Table Of ContentPALGRAVE STUDIES IN RELATIONAL SOCIOLOGY
Semiotic Sociology
Risto Heiskala
Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology
Series Editors
Nick Crossley
Department of Sociology
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
Peeter Selg
School of Governance, Law and Society
Tallinn University
Tallinn, Estonia
In various disciplines such as archeology, psychology, psychoanalysis,
international relations, and philosophy, we have seen the emergence of
relational approaches or theories. This series, founded by François
Dépelteau, seeks to further develop relational sociology through the
publication of diverse theoretical and empirical research—including that
which is critical of the relational approach. In this respect, the goal of the
series is to explore the advantages and limits of relational sociology. The
series welcomes contributions related to various thinkers, theories, and
methods clearly associated with relational sociology (such as Bourdieu,
critical realism, Deleuze, Dewey, Elias, Latour, Luhmann, Mead, network
analysis, symbolic interactionism, Tarde, and Tilly). Multidisciplinary
studies which are relevant to relational sociology are also welcome, as well
as research on various empirical topics (such as education, family, music,
health, social inequalities, international relations, feminism, ethnicity,
environmental issues, politics, culture, violence, social movements, and
terrorism). Relational sociology—and more specifically, this series—will
contribute to change and support contemporary sociology by discussing
fundamental principles and issues within a relational framework.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15100
Risto Heiskala
Semiotic Sociology
Risto Heiskala
Faculty of Social Sciences
Tampere University
Tampere, Finland
Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology
ISBN 978-3-030-79366-1 ISBN 978-3-030-79367-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79367-8
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A
cknowledgements
I extend my thanks to those whose help was vital for the publication of this
book, that is, the Fellows of the Institute for Advanced Social Research
(IASR) at Tampere University, who in our weekly seminar commented on
the drafts of the book and provided their work for me to comment on
when it was their turn to present. My gratitude is no less great to Marita
Husso, my co-author in Chap. 7 and life companion. Living with her has
taught me a myriad of things about gender and close relationships over the
years, and I dedicate this book to her. I also thank Peeter Selg, who as a
series editor and a fellow soul in social, political and semiotic theory invited
the manuscript to this series, and Marjukka Virkajärvi, the coordinator of
the IASR, which I directed from year 2008 to 2018 in the University of
Tampere and, after its merger with Tampere University of Technology,
until the end of year 2020 in the new Tampere University before its short-
sighted new management run the institute down because they mistakenly
thought that academic traditions do not matter. Over the years, Marjukka
has in her competent way guided me through an abundance of technical,
linguistic and administrative problems and did so also with this book.
It is gratefully acknowledged that part of the work required for publish-
ing this book was done with the support (and sometimes at the expense)
of the Academy of Finland project 308740, which I directed from the year
2017 to 2021.
It is also worth noting that this is a book of its own, but it also has a
history because Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8, even if rewritten for this book,
draw much of their material from the author’s previously published
v
vi ACKNOwLEDGEMENTS
articles listed below in the order of the chapters: Toward semiotic sociol-
ogy. A synthesis of semiology, semiotics and phenomenological sociology.
Social Science Information 53(2014), 1:35–53; Economy and society.
From Parsons through Habermas to semiotic institutionalism. Social
Science Information 46(2007), 2:243–271; Theorizing power. weber,
Parsons, Foucault and neostructuralism. Social Science Information
40(2001), 2:241–264; Modernity and the intersemiotic condition. Social
Science Information 32(1993), 4:581–604; Modernity and the articula-
tion of the gender system: Order, conflict, and chaos. Semiotica 173(2009),
1/4:215–231; and From Goffman to semiotic sociology. Semiotica
124(1999), 3/4:211–234. I am grateful to the publishers, SAGE in the
first four cases and DeGruyter in the last two, who kindly granted the
permissions to use that material for this book. I am also grateful for the
insightful comments made on one or more of the chapters when they were
mere article drafts and the many corrections suggested to them by the
numerous people whom I have already thanked in the published versions
of the articles.
Praise for Semiotic Sociology
“Semiotic Sociology recalls classics of the field, such as Economy and Society by Neil
Smelser and Talcott Parsons or Pierre Bourdieu’s Logic of Practice, in its scope,
ambition, and subtle synthesis of remarkably different insights from opposed tradi-
tions of thought. Heiskala’s brilliance allows him to show how debates central to
social theory for more than 100 years look different when properly grounded in
the analysis of signification. Moving well beyond the cultural turn and debates
about “social construction,” this is a book for the 21st century, which rewrites
several vital concepts, among them power, modernity, and social structure.
Heiskala’s vision for sociology makes it a human science worthy of the name.”
—Isaac Ariail Reed, Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia, USA
“This is a wonderfully accomplished book in the tradition of grand theory. Risto
Heiskala skillfully integrates a plethora of intellectual traditions, from pragmatism
to critical theory, to propose an innovative and perspicacious account of contem-
porary societal issues, notably surrounding gender.”
—Patrick Baert, Professor of Social Theory, University of Cambridge, UK
“In Semiotic Sociology, Risto Heiskala tackles a bold and welcome synthesizing
challenge: to build bridges between theoretical approaches that have too
quickly, yet for decades, been deemed as incompatible in the mainstream socio-
logical selection of analytical tools. He makes this operation sound and seem
easy: so evident and clear are elements with which he joins together strands of
semiotics, pragmatism and phenomenology, as well as traditions that deal with
macro-sociological understandings of the society and different levels of power
theories. Yet, it is clear that these syntheses result from career-long scrutiny of
theoretical debates but also a constant, careful eye to the needs of contempo-
rary social research, a virtue not always present in theory building efforts.
Furthermore, discussing the modernity- postmodernity debate Heiskala offers a
sobering relief to all who have preferred to practice civil inattention to this
quarrel for long and felt it has not provided ways forward. Searching for such
ways, Heiskala takes two directions: the explorations of, first, gender as an illus-
tration of the consequences and means of modernization, and, secondly,
Goffman’s potential offerings to semiotic sociology, or perhaps to contempo-
rary sociology more at large. Both pursuits will certainly provide food for fruit-
ful sociological debate around the book’s proposals. For social scientists striving
to solve empirical puzzles of current societies, Semiotic Sociology offers both an
encouragement and worthy tools to confidently go the way that often works the
best: not a linear development of a theory jealous of its foundations and bound-
aries, but a synthetic, creative theorization of contemporary life.”
—Eeva Luhtakallio, Professor of Sociology, University of Helsinki,
EU Finland
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Towards Semiotic Sociology and Social Theory 1
References 7
2 Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics and Phenomenological
Sociology 9
Structuralist Semiology 10
Pragmatism 17
Phenomenological Sociology 20
Conclusion: Implications for Cultural and Social Theory 25
References 29
3 Economy and Society in Semiotic Institutionalism 33
Structural-Functionalist Economic Sociology 36
Parsons: The AGIL Scheme of the Social System 36
Economy and Society in Habermas’s Theory of Communicative
Action: System and the Lifeworld 39
What Is Wrong with Parsons and Habermas? 43
The Challenge of Institutionalism 46
Institutionalism in Economics 47
Pragmatist and Phenomenological Institutionalism 48
Towards a Synthesis: Economy and Society in Semiotic
Institutionalism 52
Semiotic Institutionalism 52
Semiotic Interpretation of the System–Lifeworld Scheme 54
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