Content uploaded by Riccardo Prandini
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Riccardo Prandini on Dec 15, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cirs20
Download by: [78.14.44.68] Date: 06 July 2016, At: 02:08
International Review of Sociology
Revue Internationale de Sociologie
ISSN: 0390-6701 (Print) 1469-9273 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cirs20
Relational sociology: a well-defined sociological
paradigm or a challenging ‘relational turn’ in
sociology?
Riccardo Prandini
To cite this article: Riccardo Prandini (2015) Relational sociology: a well-defined sociological
paradigm or a challenging ‘relational turn’ in sociology?, International Review of Sociology, 25:1,
1-14, DOI: 10.1080/03906701.2014.997969
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2014.997969
Published online: 03 Feb 2015.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 439
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Relational sociology: a well-defined sociological paradigm or a
challenging ‘relational turn’in sociology?
Riccardo Prandini*
Dipartimento di Sociologia e Diritto dell’economia SDE, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
(Received January 2014; accepted November 2014)
In this paper I present and summarize the theoretical proposals of four leading scholars
of the so-called ‘relational sociology’. First of all I try to contextualize its emergence
and developments in the increasingly globalized scientific system. From this particular
(and international) point of view, relational sociology seems to develop through a
peculiar scientific path opened and charted by well-identified actors and competitors,
their invisible colleges, their global connections, cleavages, and coalitions. Whatever
the structuring of this field, it accomplishes the criticism of classical individualistic and
collectivistic sociological theories, a task strongly facilitated by the development of
new methods and techniques of empirical research, and by the increasingly powerful
computing capabilities. After this brief historical reconstruction, and following very
strictly the contributions of the four scholars, I try to synthetize their theoretical
designs, focusing the analysis on two scientific issues of great significance for the
future of relational sociology: the specific ontology of ‘social relations’and the
methodologies used to observe it adequately. Finally, I wonder if we are facing a new
sociological paradigm, already well structured and internationally established, or rather
a‘relational turn’that probably will develop into a new ‘sociological field’internally
very differentiated and articulated.
Keywords: relational sociology; social relation; sociological paradigms; social
network analysis; social ontology
This special section of the International Review of Sociology is devoted to ascertaining
whether an international new and original sociological paradigm called ‘relational
sociology’can be identified today. With paradigm we conceive, following Kuhn, a
framework of concepts, results, and procedures within which subsequent work is
structured: or more specifically ‘universally recognized scientific achievements that, for
a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners’(Kuhn
1996, p. 10). We are not interested in understanding how specific scholars have perceived
themselves with reference to this paradigm: as innovators, developers, or only heirs of a
specific social theory. We are just interested to observe how they have been observed by
others scholars, i.e. how some basic definitions of relational sociology are currently
circulating in the ‘scientific system’. A new and original social paradigm is recognizable
only if it accedes to the world stage of the global scientific system constituted and
structured by networks of scientific scholars, scientific contributions published in scientific
journals, books, internet sites, etc., fuelled by a vast array of international meetings,
*Email: riccardo.prandini@unibo.it
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, 2015
Vol. 25, No. 1, 1–14, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2014.997969
© 2015 University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
seminars, conferences, and so on. It is only at this global level that we can decide if a new
paradigm is gaining a global stage or not. Put in other words: are we really witnessing a
new and emergent sociological ‘school’, or are we observing only a sort of ‘esprit du temp’
which is able to catalyse similar intuitions and sociological insights?
To answer that question we simply and tentatively asked four different leaders and
key players of ‘relational sociology’to define ontologically and methodologically what it
is. These scholars are not the only representatives of relational sociology, but their names
are particularly quoted in the scientific debate on relationality. In this short introduction,
and following these four scholars, we would like to underline two main topics: (1) how
they reconstruct the origins and developments of the so-called ‘relational sociology’; and
(2) how they define the ontological and methodological aspects of relational sociology.
As regards the first question, the answer seems to be quite simple even if not fully
undisputed. Even if the historical reconstructions are not totally similar, and even if some
of the four scholars seem not to be so interested in belonging to or participating in a
unique history, a very clear path dependence seems to appear. This path is clearly and
unequivocally inspired by the common critique of the classical division (and struggle)
between individualistic and collectivistic sociological paradigms. It is not a case of all the
four scholars identifying their ‘sociological imagination’as inspired by new ways to
make social science develop at the end of the 1970s (although already so well outlined
and established in the classic works of Georg Simmel). To quote only the main
sociological strands: systems’theories supported by cybernetics’science (elaborated
before by Talcott Parsons and then totally redefined by Niklas Luhmann); pragmatism (as
developed by John Dewey and sociologically basically translated by interactionism);
phenomenology (developed via Schütz towards ethnomethodology); figurational theory
(elaborated by Norbert Elias) and, most of all, with the technical and methodological
support of social network analysis. Only when the old struggle between individualism
and collectivism was overcome, through these theoretical innovations, was a new field for
what we will call, for now, the ‘relational turn’opened. The historical reconstruction of
this international ‘turn’is well depicted by Mustapha Emirbayer (1997), Ann Mische
(2011), Jan Fuhse (2015), and more recently by Dépelteau and Powell (2013, Powell and
Dépelteau 2013). (Emirbayer and Mische are also the most quoted scholars on the
internet, concerning the ‘historical reconstruction’of relational sociology.)
