scholars earnestly investigated what by then had become known as ‘identity politics’, ‘cultural politics’, and ‘life politics’ (as opposed to emancipatory politics) (e.g. Giddens, 1991; Laraña et al., 1994; Taylor, 1989). Radical feminists had been referring to this type of politics as ‘personal politics’ (Evans, 1979). Focusing on culture, emotions, and stories essentially meant empirically grounding and conceptually strengthening our understanding of these dimensions of political activism that at one point were consistently downplayed, if not neglected. One may argue that by 1997 the cultural turn in social movement scholarship had been firmly established. Social Moments and Culture (Johnston and Klandermans, 1995) and The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements (Jasper, 1997) cogently exposed the relevance of culture for the study of the politics of social transformation. Culture promoted political mobilization, cultural processes maintained collective identities, even in the absence of political opportunities, and culture was at the center of the transformation of everyday practices and institutions in society. A paradigm shift was afoot. It would manifest itself
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets
Social revolutions are typically conceived as transformative historical events that fundamentally... more Social revolutions are typically conceived as transformative historical events that fundamentally change the social structures of society. Their outcomes, as such, are usually associated with the transition to modernity, the rise of capitalism, and the emergence of democracy. It is their transformative effect, despite similarities, that sets them apart from rebellions, revolts, political revolutions, and other types of social movements, making them rare events in history. Compared to political revolutions, which are typically orchestrated from above, social revolutions are mass based. Their root causes are structural in nature, and the processes associated with their mass mobilization typically involve cultural, psychological, and political factors. The systematic social scientific study of revolutions may be traced back to the 19th century. These early works accounted for the structural causes and social forces behind them. Some project a concern with the deleterious effects of rev...
Contemporary Sociology, 2003
Critical realism has become increasingly important in the way organisation and management is bein... more Critical realism has become increasingly important in the way organisation and management is being studied. This book argues for an alternative to the prevailing ontology and shows how positivism and its empirical realist ontology can be abandoned without having to accept strong social constructionism. Critical Realist Applications in Organisation and Management Studies applies critical realism in four ways. First, in the removal of meta-theoretical obstacles that hinder the development of fruitful theoretical and empirical work. Second and third, as a metatheoretical tool with which to develop appropriate methodological and theoretical frameworks which can then be used to inform appropriate empirical work. And finally, all of this is applied across a broad range of subject areas including critical management studies, accountancy, marketing, health care management, operations research, the nature of work, human resource management, labour process theory, regional analysis, and work and labour market studies.
Critical Sociology, 2011
While EP Thompson recognizes the regressive potential of popular religion, his work also makes it... more While EP Thompson recognizes the regressive potential of popular religion, his work also makes it possible to evaluate this cultural scheme as a vehicle of political resistance. This article seeks to make a case for the significance of popular religion in a politics of resistance through an unorthodox interpretation of The Making of the English Working Class. A close reading of the history of orthodox and sectarian Methodism presented in this work reveals popular religion as a contentious custom and a vehicle of political resistance.
Critical Research on Religion, 2017
Building on the storytelling, political storytelling, and religious storytelling literatures, I e... more Building on the storytelling, political storytelling, and religious storytelling literatures, I examined the role religious stories play in the formation of revolutionary convictions. This study's primary sources of data are volumes I, II, and III of The Gospel in Solentiname, a historical record of religious discussions that took place in an isolated campesino community at a seminary-like setting under a growing national revolutionary scenario in 1970s Nicaragua. My analysis of these discussions reveals that religious discourse based on stories of prophecy, Christian virtue, miracles, and social challenges to revolutionary action allowed story-users to assert, explore, and promote models of action and moral orientation consistent with the making of revolution.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2015
Building on language as action perspectives and recent social movement research on speech acts, w... more Building on language as action perspectives and recent social movement research on speech acts, we explore the role religious discourse plays in the maintenance of a collective identity we call revolutionary “we-ness.” Using NVivo qualitative data analysis software we perform a content analysis of Volume 1 of The Gospel in Solentiname (Cardenal 1976), a historical record of Biblestudy discussions in prerevolutionary Nicaragua. Based on a framework of collective identity construction (boundary work, oppositional consciousness, identity assertion) into which a taxonomy of speech acts (accusations, declarations, directives, exhortations, prescriptions, and warnings) are organized, our content analysis illustrates how revolutionary we-ness is constituted, and how the recursive employment of speech acts suggests a resonance of ideological motives in religious discourse. We found the degree to which identity assertion, expressed in declarative speech acts, predominated over oppositional consciousness, which in turn figured over boundary work in the constitution of revolutionary we-ness. Our speech acts approach fills a void in framing theory and confirms religious discourse’s capacity to promote radical self-understandings and commitment to revolutionary activism.
Critical Research on Religion, 2021
Critical Research on Religion
International Journal of Comparative Sociology
costly downtown real estate. While the long-term impact is yet to be determined, labor scholars w... more costly downtown real estate. While the long-term impact is yet to be determined, labor scholars will be keenly attentive to the outcome. For employees outside of STEM fields, work has intensified where it wasn’t outright eliminated in sectors such as hospitality, travel, and restaurant and food service. Online commerce and select gig economy services (e.g., increases in food and grocery delivery with services such as Instacart, but decreased utilization of ride sharing services such as Lyft) saw skyrocketing demand in light of simultaneous increases in the ranks of employees working, students learning, and everyone else staying home as much as possible. The increased strain on logistics infrastructure has fomented what was previously unthinkable: a union certification vote in the United States at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, an anti-union right-to-work state. Labor scholars will surely be eagerly anticipating whether this is an isolated incident or part of a greater pattern of warehouse-based labor solidarity as consumer demand continues to increase. Overall, I found this edited volume thought provoking, with a wide-spanning content base that ultimately helped broaden how I think of collective bargaining and collective action. Scholars of labor, labor relations, collective action, and protest would equally benefit from reading and adding this book to their list of reference materials.
Critical Research on Religion
Critical Research on Religion
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Papers by Jean-pierre Reed
The book explores how and under what conditions religion functions as a progressive and/or reactionary force that compels people to challenge or protect social orders. The authors focus on the role that religion has played in peasant, slave, and plebeian rebellions; revolutions, including the Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Iranian; and modern social movements. In addition to these case studies, the book also contains theoretical chapters that explore the relationship religious thought has with the politics of liberation and oppression. It examines the institutional, organizational, ritualistic, discursive, ideological, and/or framing mechanisms that give religion its oppressive and liberating structures. Many scholars of religion continue very conventional modes of thinking, ignoring how religion has been—and continues to be—both a hegemonic and counterhegemonic force in conflict. This book looks at both sides of the equation.
This international and interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of politics of religion, sociology of religion, religious studies, gender studies, and history.