Communicative Constructivism and the Empirical Study of Social Reality

Contributions to a New Theory

Hubert Knoblauch, David Joshua Schröder, Lynn Sibert, Frederike Brandt (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

386 Seiten

2026
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-98790-3 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Februar 2026)
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This book presents a new range of theoretical and empirical studies dedicated to Communicative Constructivism, a new approach in social theory developed from within the Sociology of Knowledge. Based on Social Constructivism and emerging from German-speaking social sciences, Communicative Constructivism integrates interpretive perspectives, poststructuralist theories, new materialism, actor network theories and Science and Technology studies in a way which provides a systematic yet open theoretical frame for empirical studies. In doing so, it escapes the problems of postmodern arbitrariness of theoretical plurality, and of a too narrowly defined sociality. Instead, it presents clear elaborated theoretical premises and rich empirical studies, inviting an examination of relations to international research within ethnomethodology and interactionism. The theoretical chapters posit Communicative Constructivism within the field of social theories, illustrating its unique approach to subjectivity and helping to define a new field of research, while the empirical chapters ground the theoretical concepts of Communicative Constructivism in analyses across a range of fields from communicative actions, the role of violence, and religion and spirituality, to mediatization and the politics of knowledge. Providing a unique collection of the current state of the theory and serving as the first English-language publication of this kind, its foundational debates, and ongoing research in terms of theory formation and empirical analysis will appeal to scholars and researchers of sociology with interests in social theory, the sociology of knowledge, and the sociology of space.

Hubert Knoblauch is Professor for General Sociology and Theory of Modern Societies in the Department of Sociology at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. David Joshua Schröder is a Post-doctoral Research Assistant at Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. Lynn Sibert is a Phd Student and Research Assistant in General Sociology and Theory of Modern Societies in the Department of Sociology at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. Frederike Brandt is a Phd Student and Research Assistant in General Sociology and Theory of Modern Societies in the Department of Sociology at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany.

1. Communicative constructivism: Contributions to a new theory for the empirical study of social re-ality
Hubert Knoblauch, Lynn Sibert, Frederike Brandt, David Joshua Schröder

Part I: Social Theory

2. From interpretive sociology to communicative constructivism: Reframing the social construction of reality through communicative action
René Wilke

3. The one-two pass in soccer as a communicative construction: On the sensoriality, materiality and spatiality of the social
Silke Steets

4. Subjectivation, embodied: The interiorization of lived relations across communicative situations
Boris Traue, Judith Tröndle

5. Subjects of space: The communicative construction of spatial subjectivation in colonial urbanism
Jochen Kibel

Part II: Methodology

6. Communicative genres and the communicative construction of reality from a sociolinguistic per-spective
Bernt Schnettler

7. Design games as a sociological approach to material thinking
Tilo Grenz, Philipp Knopp

8. Constructing movements through communication - Theoretical and methodological implications of communicative constructivism for the study of social movements
Necdet Coskun Aldemir

Part III: Empirical Contributions
a) Corporeality

9. The communicating body: Reflections of the sensual reciprocity of experiences of sexual violence
Frederike Brandt

10. From boundaries to blows: The spatiality of the communicative form of street fights
René Tuma

11. Anti-violence training and the communicative construction of violence-related knowledge
Ekkehard Coenen

b) Subjectivity and collectivity

12. How much subject has to be there? Communication with people diagnosed with dementia
Jo Reichertz

13. “Nel mezzo di un applauso”: Clapping and the collective Forms of communicative action
Hubert Knoblauch

14. The communicative action of making music together: Revisiting Alfred Schutz’s social theory of music with the help of a video analysis of string ensembles
Theresa Vollmer

c) Religion and spirituality

15. Communicative constructivism’s potential for the study of contemporary body-based spiritualities
Henriette Hanky

16. Perceiving the self, performing knowledge: Perceptual practices of Islam in communication
Maike Neufend

d) Mediatization

17. The role of unspoken rules in shaping public discourse: The communicative constructions of Tik Tok and Facebool
Miira Hill

18. Scrolling for trust: Communicative forms in science communication
Meike Haken

19. Synthetic planning: A communicative constructivist approach to the infrastructuring of digital planning in the AEC industry
Ajit Singh

20. Communicating with machines. Artifical intelligence and the communication society
Sascha Dickel

21. The showing and opening up of meaning
Mathias Blanc

e) Discourse and politics of knowledge

22. Micro-politics of knowledge in the regulation of prostitution in Germany: Case-based observations about the communicative construction and destruction of reality
Reiner Keller, Lina Brink, Marlen S. Löffler

23. Impulses of communicative constructivism for the research of spatial (re-)constructions
Gabriela Christmann

24. Discourse analysis and discourse events: Notes on a discourse ethnography of communicative events in the Refigured Modernity
Sezgin Sönmez

25. Governance challenges of “research security” and the role of communicative events in “de-risking” Sino-German science cooperation
Lynn Sibert

Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	3.2.2026
Reihe/Serie	Knowledge, Communication and Society
Zusatzinfo	2 Tables, black and white; 23 Halftones, black and white; 23 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Kommunikationswissenschaft
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
ISBN-10	1-032-98790-1 / 1032987901
ISBN-13	978-1-032-98790-3 / 9781032987903
Zustand	Neuware