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PurposeUsing the distinction between "private problems" and "public issues" derived from Mill's "sociological imagination", this paper aims to assess how diverse social theory approaches problematise and define the ways in which social life is shaped and organised with regard to "emotions".Design/methodology/approachThe paper's approach is theoretical and novel in the interpretation of an under‐development theme in social theory, namely, that of emotion.FindingsThe paper found, on viewing differing sociological approaches, how emotion shifts the focus of our attention away from the idea of individual, private worlds of emotion to the wider context of social relations and the way in which language is used with power to identify subject positions.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a general literature.Originality/valueThis is an original paper as it is the first time diverse sociological theories have been pulled together to evince an understanding of what we understand by the concept, experience and symbol of "emotion".

This article develops an alternative vision of public sociology. Whereas public sociology is often defined through the actions of professional sociologists, this article calls for a recognition of reverse tutelage in public sociology. Here, publics are seen as sociological interlocutors who can, and often do, produce sociological theories and analyses that can inform professional sociology. I demonstrate this reverse tutelage by focusing on anticolonial and anti-racist social movements, including the Zapatistas, Black Lives Matter, Palestine Action, and Cops Are Flops. I highlight how they produce sociological theories of power, neoliberalism, race, bordering, and violence that can orient professional sociology toward relational forms of analysis that build connections between different sites of resistance. In doing so, I highlight how the boundary between what Burawoy terms "professional" and "critical" sociology is much more porous than initially theorized and that critical sociology—from wider publics—can significantly shape professional sociology.

This article introduces the reader to the problems & the topics treated by the contributors to this special issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society. It offers a reflection on the concept of sociological imagination conceived as a key element for the task of facing the intellectual challenges of the present times. What is sociological imagination? How has it been used by the main cultivators of sociology throughout history? And particularly, how is sociological imagination being renewed nowadays by some of the most successful exponents of sociological research? These are some questions considered in this introduction. The new sociological imagination uses theory, history, empirical facts, logical formalization, systematic analysis, creativity, local knowledge, moral judgment & inspiration. What distinctively constitutes its elements is not just the search for correlations between abstract variables, but the search for pertinent relationships among facts, moral problems, structural conditions, historical concerns, personal worries & ethical values of contemporary societies. The new sociological imagination is a search for satisfactory ways of understanding the contemporary world in a rational, communicable, telling & coherent way, while also contributing to the development of the public sphere & a collective understanding of social issues. Adapted from the source document.

The civilizational turn in sociological theory is best understood as an attempt to do full justice to the autonomy of culture (against all versions of structural-functional theory) without conceding the issue to cultural determinism. Civilizational formations are based on combinations of cultural visions of the world with regulative frameworks of social life, but the relationship between the two levels is open to conflicting interpretations and strategic uses of them. Axial age civilizations open up new structural and historical dimensions of interaction between cultural and social patterns, and are therefore central to the agenda of civilizational analysis. Among the later breakthroughs which draw on Axial sources, the emergence of modernity stands out as particularly important; the cultural and political program of modernity may be seen as a new and distinctive civilization, but it remains open to more or less formative influences from older civilizational legacies.

This article examines the origins & evolution of lending practices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through the lens of sociological theories about organizations. Organizations founded on multilateral agreements are prone to having unusually ambiguous mandates. With such loose formal bureaucratic moorings, organizations like the IMF tend to be influenced by the dominant ideas & interests in their environments. 1 Table, 2 Appendixes, 72 References. Adapted from the source document.

PurposeThis article aims to contribute to futures theory building by assessing the inherent ontological and epistemological presumptions in foresight studies. Such premises, which are usually embedded in foresight studies, are contrasted with sociological imagination and contemporary social science discourse.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is a conceptual analysis of theoretical assumptions embedded in foresight studies.FindingsSociological lenses, including concepts like anticipation, latency, time, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, change and plurality of images, offer clarity in terms of both futures studies and foresights.Research limitations/implicationsExplicating presumptions embedded in foresight methods helps recognition of how such methods shape the concepts of future and time. This is vital for assessment of the analytical products of foresights studies.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the ambition of linking the theoretical world of futures research and the practical world of foresights closer together by explicating key concepts and implicit assumptions in both fields.

Abstract
Street names are mundane spatial markers that besides providing a sense of orientation inscribe onto the landscape the ideological ethos and political symbols of hegemonic discourses. This review article takes stock of the existing scholarship done on the politics of street naming practices in human (political, cultural, and social) geography and rethinks these insights from sociological perspectives. Drawing on Randall Collins' taxonomy of sociological theory, the paper interprets urban street nomenclatures along functionalist, conflictualist, constructionist, and utilitarian lines. The analysis is delivered in two installments: Part I addresses urban nomenclatures from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, while Part II (published in the next issue of this journal) approaches street names as social constructions and examines their utilitarian value. In doing so, the paper advances the argument that urban namescapes in general and street names in particular should make an important object of sociological reflection and empirical analysis. It is one of the key arguments developed in this paper that toponymy encapsulates broader and intersecting issues of power, memory, identity, language, and space which can be rendered visible through sociological analysis.