Passion, Curiosity, Integrity, for Sociologists’ Tales: Contemporary Narratives on Sociological Thought and Practice

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Skeggs, Bev. 2015. Passion, Curiosity, Integrity, for Sociologists’ Tales: Contemporary Narratives on Sociological Thought and Practice. In: K Twamley; M Doige and A Scott, eds. Sociologists’ Tales: Contemporary Narratives on Sociological Thought and Practice. Bristol: Policy Press. ISBN 978-1447318675 [Book Section]

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Abstract or Description

To me sociology is a way of approaching the world; it’s not only a perspective but also a passion. It’s a way of understanding who we are, how we are and how to understand other elements such as people, organisation and technology. It’s a way of understanding that moves through different scales, from the individual (as it is constructed in its singularity through the idea of the self) to the multiple global scales of capitalism operating throughout the world. I love the way sociology enables us to move through scales with specific forms of understanding. For instance, sociology show us how the self is produced as an idea over time, repeated until it appears as common sense – so that we do not notice that it is a very specific idea, based on promoting and consolidating the interests of a particular group against it constitutive opposite- the mass. We grow up hearing, seeing and learning to believe in such ideas and use them to make sense of our lives and then suddenly we encounter sociology which enables us to see how the self is a fabrication, a way of insulating ourselves from others, a way of owning property in ourselves, of becoming a ‘proper person’ and a way of blocking off other ways of seeing. When C. Wright Mills talks of the sociological imagination he is talking about perspectives – what we can see and how.

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