Foreword: Classical Sociological Theory in Contemporary Practice

摘要: " These days," scholar-activist Nicola Bullard writes," everything is in'crisis.'" From the global financial crisis, climate crisis, AIDS crisis to the food crisis, the term has become one of the most overused words in the English language. Like the word" terror" in the last decade, it appears that crisis has become a catch-all phrase to define our times (Bullard 2009: 165). Crises are framed as abrupt, threatening, millennial-scale events, emphasizing ruptures instead of investigating deeper causes, mapping continuities, and establishing connections among seemingly disparate issues. Crisis rhetoric often portrays a system" teetering on the edge of collapse," forcing decision-makers to immediately act to avert the unravelling of the society's fabric. This comes at the expense of meaningful conversations and careful examination of social problems (Hackey 2012; also see Bankoff 2002). It is precisely under these circumstances …