The video that explains the essay can be found here.
Introduction
This essay draws upon my own reflections as I encountered and negotiated with theory and concepts in sociology. I recall my early days as a student, new and unsure in sociology. I was told to read up on basic concepts so that I could follow both classroom lectures as well as prescribed readings. The clarity that I expected to get from reading up on basic concepts however escaped me. In hindsight, I do not think my incomprehension was entirely a personal story. Over the years I felt that this puzzlement stemmed partly from the way we teach and understand concepts.[i] I attempt below to flag some of the issues that concern how we approach concepts.
I have deliberately titled the piece concepts and sociology. For concepts in sociology suggest a taken-for-granted quality to sociological concepts, an idea that I not only wish to dispel but an idea that I feel lies behind the perceived opaqueness of concepts. A more fruitful approach is to look at concepts as entities that emerge in specific historical locations. They are articulated by thinkers with definite biographies as they struggle to make sense of societies they live in with extant concepts, some which they draw from, some of which they challenge. There is no immaculate conception of social theories. They emerge in specific historical contexts and are constitutive of economic, political, social, cultural, institutional and intellectual processes. We need to understand not just the contexts within which theories arise but also the entangled routes through which they travel. This demands careful examination of both contexts of production, circulation and reception of theories.[ii]
Our pedagogic practises play no mean role. We need to examine the social processes and conceptual assumptions through which theories and thinkers travel and settle into syllabi and then acquire a fixed and unchanging character in the everyday routine practice of teaching and research in many of our institutions. There is a widely held idea that a concept is a given, frozen in the syllabi and ready to be consumed. It accompanies a conception of the classroom as a discrete and closed sphere, geared to examinations and acquisition of degrees and unrelated to the world at large.[iii]
Further concepts are embedded within specific theoretical formulations, each with their often, distinct domain assumptions. These need explication as we seek to make sense of the concepts and their inter-connections. Tracing out these connections help us think and ‘conceptualize’. This may be a more productive way than to proceed with a ‘fixed’ idea of a concept and apply it, often with illustrative empirical evidence to ‘show’ or ‘demonstrate’ the ‘concept’.
I have often witnessed how examples of fusion or mix in food, fashion, music may be seen as evidence of the concept hybrid. What I seek to argue here is that we need to understand the social and intellectual emergence of the concept ‘hybridity’[iv] to understand it and explore how it can or cannot help us understand social reality better. For concepts are both factors and indicators of the reality they describe.
Contexts and Concepts: Social, Political and Intellectual Dimensions
There are many ways in which contexts shape concepts. If we were to look at social contexts and the emergence of concepts, we would see obvious social reasons for concepts such as alienation (Marx), anomie (Durkheim) and estrangement (Weber) to arise in a historical context defined by the extraordinary changes and unsettlement that modernity ushered into Europe.
These were times as Marx put it “all that is solid melts into air, all that is sacred is profaned.”[v] For Durkheim “it is this anomic state that is the cause… of the incessantly recurrent conflicts, and the multifarious disorders of which the economic world exhibits so sad a spectacle”.[vi] Max Weber laments that the world’s processes have become “disenchanted” and lost the “magical significance, and henceforth simply ‘are’ and ‘happen’ but no longer signify anything.”[vii]
While the social they inhabited and sought to understand would be in a very loose sense the same, the concerns and ways in which they addressed them are different. Thus, both Marx and Durkheim were struck by the influence of social consciousness, norms, morality in society. For Marx, these ideas were ideas of the ruling class, dominant ideas, “ideal expression of the dominant material relationships”.[viii] For Durkheim this was collective conscience. “the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society”.[ix]
Both Marx and Durkheim were agreed that analysis of the social cannot begin with everyday ideas and pre-conceptions that people have but their theoretical formulations moved in different directions. Durkheim laid out the rules of the sociological method to avoid the pitfall, but the methodological storyline was quite different from that of Marx as he outlined his materialist premises.
The analysis he says must begin with “the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity”.[x] It also stems from and is an iteration of his understanding of human beings as active agential beings and at the same time constrained by the limits of history.
