Mike Savage

This paper discusses conceptual tools which might allow an elaborated sociological analysis of the relationship between information and communication technology on the one hand, and social inequalities on the other. The authors seek to go beyond the familiar idea of the ‘digital divide’ to develop a focus on digital social inequality, through discussing three bodies of literature which are normally not discussed together. The paper thus addresses issues in feminist theory; the sociological field analysis of Pierre Bourdieu; and the Actor Network Theory. This paper shows that there are unexpected commonalities in these three perspectives which allow the possibility of effective cross-fertilization. All seek to avoid positing the existence of reified social groups which are held separate from technological forces, and all stress the role of fluid forms of relationality, from which social inequalities can emerge as forms of stabilization, accumulation and convertibility.

(2010). Book reviews. International Journal of Social Research Methodology: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 371-379.

(2010). Focus Article. Housing, Theory and Society: Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 115-161.

The article conducts a historical sociological analysis of the appeal of epochalist modes of social thought, especially as manifested in contemporary British sociology. It lays out key features of contemporary epochalist thinking, showing how it breaks from older evolutionary models of social change which root future events in past conditions.The article argues that one important reason for the power of epochalist thinking is due to the emergence of a distinctive social science research infrastructure based around the sample survey and the interview. I argue that these provide mechanisms for deriving measures of change internally to the research process itself, rather than through the external comparison of separate sources as practised by historians. The article further pulls out the way that the rapid rise of British sociology in the period 1950—70 entailed its championing of the `new' as a means of claiming intellectual legitimacy over the `traditional' social sciences, and seeks to encourage debate about the peculiarities of British sociology.

This paper uses responses to Mass-Observation Directives between 1939 and 1949 to examine the changing nature of middle-class identities during this period. I show how Mass-Observers sought to distance themselves both from the working class, and from the staid, non-intellectual members of the middle class. I then show how in the post-war years, Mass-Observers were challenged by what they saw as the improved position of the working class to develop a new kind of technocratic identity. This rejected claims to the cultural superiority of the middle classes, which seemed snobbish and at odds with post-war social democratic values, and sought to define a new role for the middle classes as efficient managers of the nation. I suggest that this emerging identity was important in leading to new interests in the social sciences as a tool of government.

This article uses a range of qualitative sources, stretching from Mass‐Observation to the 1960s research of Brian Jackson and Ray Pahl to examine how far there are shifts in the way people identify with their local communities. The article shows that there is evidence of the rise of aesthetic and ethical orientations to place, whereby individuals provide developed narrative accounts of their choice of residence. I argue that the distinction, much discussed in the 1960s, about the difference between ‘locals’ and ‘incomers’ neglects the fact that they actually both had a functional orientation to locale. The article discusses how the concept of ‘elective belonging’ offers a valuable way of understanding the contemporary politics of local attachment.

This paper critically examines Inglehart's argument that there is a predictable shift from materialist to post-materialist values, using the British case as our focus. Using the 1981, 1990 and 1999 data for the British part of World Values Surveys, we criticize the distinction between materialist and post-materialist values. Using multiple correspondence analysis, we visualize how different attitudes are related to each other by portraying them in a multiple-dimensional space. We show that the organization of cultural values is complex, and is not easily summarized by the materialist/post-materialist dichotomy.We prefer to recognize the more politically loaded nature of attitudes by distinguishing between libertarian and authoritarian values, and between conformist and rebellious citizens. We show that there is little evidence of major change between 1981 and 1999, and indeed Britons, and especially young people, are moving slightly away from post-materialism, becoming increasingly rebellious and conscientious.

This ar ticle argues that in an age of knowing capitalism, sociologists have not adequately thought about the challenges posed to their expertise by the proliferation of `social' transactional data which are now routinely collected, processed and analysed by a wide variety of private and public institutions. Drawing on British examples, we argue that whereas over the past 40 years sociologists championed innovative methodological resources, notably the sample survey and the in-depth interviews, which reasonably allowed them to claim distinctive expertise to access the `social' in powerful ways, such claims are now much less secure. We argue that both the sample survey and the in-depth interview are increasingly dated research methods, which are unlikely to provide a robust base for the jurisdiction of empirical sociologists in coming decades. We conclude by speculating how sociology might respond to this coming crisis through taking up new interests in the `politics of method'.