As Fuhse (2015) and Mische (2011) demonstrate, we can observe in American
sociology the emergence of the ‘relational turn’during the 1990s as the New York School
and other New York universities (first of all the Columbia University) were involved in
meshing two previously distinct strands of sociology: cultural sociology and social
network analysis (in a sense the ‘content’and the ‘form’of a relationship). Both of these
disciplines had to do with a deep critique of individualism and collectivism, culture and
network apparently not being reducible to individual action or social structure. The
relational turn was developed by a densely connected network of scholars, whose core
was represented by Harrison White (Harvard University), Charles Tilly (Harvard and then
Columbia University), along with Paul DiMaggio and DiMaggio’s student John Mohr.
Ann Mische was a student of White and Tilly at Columbia University, and Emirbayer was
a colleague of Tilly at the New School for Social Research. This first American network
developed and expanded later in Europe. In September 2008, the Humboldt University of
Berlin hosted an international symposium on relational sociology organized by Jan Fuhse,
titled Relational Sociology: Transatlantic Impulses for the Social Sciences. In the 1980s
the Italian sociologist Pierpaolo Donati had begun to elaborate his relational sociology
2R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
but published Relational Sociology: A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences only in
2011, connecting himself at the international level. Also in 2011 the British sociologist
Nick Crossley published Towards Relational Sociology. It is worth remembering that,
while major methodological advances occurred in the United States, relational sociology
has strong roots and seeds in the European tradition, beginning with Karl Marx (concept
of Capital), Georg Simmel (Wechselwirkung), Gabriel Tarde (imitation), Norbert Elias
(configurations), Niklas Luhmann (social systems defined by communications), Pierre
Bourdieu (social fields), Bruno Latour (science in action), etc. In October 2009,
sociologist Yanjie Bian hosted the International Conference on Relational Sociology at
the Institute for Empirical Social Science Research of Xi’an Jiaotong University, trying to
put social network analysis in the centre of the debate again. In 2011, the Canadian
Sociological Association has held meetings at every annual conference to develop a
research cluster devoted to relational sociology. The most recent meeting was organized
by François Dépelteau from the Laurentian University, and the results of that conference
are probably the most advanced efforts to define a new sociological paradigm.
To make a long story short, what catalysed this ‘relational turn’was the critique of the
well-established ‘individualistic-collectivistic’ontologies and methodologies that char-
acterized sociology until the early 1970s. The relational turn emerged only after the
weakening of the old alliance formed by the collision between the ‘twins’, Individualism
and Collectivism. This scientific criticism is grafted onto the end of the Cold War, with
the collapse of the communist ideology (which weakened collectivism); the end of
colonialism (introducing new way of conceiving what is a society); the need to
understand and communicate with non-Western cultures (not implicated with Western
conceptualizations of individuals and societies); the explosion of globalization and of new
communication technologies, first of all and of course the internet. Probably and most of
all, the collapse of collectivism as political ideology, the streamlined features of Western
individualism and the beginning era of the world wide web, pushed and led towards new
forms of scientific imagination. Only then could the old critics to substantialism (already
ripe at the beginning of the twentieth century) emerge and explode in social sciences;
only then did sociology begin to come to terms with cybernetics, science of evolution,
communication theories, networks theory, emphasizing concepts like function, interac-
tion, connection, process, etc. The old enemies consisting of individualism and
collectivism (in their ‘classical’features), were defeated. But then a new and much
more slippery enemy emerged: the so-called ‘conflationism’and ‘co-determinism’
between structures and agency, a very special form of ‘relationism’.For‘relationists’
both the individual and the social are important determinants of Y, X, and Z. The
individual is ‘social(ized)’, and the social is interiorized by individuals; they are made by
the same stuff, ‘relationships’. Only then, as all of our contributors state so clearly, did it
become important to understand what exactly a ‘social relationship’meant, what its own
ontology was, what its internal structure was, and what was the best method to study it.
Here we synthetize their own sociological positions, trying to identify possible
convergences and divergences. This little contribution in the form of simplification may
be useful because the high level of abstraction of the papers and their deep conceptual
differences could discourage sociologists not wholly interested in such a refined and
rarefied theoretical debate.
We can start this exercise with Jan Fuhse. He argues that relational sociology (RS)
will emerge as a cross between systems theory (Luhmann 1995) and social network
analysis (White 2008), which is to say as a project of macro–micro links (and vice versa).
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 3
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
The theoretical (‘ontological’in my terms) building-block of RS is ‘communication’,
conceived as an ongoing social process, condensing emerging social expectations
regarding the relationships among actors involved (networks) and the content of
communications. Fuhse develops social systems theory, suggesting that different spheres
of encoded communications self-generate generalized media of communication (political
power, money, law, scientific truth, etc.), able to co-ordinate communications even in the
absence of direct social relationships. Streams of communicative events have to deal with
expectations both in social networks and in impersonal expectations. This interplay of
networks and systems is calling for an empirical and conceptual analysis, rather than
subsuming networks under systems or vice versa. Fuhse tries to connect ‘social networks’–
as real social structures –and ‘cultural meanings’,aswellas‘empirical research’and
‘theoretical reflection’. His argument proceeds by drawing and developing logical and
empirical distinctions. First step: RS is distinguished from ‘standard’social network
analysis because of the amendments added by Harrison White (White et al. 2007). He
was looking for the ‘phenomenological reality’behind the ‘measurement construct’of
networks, finding it in the mesh of stories relating to identities. White is so relevant
because he distinguished –in a definitive way –between networks as ‘measurement
constructs’and as ‘social reality’. Second step: Fuhse disaggregates social ties into
communicative events, introducing the concept of communication as truly emergent
social reality (as elaborated by Niklas Luhmann). Networks, therefore, are not measurable
just with ‘1s and 0s’in a matrix, but are indeed complex social realities constituted by
communicative processes establishing, reproducing, and modifying social relationships as
meaningful social constructions. In this sense networks have always two distinct (and not
overlapping) sides: (1) its ‘phenomenological reality’or ‘meaning structure’; (2)
regularities of communicative events (structuring subsequent communication). For
example, a well-recognized relationship of ‘friendship’is such a relationship whether
friends meet each other regularly or quite infrequently, whether they engage primarily in
intimate talk or in common activities. Social networks are then structures of meaning that
develop through the sequence of (ongoing) communicative events. The precise
conceptualization of these events, however, is still an open question, going from the
concept of ‘transactions’;‘social actions’(focused on dyadic processes); ‘interactions’
which fuses the communicative and the psychic processing of meaning; ‘switching’
between different netdoms (in White’s sense). In a nutshell, social networks emerge when
communicative events lead to specifically relational expectations.
