Towards a more significant sociology of friendship

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Abstract
Eve's polemic on the relatively insignificant contribution of sociological studies of friendship to the central concerns of the discipline has some force. However, he weakens his case in three main ways. Firstly, his over-reliance on Giddens to demonstrate the contrast in the importance of personalistic relations between ‘traditional’ and ‘late-modern’ societies. See for example Allan Silver. Secondly, Eve's contention that there is an over-reliance on dyadic relationships in the study of friendship is becoming outdated, as demonstrated in the major ESRC project ‘Rethinking Friendship’. Thirdly, Eve underestimates the importance of analyses of friendship in contemporary sociological studies of stratification and power. For example, the so-called velvet revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe were fuelled by the friend-based organisation of radically dissident intellectuals.

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