ABSTRACT
For the Russian formalist literary critic Victor Shklovsky (1893–1984), the purpose of art was to turn the familiar object into something unfamiliar and strange, thus enabling the spectator to behold the object anew. A piece of art, a theatre performance, or a cinematographic scene has the power ‘to make the stone stony’, he wrote, meaning that they break up habitual perceptions and open the gaze to the essence of an object (Shklovsky 1991 [1925]). The liberating effect of distancing and estrangement is valid not only in the sphere of art, but also applies to social theories. Social theories develop in specific contexts, frequently with the purpose to give sense and order to a confusing reality in a particular time and space. It is once we take them out of their original context that theories and concepts reveal their potential to flourish or, on the contrary, their limitations and contradictions.
