Loughborough University
Browse
2012-05 Towards a RSC published version.pdf (412.6 kB)

Towards a realist social constructionism

Download (412.6 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2015-07-31, 12:49 authored by Dave Elder-Vass
Towards a realist social constructionism Social constructionism has often been seen as incompatible with realist approaches to the socialworld. This paper argues that critical realism is thoroughly compatible with moderate versions of social constructionism and indeed provides stronger ontological backing for it than the anti-realist approaches that are often associated with more extreme versions of social constructionism. The paper illustrates the argument by offering a realist account of how discourse may underpin processes of social construction. This is then applied to the case of the subject, an application that is framed as a critique of Judith Butler's performative account of the subject.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas

Volume

70

Pages

9 - 24

Citation

ELDER-VASS, D., 2012. Towards a realist social constructionism. Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas, 70, pp. 9-24.

Publisher

Sociologia © the author

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Publication date

2012

Notes

This article was published in the journal, Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas.

ISSN

0873-6529

Language

  • en