What is Bipolar Disorder? - Mood Disorders Society of Canada
Sociology in the Mood of Society
-
Upload
marco-ceazar-verona -
Category
Documents
-
view
218 -
download
0
Transcript of Sociology in the Mood of Society
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
1/36
The Heart of Sociology
James Moody
The Ohio State University
Department Brown Bag, 4/29/05
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
2/36
Introduction
Points of DepartureA battle for symbolic power
Is anybody listening?
What Knowledge?
Where does sociology fit?
Sociologically unique theory
Making Sociology Relevant
What do we want to say?
How do we get the message out?
Conclusions
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
3/36
Knowledge of the social world and, more precisely, the categories
which make it possible, are the stakes par excellence of political
struggle, a struggle which is inseparably theoretical and practical, over
the power of preserving or transforming the social world by preserving
or transforming the categories of perception of that world. (p.236)
Every field is the site of a more or less openly declared struggle for
the definition of the legitimate principles of division of the field.
(p.242)
Pierre Bourdieu Language and Symbolic Power
Why name it Public sociology?
Points of Departure:A battle over symbolic power
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
4/36
The power to name is the essential step in any battle over the legitimate principles ofdivision in a social field, such as the discipline of sociology.
Appropriating sociology is an attempt to legitimate a political project
Reifies the practice of appending non-scientific adjectives to sociology
(Critical sociology, Policy Sociology, Professional Sociology)
This is a brilliant tactical move,
Uses our general practice of defining sub-fields (Organizational
Sociology), but slyly changes the meaning of sociology in the process.
Compare:
Political Sociology Sociology of politics
Public Sociology / Sociology of Public(s)
Once the term is in circulation, the defining details are largely irrelevant.
Power comes in establishing the term, not by filling in the particulars.
Why name it Public sociology?
Points of Departure:A battle over symbolic power
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
5/36
Why name it Public sociology?
How has this symbolic move been so easily perpetrated?Linguistic familiarity
We are so used to the sociology construction in our
scientific practice, that we easily misread the significance of the new
appropriation.
Repetition & (mis)recognition
Simple repetition in debates, talks, and plenary sessions reifies the
concept by selectively (mis)recognizing the meaning & content of
these events assupportfor the project.
This would be like counting the number of people at a rally without
accounting for which candidate they supported.
Plays on a social activist bias in the discipline
Points of Departure:A battle over symbolic power
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
6/36
Why do it?
Internal:
The appropriation of power through naming is a covert way to change
the direction and values of a field. Since this particular project plays
well into the generally progressive politics of most sociologists, itsoften well-received.
This move has a well-repeated history in sociology (see Abbotts
Chaos of Disciplines).
External:
By casting the project associology the legitimacy of a scientific field
is appropriated for political projects.
Why name it Public sociology?
Points of Departure:A battle over symbolic power
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
7/36
Why name it Public sociology?
What should we do about it?
Nothing
The best response to this project would have been to simply ignore it. You
kill a bad book by not reviewing it, not by giving it a bad review. The best
counter-move in a symbolic battle is to not acknowledge the move in the first
place.
Turn the debate
Its too late to do nothing, so lets change the focus of the question. We
should use this as an opportunity to ask:
What is sociology and where does it fit in the social sciences?
How can we make our scientific work relevant to wider audiences?
Points of Departure:A battle over symbolic power
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
8/36
Points of Departure:Is anybody listening?
What would effective public sociology look like?
Burawoy says public sociology is :
A dialog between sociology and its publics
Sociologists as sociologists engage in direct political discourse &
action.
This should rest on moralquestions regenerating sociologys
moral fiber
Effectiveness would thus imply getting noticed, failure is equal to
public indifference.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
9/36
Points of Departure: is anybody listening?
Burawoy lists 5 recent exemplars of public sociology, all taken by the
ASA, how many of them appeared in the press?:
Brief to supreme court on the Michigan decision:
Statements on Race (proposition 54, 2003 importance):
Resolution against the war in Iraq:
Resolution against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage:
Protesting the imprisonment of Saad Ibrahim:
1
0
4
0
1
Nobody is paying attention to these political statements.
The media does, however, report our substantive findings
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
10/36
Points of Departure: is anybody listening?
What effect would effectiveness have?
This is probably good news.
Coupling sociology for politics is more likely to delegitimate sociology than
legitimate our political programs.
Consider Nadars involvement in the 2000 ASA meeting.
The only coverage the N.Y. Times gave to that meeting was an editorialtitled Sociologists to the Barricades1 that ridiculed the overly political,
simplistic, and clearly ideologically motivated presentations, mocking any
scientific activity.
Richard Tommasson, summarized this by saying Three and four decades
ago people confused sociology with social work, now they may confuse it
with a revolutionary party.2
If sociology is equated with liberal politics our scientific workwill be similarly
read. Our ability to remain above the fray is crucial to being heard at all.
1 http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/asameetings.htm
2 http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/septoct00/publicforum.html#Sociologists
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
11/36
Points of Departure: is anybody listening?
What effect would effectiveness have?
A counter argument is that sociology need not take aparticularpolitical
stance.