Methodology might serve and explain the ‘ontological’constitution of communicat-
ive networks. Since the attempt is to realize the macro–micro link (and vice versa),
systems theory and social network analysis –i.e. the connection between theoretical
arguments and empirical research –must be particularly strong in RS. Relational
sociology’s simultaneous regard for network structures and meaning calls for the
combination of quantitative and qualitative methods (Fuhse and Mutzel 2011).
Differently from critical realism (and critical realist relational sociology, CRRS), which
states the actual possibility to know and capture ‘important features of the reality out
there’, theories and scientific sentences can never provide ‘true’representations of the
real world. Theories can only be internally coherent and develop (logical) systems based
on generally unobservable assumptions. In other words science is an ‘auto-referential’
(and closed) system of communications, and consequently scientific models are
constructions of observers. Their ‘truth’is decided in the network of a scientific
community by reference to empirical results (that is again: referring to observations).
4R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
From this (internal) scientific point of view, social networks are really ‘constructed’in
sociology: identities and relations are realized in communicative story-telling. From the
external point of view, transactions and relations are ‘real’in the sense of being part of a
‘social’reality that can be observed by sociologists. Social reality is made of observed
observations, not of ‘things’.
Fuhse concludes his fruitful contribution by highlighting some theoretical and
methodological implications for RS: (1) Social relationships can be conceptualized as
autonomous systems of self-referential communications; (2) relationships draw on
available cultural models for relationships, such as ‘love’,‘friendship’,‘companionship’,
or ‘patronage’; (3) we can distinguish three kinds of networks: communication networks,
communicative events relate back to previous communicative events; social networks
consisting of actors connected to each other in relational expectations (developed in
communicative events); and cultural networks i.e. concepts or other symbols linked to
each other meaningfully in texts or languages. Giving this kind of conceptualization, it is
clear that the very theoretical and methodological challenges are represented by the so-
called micro–macro link (and vice versa). Still lacking are: (1) a clear model of how
cultural forms are institutionalized and deployed in social networks, and (2) a clear model
of how micro processes in social networks interact with the diffusion in mass media and
in large-scale bureaucratic and economic structures. In particular what is lacking is a
theoretical model able to identify social mechanisms which link social networks and
societal spheres like politics, the economy, art, religion. At the end of the day Jan Fuhse
calls for a combination of social network research with systems theory able to reconcile
very different logics of argumentation and to connect ‘grand theorizing’–not yet
interested in finding empirical evidence –and network empirical research not yet framed
into a useful theory (Fuhse 2013).
François Dépelteau chooses a different path towards a ‘paradigm’actually oriented in
a very pragmatist way. To him the history and developments of sociology is a history of
paradigm struggles (of polemogenous key words) expressly between the concepts and
links of social structure and agency. The ‘classical age’of sociology was characterized by
the idea that social phenomena are made of Aor B, where Ais basically individuals with
predefined identities, preferences, desires, needs, etc., and Bis social structures affecting
and impelling upon over-socialized individuals. The contemporary ‘relational turn’has
been related to controversies around and about dualisms, such as the separation between
social structures and agency. But, following a statement by Norbert Elias, François
Dépelteau criticizes and accuses contemporary sociology of preferring to avoid
controversies and bloody oppositions, by accepting (often) complicated but not useful
compromises between A and B, which he calls theoretical ‘co-determinism’(Dépelteau
2008): those theories affirm that both the individual and the social are important
determinants of X, Y, and Z. The ‘relational turn’, instead, offers a useful opportunity for
another option, a new and original solution (in comparison to previous theories) to the
same fundamental issues. He observes that this new solution must give distinct and
improved answers to two types of analytically interrelated questions: (1) the practical
question: Why do we need RS? (2) the ontological question: What do we study in RS?
The first question is addressed and solved in a way that belongs to the philosophical
tradition of pragmatism. Following the work (especially) of John Dewey, Dépelteau states
and confirms that ‘reality’exists out there, but that scientific observations cannot find the
‘Truth’about it (Dewey and Bentley 1949). In contrast to critical realism and relational
critical realism, he affirms that identifying ‘social laws’or ‘pure forms’of the social,
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 5
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
finding ‘infrastructures’or ‘mechanisms’behind or beyond ‘conjectural’events is simply
impossible and expresses at its best the famous ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness’,
theorized by Whitehead. As for Jan Fuhse, the only ‘layer of reality’we can observe (and
know) is made by complex transactions (or associations) between various human and
non-human transactors. Here the reference goes to Bruno Latour (1987) and his famous
work on the sociology of science, or ‘science in action’, where he demonstrates that
science is a ‘social practice’exactly as any other social activity. What is known comes
from transactions (relations of interdependency) between the observer and the observed.
