The struggle over globalisation insocial studies: cosmopolitanism vs.

methodological nationalism

Markus Ojaladoctoral candidate

Department of Social ResearchUniversity of Helsinki

markus.ojala@helsinki.fi

Power & DifferenceTampere, 27–29 August, 2012

Arguments

• critique of metholodogical nationalism is closely connected to the rise of the globalisation paradigm in social studies

• critique of MN can be viewed as politicisation of research

• Ulrich Beck’s formulation of the critique of MN based on a binary opposition between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ research

• the focus on ‘nationalism’ of research is ideologically problematic in itself

Globalisation and the critique of methodologicala nationalism

•Globalisation as an academic construction reshapes the research imagination:

- eradication of distance, ”glocal” phenomena- boundary-crossing forms of social (inter)action- transnational structures and agents in politics- ”deterritorialisation” of culture

•Globalisation politicises the status of the (nation-)state>> critique of methodological nationalism

Critique of methodological nationalism (Beck)

• ”society = nation-state”; ”the world consists of societies”

• a guiding premise, manifest in material and interpretation

• based on the shared history of sociology and the nation-state: the nation, state and society naturalised as reserach units

• prevents from understanding transnational phenomena and activity

Methodological nationalism vs. methodological cosmopolitanism (Beck)

The nationalistic view

• society subject to the state• the national vs. the international• the particular generalised as the

universal, or inter-societal comparison

• cultural homogenisation, or incommensurability of cultures

The cosmopolitan view

• the nation-state a creation of social forces

• phenomena simultaneously “within” and “without”

• the particular as part of the global (including the national) context

• global pluralism, “multiple modernities”

• struggle for the interpretation of society

• metodological nationalism is ’true’, but is cosmopolitanism any better?

• cosmopolitanism as a normative outline for research: cosmopolitan ideals vs. the negative implications of metodological nationalism

• nationalism not the only research ideology

• all globalisation research is not cosmopolitan

Politicising research