“The first wisdom of sociology is this: things are not what they seem.”

— Peter L. Berger (1963, p. 23)

Building on my earlier article “Doing Sociology Logically” (Kumar, 2025), I now turn to a reflexive question: Are we doing sociology sociologically? This formulation, though seemingly tautological, demands a critical interrogation of the discipline’s own practices; it requires an examination of what Pierre Bourdieu (1990) might term the “unthought categories” of our craft (p. 27). If a logical inquiry concerns itself with methodological soundness, a sociological inquiry must confront our embeddedness within the very social processes we seek to study. It necessitates what Avery Gordon (2008) describes as a “haunting” awareness of sociology’s inherent moral-epistemic dualities: the perpetual tension between detachment and commitment, between observing the social world and being irrevocably of it (p. 195).

The Pervasive Risk of De-Sociologizing Sociology

In the contemporary academic climate, sociology faces significant pressures emanating from neoliberal managerialism, policy-driven metrics, and the market’s demand for quantifiable ‘impact’ (Merton, 1968). A consequence of these pressures has been a retreat into a form of technicality that Robert A. Divine (1962) would identify as “the illusion of neutrality” (p. 15), where specialised jargon often supplants critical engagement, and citation metrics eclipse substantive theoretical contribution. This shift moves the discipline away from the nuanced understanding of its own practice, as explored in foundational collections like Chaudhuri (2003). The peril here is the de-sociologizing of sociology itself, reducing a discipline founded on questioning the social order to one that merely describes it or, worse, conforms to the logic of its institutional patrons.

To do sociology sociologically is to mount a deliberate resistance against this drift. It is to reclaim what Dorothy E. Smith (1987) termed “the problematic of everyday life” (p. 89), insisting on tracing the social within the personal, the historical within the present, and the political within the mundane. This practice reaffirms that sociology is not concerned with society as a static object, but rather with social life as a dynamic relationship, an ongoing process, and a perpetual struggle over meaning (Kumar, 2025). It is a vision that echoes the Marxist concept of praxis but is refracted through the prism of contemporary epistemic crises.

Reflexivity as Foundational Method and Guiding Ethic

A defining hallmark of sociological thinking is its commitment to reflexivity: the capacity to situate one’s own intellectual project within the very structures and narratives one analyses. Bourdieu (1990) rigorously framed this as “participant objectivation,” a practice that demands sociologists turn their analytical tools upon both the field of study and their own position and complicity within the academic field (p. 27). Smith (1987) radicalised this further by advocating for a sociology that begins from the “standpoint of women,” thereby exposing how traditional, male-dominated social science has systematically produced a disembodied and ruling form of knowledge (p. 105).

Doing sociology sociologically elevates reflexivity from a methodological step to a guiding ethical principle. It forces a continuous confrontation with unmarked privileges. It compels us to ask: How do our own social locations (caste, class, gender, institutional affiliation, linguistic capital) shape what we deem “objective”? Are we sufficiently attentive to the voices our theoretical frameworks and citation practices exclude or overwrite? However, this reflexivity must not devolve into a narcissistic self-scrutiny that leads to analytical paralysis. As Berger and Luckmann (1991) crucially remind us, reflexive practice gains its meaning only when tethered to a tangible accountability: to research participants, ensuring their agency is respected; to students, cultivating their critical consciousness; and to sociology’s foundational emancipatory vocation, bridging analysis with transformation (p. 209). This threefold accountability guards against both self-indulgence and inaction, transforming reflexivity from an abstract exercise into an ethical imperative.

Sociology as a Situated and Relational Practice

Much of modern academia fetishizes hyper-specialization and individual authorship. In contrast, sociology, when practised sociologically, is fundamentally a relational practice (Donati, 2010). It demands a dialogic engagement across disciplines, across generations of scholars, and across diverse social locations. It shifts the central epistemological question from “What do I know?” to “Whose knowledge is systematically erased?” and “From whom am I learning?”

This relational ethic has serious implications for pedagogy. It asks whether we are co-constructing meaning with students or merely reducing teaching to content delivery. It questions whether our scholarly writing clarifies social reality or obscures it behind what Maitrayee Chaudhuri (2022) and Rajeev Bhargava (2013) have critically examined as the tendency to build impermeable “conceptual fences” (p. 45) that can alienate rather than illuminate. It examines whether our citation patterns replicate existing academic hierarchies or actively amplify marginalised epistemes. Therefore, doing sociology sociologically transcends the act of research; it seeks to reshape institutional culture into a genuine community of inquiry, where collegiality and constructive critique advance sociology not merely as a career but as a vital social discipline.

The Necessary Synthesis of Critique and Care

Sociologists are trained in the art of critique. From Marx’s unmasking of capital to Foucault’s archaeologies of power, from Ambedkar’s (2014) annihilation of caste to Acker’s feminist dismantling of organisational logic, the discipline is rich with tools for deconstructing power. Yet, critique untethered from a stance of care risks devolving into what Bourdieu (1990) identified as “the scholastic fallacy” (p. 382), a form of intellectual detachment that privileges deconstruction over meaningful engagement. Gordon’s (2008) insistence on “complex personhood” serves as a vital corrective: people are not merely “effects of structure” (Smith, 1987, p. 3) but agents weaving what Kelty (2020) describes as “textures of hope, joy, resistance, and imagination” (p. 12).

