X-studies and the “trivialization” of disciplinary scholarship
Here’s a very interesting observation that I recently came across:
The history of say, the sociology of nationalism or the sociology of religion might be written a one in which an initial competition between Marxist, Durkheimian and Weberian approaches to nationalism or religion–which were also Marxist, Durkhemian and Weberian approaches to anything else—has gradually given way to internal debates about nationalism or religion among specialists in those areas and the development of in-house “theories of” nationalism or religion. From there it has sometimes been a short step to the jettisoning of the formal theoretical apparatuses altogether and a readiness to embrace increasingly interdisciplinary inquiries into the phenomenon of nationalism or religion. Indeed, it is now possible to devote an entire career to one specialist area without worrying too much about the integrity of the [theoretical] tools one deploys to study it. This sequence–sociological inquiry into X on the basis of established disciplinary procedures, expansion of the discipline by means of the increasing proliferation of specialist areas, development of localized substantive theories within those areas, abandonment of formal theory altogether, and embrace of interdisciplinary methods and the establishment of departments or centers of ”X studies”—was what the German sociologist F. Tenbruck had in mind in his essay on “the law of trivialization” (Turner 2010: 30).
This seems to me to do a good job of intuitively describing the fate of many fields in sociology and their relationship to their more mature “interdisciplinary” cousins. For instance, there is the sociology of religion, and there are “religious studies.” There is the sociology of race and ethnicity and there are “race and ethnic studies.” There is the sociology of gender and there are “gender studies,” (sociology of organizations versus organizational studies?). This also seems to agree with my impression that the work done under the interdisciplinary banner tends to be a little loosey-goosey, more descriptive and generally less interesting (with exceptions) than its more disciplinary classical or post-classical counterparts. I wouldn’t go so far as calling this type of work “trivial” but I’d have to agree that there is certainly something of a transformation towards less compelling, more delimited and generally more circumscribed questions as we move along the gradient from classical, to post-classical to interdisciplinary “X-studies.”
Conversely, we can surmise that areas that are successful in partially resisting the move, may keep their original appeal. I think the recent move towards performativity in economic sociology represents the first attempt to move the field from its postclassical, disciplinary form to a more interdisciplinary format (e.g. “social studies of the economy”; just like Mertonian “sociology of science” was transformed into “social studies of science” during the 1970s and 1980s). If successful in reorienting the field we can predict that work on social studies of the economy will become less tied to classical or post-classical questions (e.g. Zelizer’s running argument with Marx, Simmel and Weber; Granovetter’s via media between under and over-socialized conceptions of the actor, etc.), more concerned with relatively minute conceptual, epistemological and methodological issues, and more dependent on micro-descriptive case study material. If unsuccessful, we get to keep economic sociology as it now stands, but it is likely that post-classical “fatigue” will soon set in.
This is already what has happened to much that goes by the name of “organizational studies” in Europe and the U.S. which contrasts sharply with what used to go by name of “the sociology of organizations” along the same dimensions (e.g. circumscription versus ambition, descriptivism versus substantive theory, etc.). The much ballyhooed “crisis” of organizational theory (which we have devoted some attention to here in the past), may then be recast simply as an abortive transition towards interdisciplinary “trivialization” manifested as (the lingering feeling of) being stuck in an intermediary status quo: neither here (sociology of organizations) nor there (organizational studies). Organizational theory is in crisis because this type of “theoretical” concern (tethered by an umbilical cord to big or medium-sized classic questions) simply does not fit the organizational studies mold.
I like this post, and I think I basically agree overall, but I’m not sure I buy the example of performativity as an anti-classical move towards subfield specialization. Performativity comes straight out of the ANT science studies tradition, and whatever else you want to say about Latour et al, they are deeply engaged with sociological classics and sociological traditions (e.g. the recent Durkheim vs. Tarde revival).
Dan Hirschman
November 2, 2010 at 3:27 pm
And, as a byproduct of this process, you get the transformation of Sociological Theory as a specialist area. It moves from being a substantive, core concern (guarding the correct interpretations of classics and elaborating the “general disciplinary procedures” that characterize the field) to either (a) having its practitioners migrate en masse into what was previously a subfield — culture — or (b) describing and commenting on the trajectory of the discipline, as here.
It strikes me that in an earlier phase of its development sociology tended to produce children it subsequently rejected as too applied, and pushed them out of the nest, from where they were often quite happy to build (sometimes much nicer) homes of their own as institutional/professional specialties — the sociology of education, criminology, demography, social policy. So what clogged-up this channel and opened the interdisciplinary “x studies” route? It doesn’t seem as though something intrinsic to the field is responsible.
Kieran
November 2, 2010 at 4:30 pm
I like this post too. It’s a very interesting and important subject. My view is that academic culture, across a broad range of disciplines, has become less critical because the academy in general has become less autonomous. The demand that research be “relevant”, which in one way or another is the demand that it seek approval from constituencies beyond walls of the academy, has forced it into less edgy posture.
For some, this means doing “studies” that are not so much trivial as harmless (or at least harmless looking). For others, it means produced baldly convenient truths. But in either case, a too developed theory, which would (a) restrict the range of conclusions a study could draw and (b) force it to draw some conclusions whether it wants to or not, would get in the way of the project.
Another way to put it is that research has become a less “rational” and more “existential” business (using those terms in the way that the strong program in SSK used them). Disciplines are shaped more by the social pressures around them than by cognitive developments within them. This can, indeed, be fatiguing.
