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The Elementary Forms of Globality

Durkheim and the Emergence and Nature of Global Life

University of Aberdeen, UK, soc103{at}abdn.ac.uk

Roland Robertson

University of Aberdeen, UK, soc103{at}abdn.ac.uk

In an age of apparently endemic globalization and globality, any form of sociological theorizing centred on an understanding of the term `society' which took the latter as being always located within the boundaries of a particular nation-state, would be indictable as being imprisoned within the confines of a naïve and analytically unsatisfactory `methodological nationalism'. A superficial assessment of Durkheim's work might lead one to believe that of all the thinkers of the classical period of sociology, Durkheim is the most methodologically nationalist, and thus the most unpromising resource for analyses of globalization processes in the present day. However, this paper shows that such a view is a serious oversimplification of a multi-stranded oeuvre which contains within it intriguing elements that point towards a Durkheimian account of globalization processes and conditions of globality. While there are indeed methodologically nationalist strains in Durkheim's work, these are more than counter-balanced by certain other, more globally oriented, concerns. First, there are tendencies towards the development of a `cosmopolitan' political theory, a stance which has been fairly well remarked upon by other authors. Second, at a more explicitly `sociological' level, there are also certain orientations towards an account of the genesis and nature of social and cultural globality. This account is scattered throughout various locations in Durkheim's writings, most notably The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, and the paper reconstructs what it takes to be Durkheim's embryonic project in `global sociology' to be found there and in some of his other works. Attention is drawn to the apparent debt Durkheim owed to Fustel de Coulanges in this regard. This paper concludes with the argument that Durkheim's endeavours to understand conditions of globality and planet-wide connectivity should be given serious attention in contemporary re-assessments of the capacities of classical sociologists to deal with globe-spanning processes and institutions.

Key Words: cosmopolitanism • Durkheim • globality • globalization • methodological nationalism • `society'

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