How to build Sociological Imagination?

 

How to build Sociological Imagination?

By: Mahmudul Hasan Laskar

.......Sociological imagination is prerequisite to philosophical sociology. We need to deconstruct quantitative empirical study to revive qualitative scientific sociological research based on the philosophy....... (PDF File is available to download)....

First thing to follow is the deconstruction of normative framework and superficial methods of quantitative and statistical genre in writing. Research methodology is misinterpreted in present time by using only sample types and methods of data collection without taking into consideration the philosophy of sociological research. You cannot imagine with limitations of normative methods; this is not a machine where you can put certain materials to get an output. Philosophy of sociological research may allow you to imagine and think outside the superficial boundary of research methodology. Example is Michel Foucault’s discourse; he imagined and thought freely, so we got an approach in sociology.

Second thing is to stop considering sociology as science of social work; it is again a distortion of sociological traditions. Sociology showed the intellectual path or created intellectual currents and presented an understandable episteme of the past and present. We may take the reference of Ulrich Beck’s “Risk Society” approach, which provided a thought of anticipated and unanticipated consequence of modernity. Anthony Giddens’s Juggernaut of modernity is another example, which is completely relevant today. Whether these thinkers were busy in selecting sample size and statistical methods? Off-course not; they imagined the situation and applied it in their thinking that got shape in the form of writing. But what is happening in most of the academic institutions of Indian sub-continent with sociology is nothing but a commercialization or commodification of information. Think about the concepts of ‘labour’, ‘class’, ‘gender’, ‘race’, language, culture and so; these words filled with thought due to intellectual traditions of different time led by thinkers. For example, phenomenology defined gender as socially and culturally constructed phenomenon; and because of this concept, all social workers are able to present the issue of gender inequality or discrimination in front public. Thinkers and intellectual currents are the basis or foundation of understanding society. In the name of applied topics, sociological research is being distorted and just reduced to some bundles of data gallery.   

Transcendence of social phenomena must be understood to explore subjective mind and structural properties behind social institutions and social action. Social phenomena are not just ordinary occurrence rather appearance or evidence of underlying social law or structural properties; the way natural phenomena are determined by universal laws. Social law here refers to determining principles that bind the surface systems in an orderly manner.

Transcendence of social phenomena can only be understood through exploring the meaning attached with social action involved in any social phenomenon. Understanding the meaning itself is a prime duty; that is understanding its own existence and how it varies from person to person who observes a particular social action from those who actually attach meaning with social action. 

Sociology scholars in India are studying administrative organizations like NRHM, ICDS, and Hospitals etc. and the impact of these among communities or populations as mere appearance or visible situations. They are producing certain information by conducting impact assessment surveys to describe performance among people, people’s response towards services they receive and so on. Why to take responsibility for doing survey and assessment study by sociology scholars; there are other allied fields like ‘Social Work’, which may take up these issues into consideration. These bureaucratic organizations need to be studied to locate the transcendental law behind phenomena related to the state of health of any society. We must take the reference of how Max Weber formulated ideal typical bureaucracy as a form of rationality in modern society and interpreted its operation in the actual field; how it manipulated or controls social action by rationalization principle. Sociologists should practice philosophical sociology in order to build sociological imagination.

Observation with preconceived notions may ensure imagination; preconceived notions should be free from disciplinary limitations and personal manipulative desire. Observation should not be a mere technique of quantitative methodology; it is not a mathematical scale to measure anything. I prioritise subjective observation over objective observation, in which preconceived notions about any phenomenon have to be used by researchers. Preconceived notions are not prejudice rather multi-dimensional orientation one can perceive from the phenomenon concerned. One cannot just go to the field and observe something with a blank mind or with complete blindness about the matter. You have to develop certain preconceived notions, which can be applied in the action of observation.

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Author of the essay is Mahmudul Hasan Laskar, Assistant Prof. Dept. of Sociology, University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya. He is the editor of this blog ‘Sociological Study’. For any communication write to Mahmudul Hasan Laskar <editorsociologicalstudy@gmail.com