Engaged theory

Engaged theory is a methodological framework for understanding the social complexity of a society, by using social relations as the base category of study, with the social always understood as grounded in the natural, including people as embodied beings.[1] Engaged theory progresses from detailed, empirical analysis of the people, things, and processes of the world[2] to abstract theory about the constitution and social framing of people, things, and processes.[3]

As a type of critical theory, engaged theory is cross-disciplinary, drawing from sociology, anthropology, and political studies, history, philosophy, and global studies to engage with the world whilst seeking to change the world.[4] Examples of engaged theory are the constitutive abstraction approach of writers, such as John Hinkson, Geoff Sharp, and Simon Cooper, who published in Arena Journal;[5] and the approach developed at the Centre for Global Research of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia by scholars such as Manfred Steger, Paul James and Damian Grenfell, who draw from the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Benedict Anderson, and Charles Taylor, et al.[6]

  1. ^ Steger, Manfred; James, Paul (2019). Globalization Matters: Engaging the Global in Unsettled Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. ^ See: The engaged research associated with Circles of Sustainability. circlesofsustainability.com
  3. ^ See Paul James, Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In, Sage Publications, London, 2006 [1]
  4. ^ James Clifford, 'On Ethnographic Authority', Representations, vol. 1, no. 2, 1983, pp. 118–146.
  5. ^ See: Simon Cooper, Techno-Culture and Critical Theory, Routledge, London, 2002; and Geoff Sharp, 'Constitutive Abstraction and Social Practice', Arena, 70, 1985, pp. 48–82.
  6. ^ "About ICS".