posted on 2015-07-31, 12:49authored byDave Elder-Vass
Towards a realist social constructionism Social constructionism has often been seen as incompatible with realist approaches to the socialworld. This paper argues that critical realism is thoroughly compatible with moderate versions of social constructionism and indeed provides stronger ontological backing for it than the anti-realist approaches that are often associated with more extreme versions of social constructionism. The paper illustrates the argument by offering a realist account of how discourse may underpin processes of social construction. This is then applied to the case of the subject, an application that is framed as a critique of Judith Butler's performative account of the subject.
History
School
Social Sciences
Department
Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Published in
Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas
Volume
70
Pages
9 - 24
Citation
ELDER-VASS, D., 2012. Towards a realist social constructionism. Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas, 70, pp. 9-24.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Publication date
2012
Notes
This article was published in the journal, Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas.