In the course of discussing each others' PhD work, one question has frequently been asked of the different authors: 'Where are you in all this?' How does the author of the PhD situate him or herself within it - not just in terms of their place in the field, but also in the process of writing??

Over the past year we have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to have read and to have commented on empirical work based in three or four different continents and in a variety of different social situations. We have seen how Hungarians differ in consumer values; how Chileans adapt to their entry into a 'new world'; and how Russians react to industrial decline. The situational specifics and cultural variations within our respective research projects raises questions for the relationship of cultural particularities and the development of theory. The issue is how, even in our post-colonial world, most theoretical developments continue to emerge from 'the West' and are then 'applied' to other regions and cultures where issues of cultural specificity are raised. What is up for discussion is not only how 'non-western' writing translates its cultural specificities to a 'western' audience but also how 'western' writing and theorising should make its own cultural assumptions evident.

In this opening session we have the opportunity of framing what 'Authority' means for the substantive and methodological dimensions of sociological research. This may be expanded in various ways; through how we use theory and construct knowledge through authoritative references, to research themes that explicitly examine how authority is shaped through power, to methodological concerns relating to the role of the researcher, the voice of the researcher in writing and the process of how we represent research findings by seeking to establish valid and authoritative accounts.