Thomas
November 2, 2010 at 8:33 pm
The example of theory is an interesting one, since this is a subfield that is constitutively incapable of becoming “interdisciplinary” (although there is such a thing called “theory” in English departments that comes pretty close in drawing indiscriminately from social, political, psychological and other forms of “theory”; gender “theory”, post-colonial “theory”, queer “theory”, are its offspring). Instead what appears to have happened is that we have gotten the classical/post-classical partition (codified as the difference between classical and contemporary theory), and then a division between disciplines that keep allegiance to a canon of classic 19th century European sources and authors (such as sociology) and disciplines that have essentially jettisoned their canon (Anthropology, Economics and Political Science). The relationship between so-called “sociological” or (in its more ecumenical guise) “social” theory, and its interdisciplinary (unmodified noun) other has always been problematic, but for the most part sociological theorists have ignored those other “theorists” such as Frederic Jameson, Slavoj Zizek or Terry Eagleton (although French-structuralist writers such as Foucault, Althusser Barthes, Lacan, etc. and Anglo versions thereof such as Judith Butler have always posed demarcation issues).
Culture is an even more interesting example and I’m glad that Kieran brings it up, since I think its trajectory is actually consistent with the argument for the advantages of disciplinary embeddedness. As Michele Lamont has noted, the strength of culture as a subfield in the United States is precisely the fact that it always resisted the temptation to merge with “cultural studies” (the relevant interdisciplinary alter ego) even though there were people that would have happily steered it in that “trivializing” direction. Having resisted this move, it was then able to garner strength as a disciplinary movement and today it is essentially the strongest ASA section (e.g. in terms of raw numbers and proportion grad students). It is also a field where asking “classical” or “post-classical” questions is not only not embarrassing, but generally encouraged and usually advisable (possibly due to the large number of theory-section refugees that it houses).
Dan: STS is tricky. You can pick certain authors and clearly make a case for a connection to grand classical theorizing (e.g. Latour, Bloor, etc.). As a field however, I’d say that STS meets most of the criteria associated with “trivializing” (with all of the caveats as to how problematic this qualifier is and how is not meant to dismiss entire lines of scholarship) interdisciplinarity: parochialism, concern with micro or historical questions, case-study dependence, etc.
Omar
November 2, 2010 at 9:08 pm
I agree with this post and with Thomas’s intuition that what’s at stake is the relative autonomy of these different sorts of fields. The criteria for determining what sort of knowledge you need in order do “X studies” are much more vague than the criteria for determining what sort of knowledge you need in order to do sociology of X. If a field is very vaguely defined, you can probably always find some way to convert your cultural capital (whatever it may be) into specific capital in the field. So the new field of X studies will be shaped by whatever cultural capital its founders (probably refugees from some other field where they couldn’t live up to the standards) happened to have. Then students in X studies end up spending all their time studying and responding to the work of those founders, and abracadabra, you have a very heteronomous field, whose theoretical foundations are completely determined by arbitrary social factors originating elsewhere.
Benjamin Geer
November 2, 2010 at 11:42 pm
And then there’s the burgeoning field of Lady Gaga studies…
Benjamin Geer
November 3, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Nice post. It’s interesting how easy it is for the topic centers (XXX Studies) to garner support. I find myself wondering how durable such places will be. In the short run such places benefit from their applied or descriptive emphasis. But, such work may not endure. This is not to criticize applied or descriptive work. I do dislike work that lacks a theoretical foundation (discipline-based). It brings to mind a note JG March had on his web site way back when describing the value of generalizable academic work (in contrast to the trend he saw in CERTAIN business schools towards case-based, applied, research).
David Hoopes
November 3, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Dan,
While ANT might be engaged with French classics, their connections to existing theory are always very selective. For example, the argument of the book Reassembling the Social has intellectual integrity only in a universe where Goffman or Garfinkel did not exist.
On the broader issue, the trivialization can be good or bad depending on one’s power position. Like Benjamin said, the X studies become locked into its founders’ theoretical background, but whole disciplines get locked into awful places as well. Social theory can often a mental prison that forces people into certain ideologically pure discourses even when they matter very little (no big difference between rational choice and social interactionism there!).
Henri
November 4, 2010 at 7:53 am
“Reassembling the Social has intellectual integrity only in a universe where Goffman or Garfinkel did not exist.”
LOL. Especially since it cites both Goffman and Garfinkel. I haven’t read the book closely enough to agree with you, Henri, but I know of at least one other book where I’d be more confident saying something very similar.
Thomas
November 4, 2010 at 11:05 am
Henri,
I’m curious what you mean precisely. As Thomas notes, Reassembling discusses Goffman and especially Garfinkel at some length. I recently heard an interesting case made by Jean-Louis Fabiani that Latour misreads Garfinkel as a critic of Durkheim when Garfinkel is actually a Durkheimian. Is that what you had in mind? Or something else?
Dan Hirschman
November 4, 2010 at 1:00 pm
[...] X-studies and the “trivialization” of disciplinary scholarship « orgtheory.net For instance, there is the sociology of religion, and there are “religious studies.” This also seems to agree with my impression that the work done under the interdisciplinary banner tends to be a little loosey-goosey, more descriptive and generally less interesting (with exceptions) than its more disciplinary classical or post-classical counterparts. [...]
Sociology of Religion, Miscellaneous (2/3) « Outside the Gate: Gospel & Organization
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