Public sociology has no intrinsic valence it can as well support
Christian Fundamentalism as it can Liberation Sociology or
Communitarianism -- Burawoy , p.11
But every example weve seen so far has been for left and far-left
causes and positions.
It doesnt matterthat this might well follow from good social
science. It will be interpreted as just political.
Ultimately, the goal of using sociology to legitimate politics is self-defeating.
The same power of naming that allows claiming a space for public
sociology will let those best skilled at using symbolic power simply equate
sociology with politics.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
12/36
Points of Departure: is anybody listening?
This does notmean we should do nothing.
The lackof direct political action can be politically relevant.
Tendencies to stay out of politics can be seen as extremely
conservative: it favors what is currently in place.
Fixing the points of debate
The role of sociology (I think) should be to identify the social facts thatpolitical actors will have difficulty denying. We should provide the is to
politicians ought.
Which implies
(1) We need to have something useful to say
(2) What we say needs to be seen as legitimate descriptions of the worldpeople are interested in.
(1) follows from sociologys unique empirical and theoretical position.
(2) Combines our claim to objective, scientifically grounded knowledge with
disseminating that knowledge more widely.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
13/36
What Knowledge?: where does sociology fit?
Can sociology lay any legitimate claim to unique knowledge?
Perennial debates over the existence of a theoretical core to the
discipline
Rapid growth in the internal diversity of topics sociologist study:
0
5
10
15
2025
30
35
40
45
50
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Number of ASA Sections
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
14/36
What Knowledge?: where does sociology fit?
Can sociology lay any legitimate claim to unique knowledge?
Rapid growth in the number of social science journals:
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
15/36
What Knowledge?: where does sociology fit?
Can sociology lay any legitimate claim to unique knowledge?
Thisgrowth & diversity has been seen as evidence for the ultimate
emptiness of sociology as a scientific discipline.
But disciplines are created dynamically by the exchange of ideas, not
the number of ideas. That is, we recognize work as much by who theyspeak to as by whatthey speak about.
The clearest empirical trace of this communication is citation.
Disciplines can then be defined as clusters of work that speaks
more to each other than to anyone else.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
16/36
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
17/36
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
18/36
What Knowledge?: where does sociology fit?
Can sociology lay any legitimate claim to unique knowledge?
Sociology fits at the center of the social sciences. We are not as internally
cohesive as Economics or Law, but more so than many (anthropology, allied
health fields).
This represents a tradeoff. We have traded unique dominance of a topic
(markets, politics, mind, space, history) for diversity & thus centrality.
Sociology is interstitial discipline (Abbott, 2004) in at least two-senses:
There is no content topic we can reasonably exclude
We pull together, and generate, the ideas and topics covered by
specialty disciplines.
This makes us uniquely positioned to provide comprehensive insights on
particular empirical questions.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
19/36
What Knowledge?: Sociologically Unique Theory
Is there a set of unique theoretical tools & concepts that sociology uses to
understand substantive topics?
These are the core elements that form our scientific collective conscious
making possible the wider organic solidarity that comprises the empirical
scientific work of the discipline.
My strategy is to ground the abstract ideas ofstructure and agency
embedded in Sewell, Giddens or Bourdieu by embedding them in key
action arenas (Networks, Organizations, & Markets ) which are intimately
linked to questions of meaning (culture) and regular, repeated rules for
social action (institutions), all of which rest ultimately on the distribution of
people in places (population & ecology).
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
20/36
What Knowledge?: Sociologically Unique Theory
InstitutionsCulture
Population / Ecology
A proposed schema for primary sociological elements
Markets
Networks
Organizations
Scope of
individual
agency
Determinacyof social
structure
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
21/36
What Knowledge?: Sociologically Unique Theory
TheAction arenas (Networks, Markets, and Organizations) are were actors
do things.
We have currently given much of this domain to other disciplines, but
theres no reason we cant re-appropriate it.
The meaning regions (Culture & Institutions)rest squarely on Sewells
treatment of schemas (rules that guide social action but that are
simultaneously re-created in their use), differing only in their regulatory
power and resilience.
Population & ecological distributions result from the combinedbehaviors of
actors use and reaction to the meaning and regulatory dimensions, but in
turn shape the possible actions actors can take. (This is nearly Durkheim
wholesale).
A proposed schema for primary sociological elements
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
22/36
What Knowledge?: Sociologically Unique Theory
A proposed schema for primary sociological elements
The typical substantive topics that sociologists deal with on a
day-to-day basis then emerge from the intersection of these sets.
For example:
Powerorexploitation result from access to resources
embedded in the action arenas and shaped by the meanings
dimensions
Categories like class, race orgenderbecome a pattern of
relations instead of essential social or biological elements.
Any substantive domain can be treated in this way and, I think,
typically is treated this way even if not put in this particular
language.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
23/36
What Knowledge?: Sociologically Unique Theory
A proposed schema for primary sociological elements
The point, of course, is not the correctness of thisparticularproposal.
Its that our interstitial position in the field of social science allows us to
take a wider view of the social world than any other discipline.
