The Promise of Poststructuralist Sociology: Marginalized Peoples and the Problem of Knowledge

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State University of New York Press, May 8, 2008 - Social Science - 234 pages
In this fresh look at the serious challenges posed to sociology by poststructuralist philosophy, Clayton W. Dumont Jr. maintains that disempowered, marginalized peoples have much to gain from a poststructuralist interrogation of sociology's philosophical and theological presuppositions. He argues that debates among American sociologists in the 1980s and 1990s over the value of difficult poststructuralist writings failed to examine cultural assumptions rooted in the discipline's extended Greek and Christian inheritances. Writing in an accessible style, the author situates complex poststructuralist ideas in tangible examples drawn from everyday life. The book concludes with analyses of the heated political conflict surrounding the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 and affirmative action programs, illustrating the promise of increased political efficacy and civic responsibility of a poststructuralist-informed sociology.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Understanding Poststructuralist Assumptions
9
2 A genealogy of the scientific self
32
3Toward apostchristian ethic of responsibility insociology
54
4The american debate on postmodernism
78
5Whos understanding whose past?Telling the Truth about Native Dead
108
Social Science and Racial Justice
149
Parting thoughts
200
Notes
203
References
211
Index
223
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About the author (2008)

Clayton W. Dumont Jr. is Associate Professor of Sociology at San Francisco State University.

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