Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologists of the Month for February 2024, Artur Bogner (University of Göttingen, Germany) and Gabriele Rosenthal (University of Göttingen, Germany). Their article for Current Sociology Social-constructivist and figurational biographical research was shortlisted for the second edition (Vol. 71) of the Annual SAGE Current Sociology Best Paper Prize, and is Open Access.

Artur Bogner

Gabriele Rosenthal

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

Artur Bogner’s academic work, besides sociological theory, concentrates on empirical research on armed conflicts and post-conflict peace-building in Africa. He first did empirical research mainly in northern Ghana and later in northern Uganda. His theoretical and empirical work has been influenced strongly by the works of Norbert Elias and Max Weber (but also by Popitz, Marcuse, Horkheimer, Blumer, Foucault and Mannheim). His empirical work is based mainly on interpretative and biographical methods and the principles of figurational sociology.

Gabriele Rosenthal is renowned for her contributions to biographical and generational research, and qualitative methodology, as well as for her studies of the collective and intergenerational effects of the Holocaust and collective violence more generally. Her empirical research first concentrated on the impacts of World Wars I and II, the “Third Reich”, the Holocaust and similar crimes in the present. In the context of a research project on outsider and established groupings in Palestine and Israel, she was guided by the work of Norbert Elias.

Their empirical studies, their theoretical orientation, and their common interest in the social consequences of collective violence led to them increasingly working together. In the last 20 years Bogner and Rosenthal have done research together on violent conflicts and processes of de-escalation in Ghana and Uganda, and on former child soldiers and ex-rebels in northern Uganda. Currently, they are both involved in a research project on the individual and collective recollection of slavery and the slave trade in Ghana and Brazil.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “Social-constructivist and figurational biographical research”?

A. Bogner & G. Rosenthal: In addition to our joint empirical research, we wanted to look more closely at the possibility of combining the theories and methodologies of figurational sociology as practised by Elias with social-constructivist biographical research, and the implications of this with regard to methods.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

A. Bogner & G. Rosenthal: In the article, we show how research can benefit from this combination. We discuss how qualitative and especially biographical research can avoid viewing social phenomena as ahistorical. It is important not to focus on single individuals as if they exist in isolation, which leads to neglecting power inequalities, or ignoring collective discourses and their impact on the groupings or individuals concerned. We also need to consider the interactions and interdependencies between different sociohistorical and genealogical generations.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

Bogner A. (1986) The structure of social processes: A commentary on the sociology of Norbert Elias. In: Sociology 20(3): 387–411
Bogner, A. (1989) Zivilisation und Rationalisierung. Die Zivilisationstheorien M. Webers, N. Elias’ und der Frankfurter Schule. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag
Bogner, A. (1992) The theory of the civilizing process: An idiographic theory of modern- ization? Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 9 (2): 23–53
Bogner, A. and Rosenthal, G. (2014) The “Untold” Stories of Outsiders and Their Significance for the Analysis of (Post-)Conflict Figurations. Interviews with Victims of Collective Violence in Northern Uganda (West Nile). In: FQS, 15 (3), Art. 4
Bogner, A. and Rosenthal G. (2017) Rebels in northern Uganda after their return to civilian life. Between a strong we-image and experiences of isolation and discrimination. In: Canadian Journal of African Studies, 51 (2), 175-197. Free download: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2017.1306451
Bogner, A. and Rosenthal, G. (2020) Child Soldiers in Context: Biographies, Familial and Collective Trajectories in Northern Uganda. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press. Free download: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2020-1325
Rosenthal, G. and Bogner, A. (Eds.) (2017) Biographies in the Global South: Life Stories Embedded in Figurations and Discourses. Frankfurt/New York: Campus
Rosenthal, G. (Ed.) (2016) Established and Outsiders at the Same Time. Self-Images and We-Images of Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, Free download: https://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/handle/3/isbn-978-3-86395-286-0
Rosenthal, G. (Ed.) (2022) Transnational biographies: Changing we-images, belongings and power balances of migrants and refugees. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press. Free download: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2022-2187
Rosenthal, G. (in print) Experienced life and narrated life story. Gestalt and structure of biographical self-presentation. Frankfurt/New York: Campus