In Indian society, if a child scores good marks in their high school education, it is an unwritten expectation that they would choose to pursue their career in medicine or engineering. Humanities and Social sciences have always been considered the last alternative when all other career options are exhausted. And even within the Humanities, Sociology perhaps occupies the bottom-most place of the academic hierarchy while Economics rank at the very top. One observes this lack of awareness about the significance of Sociology in our society is reflected in common people’s inadequate understanding and appreciation of sociologists’ work. Hence, to understand the profession of sociologists, first, it is crucial to unfold the reasons which contribute to the construction of this socio-cultural reality. With this backdrop, in this piece, I try to shed light on the importance and complexity of the kind of work that Sociologists do.

Often sociology is understood as common sense, and hence, not worthy of expert knowledge. The question of sociology being equated with common sense has been discussed in detail by many scholars (Andre Beteille: 1996, Satish Deshpande: 2003, Maitrayee Chaudhari: 2019).  The belief that sociology does not need specialised training makes it a soft discipline. By being born as a human, all of us acquire some amount of knowledge about our own society, which leads us to question the need of a separate discipline for the scientific study of the society. Andre Beteille (1996) argues that Sociology is a loosely defined field of knowledge. Because it touches the everyday experience of the common people at many points, there is a tendency to consider it common sense (Andre Beteille: 1996).

Thus, it becomes essential to underline the difference between the knowledge acquired through an academic study of the subject-sociology and knowledge acquired through common sense. Sociology has a body of concepts, methods and data, whereas common sense is unreflective, and it does not question its own origin. In fact, common sense itself is a subject matter of sociology; by deploying sociological knowledge, one can decode commonsensical understandings. While the discipline is equated with common sense, the work that sociologists do is also not considered to be work with expertise.

The nature and the story of the emergence of the discipline also help illuminate the profession’s complexity. Sociology as a discipline is born during the Enlightenment period in Europe in the 18^th century. Enlightenment is a period marked by remarkable intellectual development and change in philosophical thought. Auguste Comte, who coined the term “Sociology”, considered it a scientific way to combat what he believed to be the negative and destructive effects of Enlightenment thought. Comte compared the role of sociologists in a social context to that of physicians in a medical context. His ‘positivist’ Sociology advocated the use of methods used in natural sciences for the study of society. During this period, Sociology was considered a tool to re-establish stability and harmony in society by maintaining social order. Sociology has been seen as a conservative reaction to this Enlightenment (Ritzer: 2011). Hence, since its inception, sociologists have been given the conservative role of maintaining the status quo and stability in society.

However, one of the unique characteristics which differentiate Sociology from all other disciplines is its self-reflexivity. The discipline received many internal challenges that further expanded its scope (Feminist theory has attacked mainstream sociology for being malestream sociology). Thus, it would be fallacious to assume that all sociologists perform the role Comte assumed for them.  Many schools of thought within the discipline of Sociology have described the role of a sociologist in diverse ways. Hence, it would be highly inappropriate to reduce the profession of sociologists to a single role. Comte’s positivist Sociology was questioned and expanded by traditions ranging from Marx to Weber. If Marx emphasised the dialectics of human action as both a producer and product, Weber’s focus was on the meaning of human action. Max Weber argues that action is “social” insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course.

I argue that three factors need to be considered while discussing the importance and complexity of the profession of sociologists. Firstly, since Sociology is not confined to a single generalised thought, the work is undertaken by sociologists certainly cannot be confined to a single role. A school of thought such as ‘structural-functionalism asserts that society is made up of various parts such as institutions, roles, norms etc. and that each of these parts performs a particular function which forms the whole society. It expects sociologists to be objective and study society without taking a stand. On the contrary, ‘phenomenology’ ask a sociologist to be self-reflexive. Phenomenology argues that social reality is constructed and is not objective. In his book ‘Sociological Imagination’, C. W. Mills rests the role of sociology precisely in unravelling how the personal and public are related. Therefore, the kind of work sociologists performs depends on their affiliation to the particular school of thought in sociology.

Another point to be noted is that there lies hierarchy within the schools of thought within Sociology. After World War II, ‘structural functionalism’ was a dominant school of thought till the 1960-70s. Social change and conflict theories, and feminist theories were in the margins, which later had major roles to redefine mainstream social theory. Therefore, what is considered worthwhile sociological knowledge is also embedded within a particular socio-cultural and political context. It is imperative that the kind of study sociologists undertake is coherent to their understanding of and relationship with the discipline. Those who live off sociology have been criticised for being status-quoits, for using the discipline for personal advantage by maintaining the existing hierarchies in the society.

Lastly, with regard to Indian Sociology, Maitrayee Chaudhari (2019) argues that the plurality of views on the identity of sociology instead of being seen as its strength is often seen as a sign of weakness; a sign that sociology is yet to acquire the precision of natural sciences (Chaudhari: 2019). In present times of neo-liberalism, when everything is measured in terms of productivity and sale value, the profession of sociology has an opportunity to play a more meaningful and decisive role of critically posing questions to the present model of development and its effects. Sociology equips one with a perspective to study social reality, and it enables one to ask critical questions.

However, the discipline is known by the contribution of its professionals. Sociologists have a huge responsibility to establish and highlight the increasing importance of the discipline, not merely by preaching about it or by over-diluting the social reality but by widening the scope of their work. Reclaiming the reflexive and critical edge of the discipline is the real task. At the same time, it is necessary to take Sociology out of academics and seek its application in various everyday life practices and vocations. It is only through such fundamental and constructive work by the professionals who live by sociology that we can hope to expand and apply the sociological imagination to create a better society.

References:

1. Beteille, Andre. 1996. Sociology and Common sense. Economic and Political Weekly. Political Weekly. Vol 31. No 35/37.
2. Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. 2019. Doing Sociology: Some persistent questions. Sociological Bulletin. 65(2): 253-271.
3. C.W. Mills. 1959. Sociological Imagination. Oxford University Press.
4. Satish Deshpande. 2003. Contemporary India: A Sociological View. Penguin Books.
5. Ritzer, Gorge. 2011.  Sociological theory. Tata McGraw-hill. Rawat Publication.
6. Haralambos, M and R. M. Heald. 2012 Sociology Themes and Perspectives. Oxford University Press.

***

Madhura Joshi has completed her MPhil from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).