Essentialism, Social Constructionism, and beyond
@article{Sayer1997EssentialismSC, title={Essentialism, Social Constructionism, and beyond}, author={Andrew Sayer}, journal={The Sociological Review}, year={1997}, volume={45}, pages={453 - 487} }
Anti-essentialism has criticised a range of targets, from cultural essentialism and biological reductionism to causal explanation and foundationalism, and concerning topics ranging from markets to ‘race’, identity and sexuality. The paper assesses these diverse lines of critique. Some social phenomena, like identities, clearly do not have essences, but it does not follow from this that other phenomena we study do not have essences or something like them. While a strong, or deterministic…
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