The Many Faces of Metamorphoses: about Innovations of Two Canadian Sociologists

The Many Faces of Metamorphoses:
about Innovations of Two Canadian Sociologists


Kravchenko S.A.

Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Prof., Head of the Department of Sociology, MGIMO-University; Chief Researcher, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia sociol7@yandex.ru

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Kravchenko S.A. The Many Faces of Metamorphoses: about Innovations of Two Canadian Sociologists. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2019. No 2. P. 26-35




Abstract

Мaterials presented at the XIX World Congress of Sociology are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the positioning of Canadian sociology. Specifically, the works of two well-known Canadian sociologists (Vanderburg and Mosco), the originality of their approaches to power, violence and justice in the context of the new trend of digitalization of society are reviewed. Among the theoretical innovations, modern metamorphoses of social realities and knowledge are distinguished, determined by side-effects of the existing formal, rational and pragmatic trends in the development of the sciences and technologies, that negatively affect the socio-cultural nature of man, society, and biosphere. Canadian sociologists, who organized the Сongress, especially paid attention to the trends of digitalizating scientific knowledge and developing digital technologies, which are factors in metamorphosing society, economy, personality into “anti-society”, “anti-economy”, “anti-person” that leads to the emergence of a new type of power exercising, global domination on the basis of digital technologies that produces digital violence against people. Overcoming the emerging challenges of human civilization they look for the way to the transition to interdisciplinary knowledge with a cultural core, as well as to knowledge that is informed by the life experience of peoples’ communities.


Keywords
XIX World Congress of Sociology; metamorphosis; knowledge; digital technologies, side effects; “anti-society”; “anti-economy”; “anti-person”; humanistic turn

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Content No 2, 2019