To do sociology sociologically is to hold critique and care in a dynamic and productive tension. It is to examine systems of power without erasing the personhood of those who navigate them. Veena Das (2020) articulates this stance as “critical love,” a mode of holding power accountable while simultaneously honouring the depth of lived experience (p. 215). It means deploying Ambedkar’s razor-sharp analysis without severing the bonds of solidarity, and practising what Sara Ahmed (2017) calls “feminist earwork”: a commitment to listening attentively before theorising (p. 248).

The Specific Challenge of the Indian Context

In the Indian context, doing sociology sociologically demands a straightforward confrontation with what Tejaswini Niranjana (2018) terms “the silent curriculum of exclusion” (p. 325), where Brahmanical, Savarna, and metropolitan norms often dictate whose English is deemed publishable, whose methodological approaches are considered rigorous, and ultimately, whose sociology counts as legitimate knowledge.

Guru and Sarukkai’s (2012) seminal work, The Cracked Mirror, powerfully exposes this epistemic violence, advocating for a sociology that consciously “speaks in and from the margins” (p. 78). This call is echoed by Dalit feminist scholars, such as Sharmila Rege (2010), who reframes “experience as theory” (p. 90), and by engagements with Adivasi epistemologies (Xaxa, 2014) and queer critiques (Dave, 2012). These interventions, alongside critiques of hierarchical knowledge production in adjacent fields, such as legal education (Kumar, 2021), collectively dismantle the myth of methodological neutrality, revealing how casteist and heteronormative assumptions persist even within ostensibly progressive academic spaces. Thus, doing sociology sociologically in India becomes an active practice of “decolonizing the discipline” (Tuhiwai Smith, 2021), which involves rejecting the coloniality of academic language (Aloysius, 2023), centering ethical accountability to marginalized communities (Sahgal, 2025), and reimagining scholarly rigour through what Kumar (2013) describes as “the lens of lived social realities” (p. 3).

Conclusion: Beyond the Discipline, Toward the Social

To do sociology sociologically is to embrace what can be termed a living inquiry. It is a scholarly practice where research transforms from mere academic output into meaningful social engagement, and where intellectual loyalty lies not with theory alone but with the social world in all its contradictions and capabilities. It demands that we demystify social structures while remaining grounded in the textures of lived experience.

In an era of deepening social divisions and shrinking democratic spaces, sociology must resist the retreat into safe abstraction. Instead, it must trouble the obvious, centre the silenced, and defend complexity against the flattening logics of our time. For sociology to survive as sociology, we must practice it sociologically: not as a self-contained discipline, but as an untiring commitment to the social itself.

References:

Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life. Duke University Press.

Aloysius, G. (2023). Caste and the secular language of sociology. Economic and Political Weekly, 58(12), 34–41.

Ambedkar, B. R. (2014). Annihilation of caste (S. Anand, Ed.). Verso. (Original work published 1936)

Berger, P. L. (1963). Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective. Anchor Books.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1991). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Penguin Books.

Bhargava, R. (2013). The promise of India’s secular democracy. Oxford University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford University Press.

Chaudhuri, M. (Ed.). (2003). The practice of sociology. Orient Blackswan.

Chaudhuri, M. (2022, February 17). Concepts and sociology: Some reflections. Doing Sociology. https://doingsociology.org/2022/02/17/concepts-and-sociology-some-reflections-maitrayee-chaudhuri/

Das, V. (2020). Textures of the ordinary: Doing anthropology after Wittgenstein. Fordham University Press.

Dave, N. (2012). Queer activism in India: An anthropology for the present. Duke University Press.

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Guru, G., & Sarukkai, S. (2012). The cracked mirror: An Indian debate on experience and theory. Oxford University Press.

Kelty, C. (2020). The participant: A century of participation in four stories. University of Chicago Press.

Kumar, A. (2013). Social thinking to scientific social theory: An introduction to sociology and social anthropology. International Journal of Research in Sociology and Social Anthropology, 1(1), 1–5.

Kumar, A. (2021). So-called ‘non-law’ in law: Rethinking interdisciplinarity and faculty hierarchy in Indian legal education. International Journal of Sociology and Political Science, 3(2), 73–79.

Kumar, A. (2025, May 18). Doing sociology logically: A brief introduction to the basics of social inquiry. Doing Sociology. https://doingsociology.org/2025/05/18/doing-sociology-logically-a-brief-introduction-to-the-basics-of-social-inquiry-anil-kumar/

Merton, R. K. (1968). Social theory and social structure (Enlarged ed.). Free Press.

Niranjana, T. (2018). Language and the politics of inequality in Indian academia. Journal of Language and Politics, 17(3), 321–340.

Rege, S. (2010). Writing caste/writing gender: Narrating Dalit women’s testimonies. Zubaan.

Sahgal, A. (2025, May 5). Doing sociology: Holding space for the (in)visible. Doing Sociology. https://doingsociology.org/2025/05/05/doing-sociology-holding-space-for-the-invisible-ami-sahgal/

Smith, D. E. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Northeastern University Press.

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.

Xaxa, V. (2014). Identity, power and development: The Adivasi question in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 49(14), 50–57.

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Anil Kumar is a Professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central University of Himachal Pradesh. His research interests include social theory, philosophy, sexuality, and moral questions in Indian society.