THEME: Revitalizing the Sociological Imagination: Individual Troubles & Social Issues in a Turbulent World
A half-century ago, C. Wright Mills argued that “journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors [need] a quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world.” This quality of mind, this ability to understand the links between “individual troubles” and “social issues” is what Mills called “the sociological imagination.”
Taking Mills’ ideas as a point of departure, the 2010 PSA program will focus on how sociologists are revitalizing the sociological imagination. The program will invite us to ask how the world is changing around us, and how sociology is changing too. For a whole generation of sociologists, The Sociological Imagination inspired a turning outward toward a publicly engaged sociology, as well as a turning inward, a self-reflexive critique of our own discipline’s stultifying theoretical canon and self-imposed methodological straightjacket.
In 1959, Mills asked readers to consider unemployment, war, and divorce as examples of the links between personal troubles and social issues. Today, unemployment is still a structural fact, but its causes and solutions appear more vexing in a world characterized by globally mobile capital and massive immigration; War is still an issue, but the U.S. “war on terror” is more akin to the state of permanent war seen in Orwell’s 1984 than the more geographically-bounded wars of Mills’ time; Contemporary family turbulence extends far beyond the issue of divorce, to controversies surrounding abortion, single parenthood, gay marriage, inequitable domestic labor, and family violence—issues that did not exist as “social problems” in Mills’ time. Adapting Mills’ core questions to this shifting social reality, we can ask: what are the structures of our communities, organizations, societies, and world? What are the essential features of our historical moment, and what are the mechanics by which the world is changing? What varieties of people prevail today; how do these varieties of people clash, and how might they be able to live together, and build a more peaceful and just world? In addition to considering how the world is changing, the program will invite participants to consider how sociology has changed—or should change—to meet the challenges of this turbulent world.
Sociology is no longer the discipline that Mills criticized for its near-religious adherence to methods of abstracted empiricism; today, a wide range of methods are deployed and respected. Sociology is also no longer dominated by the grand theory of structural functionalism. A dramatic expansion of sub-disciplinary areas (the ASA has 44 specialty sections, for instance), along with a “toolbox” approach to theory, creates openings for creativity. But this topical fragmentation, along with specialization of methods and theory has contributed to a balkanization of the discipline. Further, academic interdisciplinarity threatens to dissolve the very boundaries of sociology. Does sociology have a core set of domain assumptions? Is interdisciplinarity an opportunity, or a threat to sociology? What does sociology have to offer to interdisciplinary conversations? How does the sociological imagination of Mills coincide with the contemporary rise of new pedagogies such as service learning, and the recent emphasis on “public sociology?” What kinds of imaginations can sociologists develop through our research, with our students, and with various publics?
Join us in revitalizing the sociological imagination at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association. The 2010 PSA will meet in downtown Oakland, which sits in the heart of the vibrant Bay Area, for decades a major locus of sociological imagination and progressive activism. The meeting promises exciting exchanges of ideas in a broad spectrum of formats: roundtables, debates, collaborative working groups, panel discussions, paper presentations, posters and didactic workshops. Come share your ideas and innovations in social theory, methods, teaching, and practice. As always, papers and presentations unrelated to the meeting-theme are not only encouraged, but they will also make up a large part of the program.
