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Sociology beyond despair: recovery of nerve, endogeneity, and epistemic intervention.
- Source :
-
South African Review of Sociology . 2006, Vol. 37 Issue 2, p241-259. 19p. - Publication Year :
- 2006
-
Abstract
- Sociology as a scholarly vocation within the university in South Africa is bedevilled with the claims of its demise. Both the discipline and a cross-section of its practitioners seem beset with 'status anxiety' and what I call 'status ambiguity.' In this presidential address, delivered to the 2005 Congress of the South African Sociological Association (SASA). I examine these claims. The paper examines the sources of the anxiety. It argues that the claims of sociology's death are grossly exaggerated, as Mark Twain might have put it. I argue that if we were to operate on a wider canvas we might have persuaded ourselves to the position that the ebbs and flows in a discipline like sociology are not evidence of 'death', 'fall' or whatever else we might want to call it: it is not even an evidence of a discipline that is yet to attain maturity. The key to doing 'sociology beyond despair' and the recovery of disciplinary nerve requires a commitment to endogeneity, with a distinct commitment to epistemic intervention in global sociology: it requires us to take our locales seriously: it requires us to take ourselves seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *SOCIOLOGY
*DISCIPLINE
*ANXIETY
*SOCIAL sciences
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 21528586
- Volume :
- 37
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- South African Review of Sociology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 24993968