If, as Arendt claims, science rests on the ability to take a view from
nowhere, then sociologists have a distinct advantage, because we
dont carry with us the kinds of disciplinary blinders needed to maintain
strong boundaries.
This should allow us to more effectively communicate to the wider public.
But what do we want to say?
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
24/36
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
A few empirical facts: World HIV Prevalence: 38M in 2003
Source: World Health Organization
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
25/36
Effect of Friendship Structure on Suicidal ThoughtsNet of demographic, family, school, religion and personal characteristcs.
Males Females
OR 95% CI OR 95% CINetworkIsolation 0.665 (0.307 - 1.445) 2.010 (1.073 - 3.765)Intransitivity Index 0.747 (0.358 - 1.558) 2.198 (1.221 - 3.956)Friend Attempted Suicide 2.725 (2.187 - 3.395) 2.374 (2.019 - 2.791)Trouble with People 0.999 (0.912 - 1.095) 1.027 (0.953 - 1.106)
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
A few empirical facts: Social isolation affects suicide more for
females than for males
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
26/36
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
A few empirical facts: but isolated males are more likely to carry
weapons than isolated females.
Percen
tCarryingW
eapons
0
5
10
15
20
25
Outsiders(8%)
Bridges(25%)
Members(67%)
Males
Females
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
27/36
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
A few empirical facts: Some racially heterogeneous schools are
socially segregated
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
28/36
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
A few empirical facts: while other heterogeneous schools are
socially integrated. Why?
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
29/36
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
and of course we could go on like this for many more.
Each of these empirical points arepolitically relevant:
HIV / AIDS questions about world position & sexual
behavior
Social Isolation in Youth Role of schools, meaning of
gender
Racial IntegrationMeaning of race, Assimilation
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
30/36
Making Sociology Relevant: What do we want to say?
We need to ensure that those with political agendas are
getting the facts right.
Our training is in understanding & explainingthe world,
not in political action. We can win debates and arguments
about data, method and findings. We cannot compete inthe political spin cycle.
Often, however, the answer will be We dont know.
Hence the strong need for basic social science research,
research that is not tied directly to a policy outcome, but
instead focuses on fundamental properties of social
interaction.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
31/36
Making Sociology Relevant:How do we get the message out?
Burawoy points out that one of our best arenas for politicalsociology is the classroom, since we graduate ~25,000 majors a
year.
Note that this plays directly into the hands of those chargingthe academy with political bias.
I agree that we should use our classes, but not to preach a
specific political message.
Instead, we need to generate a population of social science
research literate graduates, who can be honestly critical of
the kinds of data and claims they hear in the political realm.
Teaching
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
32/36
Making Sociology Relevant:How do we get the message out?
Our best bet for being relevant will be to advertise our findings.
Most of our work is funded by the public, either directly through
grants or indirectly through our university salaries. We should
be accountable for that funding and do our best to expose themto our research.
This means using the media.
Research
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
33/36
Making Sociology Relevant:How do we get the message out?
The public finds (quality) research on social life as interesting as we do, andthe science press is very eager to publish solid scientific findings.
Ive had 3 pieces get significant media coverage. This work has appeared in:
Talk of the Nation (NPR): 3 Million Listeners2
Time Magazine: 4.1 Million (Circulation1)
NY Times: 1.1 Million (Circulation)
Washington Post: 746,000 (Circulation)
Glamour: 2.2 Million
Mens Health: 1.7 Million
The Economist: 800,000Harpers: 800,0000
Playboy: 3.1 Million
Total: 16.75 Million readers, plus 2nd tier newspapers, wire
& web.
Media Coverage
1) http://www.magazine.org/Circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/11186.cfm
2) http://www.npr.org/about/press/020319.recordbreak.html
http://www.magazine.org/Circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/11186.cfmhttp://www.npr.org/about/press/020319.recordbreak.htmlhttp://www.npr.org/about/press/020319.recordbreak.htmlhttp://www.magazine.org/Circulation/circulation_trends_and_magazine_handbook/11186.cfm -
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
34/36
Making Sociology Relevant:How do we get the message out?
Working with the media comes with certain costs:
We have to make it accessible.
They will get it wrong. But thats probably OK.
The interest of the science press is inversely proportional to the
prominence of political motives in the work.
Media Coverage
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
35/36
Conclusions
1) The current push for public sociology is a classic exercise in symbolic
power.
The attempt to place public sociology as just another type of
sociology is a ploy designed to borrow scientific legitimacy for a
political project.
The move risks a two-fold backfire:
Scientific sociology will be delegitimized by politics Illegitimate science will have no positive policy effect.
2) As a discipline, sociology is uniquely situated (a) to bridge other social
science disciplines, (b) bringing to bear unique theoretical insights (c)
about empirical puzzles that are of genuine interest to the public.
-
8/22/2019 Sociology in the Mood of Society
36/36
Conclusions
Marx famously said:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the
point, however, is to change it.
Theses on Feuerbach, XI
Before we can change the world, we need to understand it. As it turnsout, the world is much more difficult to understand that Marx and his
optimistic 19th century companions ever imagined.
The sociologists primary purpose is to contribute this understanding. It ispossible to change the world without understanding, but you will
rarely be happy with the result.