In delineating the “various stages of development in the division of labour” Marx emphasizes that they “are just so many different forms of ownership” quite different from Durkheim’s contention that “…social harmony comes essentially from the division of labour. It is characterized by a cooperation which is automatically produced through the pursuit of each individual of his interests. It suffices that each individual consecrates himself to a special function in order, by the force of events, to make himself solidary with others”[xi] (emphasis mine).
Getting Definitions Right is not the same as Getting Concepts Right
I began with my search for clarity by reading up on definitions of basic concepts. This road I discovered was an illusory one. For it rests on the unstated assumption that ‘getting’ the definitions of concepts right amounted to ‘getting’ the concept. But as we all know this is not quite how it works out. Definitions, often learnt by rote bear no family resemblance to understanding concepts as analytical tools to understand society. Given our long culture of received knowledge, it is not surprising that this has always been a trend in the everyday practice of sociology. This is what Paulo Freire termed the banking method whereby we have the oppressive “depositing” of information (hence the term ‘banking’) by teachers into their students.[xii]
Its salience however has grown over the years with an increased thrust to make things simple. One of the reasons given for this drive to make it easy is that it would help reach out to a wider section of society. This rests on a misplaced and elitist view that the mass of students would not be able to comprehend conceptual questions. The onus of not comprehending I strongly believe rests not on students but on our pedagogic practices.[xiii]
Another reason for the popularity of the idea that ‘recalling definitions’ is equal to ‘knowing’ is that such an approach facilitates the growing trend towards multiple-choice questions, a method seen as both ‘objective’ and ‘easy’ to evaluate and tabulate. Students thus must tick given options, which would be right or wrong, presumably by fixed and ‘objective’ criteria. The story however does not necessarily play to script. Even ‘facts’, leave alone ‘concepts’ are very difficult to nail. This as I elaborate a little later is in the very nature of the social sciences in general and sociology in specific. A recent incident throws light on the contentious nature of ‘facts’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’.
Facts, Objectivity, Neutrality and the Tricky Terrain of Sentiments
The Term 1 Board examinations, held in November-December 2020, a controversy erupted over a multiple-choice question in the Class 12 Sociology examination that said: “The unprecedented scale and spread of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 took place under which government?” The options offered to answer this question were: “Congress”, “BJP”, “Democratic” and “Republican”. The Central Board of School Education (CBSE) stated that “question” was “inappropriate” and “ the questions should be academic-oriented only and not touch upon domains that could harm sentiments of people based on social and political choices.”[xiv] The very choice of options given was criticised by some. The board has now issued an apology and action has been taken against the paper setters.
The rationale for multiple-choice questions (MCQ) premised upon an idea of objective questions rests on a slippery terrain. The relationship between neutrality and objectivity is fraught. And a fact-based question can appear to tread dangerously on the sentiments of people by the state. The desire for ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ knowledge sounds persuasive but misses the point that social sciences proceed with methodological debates on the very idea of ‘facts’ as givens or definitions as fixed. This is an issue that has been central to the discipline of sociology. Social scientists are perforce members of society. This makes the study of the ‘social’ an entirely different exercise from the study of the ‘physical’ world. And as Emile Durkheim in The Rules of Sociological Method Durkheim put it:
Men did not wait on the coming of social science to have ideas about law, morality, the family, the state or society itself, for such ideas were indispensable to their lives. It is above all in sociology that these preconceptions are capable of holding sway over the mind, substituting themselves for things. Indeed, social things are only realised by men: they are the product of human activity. [xv]
As members of society, we not only have conceptions/ideas/concepts about society but are deeply attached to them.
What makes emancipation from such notions peculiarly difficult in sociology is that sentiment so often intervenes. We enthuse over our political and religious beliefs and moral practices very differently from the way we do over the objects of the physical world. Consequently, this emotional quality is transmitted to the way in which we conceive and explain our beliefs. [xvi]
To go back to Marx, he warns of the idealists’ tendency tend to begin a study with the extant ideological conceptions we have in our everyday life. To go back to Durkheim, he calls for getting rid of preconceptions. This challenge in sociology has led to many writings on the relationship between common sense knowledge and social science knowledge. Some like Robert Park, way back in 1942 enters the discussion with the terms ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ and ‘knowledge about’.
