Sociology beyond despair: Recovery of nerve, endogeneity, and epistemic intervention
- 1 July 2006
- journal article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in South African Review of Sociology
- Vol. 37 (2), 241-259
- https://doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2006.10419157
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.Keywords
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