Observing is doing, and ‘doing’here means, as for every other activities, trying to use
and control entities around us in order to make our life easier. In other terms, to make
science means trying and wishing to take advantage of one part of the reality, changing it.
At the core of the scientific work resides a pragmatic goal, the ability to help
interdependent human beings. Like other sciences, good (relational) sociology is a
(good) praxis contributing to ameliorate the way people transact with each other (and
with their environment) in order to achieve some common goals. In a certain sense,
sociology is political action: for solving sociological problems, sociologists have to
define their ‘object’in an original way, observing each specific and various social fields
where different audiences –our ‘public’–live.
This pragmatic and ‘political’Manifesto guides us to the second question, the
ontological/methodological one. The answer to the question ‘what we study with RS’is
very elegant and simple. ‘Objects’of relational sociology are all these associations
between interdependent human beings that usually are conceived as they would be
external to us. In opposition to the substantive dualism of social structures versus agency,
the pragmatic, RS redefines ‘social fields’and ‘transactors’as producers of these
phenomena. One important point of this new sociological observation is that it is not
necessary to use distinctions between macro, meso, or micro levels of analysis, because
the social universe is ‘flat’: there is only one level of social life for everybody consisting
in the actual transaction with other human and non-human transactors in various fields
(for example: couples, families, workplaces, battlefields, nations, empires, global
economy, etc.). In a nutshell, the actions of the transactor Acan be explained or
understood only in reference to the actions of the transactor B, and vice versa. It is worth
saying that for Dépelteau every step of a transaction is dependent upon its history. For
example if we want to understand a relationship based on power, we must observe that ‘A
is dominating Bin that way for many reasons, one of them being that Bis reacting in this
way and Bis reacting like this partly because Ais dominating him in this way’. There are
not pre-given identities at all, but only transactors in different specific social fields. This
conceptualization distinguishes pragmatic relational sociology from interactionism or
‘simplified relationalism’, meaning that the actions of Aand Bare indeed relational –they
are not just caused by some pre-given essences or characteristics. The social reality does
not exist before or outside transactions, i.e. outside interdependency. This is basically
what the word ‘social’means. Social fields exist ‘for real’; but, against every kind of
‘substantialism’or ‘ontologism’, they do not self-act on, or interact with, individuals. In
this sense they are only ‘actual’and not ‘real’(utilizing the concepts of critical realism).
Of course transactions take place in longer chains of previous and past transactions
(which started before the observed transactions) and can produce a transformation. This
point leads us to methodological questions.
Every observation (scientific or not) is a specific ‘selection’made by an observer, and
no science can grasp the whole reality, only reality as it can be scientifically known.
6R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
Every methodological and research tool-kit can help sociologists, but there is always
something left unobserved. Pragmatic relational sociology proceeds in a very logical and
simple way that resembles the classical methodological principles affirmed by Max
Weber. It starts with the space-temporal identification of (some) problems that (some)
people face. This choice implies selecting and identifying significant transactors and
transactions, that is to say a specific social field (a transaction between observers and
observed transactors). A field ‘is a portion of the universe that we make the subject of our
investigations’(Spiegel 1983, p. 39). What is known are only the results of scientific
investigation and of the work and the transactions scientists make to produce these
results. Those social fields are processes ‘in a continuous state of change’(Wilkinson
1970, p. 313): fields that possess a peculiar ‘temporal continuity’but never an eternal and
substantial structure. The job of sociologists is not to define these fields in any universal
way but to observe, describe, compare, etc., them as they are, with all their diversity and
complexity. There is no reality out there, but only what we can know interacting with it.
Truth is the name given to ‘mission accomplished’, to transactions which change
transactors in the right and desired way.
Nick Crossley, in his contribution, does not present his theory (2011) in an abstract
and rarefied way but prefers to show RS ‘in action’, considering and redescribing culture
(in particular ‘art worlds’) as a relational object. As do the other two scholars, Crossley
opens his argumentation with a strong critique of both individualism (methodological and
ontological) and all the varieties of holism (such as functionalism and structural
Marxism), those which reduce social actors (human beings) to the status of mere bearers
of social functions, laws, or processes. In his version ‘relational sociology’is an approach
which attributes primacy, both ontologically and methodologically, to interactions, social
ties (‘relations’), and networks. He defends his sociological proposals from individualists
objecting to RS by arguing that networks and interactions presuppose actors –the only
real and primordial objects. Crossley strongly disagrees for three main reasons. Firstly,
human beings become social actors always within and through interactions. Secondly
(and consequently), the individual is a mere sociological abstraction, an observational
scientific reduction useful only for scientific research as in the case of homo
oeconomicus. Individuals are born and live only in groups, and the very transformation
into human beings is completely shaped by socialization processes. Moreover, human
activity is interesting for sociologists only as interactivity (sociologists are not interested
in solitary ‘day-dreaming’, for example, or in ‘bicycling alone’). Indeed, taking for true
the teachings of Mead, Crossley states that even our private inner thoughts (our mental
life) are carried out as internal conversations, that is to say as an inner dialogue between
almost two parts, the ‘I’and ‘Me’. Thirdly, we are certainly used and accustomed to
observe social phenomena at an individual level (what we ‘really’see are only ‘moving
bodies’–another example of ‘the fallacy of misplaced concreteness’), but they make
sense only because we are able to contextualize them in specific and lasting relationships
in which the individuals are embedded. In opposition to classical holism-collectivism, the
critique of Crossley is very simple and strong affirming that it reifies, hypostatizes, and
ultimately mystifies ‘society’as an entity, a ‘whole’,a‘collective mind’, distinct from the
relationships constituted by human interactivity. As for Fuhse and Dépelteau, individu-
alism and holism suffer the same ontological problem: they refer to unreal conceptions of
an underlying primordial substance (the ‘individual’or the ‘society’) in order to make
sense of the ‘social’. Relational sociology, by contrast, posits that the social world is a
network of interactions and ties, of numerous types and on various scales, between actors
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 7
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
who are themselves formed in those interactions. Actors are always individuals-in-
relation, and their actions are always interactions. At the same time ‘wholes’are
structures of interconnection between actors, networks which cease to exist if their
individual elements in relations cease to exist: no society without relationships.
