Profession
3.8 Sociologists Talking
Thirty sociologists were talking, telling me their stories. The interviews varied in length from about 45 minutes to up to two hours. Some respondents were more articulate than others. One could tell from their narratives and how they presented their reflections whether they had thought about questions in relation to their lives as sociologists before. One of the biggest surprises was that in contrast to what I had expected, most respondents did not end up in a meta-discourse on sociology. Rather, they provided a very personal approach to sociology and their role as sociologists. This started with their telling me how they came to the subject. The personal dimension became even more evident when I asked them what led them to work in their particular research area and whether they saw themselves as sociologists outside the university.
In the following I would like to describe what happened during the interview, or to be precise, during the interview and shortly before and after, including the little conversations. They said that they don’t mind my recording the interview; they asked whether I had double-checked that the voice recorder was working, on this occasion recounting a little anecdote about their own empirical research. They asked whether I would like to have a drink and which chair I would like to sit on. I could
38 The title of this chapter is a reference to an exhibition the author jointly organised with Cath Lambert based on the author’s research on sociologists’ relationship with teaching and research in a project related to this doctoral research in Warwick University in March and April 2008 within the annual proceedings of the BSA conference 2008. Links to the exhibition will be available in due course atwww.warwick.ac.uk./go/reinvention. Furthermore, in an article entitled ‘Sociologists Talking’ Les Back took this exhibition as the point of departure for a discussion of current constraints in Higher Education and their effects on sociologists (Back, 2008).
sit on this chair, one of my respondents told me whilst pointing to the chair and explaining that we would then sit on equal levels. It was evident that we had a lot in common. Indeed, it was sociologists talking, them telling me a story and me on the other hand asking and listening. This was when it was crystal-clear that my counterpart was a sociologist like myself, well aware of the interview situation and all of its implications (Mauthner and Doucet, 2003).
Having said that, this apparent reflexivity with regard to the whole situation was hardly ever present throughout the whole interview. As much as they were wary of my being the interviewer and their being the interviewee, as the interview carried on, this hyper-reflexive dynamic was no longer omnipresent. During the interview, I mostly perceived my respondents as being thoroughly occupied with articulating their thoughts. Occasionally, I asked respondents after the interview how they had experienced it. Many of them told me that the interview had given them the chance to think about themselves as sociologists in a more systematic manner for the very first time. They enjoyed being interviewed and I could also see that some of them clearly benefited from the reflections that evolved throughout the interview. One respondent even took notes of her own ideas while we were talking. In this respect the interview was a more mutual relationship and, I would assume, an equally rewarding experience for my respondents.
As sociologists we are socialised in an environment where the ability of critiquing other people’s arguments, in particular our colleagues’, is trained and emphasised. Yet, as the interaction with sociologists is characterised by the format of discussion,
the interview situation with sociologists was an almost unnatural setting to be in. For me, maintaining a relaxed but stoic interviewer position when my interviewees uttered standpoints that were in contrast to mine, was one of the biggest challenges. The moments of real challenge were yet to come. Thereafter, in the analysis, the distinction between the two categories of listening and critiquing no longer existed.
3.9
Making Sense of Sociologists’ Narratives
As for the question of what kind of method we employed in analysing our narratives, the answer is easy. The richness of Gouldner’s Reflexive Sociology lends itself to a way of thinking by means of which the empirical material can be made sense of. Two features of Gouldner’s Reflexive Sociology are particularly crucial interpretive tools: first of all, Gouldner’s framing of sociology as an activity that can only be understood if we see history, social theory, the sociologist and sociological practice in relation to each other, involved to interweave my respondents’ views with a structural level of understanding, shedding more light on relevant issues of politics and history. This also implied that I put my respondents’ views in relation to other bodies of literature that touched upon the numerous themes that came up in the interviews – sociological becoming, sociological activity, sociological aspirations, key features of sociology, history of sociology, social theory and sociological practice in current Higher Education. By setting my respondents’ narratives in context with sometimes seemingly adjacent literature, I also challenged their arguments.
The second feature that I extracted from Gouldner’s Reflexive Sociology as a methods tool is open-mindedness to hostile bodies of knowledge. As Gouldner himself did not have anything to say about ‘research methods’, the methodology- oriented reader may wish to gain some more specific information as to how this approach could be phrased within the genre of research methodology literature. What comes closest to what I have just outlined is Alvesson’s and Skoeldberg’s ‘Reflexive Methodology’ (Alvesson and Skoeldberg, 2000). They argue that the often technical and numb use of qualitative methods indicates that qualitative work becomes a process that is disentangled from the theories previously used. The focus on ‘data collection and processing’ in most qualitative methodological theories would be unreflective. Instead, they suggest that a fundamentally hermeneutic element should permeate the research process at all stages. Hence, interpretation rather than the representation of reality on the basis of collected data should become the central element (Alvesson and Skoeldberg, 2000). According to them, the researcher needed to employ all available theoretical and empirical resources without categorically ruling out any of them as being potentially relevant for gaining a better understanding of the data.
Alvesson and Skoeldberg particularly emphasise the significance of the political, economical, historical, social and personal spheres that form a comprehensive basis against which empirical data can be understood. The authors further suggest counterposing a structural level of analysis to a more individualised one. It is this reflexive mediation between the different spheres of analysis that could be seen as
reflecting Gouldner’s understanding of the intertwining of different levels of analysis and the necessity of seeing them in context, though the authors never explicitly mention Gouldner. Finally, Alvesson and Skoeldberg emphasise the importance of recognising the researcher's positioning within the research process: 'Even more strongly: there is no such thing as unmediated data or facts; these are always the results of interpretation. Yet the interpretation does not take place in a neutral, apolitical, ideology-free space. Nor is an autonomous, value-free researcher responsible for it’ (Alvesson and Skoeldberg, 2000: 9). This is particularly relevant with regard to my being a sociologist: as I outlined in ‘Notes on my Sociological Becoming,’ I have intellectual affinity with thinkers who see critique as a core principle of sociological work and relate theory and practice to each other. Subsequently, this is also reflected in how I interpreted my respondents’ narratives.
Gouldner’s principles of thought are the structuring foundations for the analysis of my empirical data. In ‘Part I: The Calling of Sociology – Sociologists’ Claims and Aspirations’, we aim to highlight sociologists’ understanding of the discipline and their disciplinary aspirations. PART II: SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE – REALITIES AND TENSIONS, OR ‘HOW TO SWITCH OFF ONE’S SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION IN THE UNIVERSITY. A COURSE IN FOUR LECTURES’ will be an illustration of sociologists practising their discipline. This will involve looking at the dimensions of sociological practice as well as the ways in which sociologists’ disciplinary aspirations are potentially compromised. Finally, PART III: Living Sociology’ aims to discuss two themes. In the light of sociologists’ partly tense realities, their claims for pursuing the discipline will be
revisited. At the heart of ‘PART III: Living Sociology’ is a discussion of how my respondents consider sociology to be carried out against the background of current constraints and inherent contradictions that were discussed in ‘Part II: Sociological Practice – Realities and Tensions’.