Table Of ContentSocial Sciences
Social Sciences: The Big Issues2nd edition offers an introduction to the big debates
within the social sciences and to what the social sciences can provide as a means
of explaining the changing world. The social sciences focus upon people as
individuals and as members of wider communities and networks, and looks at all
aspects of human relationships from the personal and intimate to the public and
political. The book covers contemporary concerns with identities, citizenship,
migration, diversity, new technologies and the changing and often uncertain impact
of globalisation. The second edition has been extensively updated with new
illustrations and examples and additional discussion of the responses of the social
sciences to the mobilities of contemporary life, such as migration, living in multi-
ethnic and often rapidly changing communities, new forms of citizenship, the
impact of the material world, the perception that we live in a more insecure and
dangerous world and the role of the media in presenting ideas about the changes
that might be taking place.
Kath Woodward is Professor of Sociology at the Open University. Recent
publications include, Boxing, Masculinity and Identity(2007), Embodied Sporting
Practices (2009) and W hy Feminism Matters (2009). She chaired the Open
University, level 1, Introduction to the Social Sciences and currently chairs This
Sporting Planet, a level 1 course on sport and the social sciences. She works on
gendered, racialised identities, at CRESC and on Sport Across Diasporas at the
BBC World Service for the AHRC Diasporas, Migration, Identities programme.
Social Sciences
The big issues
2nd Edition
Kath Woodward
First edition published 2003
by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Second edition published 2010
by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
©2003, 2010 Kath Woodward
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodward, Kath.
Social sciences : the big issues / Kath Woodward. – 2nd ed.
p. cm.
1. Social sciences. I. Title
H61.W68 2009
300–dc22
2009006353
ISBN 0-203-87289-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–46660–1 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–46661–X (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–87289–4 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–46660–8 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–46661–5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–87289–5 (ebk)
For Steve, Richard,Tamsin, Jack and Sophie
and my sister Sarah
Contents
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgements x
1 Introduction 1
Getting started 1
Getting started involves asking questions 2
Changing people: changing lives 2
Changing places: changing times 5
Case study: life in the tower block 6
Conclusion 14
2 Identity matters: us and them 18
Introduction 18
What do we mean by identity? 19
Changing media, changing messages 29
Embodied identities 35
Buying and selling: material identities 40
Where do you come from? 43
Conclusion 46
3 Citizenship and social order 48
Introduction 48
Who is a citizen? What does citizenship mean? 50
Weighing up the argument 53
The challenge of other arguments 55
Taking action 66
Thinking again about evaluation 69
Conclusion 71
viii Contents
4 Buying and selling 73
Introduction 73
Processes of production and consumption 76
Comsumer society? 84
Where is power? 92
Conclusion 98
5 We live in a material world 100
Introduction 100
What a load of rubbish 101
Waste as disvalued 107
Inequalities and material effects 109
Material culture 111
Conclusion 113
6 Mobilities: place and race 115
Introduction 115
Mobilities and diaspora 117
Place 119
Place and race 126
Conclusion 141
7 Globalisation: opportunities and inequalities 143
Introduction 143
Different worlds 148
Globalisation 153
Cultural globalisation: a sporting diversion 158
Movement of people: migration 159
Equality, inequality, risk and danger 162
Different views: weig hing up the arguments 166
Conclusion 169
8 Conclusion 170
How far have we come? 170
Making sense of the issues: ideas that matter 172
How do the social sciences address the big issues? 175
The social sciences 176
Knowledge and the social sciences 179
Glossary 181
Further reading 187
Bibliography 188
Index 197
Illustrations
Plates
2.1 England football fans display St George’s flag during the Fifa
World Cup 2006 25
2.2 Seeing is believing: foetal image 27
2.3 Oscar Pistorius runs for victory at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics 36
5.1 A trip to the tip 102
6.1 Cultural capital: getting physical 125
6.2 Abanner is held up promoting the ‘Kick it Out’ campaign 140
7.1 An ordinary street in a small town in the UK 145
7.2 9/11: The World Trade Center towers in New York 148
7.3 A new global agenda? Twin towers of light from the Tribute in Light 149
7.4 US President Barack Obama at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball 152
7.5 An anti-globalisation demonstration during the G8 Summit, 2007 164
Figures
2.1 Processes that re-produce identities 23
2.2 Foetal image interpr eted 27
4.1 Average weekly household expenditure on main commodities and
services, 2005–2006, UK 77
4.2 Earnings by gender 80
4.3 UK wealth ownership 81
4.4 The circuit of culture 86
Tables
5.1 Household expenditure in 1957 and 2006 103
5.2 Real incomes for three income groups, 1979 to 2005/2006,
UK/Great Britain 110
7.1 Globalists and non-globalists 167
7.2 Opportunities and inequalities 168