Given this theoretical framework, Crossley introduces culture as a clear example of
how RS is useful in explaining the ‘social’without reducing it to individuals or
collectivities. For sure culture arises within and through interaction. It is a ‘common’
people do together and derives its meaning only in and by the way of interaction: it is an
emergent aspect of interaction between individuals, which needs to be conceived in terms
of co-ordination efforts. The same is true if we apply the definition of culture to the
specific artefacts and works often called ‘art’(artworks). This is a very clear specification
of ‘relationality’: there are not artworks ‘per se’, but only objects and events gaining the
meaning ‘art’by virtue of a web of actors, actions, and transactions: the collective
perception on an object, its constructive process, and (of course) the audiences who
understand it as ‘artistic’.A‘urinal’is an artwork only if the artist, taking it as a ‘ready-
made’, selects it as an object of art, reframes it into the system of art constituted by the
web of publics, critics, publications, art traders and merchants, sponsors, museums, etc.
The theoretical point that Crossley wants to underline is about the very ‘nature’of
culture, which is not to be observed as subordinate to relationality but an active element
of it. Network ties are themselves always cultural(ized). Interactions in networks induce
greater similarity between those involved, as each influence and are influenced by the
other, which in turn improves the quality of their tie and the attraction between them.
Finally the use of ‘significant symbols’changes the relationships among human actors
and changes the very nature of interaction. Ultimately culture cannot be understood
through sociological holism, because it abstractedly treats ‘culture’as a solid object, a
substance, or a ‘thing’: something that is already made, a ‘given’. Conceiving culture
holistically is also extremely reductive because it treats artworks in a very homogeneous
manner without being able to take into account the considerable variations in beliefs,
practices, tastes, and identities that are apparent upon even a casual glance at
any population.
The final part of the essay, probably the most interesting and promising, is about the
origin, institutionalization, and diffusion of culture through networks and by what
Crossley calls ‘social space’(Crossley 2014). We already know that culture originates
from human interactions, and the same is true for processes of diffusion. Networks are
important for purposes of co-ordination, simply because participants cannot pool and
exchange resources if they cannot communicate. At the same time repeated interactions
between participants give rise to ‘conventions’(norms), which in turn improve co-
ordination and social equilibrium. This is to say that ‘social objects’(it could be an object
of art or, for example, a certain type of money, or a symbol like a national flag, etc.)
presuppose a community sharing interpretative conventions and a common definition of
the object (the Parsonian ‘definition of the situation’), and consequently a well-defined
communicative networks allowing such ‘agreement in forms of life’(to use a concept
derived from Wittgenstein 1953).
In methodological terms, this relational theory implies and call for special tools,
particularly the inscription of personal taste and cultural participation in the so-called
‘social spaces’,ann-dimensional space (originally elaborated by Blau 1977) which
positions individuals in a matrix constituted by the axes of age, income, ethnicity, gender.
Inscribing each individual in this social space is fundamental to avoid the errors of
8R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
essentialism, substantialism, or sociological reductionism (as in the case of the social
fields conceptualized by Bourdieu). In methodological terms this means something
extremely relevant for the kind of RS elaborated by Crossley: firstly, it means that an
actor’s‘gender’,‘ethnicity’,‘occupational class’,‘wage’, etc., are conceptualized as
positions in a social space rather than individual attributes. It is not a matter of what or
who individuals really are ‘individually’or for himself or herself, affirms Crossley, but
rather it is a matter of locating people on a social map, which is constituted by social
interactions and processes. In this sense, tastes and preferences are either acquired from
interaction in social networks, or changed and transformed. In conclusion, Crossley
affirms and demonstrates that art worlds emerge when and where a cluster of interested
actors converges within a network, imitating (Tarde 1903, Barry and Thrift 2007),
collaborating, sharing, and stimulating one another to generate a world (of meaning). The
methodological tool of ‘social space’is useful to show the existence of peculiar foci
which pull similar actors (in terms of social homophily) into the same ‘world’, helping
them to create, diffuse, and commercialize those objects of art. Social networks, and
social network analysis, are fundamental to observe the constitution, institutionalization,
diffusion, and breakdown of ‘social objects’because they are the spaces where
interactions and ties take place and develop. Social networks are intrinsically ‘cultural’
as culture is undeniably ‘networked’. Here we can find the heritance of White and his
merging between meaning and network. Social spaces are not flat, or tabulae rasae, but
instead crossed and qualified by different capitals and social resources, produced,
reproduced, and translated through networks.
