Suchergebnisse

Heranführung an das Thema -- Arbeitsthesen -- Folgen des Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieges -- Migration als weltweites Phänomen -- Der Traumkontinent Europa -- Die EU-Asylpolitik -- Islamistischer Terrorismus -- Von Al-Qaida zum Islamischen Staat -- Der Islamische Staat -- Internationale Koalition gegen den IS -- Literaturverzeichnis.

Is doing sociology in the context of exile different from practice in non-exile conditions? Reflecting on his experience as an exiled sociologist studying an Iranian exile community, the author explores this question in several areas to demonstrate the quintessentially political nature of sociology in exile. He defines exile as simultaneously punishment and refusal and argues that this dualistic relationship shapes the exiled sociologist's academic practice. That marginalized position offers the exiled sociologist a unique opportunity to view the homeland from the perspective of social strangers. The author draws attention to the actuality of exile and its consequences in studying the society and politics of the homeland from afar, in translation.

This article begins with an autobiographical reflection about what sociology has meant to me as an Iranian intellectual. Sociology has enabled me to think critically about my country's politics and culture, appreciating its strengths without overlooking its unjust and injurious aspects. That experience shapes my answer to the question "Saving Sociology?" If there is anything in sociology that I would like to save–in both senses "to keep" and "to rescue"—it is sociology as a critical, reflective discipline, a discipline that not only studies society but also contributes to its change. As the contemporary world moves toward a "global" society, we are increasingly facing the dilemmas of multiculturalism. Sociologists often investigate other societies or (like myself) look back at their own from a spatial and cultural distance. This situation has created a dilemma for many scholars: Should we criticize problems stemming from "indigenous" beliefs and practices of other societies? Cultural relativism argues that different cultures provide indigenous answers to their social problems that should be judged in their own context. While this approach correctly encourages us to avoid ethnocentrism, it has led to inaction towards the suffering of oppressed groups. Reflecting on the relativist approach to sexual dominance, I question some cultural relativist assumptions. Discussing how "indigenous" responses to male domination in many cases disguise and protect that domination, I will challenge the "localist" approach of relativism and argue for a universalist approach.

On 15 October 1994, 134 writers in Iran composed and published a statement in the form of an open letter entitled "We Are the Writers!" Writers with different cultural and political orientations signed this document to publicly support the establishment of a writers' association and oppose censorship.The publication of "We Are the Writers!," while attracting considerable support both inside and outside Iran, outraged the Islamic regime. Several signatories were approached by pro-government media to explain their action. Some authors were pressured to disavow the content of the letter. The signatories were accused of political conspiracy against the Islamic Republic. As the statement carefully and emphatically underlines, however, the association was to be apolitical and primarily centered on the writers' professional concerns, including copyright, censorship, paper shortage, and cost of publication. The official reaction points to a fundamental trait of writing in Iran: the very act of writing, regardless of content, is political.

The relationship between feminism and socialism in both the theoretical and practical realms has been marked with difficulty and "unhappiness." Feminists have criticized leftists for their lack of attention to sexual domination, and many socialists, in turn, have looked at women's liberation movements as a bourgeois deviation or, worse yet, a conspiracy against the workers' struggle. In 19th-century social democratic movements in Europe, conflicts between feminist-socialist advocates of women's rights such as Clara Zetkin and "proletarian anti-feminism" among workers and communists were constant. Eventually, guided by the theoretical insights of a number of socialist leaders such as Bebel, Engels, and Zetkin, socialist parties of the First and Second Internationals came to realize that the cause of the women's movement was just and to accept autonomous women's organizations. The Third International, or Comintern, although it initially claimed to liberate women "not only on paper, but in reality, in actual fact," treated the inequality of women as a secondary consideration. Focusing on production and labor conflict, the Comintern paid attention only to women's exploitation by capital to the extent that "by the end of the 1920s, any special emphasis on women's social subordination in communist propaganda or campaigning came to be regarded as a capitulation to bourgeois feminism." Leftist women activists lost their organizational autonomy and had to work under the supervision of their national communist party.