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For interdisciplinarity and a disciplined, professional sociology

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journal contribution
posted on 2011-11-28, 13:20 authored by Karen OReillyKaren OReilly
Sociology has been said to be in crisis: it is fragmented; its institutional life is threatened; it is obsessed with its history; it keeps forgetting its history. Meanwhile, a widespread movement is pushing it in the direction of increasing interdisciplinarity, or even post-disciplinarity, accusing disciplines of being parochial or imperialist, or of stifling innovation. But accusations of parochialism and fragmentation are continually met by calls to remember or redefine sociology's core and to defend a professional sociology that can engage in public debates in an informed way. This article explores interdisciplinarity through my own interdisciplinary story and concludes that interdisciplinarity can and should be embraced, but needs to be matched with a disciplined sociology. That disciplined sociology needs a professional and institutional space in which to reaffirm and develop the foundations and later developments attributable to a general conception of sociology. What is central to this general conception of sociology is a scientific emphasis on the complex interrelationship between actions and structures. Interdisciplinary work rarely leaves space for the continued examination of this fundamental realm.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

Innovation. The European Journal of Social Science Research

Volume

22

Issue

(2)

Pages

219 - 232

Citation

O'REILLY, K., 2009. For interdisciplinarity and a disciplined, professional sociology. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 22 (2), pp. 219-232

Publisher

Routledge © Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences and ICCR Foundation

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2009

Notes

This article was published in the serial, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research. The definitive version is available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13511610903075761

ISSN

1351-1610

Language

  • en