The contribution of Pierpaolo Donati is oriented to show how a ‘relational society’
will emerge through a morphogenetic process. In order to explain this process he states
that society is not a space ‘containing’relations, but rather the very tissue of relations
(society ‘is relation’and does not ‘have relations’). Relations are the very stuff of ‘the
social’. In that sense it is necessary to depict in a very clear way the ontology of (social)
relation, which is an invisible but real entity, which cannot be treated ‘as a thing’. Social
relation instead is a peculiar effect of mutuality between the terms that it links. The great
opponent of what Donati calls his critical realist relational sociology (CRRS) is, as for the
other three scholars, conflationism between agency and social structure. Therefore social
relation is to be considered as ‘the’basic unit of analysis, i.e. the main focus and the
privileged analytical strategy to study reality, both ontologically and methodologically.
Following this basic assumption, Donati assumes that being in relation means: (1)
between two (or more) entities there is a certain distance which, at the same time,
distinguishes and connects them; (2) that such relation exists –i.e. it has a reality –in
itself with its own qualities and causal powers; (3) that such a reality has its own modus
essendi, i.e. a structure, be it more stable or more volatile. This is the ontological
foundation of CRRS (Donati 2011): society is made by individuals but is not made of
individuals. Certainly, only individuals can activate it, but society is another thing with
respect to what individuals are and carry in society. As Donati affirms all along in his
contribution, a society is that ‘order of reality’that consists in the configuration that
agents/actors give to their relations and which has its own reality and, moreover, a
structure which he calls ‘social molecule’. This ontology also explains the ambivalent
semantics of the concept of social relation, which has a double meaning as a process and
as an outcome of that process.
This reciprocal action between Ego and Alter (in a social context) can be seen from
the subjective side (of Ego and Alter, respectively) or as ‘object’(objective reality)
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 9
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
between the two. Donati proposes to observe these two dimensions –the symbolic-
psychological axis, the so-called refero –and the instrumental-normative axis, the so-
called religo –as wholly interwoven and giving rise to an emergent effect: the relation as
‘effect of reciprocity’(Donati 1991, chapter 4). Each and every social relation has a
‘composition’and a ‘form’. The relation is composed by elements that come from Ego
and Alter’s actions: expectations, goals, means used, utilities, needs, and values.
Analytically the elements of each single action, following Talcott Parsons, are
conceptualized as: the goal or target (T) in a situation, the means used to reach the
goal (M), the norms that are followed in relating the internal elements to one another (N),
and the ‘latent cultural value’(C) that the relation incorporates. Form is the relational
structure that organizes the elements coming from single actions and combines them in
such a way as to impart to them a certain arrangement (relational effect) that has a causal
power over the participants. To summarize again, and with the world of Donati: the social
relation is the emergent effect of reciprocal actions reiterated over time among social
actors/subjects occupying different positions in a societal configuration (system or social
network). The relational analysis translates the network into a matrix (i→j/j→i) from
which we infer that the relational effect is the result of Ego and Alter’s contributions plus
the contribution of the relation as such. This relation is a generative mechanism because it
contains reflexivity, and the latter makes the black box non-trivial.
The contribution of Donati does not continue confronting strict methodological
subjects and problems, as for the previous scholars, but with the tentative aim to explain
which society is emerging in the (Western? global?) society. Anyway CRRS is a critique
not only of methodological individualism and holism but also of the failures of the
formalist approaches in the field of social network analysis. CRRS is characterized by its
attempt to deepen understanding of the fabric that effectively constitutes the social
relation as an orderly process that takes place within social morphogenesis. Donati calls
this the ‘relational order of reality’. The methodological tool-kit utilized by Donati is that
of morphogenetic cycles, derived from the work of Archer (1995), that is to say,
observing the changes of society from a temporal point of view. Each and every society is
characterized by a special relation’s form, what Donati calls ‘social molecule’,an‘entity’
whose components have to connect in a peculiar way in order to produce an emergent
effect endowed with a certain stability and causal power, if the social morphogenesis has
to generate an elaborated and stabilized structure. This, in turn, helps to explain and
understand the emergence of a ‘relational society’described as a morphogenetic society
(Donati 2013). In the so-called after-modernity, this new and emergent society can be
depicted as follows: the social relation’s target/goal is to select variations according to the
type and degree of relationality that they entail, with a view to producing ‘relational
goods’; the means for achieving the goal can be extremely diverse, but they must be such
as to allow for the production of relational goods; the after-modern social molecule’s
norms promote meta-reflexivity in so far as they involve the search for a non-fungible
quality in social relations; the relation’s guiding distinction is its difference in terms of
‘value’, that is, the relation is evaluated on the basis of the meaningful experience that it
can obtain in contrast to what can be offered by other types of relations. In a nutshell, for
Donati this new social molecule gains ground if and to the extent that the primacy of the
adaptive function is replaced by the criterion of the cultural value of social relationality.
Let me try to conclude with some brief and tentative observations concerning: (1) the
ontology implied in relational sociology/sociologies; (2) its methodological tool-box; (3)
and its possible futures.
10 R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
From the ontological point of view, the four scholars show that so far a definite and
clear theoretical convergence is not developed. Jan Fuhse argues and develops a clear
‘constructivist’approach, where the reality is what an observer can actually observe.
