Includes bibliographical references and index.

Unfolding social construction : sociological routes and political roots / Rolland Munro -- The Danube and ways of imagining Europe / Michael Schillmeier and Wiebke Pohler -- The art of narrating and the question of cultural acknowledgment : the case of Die Kinder von Golzow and a reunified Germany / Barbara Grüning -- Landscape, imagination and experience : processes of emplacement among the British in rural France / Michaela Benson -- The reproduction of "cultural taste" amongst the Ukrainian diaspora in Bradford, England / Oscar Forero and Graham Smith -- Forum for the Ugly People : study of an imagined community / Maria Adamczyk -- Sociological analysis and socio-political change : juxtaposing elements of the work of Bourdieu, Passeron and Lyotard / Derek Robbins -- Cultivating disconcertment / John Law and Wen-yuan Lin -- Epistemology and the politics of knowledge / Celine-Marie Pascale -- Populist elements in contemporary American political discourse / Ritchie Savage -- Released from gender? Reflexivity, performativity, and therapeutic discourses / Kateřina Lišková -- Embracing dependency : rethinking (in)dependence in the discourse of care / Bernhard Weicht -- Curious cases : small island states' exceptionalism and its contribution to comparative welfare theory / Zoë Irving -- The political-opportunity structure of the Spanish anti-war movement (2002-2004) and its impact / Isis Sánchez Estellés -- Between mobility and mobilization : lifestyle migration and the practice of European identity in political struggles / Michael Janoschka.

"This monograph explores the interplay between ideas of the political and the way that we, as sociologists, look at the phenomena that we study. Shows what empirical sociological enquiries into the political reveal on theoretical and conceptual levels Discusses how sociologists should study and understand the political Evaluates how the political intersects with current social identities and divisions Includes empirical and theoretical cases"--Provided by publisher.

"The central theme of this monograph is the interplay between ideas of the political and the way sociologists look at the range of phenomena we study. The political and its relation to the social has of course long been a source of profound debate within political sociology as well as more generally. What we want to mark in this volume are some key ways in which the ever-burgeoning lines of inquiry and analysis within sociology alter conceptions of the political, with mutually profound implications for understandings of the social across the discipline of sociology. Parts 1 and 2 explore the complex interrelations between the social and the political, through their traditional focus on the entangled themes of borders and belonging. The examination of discourse, Part 4, and social movements, Part 5, provide analytical routes through which the boundaries between theoretical and empirical research are also called into question. For all this, as the papers in Part 3 demonstrate, theoretical contributions--if taking a less central, legislating role--remain as important as ever. Taken together, the articles in this volume provide key insights into the many, many ways with which a commitment to the political affects understandings of the social in contemporary sociology"--Provided by publisher.