Towards a New Sociology of Genetics and Human Identity

Authors

  • Tim Owen University of Central Lancashire.

Abstract

The intention here is to contribute towards metatheoretical development as part of the post-Postmodern ‘return to’ sociological theory and method associated with Sibeon [2004, 2007], Layder [2004, 2007], Mouzelis [1991, 1993, 1995, 2007], Archer [1995, 1998] and Owen [2006a, 2006b, 2007a, 2007b, 2009, 2012], in tandem with an attempt to build bridges between the social and biological sciences in the form of an ontologically-flexible, Genetic-Social framework with which to study issues pertaining to genetics and identity. This involves marrying aspects of anti-reductionist sociological theory with selected insights from evolutionary psychology and behavioural genetics in a similar fashion to Owen’s [2012] recent attempt to do so in relation to crime and criminal behaviour. Selected meta-constructs from the framework are applied to selected examples from the literature on genetics and identity in order to demonstrate the explanatory potential. The term, Genetic-Social is favoured here in order to distance the conceptual toolkit’s approach from that of hardline Sociobiology.

Author Biography

Tim Owen, University of Central Lancashire.

Lecturer in Criminology, School of Education and Social Science, University of Central Lancashire.

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Published

2013-05-06

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Section

Articles