An Interdisciplinary Approach in the Development of Deviantological Theories: the Concept of Social Representations in the Context of the Sociological Analysis of Deviant Behavior

Abstract

Since deviations are the reverse side of solving the key problem of the architectonics of the social order, deviant behavior is the subject of modern socio-humanitarian discourse. However, understanding the nature of this phenomenon remains an urgent problem. This paper analyses the concept of social anomie, which continues to be acentral element of Russian deviantology, as well as its possibilities when analyzing deviant behavior in post-Soviet society. The authors stressed that a norm and deviation are not extra-individual entities; they are social representations generated by various social groups, which become self-evident phenomena of reality in the intersubjective world of everyday life. Inthis regard, domestic deviantology needs a certain revision of its conceptual bases. Since the interdisciplinary approach explains the very nature of the social order, itsfurther development, in particular, the use of socio-cognitivist, henomenological, constructionist concepts, may give more adequate answers to interrelated questions
concerning the nature and reasons of deviations.
The use of the concept of social representations developed by S. Moscovici seems to be the most promising approach. Social representations are a complex of concepts originating from everyday communication and interaction. Thus, social representations
become generally accepted, and create the reality of common sense, everyday knowledge. These processes are immediately relevant to the denition of the “norm–deviation” continuum, as well as to the factors under the impact of which various forms of social barbarism in post-Soviet society become self-evident phenomena ofeveryday reality.