Knowledge by acquaintance; knowledge about
Robert Park writes that there are, two fundamental types of knowledge, namely: (i) “acquaintance and (ii) “knowledge about.” I quote:
“acquaintance with,” is the sort of knowledge one inevitably acquires in the course of one’s personal and firsthand encounters with the world we know things to which we are accustomed, in a world to which we are adjusted. Such knowledge may, in fact, be conceived as a form of organic adjustment or adaptation, representing an accumulation and, so to speak, a funding of a long series of experiences. It is this sort of personal and individual knowledge which makes each of us at home in the world in which he elects or is condemned to live.[xvii]
In contrast and I quote again:
In contrast with this is “knowledge about.” Such knowledge is formal, rational, and systematic. It is based on observation and fact but on fact that has been checked, tagged, regimented, and finally ranged in this and that perspective, according to the purpose and point of view of the investigator.[xviii]
In the everyday practice of sociology, the distinction is often blurred. The dominant commonsense of a society too often is projected as sociological sense. Let us explore with the example of the family how this happens. And why we need to be cautious. All the examples below are familiar ones. We hear the word ‘mother’ and associate the very term with the pre-conceived idea of motherhood with which we are familiar in our society. Some associated tasks/ some associated ideas would be ‘cooking, caring, domestic life, sacrificing, giving, self-denial. And when we hear ‘father’ assumptions of him being head of household, earning, work, responsible, in charge is in a way built into the very terms. Likewise, the word ‘Child’ invokes images of a school child- playing in the park, maybe with friends. Look at the images below.
How Both Images and Concepts Highlight Slices of Reality and Obliterate Others
Like the pictures above, dominant commonsense is not ‘false’. It is partial. Even as it represents and makes visible a slice of reality, many other slices are obliterated. Obliterated in these images are facts such as those that UNICEF projected that an additional 10 million girls globally will be at risk of child marriages over the next decade. The risks associated with child marriage do not end with girls who are married before 18: it leads to an intergenerational cycle of poverty that adversely impacts the economy. It puts girls at risk of being denied access to education, which impacts their autonomy and their access to health care. Policies that suggest that a legal increase in the age of girls would empower them to reflect the limits of dominant common sense ideas, ‘knowledge by acquaintance’.
Such common-sense ideas, knowledge by “acquaintance” can be myopic and even against the very interests of the children they seek to empower. “Knowledge about” is formal knowledge; that is to say, knowledge which has achieved some degree of exactness and precision by the substitution of ideas for concrete reality and words for things. Even Talcott Parsons appear to have blurred the two forms of knowledge.
Parsons contends that extended family forms restrict social mobility by subordinating im- mediate economic motives to longer-range familial interests. Strong commitment to kin, according to this line of reasoning, detracts from unqualified commitment to economic achievement, for it fosters a sense of collectivity rather than individualism, an emphasis on personal qualities rather than on general performance. Empirical studies suggest otherwise. Even within the United States of America from where Parsons put forward the argument there were contending views.
As attention shifted in the I96os from an undifferentiated examination of the experience of the “American family” to a more detailed inspection of the subcultural variations in family form, a bitter debate erupted on one aspect of the broad question of the articulation of economy, family, and social mobility. At the locus of this disagreement was the question of whether “structural defects” in the black family accounted for the economically disadvantaged position of blacks in American society. I quote:
It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white Americans broke the will of the Negro people. Although that will has reasserted itself in our time, it is a resurgence doomed to frustration unless the viability of the Negro family is restored. [xix]
In India, the last decades have seen rich scholarship that highlights the limits of caste class and the gendered nature of the dominant representations of the Indian family.[xx] Not entirely unlinked is the idea of the Indian “family” as a “static unit and defined in stereotypical terms”. Common sense knowledge tells us that Indian families have been moving from joint to nuclear families. This persists in sociology even as mainstream sociologists like A.M. Shah sought over decades to show, through meticulous archival and fieldwork that census and other data since about 1820 indicate that there has been no unilinear change in household organisation in India.
