printThe Third Integrative Wave in Sociology. Part I:
the Relevance of a New Agenda
Ivanov D.V.
Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Prof., St. Petersburg state university, St. Petersburg, Russia dvi2001@rambler.ru
This work is based on research supported by RSF, grant no. 24-18-00261.
Ivanov D.V. The Third Integrative Wave in Sociology. Part I: the Relevance of a New Agenda. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2024. No 6. P. 3-15
The article is analyzing fragmentation and integration waves in sociology development. The first integrative wave was in the 1920s – 1950s. It appeared in grand theories by P. Sorokin, T. Parsons, the Frankfurt school uniting heterogeneous ideas from classics in models of society as system. After the paradigm crisis of the 1960s-70s and following spread of postmodernist discourse, the second integrative wave arose in form of theories overcoming gaps between concepts of determinist structures and constructivist agency (J. Habermas, A. Giddens, P. Bourdieu) as well as in form of metatheorizing (G. Ritzer, P. Sztompka, J. Alexander). Today’s fragmentation of sociology under conditions of metaparadigm crisis and post-globalization is provoked by the rising postcolonial discourse, by attempts to stigmatize Western classics and to create theoretical alternatives to the ‘global North’ domination in knowledge production as well as by conceptions opposing social reality of networks and flows to classical sociality of structures and agency. The third integrative wave is expected to come in the 2020s displacing tendencies of disintegration, discrimination, growing gaps and rising barriers. New theories are relevant as they create a coherent configuration of four types of structures: institutions, interactions, networks, and flows. Concepts of augmented social reality, augmented Modernity, and augmented data are proposed to be solutions for theoretical and methodological integration in sociology.
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