Attachment: Sociology and Social Worlds

by Peter Redman (Editor)

This book introduces students to attachment as an everyday social experience. Focusing on wide-ranging and accessible examples, the text explores how attachments between people, and between people and things, are made, sustained and unmade. In doing so, the book introduces a number of competing sociological approaches to these processes, in particular, feminist versions of social constructionism; theories of material culture and actor network theory; phenomenology; and psycho-societal theories. The book combines an accessible introduction to significant strands of current sociological thought with illustrative material students will find engaging and compelling, such as intimate family relations, media texts, the economy and sport.Written as one of the three key texts for the new Open University course Making Social Worlds, the book will have a wide appeal to undergraduate and graduate students working in the fields of sociology, cultural studies and media studies.

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2008

About the author

Peter Redman has been teaching social science at The Open University for the last 25 years. During this time he has worked closely with numerous students helping them reflect on and improve their writing skills. He is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology.

Reviews

[Drew Pyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this as part of DD308 Making social worlds

[Louise Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This textbook has a distinctive focus in that it shows attachment from a sociological framework rather than a psychological one which is usually the viewpoint that most researchers take. Looking at power, commitment, money, commerce and other symbols gives focus to how people become "attached" to things, ideas and concepts.