Science is, therefore, a closed auto-referential system generating its own ‘eigenvalue’
called ‘Truth’and controlled by methodological processes. Truth is a symbolically
generalized medium of communication, based on the code ‘true/false’, i.e. a reduction of
complexity, which serves to co-ordinate distinct and isolated psychic systems. Social
reality is an ongoing process of communicative events that can be attributed to ‘scholars’
or ‘invisible colleges’, embedded in peculiar scientific social networks. There is no
possible ‘adaptation’or ‘fitness’between scientific truth and reality, only a possible
internal coherence in the system of science and in its intellectual traditions. From this
constructivist point of view ‘society’is a system constituted by communications which
condensate in social networks and not a sum of individual actors or a matrix of
intersecting structures. François Dépelteau takes up the pragmatist philosophical tradition
and affirms that society is basically a process of transactions, that is to say a ‘praxis’
addressed to solve social problems. Truth is what we can ‘know’, and in particular it
functions as a problem-solver. The ‘real’ontological stuff is constituted by transactions of
transactors. Truth is the name given to successful transactions between an environment,
constituted by things and people, and social practices processed by actors and actants.
There is a strong similarity with constructivism affirmed by Fuhse –reality is what we
can know, and (of course) we can know that there are noumena we never could know
adequately –but also real differences between the two epistemologies. The most relevant
is that for constructivism there is no possible or real adaptation or ‘fitness’between
‘reality’and ‘science’, no useful adaptation between us, the human beings, and the reality
‘out there’. For pragmatism, instead, this fitness is possible, so that humanity can progress
towards a better state of being. For Nick Crossley social reality seems to be an agreement
in ‘forms of life’, an emergent and shared convention which gives form and shape to
social interactions, ties, and networks. Philosophical reference goes to (the ‘second’)
Wittgenstein and his idea of ‘form of life’, so relevant for the sociology of science, for the
linguistic turn, and, most of all, for the sociology of everyday life and common sense.
Crossley does not intervene directly in the ontological debate, but he affirms sharply to
afford primacy, both ontological and methodological, to interactions, social ties, and
network. It seems clear that he does not refuse to give ontological consistence to ‘human
beings’(on the contrary he is cautious about non-human actors, actants): put simply, he
does not give them ontological primacy in relational sociology. Last but not least,
Pierpaolo Donati makes a very engaged statement towards critical relational realism.
Reality exists ‘out there’, the world is ontologically layered, and science can know it in
an adequate way (i.e. science can ‘grasp’something real in the right way). Social reality
(relationality), in particular, exists because of its causal powers which impinge upon
individuals. He calls for the analysis of social mechanisms constituted by relational
structure generating emergent properties that are not derived by the adding up of
individual actions. Social relations, moreover, are characterized by an internal structure
(Target –Means –Norm –Culture), a ‘form’, condensing in specific social structures
(that characterize a context), called ‘social molecules’, composed by determinate elements
which can bind in different and contingent ways. From this point of view social relation is
asui generis layer of reality, with its emerging structure (its modus essendi), power, and
form. Social relations are made by individuals, but are not made of individuals.
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 11
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
As we can observe there is not great congruence among these theories at the
ontological level. Of course all the scholars have internalized the modern rupture between
‘reality’and ‘thought’, between the known and the knower, between phenomena and
noumena, between observers and observed. No one is so unsophisticated as to refuse
‘reality’, and no one is so simple-minded as to affirm that the known ‘is’reality. But,
apart from this ‘basic’(and in the research field quite useless) agreement, there is no other
similarity among them. Probably there are more similarities between Donati and Crossley,
on the one side, and Fuhse and Dépelteau, on the other, but differences are clear too. In a
sense, and this could be theoretically important, it seems that the old ontological (and
political) struggle between ‘individualism’(Western way of life? Capitalism?) and
‘collectivism’(Socialist way of life? Communism?) is going to be replaced by one
relating to the very ontology of social relations, constituted by human beings, hybrids,
actants, post-humans, etc. This new point of convergence establishes, on the one hand,
the emergence of the new scientific field of ‘relational sociology’finally addressed in a
not co-deterministic way, and, on the other, a new struggle on the ontology of
relationships.
From the methodological point of view, things are no longer clear. Certainly there is a
basic and common agreement on the relevance of social network analysis, but this
approach is not yet utilized in the same way and with the same meaning by the scholars.
At the same time a strong critique of the so-called ‘structural’network analysis is openly
present and deeply shared. What is at stake here, for all the four scholars, is the
elaboration of a methodology useful to intertwine ‘culture’(meaning) and ‘ties’
(structure), ‘identity’(agency) and ‘control’(social constraint), social spaces and
individuals’attributes, etc. There is also a common agreement on conceiving social
networks not as a fixed, given ‘structural’context for actions, but as a result of ongoing
interactions. For sure, relational sociology is strongly enmeshed in a cultural ‘mood’very
friendly with processes, streaming, fluxes, etc. Nevertheless a clear agreement is not yet
visible on the methodological tool-box to adopt and use for empirical research.
Also the problem of the micro–macro link (and vice versa), that is to say the
emergence, diffusion, institutionalization, and transformation of social novelty into a new
part of the social structure, is far from being commonly engaged and solved. Jan Fuhse
recognizes this problem in a very clear way; François Dépelteau does not agree on the
problem itself, in a certain sense, affirming that society is flat; Nick Crossley is extremely
analytical in searching for social mechanisms able to diffuse cultural styles and objects of
art (punk music and life-styles, for example), but his work has just begun, and it is not
taken as a starting-point by the others scholars. Pierpaolo Donati refers directly to the
morphogenetic approach elaborated by Archer, but what is yet lacking is a clear empirical
analysis of a specific and accurate morphogenetic cycle addressed to explain and
understand a ‘definite’, determined, and well-defined social phenomenon, with the
relevant actors involved, their interests, identities, powers, emergent properties, social
mechanisms, etc., as in the (now) classic and exemplary historical study of the
transformation of education systems conducted in 1979 by Archer. For his part, Jan
Fuhse stresses the problem of the micro–macro link, affirming the necessity to mesh
theory of social systems and networks analysis, but it seems to me that this scientific goal
is still just a (interesting) project.
