Idea of Research-Writing in Sociology: Polemics on the Loss of a Transformative Practice

Following Alwin Gouldner (1971), it is pertinent to perpetually ask a seemingly all-time relevant question. And the question is, what do sociologists do? In the manner of doing sociology of sociology, and by a polemical resurrection of fragments from the dominant practices of sociologists, this essay brings forth general understanding about the idea of research-writing in contemporary India. It underlines the anomalies in the practice of research-writing, connected with the teaching and training programmes, in a self-referential perspective. The essay substantiates the polemics with analytical reasoning, in order to reveal as to what could be reasons behind this state of sociological research-writings.

Sociology Engaged in Social Justice

This article expands on my presidential address to further bolster the case that sociology has, from its inception, been engaged in social justice. I argue that a critical review of our discipline and our Association’s vaunted empiricist tradition of objectivity, in which sociologists are detached from their research, was accomplished by a false history and sociology of sociology that ignored, isolated, and marginalized some of the founders. In the past half-century, scholar-activists, working-class sociologists, sociologists of color, women sociologists, indigenous sociologists, and LGBTQ sociologists have similarly been marginalized and discouraged from pursuing social justice issues and applied research within our discipline. Being ignored by academic sociology departments has led them to create or join homes in interdisciplinary programs and other associations that embrace applied and scholar-activist scholarship. I offer thoughts about practices that the discipline and Association should use to reclaim sociology’s social justice tradition.

Biografie pojęć-pechowców. Dlaczego powinny nas interesować?

The article focuses on the assumption that it is worth getting interested in sociological concepts in the spirit of sociology of sociology. It happens that biographies of sociological concepts themselves are interesting. Above all, however, they tell a lot on the more general mechanisms, which construct the field of sociology-science. The basic part of the article focuses on unlucky concepts: (1) concepts which diverged from their original theoretical context, (2) concepts which started functioning as summaries of theories (at a loss for the concepts and summarized theories) and (3) concepts which have been promising as tools for analysis and description of the social world, but have never been included in the dictionary of key sociological terms as they were “killed” by endless discussions on their status and usefulness. The attempt to examine the history of (selected) unlucky concepts has two goals: first, recognizing mechanisms pushing sociology-science out of the field; second, identification of some development barriers of contemporary sociology.

For a Relational Critical Discourse Analysis

This paper proposes a relational and critical sociological perspective on discourse analysis, in particular on so-called “Critical Discourse Analysis” (CDA). The main argument of this paper is that CDA has not yet been able to turn its critical perspective towards its own field. Meanwhile, neither CDA nor other schools of discourse analysis can still pretend not to be integral parts of the system legitimizing social hierarchies in modern societies. The paper argues that discourse analysis can be seen as highly dependent on power relations, both because of its institutional positioning and because of its restricted reflexivity. A call for the development of a critical sociology of discourse analysis based on a relational approach is therefore presented. Its draft programme is largely based on inspiration from the sociology of knowledge, in particular from “the sociology of sociology” of Pierre Bourdieu.

Coupling career fairy tale “Fascinating Sociology Class”. How to teach sociology? The sociology of sociology

This paper is a simple account of my teaching experience1, the aim of which is to answer the question: “How can we successfully teach interactionism, labeling theory, grounded theory and other sociological bases related to qualitative methods with the active participation of students?”. Through the examples of sociologists working in the Chicago Tradition, French sociologists working with Pierre Bourdieu, and other examples from American sociology, I show that sociological work is group activity. It is argued in this paper, that to make sociological thinking understandable to students teachers may do well to contextualize key theorists in their narrative/biographical context. The students learn, that sociologists are not magicians or genius individuals who produce attractive theories. Rather, they work in collaboration with other humans to generate knowledge. Moreoever, I demonstrate that sociologists’ contributions are often strongly related to and influenced by their broader life context.

Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?

The article explores the implications of Nietzsche's view of human history and psychology for a sociology formulated in Nietzschean terms, and argues that although the ‘will to power’ cannot explain all that Nietzsche claims for it, his sociology of sociology does pass his own test of validity. It is suggested in conclusion that on the relation of sociology to the rank ordering of values, Nietzsche is consistent where Weber is not, and vice versa.