While the joint household seems to have weakened in the urban, educated, professional class, there has been an increase in joint households in the majority of the population. This suggests that the general belief that the joint household is disintegrating in modern India has its origins in a particularly small but vocal class.[xxi]
But getting rid of preconceptions is not easy. Concepts are not external to us. Human beings necessarily conceptualize. They have common sense; worldviews and theories to navigate in this world. And these are ruling ideas of society embedded in everyday language and discourse.
There is therefore no ‘pre-theoretical point’ for as sociologists and social anthropologists know, human beings everywhere not only ‘do’ but also ‘think’ and ‘say’. Human beings are concept-bearing agents. And humans have reasons for their actions. The ‘social’ is imbued in common sense, the knowledge that we gain from family and friends, by ‘acquaintance’. We need sociological concepts to interrogate these and build ‘knowledge about’ for the key to the sociological perspective is to debunk and defamiliarize. Doing concepts is not a matter of choice. As Peter Berger put it:
sociological consciousness predisposes one towards an awareness of worlds other than that of middle-class respectability, an awareness which already carries within itself the seeds of intellectual unrespectability.
The search for clarity with which I entered the course on Basic Concepts is antithetical to sociology. Here we move away from the “of course statements“ to asking, “says who?“[xxii] Concepts help us to see through and peer behind the facade.
You may be wondering why the scholars I refer to are of a distant era. And some may wonder why one should drag them in disputes which are done and resolved with. Many of the challenges mentioned in this essay in our encounter with concepts persist today. And even as new terms flow into our crowded conceptual toolbox, we may still have the same taken for granted approach to concepts such as hybridity which I mentioned earlier, or intersectionality and governmentality, performativity, and resistance. Treat them as fixed givens, emerging from a nowhere land and time. Invoke them but not use them for any sustained analysis of a phenomenon.
[i] Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. (ed). “The Concept of Culture in My Classroom and in Globalised Times” in The Practice of Sociology, pp. 370-402, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2003); (ed). Sociology in India: Intellectual and Institutional Practices (Rawat, Jaipur, 2010).
[ii] Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. “Reading Theory Backwards” in co-ed with Manish Thakur Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies and Disjunctions, pp. 345-366, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2018).
[iii] Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. “Reading Theory Backwards” in Co-ed with Manish Thakur Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies and Disjunctions, pp. 345-366, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2018).
[iv] I have explored the term ‘hybridity’ even as it swept into our arsenal of concepts in the heydays of globalization; and again more recently. See “The Concept of Culture in My Classroom and in Globalised Times” in (ed). Maitrayee Chaudhuri The Practice of Sociology, pp. 370-402, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2018; “Globalization in Indian Sociology: The Invisible and the Hypervisible, Diogenes, 271-272 (3-4): 133-154, 2021.
[v] Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto, 1848.
[vi] Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labour in Society, 1893.
[vii] Weber, Max. Sociology of Religion, 1920.
[viii] Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology, 1846.
[ix] Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labour in Society, 1893.
[x] Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology, 1846.
[xi] Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labour in Society, 1893.
[xii] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum, 1970.
[xiii] Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. The Practice of Sociology, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2003.
[xiv] https://www.timesnownews.com/education/article/cbse-s-class-12-sociology-question-leads-to-outrage-board-acknowledges-erros-promises-action/836970, accessed on 23rd January 2022.
[xv] Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895.
[xvi] Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895.
[xvii] Park, Robert E. News as a Form of Knowledge: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge, American Journal of Sociology, 45: 669-686, 1940.
[xviii] Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895.
[xix] Glazer, Nathan and Daniel P. Moynihan. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. MIT Press, 1970.
[xx] Pawar, Urmila. The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs. Translated by Maya Pandit. Stree, pp. x-xiii, 2008; Rege, Sharmila. Writing Caste/Writing Gender: Narrating Dalit Women’s Testimonios, Zubaan Books, 2013.
[xxi] Shah, A. M. Family Studies: Retrospect and Prospect, Economic and Political Weekly, 40(1): 19-22, 2005.
[xxii] Berger, Peter. An Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Discipline, New York: Anchor Books, 1963.