At the end of the day it seems to me that these sociological theories are still too
different to be able to condense a new and ‘unified’relational theory, and, probably, this
‘unification’is not a problem yet. I am not even entirely sure that we can speak of a new
12 R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
sociological ‘paradigm’, in its precise Kuhnian meaning. That is why, in my opinion, it is
better to speak currently only of a ‘relational turn’in sociology. This ‘turn’–a strong and
clear scientific convergence towards a common critique of classical sociological theories,
and of their conflationary/co-deterministic reactions –is in its very beginning and
probably will lead to a new and established paradigm. Probably it will accelerate the
crisis of the two classical sociological paradigms of individualism and collectivism. And
probably it will condensate a lot of good empirical work, helping us sociologists to
reconcile ‘grand theory’and ‘empirical research’. This ‘turn’–a real breakthrough –is
extremely important because it forces sociology to specify accurately the ontology of
society and social relation and to discover new methods and research techniques well
suited to study it. As usual, only the scientific struggle –conducted in the scientific
system –between these different relational sociologies (and probably many others) will
lead to the variation, selection, retention, and institutionalization of a new relational
paradigm. And it is not yet predictable whether this paradigm will be internally developed
as a strongly consistent theoretical field or as a common ground for very different, and in
some way incompatible, sociological theories.
It would be interesting to explain and understand this process of ‘emergence’–the
actors, their identities and interests, the cultural institutions involved, their networked
culture, their interchanges, their strategies, conflicts, struggle for recognition, their
reputation management, balance of powers, etc. –with the help of the relational
sociology itself.
Notes on contributor
Riccardo Prandini, is Full Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the
Department of Sociology and Business Law (SDE), University of Bologna. His main interests/
topics of research concerns: cultural and institutional transformations of European welfare regimes;
the constitutionalization of global civil spheres; the development of sociological theories, social
innovations in the perspective of social investment and personalization of welfare services. Among
his recent publications: Le culture e i processi ‘costitutivi’della società riflessiva, Personalizzare il
welfare and The Future of Societal Constitutionalism in the Age of Acceleration.
References
Archer, M.S., 1995. Realist social theory: the morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Barry, A. and Thrift, N., 2007. Gabriel Tarde: imitation invention and economy. Economy and
Society, 36 (4), 509–525.
Blau, P., 1977. A macrosociological theory of social structure. American journal of sociology,
83 (1), 26–54.
Crossley, N., 2011. Towards relational sociology. London: Routledge.
Crossley, N., 2014. Networks of sound, style and subversion: the punk and post-punk worlds of
Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield, 1975–1980. Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Dépelteau, F., 2008. Relational thinking: a critique of co-deterministic theories of structure and
agency. Sociological theory, 6 (1), 51–73.
Dépelteau, F. and Powell, C., ed., 2013. Applying relational sociology: relations, networks and
society. New York: Palgrave McMillan.
Dewey, J. and Bentley, A., 1949. Knowing and the known. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Donati, P., 1991. Teoria relazionale della società. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Donati, P., 2011. Relational sociology: a new paradigm for the social sciences. London: Routledge.
International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie 13
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
Donati, P., 2013. Morphogenesis and social networks: relational steering not mechanical feedback.
In: M.S. Archer, ed. Social morphogenesis. New York: Springer, 205–231.
Emirbayer, M., 1997. Manifesto for a relational sociology. American journal of sociology, 99 (6),
1411–1454.
Fuhse, J., 2013. Social relationships between communication, network structure, and culture. In:
François Dépelteau and Christopher Powell, eds. Applying relational sociology. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 181–206.
Fuhse, J., 2015. Theorizing social networks: the relational sociology of and around Harrison White.
International Review of Sociology, 25 (1), 15–44.
Fuhse, J. and Mützel, S., 2011. Tackling connections, structure, and meaning in networks:
quantitative and qualitative methods in sociological network research. Quality & quantity, 45,
1067–1089.
Kuhn, T.S., 1996. The structure of scientific revolution, the structure of scientific revolutions. 3rd
ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B., 1987. Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Luhmann, N., 1995. Social systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mische, A., 2011. Relational sociology, culture and agency. In: J. Scott and P. Carrington, eds. The
sage handbook of social network analysis. London: Sage, 80–97.
Powell, C. and Dépelteau, F., eds., 2013. Conceptualizing relational sociology: ontological and
theoretical issues. New York: Palgrave McMillan.
Spiegel, J., 1983. Transactions. New York: Jason Aronson.
Tarde, G., 1903. The laws of imitation. New York: Henry Holt.
White, H., 2008. Identity and control. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
White, H., et al., 2007. Networks and meanings: styles and switchings. Soziale Systeme, 13,
543–555.
Wilkinson, K., 1970. The community as a social field. Social forces, 48 (3), 311–322.
Wittgenstein, L., 1953. Philosophical investigations. Blackwell: Oxford.
14 R. Prandini
Downloaded by [78.14.44.68] at 02:09 06 July 2016
